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On this day four years ago, February 22 2020, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide ruptured. It turns out that Carbon Dioxide is Not Good For You…

It was just after 7 p.m. when residents of Satartia, Mississippi, started smelling rotten eggs. Then a greenish cloud rolled across Route 433 and settled into the valley surrounding the little town. Within minutes, people were inside the cloud, gasping for air, nauseated and dazed.

Some two dozen individuals were overcome within a few minutes, collapsing in their homes; at a fishing camp on the nearby Yazoo River; in their vehicles. Cars just shut off, since they need oxygen to burn fuel. Drivers scrambled out of their paralyzed vehicles, but were so disoriented that they just wandered around in the dark.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline_n_60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f

The context

Pipelines are everywhere, transporting things we rely on without even knowing about. It’s only when something goes wrong (and things always go wrong, eventually) that you notice.  The broader context is that the CCS proponents are suggesting an INSANELY LARGE number of pipelines, built almost instantaneously.  Yeah, that’s gonna happen…

What we learn

Normal accidents will happen. And we never learn, really, because that would require close and sustained attention of those with power…

What happened next

It oddly didn’t get a lot of global coverage. But it will if pipelines from capture sites (be they power plants or from “Direct Air Capture” start springing up…

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.

References

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2022/09/11/here-minute-details-2020-mississippi-co-2-pipeline-leak-rupture-denbury-gulf-coast/8015510001/

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1172679786/carbon-capture-carbon-dioxide-pipeline

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/26/22642806/co2-pipeline-explosion-satartia-mississippi-carbon-capture

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline_n_60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f

https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/14/satartia-disaster-an-anomaly-james-millar-damage-control-carbon-capture-canada/#:~:text=A%2024%2Dinch%20pipeline%20exploded,concerns%20that%20mention%20the%20incident.

CO2 Pipelines and Carbon Capture: The Satartia Mississippi Accident Investigation

Also on this day: 

Feb 22, 2000 – Japanese coal-burning to be dealt with by Australian trees?

February 22, 2013 – Idiotic “Damage” astroturf attempted by miners

Fifty-five years ago, on this day, February 11th, 1970.

Two things on this day.

One is a European Conservation Year event with Prince Philip and Anthony Crosland, who was still the relevant Secretary of State  as reported in The Spectator by one Stanley Johnson (the wife beater).

And

Showing of Shell-Mex and BP film “Environment in the Balance” – (see issue 2 of “Your Environment”) 

Here’s the beginning of a review from the second issue of Your Environment…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone had started wringing their hands about conservation issues, and the European Year of Conservation Year had been announced and was providing an opportunity for this sort of nonsense. Then in the evening in London, there was a showing of a BP film “Environment in the Balance.”  BP had been making so-called educational films – you could also call them propaganda –  for years. And this film was typical hand-wringing, pushing the responsibility on to individuals. 

What we learn is that everyone was running around at this point, saying that “something must be done.”  And that would go on for a couple more years, until they stopped saying it because they were bored, hearing themselves say it, and because it was clear that nothing was going to be done. 

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: 

February 11, 1993 – Liberal Party plans would not meet climate goals, says expert

Feb 11, 1994 – President Clinton proclaims the end of environmental racism.  Yeah, right.

Feb 11, 1980 – First UK Government climate report released.

Twenty six years ago, on this day, December 31, 1997, the Federal environment minister Robert Hill took a pop at the peak green group in Australia.

“THE Australian Conservation Foundation claims that opinion polls show Australians “do not agree with the Government’s push for the right to increase our greenhouse gases while other countries reduce” (Kyoto Harmed Our Reputation, Letters, 22/12).

“Perhaps if the ACF and others had not embarked on a deliberate campaign of misinformation on the greenhouse issue the results may have been different.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Australian government had extorted an eye-wateringly generous deal at Kyoto. Robert Hill had got a standing ovation from the Liberal party room – or possibly the cabinet I forget the details – but Australian environmentalists were understandably really horrified that the whole process had been treated just so shabbily and went public.

What I think we can learn from this is that when push comes to shove, well, states are going to defend existing powerful interests in most circumstances rather than think about the future. And individual functionaries will not take kindly to being reminded of their shabby behaviour.

What happened next

Hill signed the Kyoto protocol in April 1998. His boss John Howard clearly didn’t want it to be brought forward to the Australian Parliament for ratification and he made sure that it wasn’t, finally announcing this on Earth Day, in June of 2002.

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.

References

Hill, R. 1997. There was no `diplomatic tension’ at Kyoto. The Australian, December 31

First thing is – I screwed up, and there’s absolutely nobody else to blame.

I posted yesterday this blog post.

It’s something that I wrote the first draft of a year ago, and had updated at some point since.

The problem with it is that the quoted scientist, Mike Pentz, was not warning about C02 build-up, but rather ‘waste heat’. If I had been paying closer attention, I would have spotted that.

The consequence is that I’ve put out a blog post (and it gained some traction – a bunch of likes and retweets) which is inaccurate, which pisses me off.

Fortunately, someone on Twitter, Mike Holderness, very kindly pointed out my error. See here.

The whole story – that some scientists were worried about an ice age from all the dusty and aerosols (Reid Bryson, and early Stephen Schneider), while others worried about ‘waste heat’ (Howard Wilcox, Mike Pentz) while still others (Keeling, Bolin, Flohn, MacDonald, Commoner, Kingsley Dunham, etc) were worried about carbon dioxide – is a MORE interesting version than what I told.

So, that means that a) people have been misled (albeit unintentionally) by me and b) I look like either i) I don’t know what I am talking about or ii) I am deliberately over-egging the pudding (which I don’t need to do – there are plenty of earlier-than-1973 examples of carbon dioxide warnings). Not a good day’s work…

It happened, as far as I can reconstruct, because I was so taken with the opportunity for a “50 years” post (I do like my round numbers) and didn’t read the article carefully enough. Then there was the symmetry with the Canberra Times article comparing climate to nuclear war… So, I saw what I wanted/needed to see, and didn’t double-check…

Can this be avoided in future? Well, I can try, but to be honest, in the absence of someone vetting every single post, I can’t exclude the possibility that it will recur. If it does I’ll do a retraction/explanation.

Sixteen years ago, on this day, December 12, 2007, Canada leaves Kyoto Protocol as Australia formally joins

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a COP was taking place in Bali Indonesia that was all about what would happen after the Kyoto Protocol period was over 2008 to 2012.

The Canadians under Stephen Harper were clearly not going to hit their targets and Harper, a conservative, was throwing red meat to his side in removing Canada.

The Australian story was the opposite: Kevin Rudd had used Kyoto and lack of ratification as a way of painting then Prime Minister John Howard as a dinosaur ahead of the November 2007 federal election. One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to announce that Australia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

What I think we can learn from this

Day-to-day-to-year politics mean that no agreement is particularly safe. 

There is also a lot of symbolism going on – see the “veil of Kyoto” article.

What happened next

Rudd, at Bali, refused to go along with European requests for Australia to have a higher emissions reduction target than its pitiful current level – a sign of problems to come.

The emissions kept 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..

Fifty years ago, on this day, July 5, 1973, a Nobel laureate called Dennis Gabor gave a speech at Lindau on “The Predicament of Mankind.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was running around with a computer, either Malthus or otherwise, proclaiming Limits to Growth or the need for blueprints to survival especially by the year 2000 (odometer years are seductive things). And look, here comes some Nobel Prize winners to stroke their chins and either add to clarity or add to confusion. 

What I think we can learn from this

The thing that we should really remember about “Nobel Prize winner X”  or a “x Nobel Prize winners sign open letter” is just because they’re really really smart in one particular domain mean doesn’t mean that their self-confidence in that domain, let alone other domains, is necessarily justified. Because for every prescient warning at gatherings like Lindau, there was another one that was completely barking. As Nils Bohr said, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.  

What happened next

The Lindau lot kept meeting. There have been highlights and lowlights. This year a guy on a manel bemoaned how hard it was for young white men…

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.

Ten years ago, on this day, July 2, 2013, Boris defuckhead Johnson writes in his column in the Daily Telegraph “newspaper” that  “Wind farms couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was overpaid hack Boris Johnson needed to write a column. And attacking wind farms is always easy if you’re a conservative. Johnson, of course, didn’t bother to do any research. Why would he, that’s not what they were paying him for. You don’t ask a clown to have evidence based policy and you should not ask a clown to be Prime Minister or World King, Offshore wind was in a precarious position but was beginning to make headway.

OTHER OLD WHITE MEN

’ Mr Peter McGauran MP, the federal Minister for Agriculture and member for Gippsland, went further in June 2006, saying ‘Wind farms don’t live up to the hype that they’re the environmental saviour and a serious alternative energy source.

(Prest, 2007: 254)

ABC, 2006. Pete McGauran says wind farms a fraud. AM Program, 29 June. 2006

Old white men just can’t bear to be dependent (Hudson 2017)

What I think we can learn from this commentators especially right wing ones, can say any old fact-free shit that they like and suffer no consequences. Wind power now provides a decent (and climbing)  percentage of our electricity needs, on an annual basis in the UK. (Please note I am not advocating a 100% wind energy economy nobody is that’s a straw man. That’s a trap.)

What happened next

Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and by between the narrating of this and the uploading, probably Prime Minister again. [no, actually he is toast.] 

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.

Thirteen years ago, on this day, June 3, 2010, one of the best books about climate denial and its historical roots was published: Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had been earlier books (including two by Ross Gelbspan which I would recommend) about climate denial. Oreskes and Conway had been working hard to show the history of organised denial of basic science by industry and how the climate people had learned from ozone and tobacco, same playbook, and how certain personnel were the same. It was published maybe a year too late to have the impact that it could have, if it had come out. Before Copenhagen, it might have exposed and neutered the sort of climategate bullshit, but here we are. The book is really, really good. And I would strongly recommend that you read it. 

What I think we can learn from this

Good books can change folks’ perspective (duh).

What happened next

They made a movie. Everybody knows, who wants to know, that there have been systematic programmes of lying to us. But because those liars are well-protected, and don’t suffer consequences, and because it’s exhausting to be lied to, the lies wash you down. And the promises rust.

And because of the mass media being what it is, as opposed to what media could be, we are where we are, where we are.

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.