Seventeen years ago this day, October 6th, 2008,
Greenpeace “Quit Coal” tour in Spain, boards ships
Greenpeace activists board ship in protest – Vita.it
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 386ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Greenpeace had been doing this sort of stuff since its very beginnings in the early 1970s.
The specific context was that “global society” was in one of its periodic 3 year periods where elites had to pretend to care about climate change (see also 1988-1992, 2006-2009, 2018-2020). Greenpeace had a “Quit Coal” campaign ahead of the COP meeting in Poznan, Poland.
What I think we can learn from this is that these sorts of stunts “work” on several levels, but don’t on a broader level – to paraphrase “you can’t climb onboard a social relationship.”
What happened next – Greenpeace kept going with this tactic, but the Arctic Sunrise – where they tried it out versus the Russians – gave them pause for thought.
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.
Also on this day:
October 6, 1988 – coal lobby says greenhouse effect “greatly exaggerated”
October 6, 1997 – Australia says nope to uniform emissions 5% cut. Assholes. – All Our Yesterdays
October 6, 1989 – Hawke Government given climate heads up by top scientist
October 6, 2005 – carbon capture is doable…
October 6, 1997 – Australia says nope to uniform emissions 5% cut. Assholes. – All Our Yesterdays