Fifty five years ago, on this day, March 1st, 1970,
In 1970, New Republic was moved to describe the American environmental movement as “the biggest assortment of ill-matched allies since the Crusades- young and old, radicals of left and right. Liberals and conservatives, humanists and scientists, atheists and deists.” In his study of American environmentalism, Joseph Petulla identifies three main traditions: the biocentric (nature for and in itself), the ecologic (based on scientific understanding of interrelationships and interdependence among the parts of natural communities), and the economic (the optimal use of natural resources, otherwise described as the utilitarian approach to conservation).
(McCormick, 1991:ix)
New Republic 1 March, 1970, 8-9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that at the beginning of 1969 the Santa Barbara OilSpill and the publication of the Earthrise photo got people thinking about degradation and destruction of the planet. And folks who were fed up with or not into protesting about the Vietnam War and getting their heads pummeled now had a different issue. But as the quote above suggests, everyone was “talking about it”, and that surely meant that a coalition or “alliance” or coalitions and alliances wouldn’t hold. People’s pre-existing cognitive perspectives and material interests would reassert themselves.
And so it came to pass within three years, especially after the 1972 Stockholm conference and the creation of various institutions like the EPA, the “broad support” had evaporated like morning mist.
What I think we can learn from this is that everyone can agree that “something must be done”, fewer on what that something is. And fewer still will take the action to try and make it happen. Others will be content with this or that shiny bauble to make themselves feel good..
What happened next
The first big eco wave had crashed along on the rocks of oil, energy, exhaustion, etc, by 1973.
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.
Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson weighed in on the debate on whether the recent warming is beyond what the models predict, pointing out that “it’s not just the scale of change, it’s the timeline of that scale of change. And that’s the real difference between Hansen and Mann. Really, it is one of timeline. They both end up being in a terrible place. The Hansen analysis gets us there a little sooner than that of Mann, but in the absence of deep and rapid cuts in emissions both are going to get there.”
I see a lot of good reasons to be taking more notice of the Hansen end of the spectrum. But as with all science, there’s a range of uncertainty that comes out of equally robust analysis. So Mann’s analysis could be correct, and so could Hansen’s, and we can’t, we can’t know which of those are more accurate until we get an improved understanding and more empirical data.
But does that affect our policy framework? No, not really. Risk is an important part of policy, risk and uncertainty. So we should start planning for the repercussions of the Hansen end of the spectrum being correct. The consequences of Mann analysis are pretty disastrous anyway, but Hansen’s conclusions land more within a dire to catastrophic framing. And from a responsible political perspective, I think we have to lean our policies more towards the worst case than hoping for more optimistic interpretations to play in our favour.
As it is today policy makers fail to have the courage or clarity of vision to even grapple with the Mann end of the spectrum. To put it bluntly, at both the global and national level the policy realm embeds a soft form of denial.
The interview covered a range of topics, and will be released in portions. You can read the first part here. It was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.
The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.
You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page.
Give me the conch back.Two observations and the next question. Observation one is in the 60s and 70s, or early 70s, it was this toss up between, “are we going to freeze or are we going to burn?” Obviously, the science has come on a very long way, but we’re kind of still in the same place and interesting.
And then I’m reminded of the late, great Wally Broecker, the oceanographer, who said of ocean currents and climate, that we were poking the beast with a sharp stick, and there might be trouble if we woke the beast up. I think the beast is snuffling. And in that pre awake, yes, pre awake phase,
OK. Next question. So here’s my rough characterization. There is “Team Michael Mann” that says, you know “the temperature anomalies of 2023 24 while surprising, are within what the models kind of suggest and expect and quote.‘The truth is bad enough.’” And then there is “Team Hansen with people like James Hansen, Leon Simons, saying, “no, no. no no The lessening of the sulfates from the marine pollution and other factors means that the models that we have been using, including the IPCC, are no longer adequate.”
And even Gavin Schmidt, they would say, is having to admit that he’s confused [Guardian]. And you know, Gavin Schmidt is kind of at the smart end, shall we say, of climate scientists.
So where is Kevin Anderson? Is he firmly in the camp of … First is this a fair characterization of the debates that are happening among the scientists? Or is it. unfair? And second question is, where does Kevin Anderson fit? Is he Team Mann or Team Hansen, or is he a substitute, or is he playing a different game altogether?
Kevin Anderson 10:14
I see a lot of good reasons to be taking more notice of the Hansen end of the spectrum. But as with all science, there’s a range of uncertainty that comes out of equally robust analysis. So Mann’s analysis could be correct, and so could Hansen’s, and we can’t know which of those are more accurate until we get an improved understanding and more empirical data.
But does that affect our policy framework? No, not really. Risk is an important part of policy, risk and uncertainty. So we should start planning for the repercussions of the Hansen end of the spectrum being correct. The consequences of Mann analysis are pretty disastrous anyway, but Hansen’s conclusions land more within a dire to catastrophic framing. And from a responsible political perspective, I think we have to lean our policies more towards the worst case than hoping for more optimistic interpretations to play in our favour.
As it is today policy makers fail to have the courage or clarity of vision to even grapple with the Mann end of the spectrum. To put it bluntly, at both the global and national level the policy realm embeds a soft form of denial. There’s an acceptance of the science, but a denial of the need to act accordingly; behind the eloquence and rhetoric, fingers remain firmly crossed that we’ll somehow be ok.
marc hudson 11:48
Don’t talk about the airport expansion. That’s my next question.
Kevin Anderson 11:52
Is it. Okay.
Thinking about how we, the academic and wilder climate expert realm, engage with policy makers, I see it incumbent on us to start by asking what does the policy landscape look like if we’re to deliver the deep cuts in emissions needed in a climate emergency? But also, of course, how on earth do we adapt? How do we, and the ‘we’ is important in this, adapt to the scale of change that is implied by the Hansen framing of these issues?”
And it’s not just the scale of change, it’s the timeline of that scale of change. And that’s the real difference between Hansen and Mann. Really, it is one of timeline. They both end up being in a terrible place. The Hansen analysis gets us there a little sooner than that of Mann, but in the absence of deep and rapid cuts in emissions both are going to get there.
marc hudson 12:44
We’ve had these warnings since 1988 in public,
Yep
and from scientists since late 70s. I think it’s fair to say
Yep
though you can, you can heckle me when I’m doing my presentation, because I cover this though. The omens – if past performance is the best indicator of future performance – the omens are not good.
For more of Kevin’s work see climateuncensored.com
Tomorrow’s blog post – UK aviation emissions and the proposed Third Runway at Heathrow.
Forty four years ago, on this day, February 19th, 1981, Nature publishes an article, by Wendy Barnaby, about an Earthscan meeting the previous week in Stockholm,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the OECD and the IEA – and other bodies – were beginning to hold meetings about energy and environment and especially climate, in the context of the second oil shock the tail end of the 70s, thanks to the overthrow of the Shah.
The other context was that the United States Council on Environmental Quality had been trying to get things moving, but now Reagan was present with his goons, (and see the end of the article before the greenhouse one in the screengrab above! – it all looked a little unsure about what would happen.
And this is also in the context of the First World Climate Conference, which had taken place in February of 1979, Nature had an interesting relationship with carbon dioxide build up, shall we say, with its erstwhile editor, John Maddox, being a vehement opponent of the theory up until and including 1987 (he seems to have climbed down from this by 1995).
What I think we can learn from this is that in the late 70s, early 80s, there was a flurry of activity, awareness, and slowly growing consensus.
What happened next There was a flurry of reporting in New Scientist, the FT etc. A documentary, “Warming Warning”, by Richard Broadwas broadcast the end of that year, in part inspired by this report in Nature and other accounts.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, February 12th, 1992, Liberal Party John Hewson decides to give up on pretending to give a shit about “the environment”.
The federal coalition will reconsider its radical position on curbing emission of greenhouse gasses.
The Opposition Leader, Dr Hewson, said yesterday that he had asked the environment spokesman, Mr Chaney, to review the Opposition’s policy of endorsing a target of a 20 per cent reduction in these emissions by 2000.
Grattan, M. 1992. Coalition To Rethink Greenhouse Policy. The Age, 13 February, p.3.
[Here ends the competitive consensus!!]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Libs had gone to the 1990 election trying to win over small g green voters because (big G green voters didn’t exist) and were unsuccessful and believed that they were stabbed in the back. The new Liberal leader John Hewon, was looking forward to the 1993 election, which he must have felt fairly confident that he was going to win, given the recession that we had to have, which had Paul Keating’s name all over it. Keating was by now installed as prime minister, and so Hewson was looking to, in the words of a later conservative leader, cut the green crap.
This was noticed, at the time, by the way. See this
“According to the director of science and technology policy at Murdoch University, Fightback would result in a six per cent increase in car use immediately, and 28 per cent in a few years.
The table shows that Australia is the third worst polluter in the OECD region and that our poor performance is very much related to low fossil-fuel prices.
If Australia is to get its carbon emissions down to a level comparable with other OECD countries, some form of carbon tax will have to be introduced.
International pressure to move in this direction is likely to intensify over the next decade.”
Davidson, K. 1993. Hewson Error Of Emission.The Age, 11 February, p.13.
What I think we can learn from this is the Libs had a policy. It didn’t serve them with the electorate. They ditched it, and they never got it back, and this was the moment when Hewson ditched it.
What happened next Hewson lost the unlosable election in part thanks to a birthday cake and how much his flat tax would cost. But now goes around bleating on about the environment and saying Market Forces are gonna fix it. Australia has been so badly let down by its political and economic “elite”. Buncha idiots at absolute best.
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.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has again called on the government to strengthen efforts to meet domestic climate targets, warning that “mixed messages” on the UK’s decarbonisation plans risk damaging the country’s leadership position at UN climate talks.
The independent advisory body will today publish a review of the UK’s role at last year’s COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, which praises efforts to deliver a broadly ambitious new international accord, but warns urgent action is now required to deliver on the goals set under the UAE Consensus.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 422ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a year ago, the Climate Change Committee, created in 2008 as part of the whole “Climate Change Act” thing, gave its latest advice to Sunak’s government (as if Sunak’s government was listening! As if Starmer’s will).
What will be more interesting is what advice it gives Starmer’s government about the seventh carbon budget. This is set to be released on February 26th. Heathrow expansion?!
What I think we can learn from this is that quasi-independent bodies like the Climate Change Committee can offer all the advice they like, and politicians will, by and large, ignore them unless the advice is going to suit the interests of big business. Oh, call me a cynic.
What happened next
Well, it was only a year ago. Nothing much has happened in British politics since then.
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.
The context was it turns out that white is not normal. To conceive of white as the normal, everything else as a disappointment is simply wrong. Am I talking about white supremacism and the normative bias around that? Well, yes, of course I am. But I’m also talking about the idea of a white Christmas – that it would snow on Christmas Day. Enough for postcards and all that. And the amazing thing is that you can #BlameDickens. There’s a really good article See, link here, pointing out that when Dickens was writing in the 1840s and 50s, he was harking back to some really severely cold winters including the last time the Thames froze solid, in 1814. Enough for an elephant to walk across.
What we learn is that our memories and norms around what the weather was like are exceptionally unreliable. For all sorts of well-understood reasons about how memory functions – with the peak end bias and so forth.
What happened next denialists keep pointing out that memory is faulty as if that is a knockdown argument.
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 eight years ago, on this day, November 26th, 1966, the UK Conservation Society has its first meeting.
Inaugural General Meeting of the Conservation Society, Herring 2001
Lady Eve Balfour, ‘Inaugural address to the Conservation Society’, 26 November 1966,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the great British public were getting a little worried about pollution, species loss, pesticides, you name it. And there had been a letter in The Observer a few months earlier, that kick started the whole thing. And this was the first meeting of the Conservation Society. (Compare it with, for example, Amnesty, which also started with a newspaper article followed by a letter.)
What we learn is that by the mid 1960s, the problems were becoming apparent, and couldn’t be denied really. And groups of citizens were taking it upon themselves to come together to try to inform/lobby governments.
What happened next, the Conservation Society held some useful meetings. In 1968 its president was Lord Ritchie Calder. And he gave a blistering speech called Hell on Earth which had a small mention of the problem of C02 buildup, something that he had been talking about in mildly apocalyptic terms, at least in 1963 and had already mentioned on radio at the beginning of 1968.
And the ConSoc, had its high watermark, probably with Paul Ehrlich’s visit in 1971. But thereafter, the fact that it was a small, relatively small c-conservative organisation, and there were newer, more media-attuned organisations like Friends of the Earth and then Greenpeace meant that ConSoc was on a long, slow decline. However, this can be overplayed. And in the mid 70s, there’s a series of really interesting and useful reports by ConSoc groups in different parts of the UK.
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.
Two hundred years ago, on this day, October 21st, 1824, Joseph Aspdin got a patent…
By 1817, he had set up in business on his own in central Leeds. He must have experimented with cement manufacture during the next few years, because on 21 October 1824 he was granted the British Patent BP 5022 entitled An Improvement in the Mode of Producing an Artificial Stone, in which he coined the term “Portland cement” by analogy with the Portland stone,[3] an oolitic limestone that is quarried on the channel coast of England, on the Isle of Portland in Dorset. See below for the text of the patent. [Wikipedia]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 270ishppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Industrial Revolution (not called that at the time!) was in full swing, all sorts of wondrous chemical and physics innovations were happening. often led by empiricists, rather than theoreticians because we didn’t even have an atomic theory of matter at that point, or not one that we liked.
Why this matters is that cement has an astonishing carbon footprint. 8% of global emissions? I haven’t had time to track down a source better than CBS. But ballpark,that seems right-ish] And we’re not going to be net zero if we’re still making lots of things out of steel and cement using current techniques. Whether you can muck around with the clinker or you need CCS, who knows? We’ll find out. My money is that climate change will continue to be an unmitigated disaster.
What happened next we went head over heels in love with cement.
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.
Three posts today about something that happened on Monday 9th October 2006
Australian scientists and charities produced a report “Australia Responds: Helping Our Neighbours Fight Climate Change” – see this blog post
The Australian Labor Party piggy-backed its own statement about climate refugees – see this blog post
Therefore someone born on that day in the South Pacific would be turning 18. Happy Birthday (a letter to them here)
The only thing left to talk about, imo, is what is to be done now, by people of good intentions and determination?
I offer – for what it is worth, a few suggestions about what white middle-class people like me, with training and education, might usefully do. I am happy to be told I am wrong, but please be specific. I am happy to be told what I have missed – as per the organisations, I will add advice.
Then I link to organisations working on this stuff. I have no idea if they’re any good. The list is NOT exhaustive. If you know of other good organisations, please share and I will add them.
What is to be done
Educate yourselves and others about climate change – not the science (bare bones is enough there) but the politics, the techniques used by those who want to slow or stop action, the pathologies that affect social movements and civil society in their (so-far not all that impressive) efforts to make states and corporations be less ecocidal. Or do the ecocide slower.
One resource (I don’t do false modesty – is the AOY site. It’s ramshackle, under-signposted but not actually THAT hard to use. There’s a search box.
Another resource (I don’t do false modesty; it’s a passive-aggressive extortion bid for attention and reassurance) is ME. I am MORE than happy to come on podcasts, do workshops etc. I am, on my day, a good communicator and also designer/executor of formats that are genuinely participatory and energising. Hit me up
You need to know about – the history (at least a little) of Australia’s international criminality on climate change, which is ABSOLUTELY 100% bipartisan. There is net zero significant different between LNP and ALP on this.
Take sustained action. Sorry, but that means being involved, at least a little bit, in a group.
Groups suck. They are riven with (usually undeclared) turf wars, brittle egos, dysfunction etc. They waste time on pointless meetings
But if you try to do stuff on your own you will be a) less effective and b) very likely shorter-lived in your efforts.
Groups suck. But suck it up…
Try to be a less-terrible ally.
People of colour, poor people etc have got far more immediate (and, gasp) important things to be doing than helping well-meaning white people be less-terrible allies. It’s exhausting emotionally, it means they have less time for the stuff they need to do.
There already exist LOADS of resources for white people to get stuck into. Here’s a brief. Please suggest additions. Please USE these resources. Please step into discomfort (together) and stay there.
Liu, Helena. “White allyship.” In Redeeming Leadership, pp. 141-156. Bristol University Press, 2020
If you have academic training and access to resources, do two things
First, share the skills you have – research, writing, etc – with people who want to take on those tasks. Don’t be a chokepoint, for your own particular needs
Secondly, expose lies and tell the truth. Study the rich. There is so much to be done, so few doing it.
Organisations
[NB This is from a google search. If someone else who actually knows first-hand has made a better list, I will take this down and point to their work]
This workshop will explore how we can build solidarity with climate impacted and marginalized communities, by understanding the ways that systems of oppression impact our activism, everyday lives and those of our communities.
On Saturday 6th (well, Sunday 7th am Australia time) I was uploading already written and proofed blog posts to the website. I had enough attention left in me to realise that at least a year ago I had fouled up my database, and the upcoming post for “October 9” was utterly invalid. To see if I could easily Close The Gap,I went to my SHED (Secret Huge Eco Database) to see what I had for that date.
I found something old that I knew about but had never really understood its implications. Or maybe, to be extra-fair to myself – the implications weren’t apparent when I entered it.
This has led to, shall we say “a flurry of activity.”
Can you believe this stuff? Plenty of people can, because they need to…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 399ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Paris COP – the one that everyone was building as “putting it all back together, (again)” was coming up. And therefore, you get all sorts of business groups trying to gee themselves up and provide cover for the danger of potential regulation. So alongside “We Mean Business”, you’ve got the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, for example.
What we learn is that when there’s a “big event” coming up, you get all sorts of proactive or should I say pre-emptive efforts by business to create bodies that sound cool, and will be quote-worthy, so that journalists who are having to report on potentially-dangerous-to-their-career-stuff have some both-sides-isms quotes tht they can chuck in, for “balance”. You want a for instance? Well like the inability of capitalism to cope with the shit that it is causing. The journos can get a React Quote from some nice-sounding business lobby, rather than just have to state the bare facts that we are doomed and the people doing the dooming don’t give a shit.
It’s also useful for junior policy wonks and rightwing politicians – they can point to these outfits and say soothingly (if only to themselves!) “the system responds.”
What happened next? We Mean Businesses is still going. I think it’s sponsoring various news services to build a cuddly name for itself (quite a clever thing to do, btw).
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.
