Fifty years ago today, on August 28th 1976, someone writes some sense in the (pre-Murdoch) Times.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 331ppm. As of 2026, 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 the Times had been reporting on carbon dioxide build up. The first big example I’ve been able to find is around the 1957 IUGG conference. They published a letter the following year from someone called Peter Ball. And The Times had, like all the other newspapers in the late 60s, early 70s, run series on various forms of pollution.
Thespecificcontext was that there was a drought going on in the UK, and a heat wave. The Times had already reported on an earlier World Meteorological Organisation statement about carbon dioxide in the world getting hotter. And here we see the fact, the intriguing fact that Crispin Tickell’s document that he’d written while at Harvard on a sabbatical was circulating in Whitehall, and there was some effort – ultimately unsuccessful – to get policy makers interested in climate.
What I think we can learn from this is that 50 years ago the British state was beginning to think about this stuff. See also John Agar’s paper.
What happened next there was a push to get carbon dioxide discussed. That push was led by people like John Ashton, the chief scientific advisor, who was working within the CPRS. And this led to the climatic change report of 1980 or published in early 1980 but Thatcher and her fellow numbskulls decided that they were not interested, and so the whole issue kind of went back into the undergrowth and it was only revived after much more work by Tickle and other nations getting into it.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Sixty eight years ago, on this day, August 28th, 1959,
Fuel fumes trap heat
“Another factor, increasing the heat and the humidity is the development of what is called carbon dioxide pollution of the atmosphere.
Years of burning coal, oil and other fuels have added considerably to this pollution – it has increased by 15 p.c. in our atmosphere in the past 50 years – and its effect is to “trap” the heat from the sun’s rays and heat radiated from the ground.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 315ppm. As of 2026, 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 from 1953 discussion about carbon dioxide build up had been happening in newspapers and scientific meetings. This had been triggered by Gilbert Plass in 1953. He had been building on the work of Tyndall, Arrhenius and Calendar (the work of Eunice Foote was unknown at this time).
Thespecificcontext was that there had been some very hot summers and a Met Office head of research, Veryard was intermittently being asked for his opinion about long-term trends. Veryard had already talked on the BBC about this issue and carbon dioxide build up.
What I think we can learn from this is that the Daily Mail was reporting on this stuff and not losing its mind, but it would eventually, of course, lose its mind.
What happened next. Veryard would go on to write more, and then it appears he moved over to the World Meteorological Organisation.
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Forty five years ago, on this day, August 24th, 1981,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 340ppm. As of 2026, 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 UK newspapers had been reporting on climate change intermittently since really the late 1960s/early 70s, and the Telegraph, which leaned right, had even had done a puff piece with German meteorologist Herman Flohn around the First World Climate Conference. The Telegraph wasn’t completely batshit at this point.
Thespecificcontext was that a study had appeared in Science magazine by James Hansen et al about CO2 build up, and the Telegraph was diligently reporting it.
What I think we can learn from this is that we shouldn’t judge today’s terrible so-called newspapers, as the metric of what they always were. They have been hollowed out, they have been demented. They were, they were right wing, but serious. You could still learn something from them, I suppose. You still can at the margins if you try really hard. Who’s got the time, though?
What happened next is that Hansen was punished by the Reagan administration, which took away a grant that had already been disbursed, meaning people lost their jobs, people who had relocated to take jobs. Hansen persisted, of course, and famously gave his testimony in 1988 that it was “time to stop waffling and say that the greenhouse effect was here.” (Well, that wasn’t in his testimony, that was in his comments to journalists afterwards.) The Telegraph began a long, slow, painful slide into utter crass idiocy, not even a shadow of its former self.
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
I’m writing this as rain delays my departure for town. It is some of the first rain in months, and welcome.
Summer will end, and when it does, Prime Minister Andy Burnham will – I suspect – give the approval to one or both of the oil and gas projects that the extractors are currently salivating over.
It will be wrapped up in all sorts of casuistry, all sorts of presentational gimmicks (see my speculations on those – and the responses – here).
I could be wrong, the man may surprise me. We shall see.
Let’s assume he doesn’t. To me, then, the question is what is the real, the fundamental difference, on climate change, between him and Richard Tice of Reform, who recently said we should basically lie back and enjoy it?
What’s the difference? Anyone?
Richard TiceAndy Burnham
Sure, Burnham will look suitably sad, and perhaps even hug a few people whose homes have burned to the ground. He may loot the aid budget further to do some band-aid stuff in constituencies where some of his favourite MPs are vulnerable to a Green Surge.
But step back, think slightly longer term, bigger burning picture – what will the difference between him and Tice actually be?
Who knows, maybe this post will age like a glass of milk in a heatwave. Or maybe it’s the Burnham bounce that is the glass of milk…
“Speaking to BBC Radio 5Live on Friday [15th August], he suggested approving the two plans could help “speed up the energy transition”.
Although he did not name the sites, Burnham said: “We won’t be able to stop using oil and gas for some time, that’s just a fact. The question is whether we can accelerate use of it so that we pay for the transition, and one thing helps the other… whether that extraction can be the bridge to the clean energy future we need, and bring it forward. It’s about a pragmatic approach to both of those.””
When (1) Prime Minister Burnham gives the approval to one (or both) of Rosebank and Jackdaw, his team will do its best to manage perceptions, and anger. The announcement itself will presumably be sandwiched between two ‘nice’ and ‘cuddly’ announcements. Probably one to do with animal welfare (something about maximum temperatures for battery farms, with maybe price controls on what vets can charge for pet care? idk – spitballing here), the other to do with heating bills and insulation. All this will be phrased as “sensible”, “pragmatic” “achievable” etc.
My guess is that the announcement itself will come at Labour Party conference, so additional pressure can be placed on any MPs who might otherwise be more tempted to run their mouths. This is slightly dependent on temperatures, of course – Burnham doesn’t want to be announcing these project approvals during another heatwave. Burnham will make sure that when he makes the announcement he is flanked by a couple of photogenic young apprentices (ideally women of colour) who will be getting Job and Training on one of those projects.
What will happen next?
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh will be endlessly scrutinised for any gritting of teeth during their support for this ‘difficult but ultimately sensible’ decision.
We will be flooded with the pundit class telling us how important to be “adult”, to “understand how politics works” etc. Much as they did when Peter Mandelson was announced as UK ambassador to the US.
The Telegraph and the Heil will have several full-page articles about how reality is impinging on Burnham, but while Miliband is around, there is still Peril.
The business lobbies pushing for this will I suspect be relatively low-key, not wanting to draw too much attention to their power. The gloating can be done behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the riff-raff.
The Climate Change Committee will put out some schrodinger’s cat of an announcement, carefully crafted so it can be read in any way that is useful to government, opposition etc.
The Chief Scientific Advisor will be unavailable for comment – either on holiday or being held at a secret location until the heat dies down a bit.
There will be denunciatory press releases and stunts (a “die-in” or three?) by a fairly broad coalition of green groups and groupuscules. Perhaps some Grim Reapers, “outside the Treasury, carrying empty harvest baskets and hessian sacks marked “WHEAT – FAILED”, “POTATOES – FAILED” and “CROPS – FAILED”, against a backdrop of drought-scorched crops.” (as per Edie, 2026).
The fact that Saint Andy was happy to get some nice publicity when signing the Fossil-Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty with Massive Attack and an academic will be dredged up (On June 5, 2025, since you ask)
The Compass outfit, which claims to bring red and green together, will once again be revealed as, well, pointless.
Green Party membership will get a noticeable bump, as people realise that they have met the new boss and he is the same spineless meat-puppet as the old boss, only with “better comms.”
The Conservatives and Reform will not punch the bruise too hard, I think. Ms Badenoch will release some screed – “We congratulate him for finally facing down the eco-loons who most days run his party”.
Reform will say that this is not enough, however, the Government should also be outlawing onshore wind and solar.
And the rest of us? We will take the blow with that same hollow-eyed, hollow-stomached sense of fear, despair and powerless that we’ve been coping with (or not coping with) for years or decades.
Once again we will learn that “pragmatic” means cowardice. As per the words of a brave anti-Nazi German called Manfred (2)
“… the word praktisch had been a two-syllable club he’d been beaten with by fellow students and teachers and businessmen and clergy all through the nightmare years. “Stop being such a god-damned idealist! Be practical!”“Practical means I know right from wrong but I’m too fucking scared to do what’s right so I commit crimes or permit crimes and I say I’m only being practical. Practical means coward. Practical frequently means stupid. Someone is too goddamn dumb to realize the consequences of what he’s doing and he hides under practical. It also means corrupt: I know what I ought to do but I’m being paid to do something different so I call it practical. Practical is an umbrella for everything lousy people do.”
(Quote from Brendan Phibbs amazing book The Other Side of Time: a Combat Surgeon in World War II Little Brown & Co, New York (1987)
And, somewhere, a tool-maker’s son will have some kind of wry smile…
But if the Labour party wanted naked pragmatism, frankly it could have stuck with Keir Starmer. It looks to Andy Burnham for something more: the courage to face up to difficult questions but also the political skills to sell difficult answers, and the emotional intelligence to manage the fallout. As this unnaturally hot summer fades into what may be an equally unnaturally wet autumn, we’ll soon know whether he can actually deliver.
Well, “if” – I hope he surprises me, obviously, but it would be a surprise.
Manfred had got out before the war. In 1944 he had volunteered to be parachuted behind German lines in a soldier’s uniform with the aim of gathering whatever intelligence he could, get captured by advancing Allied soldiers, and then spill the beans. The Gestapo etc knew about this – it was fantastically dangerous.
Twenty five years ago, on this day, August 16th, 2001,
Fifty ideas for actions on climate change
In May and June 2001, the Rising Tide Climate Chaos Tour visited 12 cities in Britain. Some 300 people came to the Tour. In the last session of each gig people broke into small groups and brainstormed ideas for action. This is a list taken from their ideas.
This list proves that no one can argue that there’s nothing we can do about climate change. Our only problem now is choosing what to do- and when has that ever been an excuse for not doing anything?!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. As of 2026, 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 a bunch of mostly UK, but not exclusively climate activists had been trying to get people concerned about climate change, they had been there at the first COP in Berlin, and they had especially been there at the sixth COP at The Hague in the Netherlands, in those innocent pre 911 days when it was possible, given lax security to in fact storm the stage, (compare with XR storming the stage with Burnham in early 2019). And rising tide was trying to build a movement, and they failed, not through lack of effort or intelligence, but just it didn’t quite work out for them, and here we see they had plenty of ideals.
The specific context was here they (and I was not among them) desperately trying to get enough people involved/interested in 200.
What I think we can learn from this is issue entrepreneurs have to be smart, persistent, and above all lucky, And part of the luck is the times suiting you and the times seem to suit fascist idiots like John Howard (Australian Prime Minister 1996-2007) more than they do the good people of Rising Tide, and so it goes,
What happened next some people from within Rising Tide were instrumental in the Camp for Climate Action from 2006 onwards.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The King of the North became Prime Minister on July 20, over three weeks ago, on July 20. His silence on climate change, in the midst of rolling heatwaves, drought and fears about food supplies, is beginning to gain attention.
We learn from a good piece by journalist Chloe Farand that it’s not, generally, a priority for them.
This morning there ia a terrible Guardian “analysis” that doesn’t even answer the question the headline – ‘why is Burnham so reluctant to talk about the climate crisis’ – puts. It is mere description and not worth your time, and I have deliberately not linked to it.
Anyway, Burnham’s silence is now trending on Bsky.
This is presumably because Greens leader Zack Polanski is continuing to punch the bruise and Guardian columnist George Monbiot is at work.
“There is an urgent problem of bombs falling on London. They appear to be coming out of the sky. We convened a COBRA meeting to discuss it. The root causes of this problem are not something I am prepared to discuss.”
So let’s dig deeper on this question of why Burnham has been silent. In my original piece I posited either a) keeping powder dry ahead of Major Announcement at Labour Party conference or b) having to be silent because of ongoing battles within the party (administration, MPs – not the members though, fuck the members) about what stance to take.
There are (as I said) other possibilities.
One, Burnham and his advisors just don’t think “green issues” are a vote winner – those lost to the Greens aren’t coming back and chasing them will lose the “red wall” voters who switched to Reform. (To be clear, I think this is an absurd misreading of the electorate, as several people with a better grasp on the electorate have pointed out repeatedly, but you can see where it is coming from). For one thing, only very rarely have climate issues been particularly prominent (1988-1991, 2006 to 2009 and 2019). Most voters don’t really care, or at least that’s how Westminster sees it. But there’s always the Lucretian problem, isn’t there?
I know I already said this, and used this screengrab from an unpublished letter to the Financial Times
, but it bears repeating – Burnham as mayor gave no REAL evidence that he gives a shit. He’s there for the photo ops, for the tame audiences he knows he can tickle, but I saw no evidence that he was willing to expend significant political capital on actually making either mitigation (cutting emissions) or adaptation (like we can!) happen. It’s kayfabe, ‘kay?
Two – the fiscal crisis of the party. (aka Follow the money)
We know why Burnham won’t talk about it: Labour are in a dire financial state as members quit for actual left-wing and centrist parties and donors flee to the right, so they can’t be picky when it comes to donations. And they are putting party first, as they have since Starmer won the leadership.
More broadly than Burnham’s personal history and following the money “Follow the ideology.”
Here I like to use an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they’ve captured a Borg and plan to plant an ‘impossible’ object in its visual cortex.
PICARD
How can a geometric form disable a computer system?
DATA
The shape is a paradox. It cannot exist in real space or time.
GEORDI
When Hugh’s imaging apparatus imprints it on his bio-chips, he’ll try to analyze it.
DATA
He will be unsuccessful, and will store the shape in his memory banks. It will be shunted to a subroutine for further analysis.
GEORDI
When the Borg download his memory, they’ll incorporate it into their network. Then they’ll try to analyze it.
DATA
It is designed so that each approach they take will spawn an anomalous solution. The anomalies are designed to interact with each other, linking together to form an endless and unsolvable puzzle.
PICARD
Quite original. How long before total systems failure?
GEORDI
Not until the shape has gone through several hundred computational cycles.
For me, climate change is the ultimate geometric form. Other people have called it a wicked problem, or a superwicked problem, or part of the polycrisis. For me, the Borg thing will do.
But especially for the shiny faced technocrats with their SPAD-dy CVs, and their PPEs from Oxford or Cambridge, the idea of a problem that doesn’t have a clever presentational/policy fix is basically unseeable and “therefore” (sic) ignorable.
What needs to happen? Burnham needs to be shamed into showing his true colours. For my money, this idea, which I put on Bluesky yesterday, would be worth pursuing.
Any coders, ppl handy with animations/graphics: can we not have a “Burnit all, Burnham” clock?
It would have days/hours/minutes since Burnham last said ANYthing about climate change/carbon dioxide build-up and – say – amnt of CO2 added to atmosphere, acres of land burnt in UK, lives lost to heat
Burnham became PM on 20 July, at (let’s say, 3pm). That’s 22 days & 18 hrs = 1,965,600 seconds. Given there’s 12 Hiroshima bombs of heat added per second (!) that’s 23,587,200 atom bombs.
But acres of land lost would be better, albeit somewhat trickier. I don’t have the skills.
What is Burnham going to do?
Well, presumably his minions and munchkins are out there briefing the Westminster lobby hacks who aren’t on holiday about how he Does Care, he Does Get It etc. There will be a few more hit pieces against Polanski and the Greens. Farage will get (even more) deserved jibes about his stance. Badenoch too (though Burnham’s mob should be careful – the “we’re not the Tories” line only worked briefly for Starmer.
Beyond that, there are broadly three options
Do nothing and just wait for the Bluesky crowd to rant themselves hoarse. Risky, but it may be perceived as the least risky option. Only act if the Daily Mail starts editorialising that he should say something.
A joint press conference with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Sec of State for Energy and Net Zero, with a nice round number announceable (old money repackaged) and perhaps some mini-conference with UK and European “stakeholders” pencilled in for mid-September, with unions, NHS and – obvs – big business. And the French.
This might provide enough of a sandpit for wonks to play in, but does look anemic. But my guess is it will be something like this. It will not persuade those who have made up their minds, but it will buy him some time.
Some sort of Prime Ministerial address to the nation, speech with Andy’s mix of seriousness and bonhomie, with an extra sprinkling of gravitas. I think this is unlikely in the short-term.
In the meantime, I think we should all be learning how to look after ourselves and each other as best we can. You can’t really stockpile water, but you can have food, medical supplies etc etc. It’s gonna get quite grim, I fear.
Fifty six years ago, on this day, August 10th, 1970,
Refers to the appeal made at the Lindau meeting of Nobel Laureates for help with restoration and maintenance of a healthy environment. Invites Bragg to join the international forum as a co-founder; comments on this. Would welcome evidence of Bragg’s interest even if Bragg cannot give his active co-operation.
Date: 10 Aug. 1970
Held by: Royal Institution of Great Britain, not available at The National Archives
International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Reference: W.L. BRAGG/32F/1
Title: International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Description: Luxembourg
2/3 page, duplicated
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 325ppm. As of 2026, 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 there had been a brief, a brief flurry of concern in the late 40s about the ecological consequences of population growth and modern and industrialization, but this had been tamped down, more broadly as part of the whole McCarthyist wave. The groups that would have critiqued industrialism were too busy fighting off attempts to destroy them and deport them, and so forth.
The specific context was that it was only when the New Left had been going for a few years that you really got ecological critiques from people like Murray Bookchin (the liberal version of this, was Rachel Carson). Then, from 1968-69 onwards, a more broad critique of the consequences of industrialization and population growth became tolerably well-known and tolerated within mainstream circles, some of it quite worrying in its implications. Anyway, two years before the Limits to Growth here we see a whole bunch of scientists saying, “look, this is really serious.”
What I think we can learn from this is that history “remembers” specific documents and “disregards the rest,” to quote Paul Simon.
The job of a historian is to try to give context to people, events, and so forth, you can overdo that as well.
Also, this letter would be a useful thing to point out to the critics of limits of growth, and so forth, when they try to talk about that book, that report, in isolation from all the other concerns, as if it was only that book making the case.
What happened next. These sorts of warnings and reports, which had already happened in 1969 just kept coming, kept being ignored, kept coming, kept being ignored. The emissions climbed, the atmospheric concentrations climbed, the list of extinct species climbed, and of course many species were never discovered in time to be on the list before they were wiped out by the consequences of human activity.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, “so it goes.”
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister almost three weeks ago. There were various quick policy announcements, but on the number one issue, the only one that will matter 20 years from now, it has been all crickets and tumbleweeds (as noted by the Ash Sakars of the world)
In this short blog post I will speculate on why that is (but what would I know?), talk about Burnham’s management of the climate issue while Mayor of Greater Manchester, and conclude with some speculation about where it all might go.
Why the silence?
I have two guesses (not mutually exclusive) as to what might be lying behind the silence.
Primarily, Burnham may simply be keeping his powder as dry as a London park. He may be waiting for Labour Party conference where he can make some big soft-or hard green splashes, and make the disgruntled Greens who have been slagging him off for all of August look petulant and immature. Rope-a-dope, as Muhammed Ali had it all those years ago.
Alternatively, the lack of any public position might be because there are some really fierce battles going on about whether to approve Rosebank or not (doing this would end up bleeding credibility and putting wind back in the sails of the Green Party? Not doing this would piss off the nutters).
Maybe there are third and fourth options too, besides it being deliberate or the consequence of a fiercely divided inner circle.
Burnham’s back story.
I saw Burnham turn up at least one of the “Youth Strike” events held in front of Manchester Central Library in 2019, and give a boilerplate speech. He has undeniable “star quality”, and the naive young activists were eating out of his hand.
I saw Burnham at one of the Mayor’s Green Summits (probably 2021? idk) and he was a slick performer, knowing what the audience wanted and giving it them. They were so relieved that a ‘senior’ politician would say words, that they turned off what critical faculties they had. It was demoralising af, before you took into account the various academics willing to be his figleaf in exchange for REF points.
But the real Burnham example I’d want to push, I wasn’t there for that. But someone whose judgement I trust was there, and she wrote an article for the blog I ran – “Manchester Climate Monthly.” In July I included a portion of that in a letter I sent to the Financial Times (they didn’t publish it, more fool them).
What does it mean, this silence
It means that Burnham doesn’t – despite whatever people want to project onto him – really “get” climate change. He doesn’t understand that the usual triangulation, the usual appeasement is not going to work. He is out of his depth (but then aren’t we all- we have, by ignoring the warnings from scientists for forty years, in uncharted waters which are getting stormier by the day, with new depths to plumb).
It means we will not, of course, get the leadership we need. Ed Miliband is probably crying himself to sleep nightly. So it goes.
Where will it all end?
Sooner or later Burnham is going to have to say SOMETHING about climate change. Indefinite silence and dodging is not an option.
Between now and the Labour Party conference there are the possibilities of nasty extreme heat events (deaths of white people, wildfires) that might require more than the usual handwringing, pearlclutching and calling of COBRA meetings. But then again, there may not.
When he does say something
He will either get monstered by the “right” media outlets (well, no matter what he does, he will get monstered by them) as a crazed eco-lefty.
He will be cautiously given the benefit of the doubt by ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ types.
He will “disappoint” the “left” and put renewed wind in the sails of the Green Party – their membership will go up further (and overtake that of Labour, fwiw – it didn’t matter for Corbyn when he hit 500k, back in the day).
Meanwhile, global emissions will continue along at roughly 40bn tonnes a year. The atmospheric concentrations will continue to gallop (two or three parts per million per year. Some year soon we will hit four). The Fafocene will continue to unfold like a bad (well, ordinary) Michael Bay movie.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 386ppm. As of 2026, 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 from the early 1990s, non-violent direct action had been taking place on environmental issues (Twyford Down, Newbury etc). By the early 2000s Rising Tide was protesting – COP 6 in the Hague, etc etc. At the G7 protests in 2005 a bunch of people pointed out that summit-hopping was not the way forward, and that climate change was not getting the necessary treatment. This led to the first climate camp, in 2006.
The specific context was the climate movement, and the ‘alternative’ protest scene more generally, was riddled with undercover cops and so forth.
Meanwhile, there is a fairly limited number of repertoires available in these sorts of situations. The Kingsnorth mass protest drew heavily on 1999’s J18 stuff – different coloured masks etc etc.
What I think we can learn from this – we’re doomed.
What happened next this was the high water mark, pretty much for Climate Camp. People went and summit hopped Copenhagen after the nice cuddly Blackheath Climate Camp of 2009 despite the fact that Climate Camp had been predicated on not summit hopping. See also, my XR, we quit statement,
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
