The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that “technology will fix it” is the first cry of technocrats and politicians wary of upsetting their incumbent donors. Sometimes technology does indeed fix things – vaccines are pretty fantastic, and so many other things. But not always…
The specific context was that the climate issue had finally broken through in 1988. By early 1991 the negotiations for an international treaty were beginning, and the US line would be “technology will fix it.” The New York Times, one mouthpiece for this worldview, was doing its job.
What I think we can learn from this is that we are a bright species, but not quite as bright as we think, and not bright enough to see that our brightness is causing problems that our brightness might not be able to fix.
What happened next: The Times kept peddling this credulous nonsense. People wanted to believe it, so they did. Only by the 2020s was that particular lullaby beginning to take on fingers-on-the-blackboard characteristics.
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 years ago, on this day, September 26th, 1995,
Senator Cook opens CRC that “will help maintain Australia’s export coal trade in an increasingly competitive and environmentally sensitive international market”
Cook, P. 1995 Black coal goes green at new Cooperative Research Centre.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 361ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. 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 Australia had become the world’s biggest coal exporter in 1984, and Australian politicians had been trying to “square the circle” with environment concerns since the late 1980s. See for example Bob Hawke in January 1989.
The specific context was that there were various research institutions happy to relieve the taxpayer of cash – god forbid industry fund research and development in a meaningful way…
What I think we can learn from this is that the taxpayer is always on the hook.
What happened next “Clean Coal”? Yeah, like dry water.
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 five years ago, on this day, August 14th, 2000,
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources, Warren Entsch MP today officially launched the 5th International Conference on the Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies in Cairns, saying the Government is committed to meeting its greenhouse obligations while continuing to protect jobs and economic growth.
M2Presswire, 2000. Australia meeting Greenhouse Gas challenge. M2 Presswire 14 August.
AND
Emissions soar 17 per cent despite $1b spent on crisis
AUSTRALIAN scientists are investigating a scheme to bury carbon dioxide underground as a way of reducing our burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions.
A research team, which is in the middle of a four-year project, claims it can find a cost-effective way of sealing carbon dioxide in the earth, safely and permanently, by putting it back where it came from.
They are looking at sedimentary basins across Australia – deep saline areas, coal seams which cannot be mined and depleted oil and gas reservoirs – for spaces big enough to hold big volumes of carbon dioxide.
The continuing research will be presented at an international conference on greenhouse gas control technologies in Cairns today, after new figures which warned of the effects of global warming.
2000 Rose, R. 2000. Plan To Bury Greenhouse Gas. The West Australian, 15 August, p.9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 369ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. 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 dreams of “carbon capture and storage” had been around since the mid-1970s. Promises, promises.
The specific context was the Howard government, aware that it might – just might – have to ratify Kyoto if Democrat Al Gore got the White House, was making non-committal noises about CCS.
What I think we can learn from this – is if there is the possibility of having to make a real commitment to action, politicians will keep their options (especially their techno-options) open.
What happened next. In November 2000, Gore did not get the White House – he lost the vote 5-4 in the Supreme Court. Bush got the White House. Pulled out of Kyoto, meaning Australia could do likewise.
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.
Nigel Calder’s article in New Scientist on 8 Oct 1964 (at the time of the 1964 general election). Calder’s article expressed dissatisfaction with the similar policies offered by the two main parties, and called for the creation of two very different political parties, X and Y. This seminal article basically espoused two different visions of the future: ‘Party X’ technocratic, ‘Party Y’ ‘ecological’. What is interesting about Calder’ s vision is how much of the vision for ‘Party Y’ was to become part of the early 1970s environmental message.
(Herring, 2001)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 320ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that awareness of environmental problems was growing. Whether it was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, or the Buchanan report about traffic in cities. And it was clear that there were unmet political needs because both main parties were all about economic growth. And the proposal for a technocrat party and an ecological party as we would never call them was a sensible one. But there are simply too many cross cutting needs and myths. These are not the official lines as people see them, because people think they can have their cake and eat it. And for a certain amount of time you can, but eventually, you look down and you have an empty plate and a face full of food. You no longer have your cake.
What we learn is that these debates about technology “versus” ecology whatever, they go back. Well, they go back earlier than 1964. But they were expressed plainly in New Scientist in 1964.
What happened next? The article was, I’m told, influential in some circles, largely ignored more broadly.
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.
Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 29th, 2009, ALL the buzzwords are in play.
Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing entitled, “Climate for Innovation: Technology and Intellectual Property in Global Climate Solutions.”
The key to solving climate change and developing clean energy is technology, and at the center of technology are intellectual property rights. In the Space Race, America had a singular competitor. In the Clean Energy Race to stop global warming, America is competing with the Chinese, Germans, Koreans, and countless others. How these countries and the world deal with intellectual property rights will have a huge impact on whether technology is available and deployed to solve our global problems.
On Wednesday July 29th, 2009 the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing entitled, “Climate for Innovation: Technology and Intellectual Property in Global Climate Solutions.”
This hearing examined the impact of intellectual property rights on global warming solutions and how to encourage American innovation while spreading climate related technologies globally. Technology transfer and cooperation are part of the international climate regime and have become an important issue regarding negotiations on the future international climate agreement, and in the debate heading into the UN Climate Change Conference this December in Copenhagen.
WHAT: Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Hearing, “Climate for Innovation: Technology and Intellectual Property in Global Climate Solutions”
WHEN: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, 9:30 AM
WHERE: 210 Cannon House Office Building, Washington DC, and Online
OPENING STATEMENT: Chairman Edward J. Markey
WITNESS LIST:
Mr. Govi Rao, Chairman, Lighting Science Group Corporation
Mr. Robert T. Nelsen, Co-founder and Managing Director, ARCH Venture Partners
Ms. Jennifer Haverkamp, Managing Director for International Policy & Negotiations, Environmental Defense Fund
Dr. Mark Esper, Executive Vice President Global Intellectual Property Center, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that with Copenhagen COP coming, every man, woman, dog and child, was holding conferences about climate change with all the right buzzwords: science, innovation, technology, mitigation, you name it. And there is a finite number of buzzwords that can be used and you just rearrange them and hope that that exact order hasn’t been used in the last six months. Bish Bosh you’re away.
What we learn is that humans are trapped in a quite finite web of ideas, or rather, the mainstream is; on the margins, there are all sorts of ideas, some of them good, some of them dangerous, some of them stupid, most of them stupid because humans are fundamentally quite stupid. [You can tell an idea is good when I’ve said it, basically.] And the buzzword bingo can be played.
What happened next. Copenhagen was a washout. And then the caravan kept going, and keeps falling over and having to be put back together again. And here we are. The emissions are still climbing.
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 five years ago, on this day, March 8th, 1999, an “audacious” idea is unleashed on the world…
Klaus Lackner posits Direct Air Capture 24th Annual Technical Conference on coal Utilization & Fuel Systems, March 8-11, 1999 Clearwater, Florida
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.4ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that for the previous 10 years, technology types had been thinking about carbon capture and storage as a technofix for the socio-technical problem of greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric concentrations increasing. And all sorts of ideas had been put forward, mostly around making coal burning more “efficient”, getting more bang for the buck, decreasing the intensity. And along comes the idea of direct air capture.
What I think we can learn from this is that ideas which seem very new often usually have a long pre-history. It’s worth knowing that, at least at outline level, so that you will not be so easily seduced by shiny promises.
What happened next DAC really stayed on the backburner for about another 15 years. From about the 2015 Paris Agreement onwards, people start paying money and pretending to take it seriously. We’re just not going to do DAC at the scale that would require; it’s insane. It’s just another dream of technosalvation.
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, October 6 in 2005, 17 years after the World Coal body said the greenhouse effect was greatly exaggerated, some people meet in Cambridge to discuss “carbon capture and storage”
This paper summarises the key points from a discussion meeting held at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, on Thursday 6 October 2005. The meeting was held in response to the UK Government Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry into carbon capture and storage.
“VIABILITY OF CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE (CCS) AS A CARBON ABATEMENT TECHNOLOGY FOR THE UK: FEASIBILITY AND COSTS”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 377.19ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – the Department of Trade and Industry had just published its “Carbon Abatement Technologies Strategy,” and carbon capture and storage was in the mix… The recent G7 meeting had also hyped it. BP was saying it could do this on its Peterhead facility. It’s all gonna happen, right?
Why this matters.
Technologies go through a long ‘incubation’ period. Lots of workshops, seminars etc. By this time, CCS had already been talked about for a long time…
What happened next?
BP pulled out of the first CCS project in the UK in early 2007. In late 2007 the government announced a competition. That didn’t end well. They announced another. That ended very badly indeed. Third time lucky?
On this day, July 18, in 1979, Senator Abraham Ribicoff asked for some advice about “synfuels.”
The context was, the Carter Administration, desperate to reduce US dependency on problematic Middle Eastern Oil (not the dictatorships – that’s fine – it’s the interruptions to supply that’s the problem) was proposing an expensive crash program to develop synthetic fuels (synfuels). These would be incredibly energy intensive to produce… Not everyone was convinced this was a good idea…
“In 1979 [Gordon] MacDonald wrote an article for the Washington Post arguing that subsidizing synthetic fuels, as proposed by the Carter administration, would be a mistake. He pointed out that synthetic fuels would produce even more CO2 than the current U.S. mix of fossil fuels. The article drew the attention of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT), who had recently been warned about the issue by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt” (Nierenberg et al. 2010: 324)
“Although many complex factors affect the climate, it is generally thought that the result of continued carbon dioxide production will be a warming of the atmosphere “that will probably be conspicuous within the next 20 years,” the report said. “If the trend is allowed to continue, climatic zones will shift and agriculture will be displaced.”
Gordon J. MacDonald, environmental studies professor ad Dartmouth College, who is one of the authors said in an interview that large-scale use of synthetic fuels — made from coal or oil shale — could cut the time involved by half.
“We should start seeing the effect in 1990 without synthetic fuels. . . . but if you use them, the effect would be much more pronounced by 1990,” he said.
Actually, unless I am missing something, Nierenberg et al. have got this wrong – and they don’t actually cite the “article in the Washington Post,” which is pretty poor form.
What Ribicoff appears to be responding to are articles in the Post and the Times about an actual report. This was to the Council on Environmental Quality. And it isn’t just Macdonald – “ the other authors of the report were George M. Woodwell, director of the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory; Roger Revelle, a member of the National Academy of Sciences; and Charles David Keeling, professor of Oceanography of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography” (Shabecoff, 1979).
ANYWAY, that was the 11th, and this blog post is about the 18th. And here we are –
“One incident provides a small example of the work that the Academy does outside the formal structure of reports and out of public view. On July 18, 1979, even as the Charney panel was gathering at Woods Hole, the Academy’s president, Philip Handler, got a call from Senator Abraham Ribicoff. The Senator was cosponsoring a bill on synfuels, and he wanted to know the implications of greenhouse warming. Handler went to the National Research Council’s Climate Research Board, and the very next day, it produced a statement on carbon dioxide and energy policy. The statement confirmed that global warming could be a problem. The statement told Senator Ribicoff that the massive expenditures required to create a national synthetic fuels capability should not commit the nation to large-scale dependence on coal for the indefinite future. This is the first time that an Academy group issued a specific policy recommendation, ambiguous although it may be, related to global warming. Olson 2014 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077050/
Why this matters.
We. Knew. Never forget, we knew.
What happened next?
Synfuels got killed off by Reagan, along with a lot of good stuff. And we had to wait until 1988 to wake up. A decade lost (but then, we would have pissed it against the wall, I guess).
References:
Nierenberg, N. Tshinkel, W. and Tshinkel, V. (2010) Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40, Number 3, pps. 318–349. [online here]
Olson, S. (2014) The National Academy of Sciences at 150. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jun 24; 111(Suppl 2): 9327–9364.
On this day, June 25, across 6 years, we can watch a technology emerge from obscurity (see June 4 for how an issue goes through an arc).
Carbon capture and storage is the proposal to stop carbon dioxide molecules, released when you burn a hydrocarbon (oil, coal or gas), from getting into the atmosphere. I could go on, but I won’t…
On this day in 2002 the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) held an “ Improved Oil Recovery” Research Seminar.
Then, a year later the US, EU, 12 countries agreed to develop carbon capture technologies” – the grandly named “Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum” became a thing.
Then, five years after that, with CCS very high up the agenda in the UK, a Shell-sponsored CCS supplement turned up in the Guardian containing 14-articles, all focusing on CCS. Page 234 of Mander et al (2013)
Why this matters.
Technologies build up a head of, erm, steam. Or they don’t. It takes time for things to emerge. Then they work, or they don’t, or they do something else.
What happened next?
CCS? It went away. Then it came back, as fantasies do.
On this day (May 2nd) in 2012 the UK government announced a “Carbon Capture andStorage” Cost Reduction Taskforce which would
“to advise the government and industry on the steps needed to reduce the cost of CCS, so that it could compete with other low carbon technologies in the 2020s.” (see also this press release).
CCS has long been the get-out-of-jail-free card for industry (esp oil and gas) and a lot of time and money has been spent on it. But it still ain’t here. Maybe this time will be different…
Why this matters
We need to remember that these salvationary technologies have fallen over repeatedly, and ask ourselves “gee, maybe we could focus on, you know, just using hella lot less energy?”
What happened next
CCS fell over, got picked up and dusted off, and is again flavour of the month.
