The context – since the 1950s people had been keeping tabs on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The dogma that extra carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere would be absorbed by the oceans had been exploded by Revelle and Seuss (not the same Seuss as yesterday’s post!)
What we learn – we knew plenty enough to be taking action
What happened next. Oh, you know the rest, if you’ve been reading this site for any length of time. The emissions kept climbing, the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases kept climbing. The temperatures kept climbing. The social movements performed a bunch of three year spasms every decade or so…
Twenty three years ago, on this day, July 27th, 2001, the international climate caravan is pulled out of its rut, and shambles on.
COP 6 negotiations resumed July 17–27, 2001, in Bonn, Germany, with little progress having been made in resolving the differences that had produced an impasse in The Hague.
“Despite the withdrawal of the US just months earlier, parties convened again for a continuation of COP6 (‘COP-6 bis’) in Bonn in July 2001. To the surprise of many observers, agreement was reached on most outstanding political issues and the conference resulted in the adoption of the Bonn Agreements on the Implementation of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action. Work remained outstanding on a number of operational details which were referred to COP-7 for further negotiation” (source)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that COP6 in The Hague, in late 2000 had ended in disarray. This was the “stitching back together and trying to keep the show on the road” response, especially difficult now that Bush had said the US was withdrawing from the negotiations towards the Kyoto Protocol.
What we learn is that COP is a leaky boat that keeps needing plugs and fixes as it goes along, ever lower in the water…. And this was one of those times.
What happened next? The COP circus carried on and carried on and carried on. And here we are over 20 years later, still failing.
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 six years ago, on this day, June 14th, 1978, scientists met. Looked at the data. Concluded there was trouble ahead.
Man’s impact on climate : proceedings of an international conference held in Berlin, June 14-16, 1978 / edited by Wilfrid Bach, Jürgen Pankrath, William Kellogg.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that through the 1970s, there had been a series of these sorts of meetings, especially from 1974-75 where climatologist sociologists, economists, etc. who were mostly men, mostly white, mostly American, or Western European would get together and scratch their heads about buildup of CO2 and what it might mean. Some of these meetings were being held under the auspices of the World Meteorological organisation in unit and ICSU, others IIASA. And the First World Climate Conference was due to happen soon.
What we learn is that by the late 1970s there really was enough to be going on with for politicians to get on top of an issue. But the signal I guess was still too weak. There wasn’t as yet a physical signal. Things took a hit when Reagan took office and the gravity, momentum whatever you want to call it shifted to the Europeans and it would be 1988 before things hit the headlines properly. But it’d be interesting to look at when organisations started to hold these meetings and what the nature of these meetings was primarily scientific or also social.
What happened next, these sorts of meetings kept happening. The OECD and the IEA joined the fray too. The First World Climate Conference had been relatively inconclusive, thanks to resistance from people like John Mason, but that issue was going away. Meanwhile, in the UK, the first government report on climate change got buried. Or there were discussions about burying it: in the end it was released, to no acclaim or impact.
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-nine years ago, on this day, April 8th, 1995, Fred Pearce of the New Scientist points out that there is a gamble going on (as did Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman three years earlier).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the first COP had just finished. Rich nations had been resisting emissions cuts using scientific uncertainty as their final excuse. But Swedish scientist Bert Bolin, who had been banging on about climate change, and carbon dioxide build up since 1958, at the latest, was telling them that the IPCC Second Assessment Report would be out later this year and that they shouldn’t expect to be able to use the uncertainty card for very much longer, more or less.
What I think we can learn from this is that the really sharp battles at the end of 1995, were all about that. I hadn’t quite grokked that before.
What happened next
Well, there were really sharp battles at the end of ‘95. From the middle of ‘95 efforts by denialists to smear individual scientists (the “Serengeti Strategy”) and the process in order to slow progress towards a serious protocol.
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 361ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the denialists had been in full throat since 1989. In Leipzig, a bunch of denialists were making one of their periodic idiotic declarations that they don’t believe in 19th century physics.
And because it contains doctors and professors and maybe even a couple of Nobel Prize winners in different fields, it’s gonna get some media attention. It’s gonna get quoted in various Parliaments and so it came to pass. It’s a tactic that they use to try and puff themselves up, to pretend that they have some credibility. It sounds scientific, it sounds responsible and adult. But it’s actually just the petulant musings of a bunch of damaged boys (and it is mostly boys) who don’t like the fact that there are consequences at a physical level for their dreams of avarice and domination. Yeah, I’m all out of sympathy today.
On the same day, the Leipzig twunts were being rewarded for their cowardice, a bunch of brave black people were being murdered for their courage.
What I think we can learn from this
you can rely on rich old white privilege men to have a higher fuck Todd potential, quote quotient. You can rely on military dictatorships to murder Earth defenders.
What happened next
The denialists kept denying; the Leipzig Declaration was joined by the Oregon petition. All part of the larger asshole manoeuvres. And future generations continued to get screwed.
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 six years ago, on this day, June 23, 1997, German climatologist Hermann Flohn died.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was this – Flohn was aware of Guy Callendar’s work. During the war he had written about the greenhouse effect. By the late 1950s/early 60s was part of the small band of people paying close attention to what was going on. He was present at the January 1961 meeting in New York of the New York AAAS.
By the early 1970s he was briefing senior politicians including Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was engaging with Australian scientists in the 1970s, and in 1982 he was at the 148th meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement Association for the Advancement of science and was quoted in the New York Times on 7th January 1982 and then in the Christian Science monitor in February 1982
In 1993 he had the pleasure of being on a platform with Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels who were denying, well, 19th century physics.
Flohn has not had enough credit for what he did.
What I think we can learn from this
The official histories don’t always give enough credit to people who deserve it.
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.
Eighty years ago, on this day, April 19, 1943, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up. That should be honoured. No matter the odds (and the odds of survival were basically zero, and nobody can have been under any illusions about that), a fight is required…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 311ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Let’s not pretend the Nazis invented anti-Semitism, okay. It was very well-embedded in European culture…
And let’s also ponder how European assaults on Africa, the Americas, Australasia, similar in ideology and equipment, were a precursor to the industrialisation of slaughter.
What I think we can learn from this
We really really need to know the history.
What happened next
The murder of Jews, Romani, and other categories of ‘untermenschen’ continued.
Let’s not pretend that the techniques the Nazis used, around counter-insurgency, were not intriguing to the US, nor that the counter-insurgency techniques didn’t travel (along with some of the actual Nazi perpetrators).
April 7, 1995 – First “COP” meeting ends with industrialised nations making promises…
Twenty eight years ago, on this day, April 7, 1995, the first (of many!) “COP” events ended in Germany. The main outcome, the so-called Berlin Mandate, which meant rich industrialised countries had to come up with an agreement to cut their own emissions….
1995 The first UNFCCC Conference of Parties took place on 28 March – 7 April 1995 in Berlin, Germany. It voiced concerns about the adequacy of countries’ abilities to meet commitments under the Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI (See Flavin, 1995 account).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 363.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The UNFCCC text agreed for the Rio Earth Summit had been weak, thanks to the best efforts of the United States and a selection of (hydrocarbon) allies. There was nothing in there about targets and timetables for rich nations to make reductions. Three years later, that question was back on the table…
What I think we can learn from this
The “original sin” – the attitude of rich nations (and esp. Uncle Sam) during the period 1988-1992 – has cast the longest shadow, and one that people who grew up since then don’t even understand, let alone have the vocabulary to name.
What happened next
The Berlin Mandate culminated (if that is the word?) in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Australia gouged out an incredibly generous “reduction” target (de jure 12% increase in emissions, de facto 130% – and STILL did not ratify!).
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, November 10 in 1988, a conference in Hamburg called for an even stronger target than the Toronto Conference in June of that year. However, elsewhere, the IPCC was meeting for the first time, and its (far more cautious) recommendations would prove weightier
1988 a World Congress on Climate and Development was held in Hamburg [It was November 7 to 10]. This called for carbon dioxide emissions to be reduced by ’30 per cent by the year 2000 and 50 per cent by 2015. It argued for unilateral action from the industrialised nations to start the process of change; a global ban on the production and use of CFCs covered by the Montreal Protocol by 1995 and urgent strategies for reversing deforestation and beginning afforestation programmes.
Paterson, M (1996: 35)
See the conference proceedings here – https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-45670-1#about-this-book
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350 or soppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Why this matters.
In 1988 folks realised more or less what needed to be done. These were not the folks in charge of the show though. And within a couple of years the predatory delay gang had got their organisations and tactics worked out… We need to remember all this…
What happened next?
Hamburg was forgotten immediately. The international diplomacy rolled on, leading from the beginning of 1991 to the United Nations process that led in June 1992 to the UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. During those crucial years, the US Administration of George HW Bush played chicken with everyone. Everyone blinked. Bush “won.”
On this day, October 2 in 1942 – Spaceflight: The first successful launch of a V-2 /A4-rocket from Test Stand VII at Peenemünde, Germany. It is the first man-made object to reach space.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 311ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – the war!! And there is nothing like a war to get the state to fund research and development and deployment of novel technologies…. If only we’d put such determination into not wiping ourselves out. Oh well, so it goes.
Why this matters.
Being able to put objects in space (including meatsacks, I guess) made studying the world’s climates and systems “doable”. See “The Vast Machine” by Paul Edwards…
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/vast-machine
What happened next?
After the war the Soviets and Americans tussled over who got which Nazis and technology. Operation Paperclip and all that.
