On this day, June 1st 1965, Tom Lehrer sang his song “Pollution” at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco, as part of his “That was the week that was” gig.
Lehrer had basically “retired” from his tours, when asked to write topical songs for a weekly satirical TV show called “That was the week that was” (the songs were brought together in an album called “That Was The Year That Was”).
The song, picking up on growing concerns about air, water, noise and – well – everything – pollution, contains priceless lyrics such as
If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!
YEAR: 1965 Lehrer singing “Pollution” at the hungry i
On this day, 23 May 1980, Don Jessop, a Liberal senator from the great state of South Australia raised the alarm about climate change from carbon dioxide build-up in the Australian senate.
Senator JESSOP (South Australia) – “I also welcome the Antarctic Treaty (Environment Protection) Bill 1980 and will make a few brief remarks about it. “ “The first article, entitled ‘World ecology is endangered’, is from the Melbourne Age of 16 April, and deals with an examination by a panel of internationally recognised scientists. They told the United States Congress: . . that the world could face an ecological disaster unless the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere is controlled. The second article is older, having been written on 28 February 1977. It is entitled ‘Heating Up: Global Race for Antarctic’s Riches’, [From U.S. News & World Report] and I wish to have only highlights of that article incorporated in Hansard.
Leave was granted.
Here’s the wikipedia picture of Jessop
Why this matters.
We knew. The people who get elected to look after the future, who are paid to look after the future – they knew.
What happened next?
Jessop, who had raised the climate issue as early as 1973, was dropped by his own side-
Grattan, M. 1987 SA Libs demote Hill, drop Jessop. The Age, 9 June. p 3 Senator Jessop “is known for his independence and willingness to be outspoken”
On May 19, 1997, 25 years ago, and months before the Kyoto meeting at which the world’s richest countries are supposed to agree binding emissions cuts, the Chief Executive Office of one of the world’s biggest oil companies, John Browne of BP, makes a speech at Stanford University.
This marks the end of the united anti-climate front of the oil majors, exemplified by the “Global Climate Coalition.”
Browne said, in part
“There is now an effective consensus among the world’s leading scientists and serious and well informed people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the climate and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature … it would be unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the mounting concern.” He added: “If we are to take responsibility for the future of our planet, then it falls to us to begin to take precautionary action now.”
Fracture points and critical junctures that turn out to… well, not matter as much as they seemed to. What can ya do?
See also
“The overlapping and nesting of organizational fields implies that developments in one country or industry can disrupt the balance of forces elsewhere. For example, the landmark speech by British Petroleum’s Group Chief Executive, John Browne on 19 May 1997 represented a major fissure in the oil industry’s position, which bore implications for other industries in Europe and in the USA”. (Levy and Egan, 2003: 820)
“On May 18, 1976, the House Subcommittee on the Environment and the Atmosphere (of the Committee on Science and Technology) met under the chairmanship of Congressman George Brown (D., Calif.) for the first of 6 days of hearings on the subject of climate and related research”(Hecht, 1981).
The early-mid 70s had seen a series of droughts, crop failures, cold winters and generally weird weather. Public and policymaker interest/concern were all high. This quote below, from an excellent 2014 paper called “The Dilemma of Reticence” (Henderson, 2014) gives useful info.
“Given Schneider’s rise as one of the most visible climatologists in the United States, Rep. George Brown, Jr. (D-CA) asked him to testify soon after the publication of The Genesis Strategy in front of the House Subcommittee on the Environment and the Atmosphere.
Given an increased reliance of Americans on a stable climate, Schneider argued that increased climatic variability was taxing existing technological and agricultural systems to a breaking point. Aware of the deficiencies of current climate models to account for the complicated feedback mechanisms of the global climatic system, he testified that it was crucial to change the “political consciousness” of the United States and overcome the short-term perspective and whimsical interests of policy makers.
“The worst mismatch in the future I see is the political system, whether it socialist or capitalist or totalitarian or democratic … is to short-term issues,” he cautioned.
While he could not specifically address whether the climate would change for the worse in the near future, he did believe that climate change issues provided a “sort of last-ditch symbol” for governments to realize the importance of thinking on generational time-scales.”
Why this matters
We really knew enough by the late 1970s to be seriously worried, and to act. That “we” didn’t become aware until the late 80s, and have NEVER acted, is only partly down to human willingness to ignore problems/procrastinate. There have been wildly successful campaigns to confuse, to delay. Oh well.
What happened next
Schneider and Brown kept on trucking. Schneider, a mensch, died in 2010, just when we needed him the most.
We forget that in the mid-60s people were beginning to join the dots (and of course some of the wrong dots) about what was coming. There had been some film and print publications in the late 50s (mostly tied to the International Geophysical Year) around the possibility of carbon dioxide build-up causing the icecaps to melt and sea-levels to rise. Those fears were still “in the air”
REMARKS BY MAX N. EDWARDS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR FOR WATER POLLUTION CONTROL, BEFORE THE FONTANA CONSERVATION ROUNDUP, FONTANA DAM, NORTH CAROLINA, MAY 17, 1968
“A great number of articles are being written these days and a lot is being said about the gradual erosion of the kind of environment man must have to sustain life on this planet. Many Geologists paint a very gloomy picture of life in the next century. Some tell us that continued destruction of our forests, plant life and estuaries, coupled with the earth’s increased emission of carbon dioxide and sulfur oxide, will reduce the oxygen in the atmosphere to catastrophic, low levels. Some prophets of darkness warn us of another ice age slowly eroding the Great Plains or polar ice caps melting and submerging every coastal city in the world lying less than 300 feet above sea level.”
This met with howls of outrage and probably marks the beginning of the end or the middle of the end for the Heartland Institute as a useful-to-the-right player. Big donors to it fled….
Why this matters
What happens time and again is these right wing flak/flank organisations get overconfident, believe their own publicity get captured by the culture warriors and overplay their hand have to be disowned by the less-swivel-eyed but equally (more) ecocidal outfits.
Then the constituent parts of the machine are broken down and reconstituted. You saw it with the Global Climate Coalition by about 1996 (with their attacks on Ben Santer) – they were becoming a reputational risk for some of the more mainstream and cautious members. You see it with the Tasman Institute in Australia, and other outfits. Culture warrior-dom contains the seeds of its own destruction, to get all dialectical?
What happened next?
Kaczynski is still in jail, will die there.
The Heartland Institute is still around, heckling the Pope and spamming science teachers.
On this day, April 10, in 2010, there was an attempt at a “party at the pumps” by Rising Tide. This was in the UK this was an attempt to use the reclaim the streets, street party blockade protesting that had worked so well in the late 90s, and arguably in the early noughties at point sources of carbon, ie petrol sates stations, (but they’re not actually point sources of carbon production, like power stations, they’re far more local.)
This did not “work”. (Though for the counter view, see this –
And it will continue probably not to work. This is an attempt at modifying an existing repertoire, and that’s praiseworthy. But on the whole, we don’t have the numbers for that. So what if they gave a party and nobody came? The cops also turned out in numbers.
Rising Tide and Climate Camp both gave up the ghost. For the following decade, there was “Reclaim the Power”. Now we’ve had Extinction Rebellion and “Just Stop Oil”. And soon???
Okay, fourth of April 1978, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government Sir John Ashworth writes a letter in which he says – well, here is Janet Martin-Nielsen (2018) Computing the Climate: When Models Became PoliticalHistorical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2018) 48 (2): 223–245.
“The Meteorological Office’s ‘‘important and very helpful’’ work on Concorde, Ashworth wrote in a secret letter to Berrill, proved the value of climate modeling to U.K. interests—and since ‘‘the real worry is now the CO2 level in the atmosphere’’ he continued, the Meteorological Office needed to focus its energy in that direction . J. M. Ashworth to K. Berrill, re: ‘‘Meteorological Research,’’ 4 Apr 1978, secret KEW, CAB 184/567W01211,
The context for this is that the UK Government had started looking via its World Trends Study Group at the climate issue, also paying attention to what was happening in the United States. Also you have to factor in the the aftermath of the very hot summer of 1976, and the very cold winter in the US and Canada of 1977.
And it’s clear that they were trying to get their head around the problem. But not everyone in the UK scientific establishment was at all sold on this. And it would require other entrepreneurs as well, like Solly Zuckerman and Herman Bondi to push further. Unfortunately, all of this culminated in 1980 with Ashworth trying to brief the new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and her response was an incredulous “you want me to worry about the weather?”
And it would be another eight years before that she would do one of her turns because it turns out the lady was frequently for turning
Why this matters.
We need to puncture the myth that Thatcher deserves any credit whatsoever. She was warned a decade earlier,did nowt.
What happened next?
The problem stream entrepreneurs tried to get the issue paid attention to, but everything was against them. And it had to wait until 1988 for attention to be paid….
On this day in 1996 at a meeting of the “Ad Hoc group, for the Berlin Mandate” – I will explain – Trinidad and Tobago threw shade at Australia for its definitions of equity.
So in 1995, at the first “Conference of the Parties” (COP), the Berlin Mandate had been agreed, and it said that rich countries would have to come up with a deal for the third COP which was to be held in Kyoto. The rich countries would agree to some preliminary emissions cuts.
The word “equity” was then fought over, and Trinidad and Tobago members of AOSIS, were not impressed with the Australian Government’s attempt to define equity in ways that would suit them.
To quote from the Earth Negotiation Bulletin –
“TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO said Brazil’s proposal on QELROs provided a logical way forward and Germany’s proposal provided impetus to the work of the AGBM. He said the gas-by-gas approach is the simplest and most effective, and expressed surprise at Australia’s idea of equity. Each country could propose an idea of equity that suits its own needs.”
Why this matters.
We need to remember that poor countries have been calling for justice, and rich countries have been telling them to go fuck themselves for a very long time. Indeed, a lot earlier than 1996.
What happened next?
The Berlin Mandate got to Kyoto. And a very weak deal was made, that both United States and Australia then pulled out of. The Kyoto Protocol finally became law without those two countries. In 2005. Negotiations then began to replace it, which led to the so-called Bali Roadmap to Copenhagen. And Copenhagen failed. And here we are 13 years later, having reverted to the Japanese concept of “pledge and review,” which is all we’re going to do. And those small island states are completely fucked.
On this day, in 2015, global divestment hit the headlines (see press release here). Divestment was one of those flavour of the month style campaigns where you try to leverage one part of a broader system to cause bigger change, in this case, trying to get institutional investors to take their money out of fossil fuel stocks, and it feels good. It feels like you’re putting a face on where the money goes, to quote. Marge Piercy’s Vida “Keep naming the enemy: put faces on where the money goes.”
Why this matters
But like any tactical demand, it after a while it gets stale, it gets predictable, it gets less attention in the media. And that means fewer people turn up next time, which means the media is even less interested. And you go into a death spiral. And then along comes a new tactic. And so it goes. And that is why I’m talking today about divestment. (Again, I’m not shitting on the people who poured their heart and soul into it. I just think we need to understand that it’s a tactic, and it has a shelf-life.)
What happened next?
People don’t talk about divestment so much anymore. For a while everyone started trying to get local authorities and governments to declare climate emergencies. Now that’s dying down. We’re waiting for the next big thing. The end of the day. We need this historical and sociological perspective. But we mustn’t let those perspectives demoralise us and give us an excuse for doing nothing.
