Alvin Weinberg, ‘Global Effects of Man’s Production of Energy’, Science 186 (18 October 1974), 205. Weinberg wrote that the world might reach ‘climatological limits’ within 30–50 years. Noting the uncertainty surrounding the results so far, he called for two responses. ‘First, climatologists should recognize the profound implications of this question and do the basic research in global modelling … so that, say 20 years from now, we can base our energy policy on a much sounder understanding of this limit than we now possess’; and, second, since the ‘problem of global effects of energy production, like….’
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the United Nations Environment Programme had been going for a couple of years, since the Stockholm conference. Science had been publishing articles, Weinberg had been paying attention. The modelling conference had just finished in Sweden. Weinberg as a big fan of nuclear thought that this was another selling point for nuclear – that its carbon emissions were so much lower.
What we learn why it matters is that the pro nuclear gloss on climate mitigation has been around for a long time. Weinberg was a serious player.
What happened next? Well, in 1979, Weinberg visited Australia and gave a speech which got reported in the Canberra Times and so forth. It explicitly mentioned nuclear as a climate solution. And again, that puts into context; what I thought was unusual in 1981 of the various Liberal and Country Party Senators talking about it was not that big a deal. People knew by the early 1980s, people knew who were paying any real attention.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was tha the cold war -scientist shall talk unto scientist’ outfit the International Institute for Advanced Science Analysis (IIASA) was about 20 years old. It had a surprisingly long history of banging on about climate change and energy, back to 1975, with William Nordhaus and then Hafele’s energy studies. And they put together some workshops. And they were big fans of all their fancy computer models: really in love with them.
What we learn. And here we are 30 years later. And they just keep redrawing lines and magic shit into existence. Making heroic assumptions about the speed of development and deployment of offshore wind and hydrogen and so forth, bearing no resemblance to the real world. But how are you gonna make the numbers add up?
So we’re trapped in these ridiculous mental models and computer models, because we don’t tell the truth to ourselves about ourselves. That we screwed the pooch and is it no one’s short-term career interest to be the one who says “hey guys, I think we screwed the pooch.” You are not going to get promoted – in fact, you’re not going to keep your bloody job full stop if you do that…
What happened next so I’m sure that in 1993 there were people with misgivings. They didn’t speak up. I’m sure that there were other people who had misgivings in 2003, didn’t speak up. 2013 didn’t speak up. 2023 didn’t speak up. Why would you?
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, August 18th, 1991 the rich people told future generations (especially of poor people) to go fuck themselves.
The Business Council of Australia yesterday rejected proposals to make industry more energy-efficient.
The council criticised recommendations by the Federal Government’s taskforce on ecologically sustainable development to increase energy prices and impose new taxes, such as a tax on fuel with high carbon levels.
The council said the country’s future lay in continuing to develop its natural resources. Its executive director, Mr Peter McLaughlin, said the sustainable development process could significantly damage industry unless it adopted a “much more realistic tone”.
Peake, R. 1991. Business Rejects Lower Energy Use. The Age, 19 August, p.14.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Business Council of Australia, the main club for big business, was shouting no at everything, a bit like Ian Paisley did. And even stuff that made absolute sense on any level of economic thinking was shouted down. I think there are two things going on there, around fear of a slippery slope, and also that regulation might be shown – gasp – to be beneficial.
What we learn; two things. First, in the midst of a culture war, the red mist or the green mist descends. And the other thing we need to remember is that all of the economic modelling that outfits like the BCA were relying on and commissioning, assumed perfect efficiency already. And no matter how many empirical examples were given to them, by Alan Pears and other energy efficiency advocates, if it didn’t fit the theory, it was discarded. It was ignored. And so if you believe that things are already perfectly energy efficient, agreeing to further energy efficiency measures is actually merely agreeing to wasteful government regulation in and of itself, which will then encourage more bureaucrats to breed in dark corners.
What happened next, the BCA won, and the Australian housing industry is still miserably inefficient, of course. But the economic models that say it’s impossible for business to be inefficient, persist and have their death grip on the minds – if you can call them “minds” – of business elites.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Forty five years ago, on this day, July 30th, 1979, politicians learn that making synfuels would be a Very Bad Idea.
Panel Warned of Synthetic Fuel Danger By Katherine Ellison, July 31, 1979
A group of scientists, warning of potential ecological imbalances and climatic changes, yesterday urged the government to slow its pursuit of a large-scale synthetic fuels program.
The scientists said the ecological changes could result from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — one assured by product of a switch to synfuel production.
They described the so-called “greenhouse effect” whereby heat is trapped close to the earth by increased levels of carbon dioxide, and predicted some long-term effects might be erratic world food production, severe droughts in some regions and costal flooding in others.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that various US administrations had been quite interested in replacing Middle Eastern oil and making money at the same time. But of course, that came with fairly heavy environmental consequences, which climate scientists were at pains to point out.
What we learn is that national security and energy security can compete with other demands. Real energy trilemma at play. And that’s been going on a long time.
What happened next – the synfuels thing went away, in part because oil prices plummeted. The emissions kept going up though…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
On this day 24 years ago, Wind Power Energy Association types tried to get some sensible stuff going. Yeah, good luck with that.
CANBERRA, July 14, AAP – Labels telling consumers their electricity came from fossil fuel should be put on power bills, supporters of the wind energy industry said today. President of the Australian Wind Energy Association Grant Flynn said most consumers were unaware that most of their power was derived from the burning of fossil fuels.
Putting a sticker on power bills telling consumers the source of their electricity would go a long way to making the public more aware of greenhouse gas issues. “A lot of people don’t really understand that a significant proportion of their electricity, about 90 per cent of it, comes from burning fossil fuels,” he said.
Mr Flynn’s group was one of several to make submissions to a review of the government’s renewable energy bill.
2000 Wright, S. 2000. Fed – Labels should tell consumers where their power comes from. AAP, 14 July.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 370ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Federal government of John Howard was doing everything it could to renege on its 1997 promise of more renewables (made as a pre-Kyoto distraction). Evil evil people
What we learn – the hope that the mythical Ethical Consumer will save the day is a powerful one.
What happened next. John Howard kept being a climate criminal. Renewables eventually took off, but later than they could have. Oh well, nice planet while it lasted.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, July 4th, 1989, a committee delivers its findings.
Energy Committee, Sixth Report, Energy Implications of the Greenhouse Effect, Volumes 1,2, 3, together with the proceedings of the Committee, HMSO,
As someone wrote.
When a report is described at its launch by one of its authors as ‘possibly the most important issued since Parliamentary departmental Select Committees began a decade ago’, it is scarcely surprising if those approaching it to study its comments do so with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Having duly read not just the 65pages of the main report, but also trawled with increasing fascination through the two supplementary volumes of evidence presented (both written and oral), running to some 158 and 164 pages respectively, I have come to a simple conclusion. The topic under consideration is acknowledged by world leaders to be possibly the greatest threat to civilization-as-we-know-it; this is parliament’s latest work on the topic: ergo, it must by definition rank as ‘most important’.
Warren, A. (1989). The UK energy select committee greenhouse report. Energy Policy, 17(5), 452–454. doi:10.1016/0301-4215(89)90067-0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
An energy committee receives a report!! Hold The Front Page. Stop the press!
The context is that by the end of 1988, politicians were setting up task forces and committees. The IPCC had its first meeting in November of ‘88, for example, but also domestically, most of this was channelled through the frame of energy, because energy was at that stage the number one issue (agriculture, aviation, industry would all start to be looked at later).
What we learn is what else you’re going to do, of course, you’re gonna set up a committee fact finding. That in and of itself, isn’t the problem. It’s whether you then keep pushing or whether you use the fact that you set up a committee to send activists to sleep as an excuse not to do anything more. And that, sadly, is what we did. And it seems impossible for social movement organisations to effectively follow the issue into the committees because they are the place where good ideas go to die.
What happened next: A flurry of promises in 1989 – 1990, especially around variations on the Toronto target of rich nations cutting emissions. Then the Rio Earth Summit gave us a half-baked stabilisation target. And then it all just went away. Because it did.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
We are, allegedly, in the midst of an “energy transition.” How very exciting! We are moving from dirty old fossil fuels, which are heating the planet, to lean clean green [fill in the blank – CCS, Nuclear, hydrogen, wind, solar, geothermal, grid-level batteries, perpetual motion machines] because we are a clever ingenious species interested in its own survival.
Apologies for the tone, but one of the things you see – if you’re a cynic who has read a history book, and/or lived through some history – is that we tell each other (and ourselves) stories we want to hear. Crucially, these stories then shape our perception, shape the way we select evidence to confirm these stories (1).
The ability to see this, to name it, and to try to compensate for it, is one of those “core skills” that many claim they have. But it requires not just competence, but also confidence and courage. Saying that the pretty story that people are lulling themselves with (and getting vibes, attention and cash from) is just a story, and that there are plot holes big enough to let a category six hurricane through, can be a risky business.
Michael Liebreich delights in punching holes in stories. Hydrogen was the subject of his latest effort. His lecture last Thursday was both brutal and hilarious.
Liebreich also co-hosts a podcast called Cleaning Up. The two obvious meanings are “making money” and “dealing with physical pollution,” but there’s a third (unintended?) meaning of de-mythifying, of clearing out the Augean stables of horseshit.
I got to thinking of horseshit. Not what the guest – Hans Eric Melin – had to say. He was crystal clear on what could and couldn’t be expected of battery recycling (from EVs, to grids etc etc). He also talked about the very persistent myth that only 5% of batteries are recycled/are recyclable. He explained where it came from, and how it keeps popping up. Listen to the podcast, and/or read him here on LinkedIn.
Tl:dr – the two sources of the myth are a Friends of the Earth press release and the abstract of a scientific paper (the claim not supported in the body of that paper!).
And what the 5% figure reminded me of was the Great Manure Crisis of 1894 (told you I was old).
“Late 18th century cities like London and New York seemed to be ‘drowning in horse manure’. In London, where the horse-carried Hansom Cab occupied the streets, 50.000 horses produced 570.000 kilograms of horse manure and 57.000 litres of urine daily. Together with the corpses of death horses, the urine and manure started to poison the city’s inhabitants. In 1894 the Times predicted that “in 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure.” The situation came to be known as the ‘Great Manure Crisis of 1894’ [source, and see here too].
Role of myths in transitions
Generally, we like to tell stories. They make us feel like we are in control, or – failing that – that we will be less surprised than other people when surprising/uncontrollable things happen.
This energy transition that we are going through (kinda sorta) is scary, disorientating, and discombobulating. Expect loadsa stories. especially from people who want your money.
Meanwhile, we like to hear stories – to scare ourselves with the bogey-man (mountains of horseshit will crush us!!). This is something you see especially in the 1970s disaster novels (ecology and/or technology running amok) that I read compulsively (2).
If you tell stories about how technological innovation X, which is necessary for the “transition” is impossible (“batteries aren’t being/can’t be recycled”) you look like (3) the grown-up in the room, the person who is not a gullible rube taken in by all the hype (4).
And so, the myths persist, with new factoids (67.4 percent of statistics are made up on the spot) and anecdotes (its plural is not data) sprinkled on top.
But also, and I cannot emphasize this enough, the Cocker Protocol.
Footnotes
And if anyone tries to tell you that academics are partially or entirely immune to this tendency, you have my permission to laugh in their faces.
The 1970s were the time when Whitey stopped being in charge in the way he had been for hundreds of years. The techno-eco-disasters are in part a way of working through that loss of primacy. But also, giant ants are fun.
In your own eyes. It turns out other people don’t always share our opinions of ourselves. Who knew.
There are also pleasures in being the reply guy, the concern troll, but that can be for another time.
Thirty seven years ago, on this day, September 5, 1986, a big (it’s relative) rally took place in London, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, sponsored by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 347ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in April 1986 the nuclear dream had suffered yet another setback with the partial meltdown of a dodgy Soviet reactor at Chernobyl. This had been big news globally, but especially in most of the countries downwind which included Sweden Scotland Wales England etc (the French had a different view).
In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people had marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were engaged in trying to move the UK government from its pro-nuclear stance.
What I think we can learn from this
Energy is a political football as we are always rediscovering. It always comes with judgements about how much is enough, what risks are worth running, who should run those risks at cetera. The risk of unmitigated climate change had not yet properly broken through into the public consciousness at this point, but within two years it began to.
What happened next
In 1988 the greenhouse issue came along and it would be impossible to hold that kind of rally without mentioning climate change.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Sixty two years ago, on this day, August 21, 1961, a United Nations conference on new sources of energy began.
21-31 August 1961 UN conference on new sources of energy (see Ritchie-Calder, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dec 1961)
Also his comments on 1975 30 August Science show. (interviewed by Robyn Williams)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that new sources of energy especially for countries without their own supplies of oil, coal and gas were going to be needed if the world were going to “develop”. There was also the point that fossil fuel supplies were not going to last forever. Climate change was not an issue, at least not one that was publicly discussed and I doubt it got much traction anywhere, because the science was simply not mature enough or well enough known.
What I think we can learn from this is that questions about energy justice have been around for a very long time and we never quite manage to crack it, really.
What happened next, by 1968 environmental problems were obvious enough that Sweden was successful in getting the UN to agree to hold a conference. And one of the topics was what we now call “climate change.”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, April 30, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney has a fever dream in Toronto calling for 1300 new power stations
In an April 30 speech, Cheney said that the U.S. needs to build at least 1,300 electric power plants (averaging 300 megawatts) between now and 2020, “more than one new plant per week.” Cheney downplayed the potential for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources – suggesting that conservation is just “a sign of personal virtue” and that relying on renewables would threaten “our way of life.”
[This gets him in trouble, he bravely sends out his wife Lynne the next day to “clarify.” He can’t do it himself because of ‘laryngitis’]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the de facto Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, says that he wants 1000 new coal fired power stations. This is an echo of Nixon’s project independence in 1974, which Cheney will have been well aware of, since Cheney had been serving in the Nixon White House at this point. The context was that Cheney’s puppet George Bush had announced that he was not going to continue negotiations around ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, in effect, they thought, killing it. That wasn’t the case, because the Russians eventually signed but I’m getting ahead of myself.
What I think we can learn from this
Old white men don’t learn. And they have visions of power, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, to be grand numbers, “look at my works, ye mighty and despair.” And the way that these visions are promulgated loudly and long, is partly designed to demonstrate to them and their supporters, their power, but also to demoralise those awful environmentalists who believe that – and this is the heresy – there are limits to what humans both should and indeed can do to the planet without serious consequences.
What happened next
Cheney’s vision of 1000 power stations did as well as his vision of Iraq as a peaceful American dependency full of grateful Iraqis (*)
(* or maybe we should not take his public pronouncements as evidence of naivete, but rather a willingness to lie…)
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
