Category: Ignored Warnings

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Australia Ignored Warnings

May 10, 1978 – Women told that by 2000 “we will be frantically searching for alternatives to coal.”

There was a publication in Australia called Women’s Weekly. It came out, well, weekly (when it became a monthly publication in the 80s they, er, kept the name unchanged).

In the May 10 1978 issue they had one of those “what will the world be like in 2000” articles [people much younger than me probably don’t remember they hype and sense of excitement about the turn of the millennium?]

This particular article was by one David Howell, billed as “founder of the US journal “Energy Digest,” editor of “Community Planning Report” and “Energy Planning Report””

It’s worth a read. The bit I would draw your attention to is this-

“Coal will have become the major fuel source, especially for industrial uses and for heating office buildings and very large apartment houses. But society will by then have begun to accept the harsh reality, already posited by several leading scientists, that the carbon dioxide released to the air by the burning of fossil fuels threatens to alter our atmosphere beyond the ability of the human species to survive. By the year 2000 we will be frantically searching for substitutes for the coal which we will have substituted for oil and natural gas.”

“Gasified or liquefied coal – even if by that time it might have proven economic-ally feasible for some purposes – will not be the answer, because it would release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the same rate….

10 May 1979


What happened next

Australia became the world’s leading coal exporter in 1984. Some people got very very rich and didn’t like the idea of Australia shifting from coal exporting, or from getting its own electricity from other sources. They were supremely effective in defending their interests…

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Ignored Warnings Science United States of America

April 30, 1985 – New York Times reports C02 not the only greenhouse problem

On this day, the 30th of April 1985, The New York Times reported that “Rare Gases May Speed The Warming of the Earth: Rare Gases May Be Speeding Earth’s Warming”

The reporter, James Gleick, opened his story thus

“Tiny quantities of more than 30 rare gases threaten to warm the earth’s atmosphere even more rapidly over the next 50 years than carbon dioxide will, according to a study by a team of atmospheric scientists.

“Their findings reinforce a growing conviction among scientists that the trace gases, many of them industrial byproducts, are playing a leading role in the “greenhouse effect,” the warming of the earth as less and less heat is able to escape the atmosphere.”

This research was then presented at Villach in October of 1985, and helped convince people that climate change wasn’t anthropogenic global warming was not a threat for the relatively distant future, but something that would need a policy response right now. So even before Villach1985 there was a sense that shit was getting real.

Why this matters. 

We need to understand that our problem is not that senior politicians don’t understand the problem. Our problem is that we are unable to keep the problem at the front of their attention and to turn it into a set of policy proposals that are then implemented. 

What happened next?

Well Villach meeting happened WMO. UNDP ICSU. They tried to get the ball rolling that were successful. You got an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. And since 1990, we have burned more carbon dioxide, released into the atmosphere, then all of human history to that date, which tells you how successful these international agreements have been.

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Ignored Warnings

April 25th, 1974 – Swedish prime minister briefed on carbon dioxide build-up

On this day, the 25th of April 1974, German climatologist Hermann Flohn is flown –  see what I did there? – to Stockholm (well, maybe he took the train who knows?) to brief the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme on the build-up of carbon dioxide. in the atmosphere This was at the behest of Swedish scientist Bert Bolin, and part of the Swedish government’s increased awareness of environmental issues including climate change.

www2.meteo.uni-bonn.de/bibliothek/HFlohn/fotflo...
Hermann Flohn

 

Palme apparently listened carefully and intently – he was a serious character. One of the things you’d do on Alternative Earth is have him NOT getting assassinated in 1986, so he was able to be a key player in the 1988-1992 policy window…

How do I know this – as usual with this site, thanks to the hard work of climate historians, in this case Kristoffer Ekberg and Martin Hultman…

“Amid the oil crisis and with raised critique against nuclear power, the issue of climate change was presented to Swedish politicians. On 25 April 1974, meteorologist Bert Bolin and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences had in Hermann Flohn from Bonn to Stockholm to talk before the government’s advisory board on research. Flohn was a climate scientist who had already in 1941 published a paper discussing anthropogenic climate change. The reporter  present at the time, Tom Selander,46 wrote that Prime Minister Palme listened  ‘thoughtfully’ during Flohn’s exposition.”

(Ekberg and Hultman 2021)

Why this matters. 

We need to know that in the 1970s people with in positions of power, senior politicians and policymakers, were well aware of the co2 buildup 

What happened next?

Flohn keep kept alerting people. His name pops up at all sorts of important events throughout the 70s…. Olaf Palme was assassinated in February 1986. And therefore he wasn’t there to push the issue along during the 88-92 big wave, so it goes. 

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Ignored Warnings United Kingdom

April 16, 1980 – “a risk averse society might prefer nuclear power generation to fossil fuel burning”

On April 16 1980, John Ashworth, then the Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK,, wrote to another senior figure, Robert Armstrong (Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary) on the question of preparing people to accept nuclear in order to drive down fossil fuel emissions. A few days later, Robert Armstrong wrote back saying this needed some further thinking. 

Where do I get this info? From a wonderful article by Jon Agar, from 2015 ‘Future Forecast—Changeable and Probably Getting Worse’: The UK Government’s Early Response to Anthropogenic Climate Change

As John Ashworth wrote, his personal view was” that the nuclear waste problem is manageable whilst the CO2 problem is not and therefore that a risk averse society might prefer nuclear power generation to fossil fuel burning if it were offered the choice. A rational risk averse society, of course, might prefer energy conservation to either….”

86  86 TNA CAB 184/567. Ashworth to Robert Armstrong, 16 April 1980. Armstrong replied that the idea of inducing the public to go along with nuclear energy by frightening it with global warming ‘would need much thought’. Armstrong to Ashworth, 21 April 1980 

Why this matters

We need to know that the UK Government was, well, portions of the bureaucracy of the UK Government, were well aware of the issue. It became impossible, however, for this policy discussion to proceed, because Thatcher wasn’t interested (when Ashworth briefed Thatcher on the issue in 1980, she replied incredulously “you want me to worry about the weather?”

What happened next?

Well, the nuclear lobby in 1988/89, would try to use climate change as a spur to more nukes. And failed. And tried again from 2006. And failed. And, as we have seen in the recent “Energy Security Strategy”, it continues to do so down unto this day.

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Ignored Warnings United States of America

April 7, 1980 – C02 problem is most important issue…”another decade will slip by” warns Wally Broecker to Senator Tsongas

On this day in 1980, the climate scientist Wally Broecker, the father of oceanography wrote to Democratic senator and future presidential hopeful Senator Paul TsongasPaul Tsongas. 

As historian Spencer Weart,( AIP.org:) “In 1980, the prominent geophysicist Wallace Broecker, who had spoken out repeatedly about the dangers of climate change, vented his frustration in a letter to a Senator. Declaring that ‘the CO2 problem is the single most important and the single most complex environmental issue facing the world,’ and that ‘the clock is ticking away,’ Broecker insisted that a better research program was needed. ‘Otherwise, another decade will slip by, and we will find that we can do little better than repeat the rather wishy washy image we now have as to what our planet will be like…'”

– Broecker to Sen. Paul Tsongas, 7 April 1980, “CO2 history” file, office files of Wallace Broecker, LDEO.

Why this matters. 

Scientists have been trying to get policymakers concerned about climate change for a very long time. Broker, as we saw earlier, had also engaged with Exxon.

This sort of lobbying is part of the effort to get elite policymakers sensitised to what’s going on and this is part of what Hart and Victor write about in their wonderful 1993 article.

What happened next?

Broecker kept trying to warn humanity, which kept ignoring him. Tsongas stood for President in ’92, but lost the nomination to Bill Clinton and died not long after of cancer

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Ignored Warnings United States of America

April 3, 1980 – US news anchorman Walter Cronkite on the greenhouse effect

On this day, third of April 1980, CBS News, anchored by Walter Cronkite had a two and a half minute story on climate change (by reporter Nelson Benton), hooked on some Senate hearings on the subject. 

Cronkite was a vastly respected news anchor. And famously, President Lyndon Johnson had said to Robert McNamara, “if we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost the war.” 

Long before 1980, Cronkite already done stuff about the natural world – he threw CBS’s considerable weight behind “Earth Day” in 1970 – see this fascinating piece  

The Senate hearings were the work of people like X, Y, and they included a young Al Gore. 

“The CBS Evening News for April 3, 1980 carried a two minute 40 second story by Nelson Benton on the greenhouse effect based on a Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee hearing.

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that people, elites and everyone knew about this issue as early as 1980 in public and it was getting news coverage. For the love of Gaia, the problem is not information, the problem is sustaining attention, political and cultural pressure. That doesn’t come from ever more clever messaging, it comes from effective social movements and real democracy. But that is beyond our grasp now… But I digress…

What happened next?

Cronkite kept doing stuff he’d already done stuff about the natural world. And Gore famously kept hold of the issue and after the Villach meeting in 1985. Senators Republican, Democrat and Republican, stepped up the pressure. And that period between 93 That’s right. 85 and 88 is fascinating. 

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Australia Energy Ignored Warnings

March 3, 1990 – ” “A greenhouse energy strategy : sustainable energy development for Australia” launched … ignored #auspol

On this day in 1990, a report was released showing that Australia could reduce its carbon dioxide emissions markedly and save a lot of money through energy efficiency measures. The report was written for the Department of Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, by Deni Greene, an American consultant who had moved to Australia. 

The broader context was that Australia was discussing what emissions reductions it would commit to. Prominent among these was the so-called “Toronto target” from a June 1988 Conference, which proposed that industrialised nations go for a 20% cut on a 1988 baseline by the year 2005. This was vigorously resisted of course, by industry. Greene’s report was part of a back-and-forth set of reports trying to create/close down support for the target.

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that energy efficiency has been talked about and not done for decades. If you are interested in Australian energy efficiency, you cannot go past the tireless and pain-staking work of Alan Pears. 

What happened next?

In October of that year, just ahead of the Second World Climate Climate conference, the Federal Government did commit to the Toronto Target, but with caveats so big that they rendered the whole thing pointless. Other targets have met similar fates. And here we are.

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Ignored Warnings United States of America

Feb 18, 1978 – “#Climate Experts see a Warming Trend”

On this day, 18th February 1978. readers of The Washington Post would have learned, via an article by a journalist called Thomas O’Toole titled “Climate Experts See a Warming Trend,” that the burning of coal and oil was causing so much carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere that by the year 2000, temperatures might begin to rise.  

O’Toole was reporting

“… the opinions of 24 climate experts in seven countries polled by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects which yesterday released the poll’s results in a 100-page report published by the National Defense University.”

This report, bless, is available on the interwebz.

[See also a report in the New York Times]

We need to remember that in the late 1970s the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a problem and as one that was going to get worse and cause serious difficulty had moved from the academic journals and the scientific periodicals to the quality press such as the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Canberra Times. If you go looking for these, you can find them. They usually come out of various National Academy of Science reports too. We knew. We really did.

Why this matters? 

What it says is that we’ve had almost 50 years to sort this out and, pace Donald Trump,, this problem was not invented by Al Gore, or by the Chinese as a hoax. 

What happened next? 

Well in this specific case, Carter’s Science Advisor asked some top scientists to look into the problem. This is the so-called Charney report, which said in 1979, we find no reason to believe this warming won’t happen. You can read more about it in Nathaniel Rich, and to some extent in Alice Bell’s “Our Biggest Experiment”

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Ignored Warnings

Feb 12, 1958- the Unchained Goddess is unchained…

On this day in 1958, Frank Capra’sfourth and final science documentary “The Unchained Goddess” was released.  According to the infallible Wikipedia “The film was televised on February 12, 1958, with a disappointing audience share and many critical press reviews.”

This is the one where you may have seen a clip on the internet on YouTube, of people discussing the build-up of carbon dioxide and eventually people looking at Miami, in glass bottom boats.

There are some very good books about and articles about this series of documentaries.  See, for example, “Sonnets & Sunspots: Dr. Research Baxter & and the Bell Science Films” by Eric Niderostt.

There’s also an interesting and useful discussion of Unchained Goddess in Alice Bell’s, Our Biggest experiment. Beyond that it’s also worth noting that “Meteora” as the capricious fickle goddess was considered a bit sexist, even at the time.

But it’s also an example of how much we knew how early and how little we did one for the time capsule, one for the piece of evidence for the prosecution against humans, when there is the intergalactic court of rights.

References

Gilbert, James Burkhart (1997). “9. Almost a message from God himself”. Redeeming culture: American religion in an age of science. University of Chicago Press. pp. 199–224. ISBN 9780226293219.

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Ignored Warnings United States of America

Feb 8, 1965- All the way with LBJ – first President to say “carbon dioxide is building up”

On this day in 1965 President Lyndon Baines Johnson gave a “Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty.” 

He said

“Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials. Motor vehicles and home heating plants, municipal dumps and factories continually hurl pollutants into the air we breathe. Each day almost 50,000 tons of unpleasant, and sometimes poisonous, sulfur dioxide are added to the atmosphere, and our automobiles produce almost 300,000 tons of other pollutants.”

Those words were written by – or at the very least based on the research of – Roger Revelle. Exactly 9 years earlier, on 8 February 1956  Revelle had given “Testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations.” And he’d told the Congressmen present

“There is still one more aspect of the oceanographic program which I thought you gentlemen would be interested in. This is a combination of meteorology and oceanography. Right now and during the past 50 years, we are burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas. The rate at which we are burning this is increasing very rapidly. This burning of these fuels which were accumulated in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and which we are burning up in a few generations, is producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air. Based on figures given out by the United Nations, I would estimate that by the year 2010, we will have added something like 70 percent of the present atmospheric carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is an enormous quantity. It is like 1,700 billion tons. Now, nobody knows what this will do. Lots of people have supposed that it might actually cause a warming up of the atmospheric temperature and it may, in fact, cause a remarkable change in climate. . . .”

And here we are.

Sources- 

REVELLE, ROGER, and PAUL S. SUTTER. “TESTIMONY BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956.” Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming’s Past, edited by JOSHUA P. HOWE, University of Washington Press, 2017, pp. 60–63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnkd5.13.