Category: United Kingdom

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Andy Burnham United Kingdom

Burnham’s crisis – the media, the why (via Star Trek) and what he might do next…

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.

If @andyburnham.bsky.social were Prime Minister during the Blitz:

“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.”

#ClimateEmergency 

Why the silence?

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I know I already said this, and used this screengrab from an unpublished letter to the Financial Times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)

As “Cobie Cipher Triangulation Agency”  wrote on Bsky.

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

  1. 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.
  2. 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. 

  1. 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.

Categories
United Kingdom

August 10, 1970 – A letter about the “International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics”

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

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References

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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).

Also on this day: 

August 10, 1974 – Stockholm conference on climate modelling ends

August 10, 1978 – Ford Pinto deaths spark class action lawsuit 

August 10, 1980 – “Energy, Climate and the Future” seminar in Melbourne

August 10, 2000 – States’ greenhouse gas failure 

August 10, 2003 – a UK temperature record tumbles… 

August 10, 2021- climate protest with burning pram… 

Categories
Andy Burnham United Kingdom

The silence is the message: Burnham’s deafening silence – why, what it tells us and what comes next? 

Update: On 14 August I wrote a follow up post.

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.  

Categories
Activism United Kingdom

August 9, 2008 – Mass action at Kingsnorth

Eighteen years ago, on this day, August 9th, 2008, at the third UK “Climate Camp” a mass action took place.

(source)

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

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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).

Also on this day: 

August 9, 1955 – Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass submits his paper 

August 9, 1999 – The Australia Institute calls for emissions trading 

August 9, 2000 – a new Greenhouse Strategy – including on LNG. Yeah, yeah sure

August 9, 2001 – OECD calls on Australia to introduce a carbon tax. Told to… go away… 

August 9, 2013 – BP writes the rules (de facto) 

Categories
United Kingdom

August 2, 2002 – Crispin Tickell editorialises

Twenty four years ago, on this day, August 2nd, 2002,

2002 Communicating Climate Change, Tickell editorial

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 374ppm. 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 Crispin Tickell had been switched on to the problem of carbon dioxide build up while at Harvard on a sabbatical in 1975-76. In 1976 his paper was circulating around Whitehall, and this was a good year for it, given the drought, but ultimately it came to nothing. Tickell was, by 79-80,  working for the European Commission and had tried to get a more detailed paper on carbon dioxide to be discussed at the Venice G7. He had failed and he had kept plugging away through the 80s and had eventually convinced Margaret Thatcher, who was impressed by Tickell and his sang froid, to take up the issue. But the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had hit the rocks, and by 2002 the fact that the president selected by the Supreme Court, President George W. Bush, had pulled out of Kyoto meant that the entire concept of international agreements around emissions reductions was on life support.

What I think we can learn from this is that Tickell had spent a very long time trying to get this issue on the agenda, poor sod, and had seen it beaten back many times. 

What happened next The UNFCCC process staggered on. The Russians ratified Kyoto, making it international law. That’s L A W, rather than LORE, though the latter applies, and then the last chance to save the world conference in Copenhagen ended in failure, so they held another last chance to save the world conference in Paris in 2015 and that ended in glorious success, as we all know. 

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

Xx

References

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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).

Also on this day: 

August 2, 1970 – LA Times runs #climate change front page story 

August 2, 1972, Paul Goodman dies

August 2, 1991- Pledge and Review…

August 2, 1992 – Canberra Times reporting that Jastrow idiot #RelevanceDeprivationSyndrome 

August 2, 1994 – Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating says greenies should ignore “amorphous issue of greenhouse” 

August 2, 2000 – BHP shows its true colours

August 2, 2007 – Russia plants a flag on the Arctic sea-bed.

Categories
Activism United Kingdom

July 31, 2008 – “Climate caravan”

Eighteen years ago, on this day, July  31st, 2008,

Some (Trot-inspired/’led’) activists held a “Climate caravan” thing in the UK. Gaia help us.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was xxxppm. 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 by 2008 exhaustion was setting in among climate activists. They’d been rallying, camping, marching for a couple of years (longer for some) and although there was the promise of a Climate Change Act (yay), nobody held out much hope for the sort of fundamental transformational change that was needed.

What I think we can learn from this – most upsurges in activity/ concern last two or three years (less if a pandemic gets in the way).

What happened next – after Copenhagen the movement was basically gone like a fist when you open your palm, give or take a couple of dead-cat bounces. 

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).

Also on this day: 

July 31, 1981 – US politicians hold “carbon dioxide and climate” hearings. 

July 31, 1981 – Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect

July 31, 2008 – another day, another “Strategic Review” 

July 31, 2014 Ark hits rocks with forestry tie-in

Categories
United Kingdom

 July 29, 1949 – Weather charts appear again on television

Seventy seven years ago, on this day, July  29th, 1949,

Meanwhile, television (TV) broadcasting had recommenced after the war. On 29 July 1949, weather charts appeared again on TV, the first of them at the end of that evening’s programmes, broadcast from a BBC studio in London. Two captioned charts were displayed, one showing isobars ‘today’, the other the distribution of isobars forecast for ‘tomorrow’. The BBC’s duty announcer, out of vision, read a forecast prepared and supplied by the Office.

 Malcolm Walker History of Meteorological Office

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 311ppm. 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 there’d been a war, so television and weather charts for public consumption were not “a thing” as the young people used to say.

The specific context was the history of the Met Office is crucial in all this (understanding UK understandings and misunderstandings of climate change).

What I think we can learn from this – well, I will confess this is one for the trainspotters, like me.

What happened next – questions about carbon dioxide build-up were there, in the background, through the 1950s and 1960s.  They only finally turned from problem to issue in 1988.

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

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References

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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).

Also on this day: 

July 29, 1974 – the World (will be heating) according to GARP 

July 29, 2009 – Climate for Innovation: Technology and IP for Global Climate Solutions” wins the climate bingo award 

July 29, 2013 – unreadable denialist screed published. 

July 29, 2023 – Sunak all in on oil and gas drilling 

Categories
United Kingdom

Private Eye letter: “Emission Omission”

The latest issue of Private Eye (to which you should subscribe, or have a very kind mother-in-law who gets you a gift subscription) has a letter from, er, me.

Your excellent Sunny Jim (“Electric Avenues,” Eye 1679, p.16) begins his report by stating that “emissions have halved since 1990.” Would that it were so. It all depends what gets counted and what doesn’t. If Lord Gnome would allow me to quote from an August 2025 report by Owen et al “The UK’s hidden carbon footprint” for the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence.

“The consumption-based emissions account (CBA) was developed to fill gaps in emissions reporting. It includes aviation, shipping and UK-registered businesses located overseas, adds emissions associated with imports and removes emissions associated with exports. This helps to reveal whether the UK’s apparent progress is due to real change, or simply the result of shifting our production (and emissions) to other countries.  The Climate Change Committee’s Seventh Carbon Budget recommends continuing to report these consumption-based figures.”  
They have a handy graph that shows while UK emissions have gone down a bit (though – worryingly – climbing from a dip), it’s nowhere near half.  It’s also nowhere near enough to be our fair share, given historical emissions.

I would get out more, but the weather is so damn hot, for reasons which entirely escape my understanding.

More power to your mighty organ
I remain etc etc

Dr Marc Hudson

And here’s a letter from 2024 they didn’t publish

Lord Gnome’s always astute correspondent Aphra may have missed a trick in her Eye Pod column (Eye, 1633). She ponders why the decade-long decline of stigma about mental health challenges is rarely acknowledged. She suggests that if it were then “we might have to acknowledge that the problem is … ‘money the health service  doesn’t have’?”

Partly, yes. But beyond the dosh, perhaps keeping “oh the stigma” narratives helps us dodge a deeper reason: the world has always been objectively ‘crazy-making’ and is getting worse?

We are beset on all sides by evidence that the institutions and organisations we were taught to rely on were never that good or have been progressively hollowed out. There is a cumulative effect of reading about scandals such as, oh I don’t know – Horizon, NHS Blood, Grenfell, the VIP fast lane for PPE – passim ad nauseam – all covered so superficially and sporadically in your mighty organ.

And behind all those? The remorseless rise in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and those ‘1 in a 1000 year’ events which seem to be happening pretty much weekly now.

The problem might not be stigma, or sourcing heallth services but our “slow” societal suicide.

I remain your humble servant,  who would get out more, but there are so many arslikhan letters to be written.

Categories
Activism United Kingdom

July 20, 1979 – Little Green Book gets a shout out…

Forty seven years ago, on this day, July  11st, 1997, the Little Green Book (review here) got a shout out.

Birmingham Post 1979 07 20 p04 Little Green Book

“One of its great virtues is that it is only just over five inches by four and, though it is packed with information, it slips easily into the pocket or hand-bag. 

It is sub-titled “An owner’s manual to the planet” and it has been produced by the editors of Vole magazine for The Green Alliance, formed last year by a group of environmentalists with the aim of ensuring “that the political priorities of the UK are determined with an ecological perspective.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was xxxppm. 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 there had been various groups and publications forming in the late 1960s early 1970s (The Ecologist, Our Environment, Friends of the Earth etc etc).

Vole was kinda interesting, and Ted Hughes, the poet, was heavily involved. You can see copies in the British Library.

What I think we can learn from this – “environmentalism’ has been with us for fifty years. It has not been able to do terribly much to slow down the race to extinction, either of other animals or of the hairless murder apes.

What happened next – Vole folded quite soon after this (1980?)

xxx

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).

Also on this day: 

July 20, 1989 – New “Ambassador for the Environment” role makes greenies happy 

July 20, 1989 – Bob Hawke fumbles the green football… 

July 20, 1995 – Patrick Moore at the National Press Club 

July 20, 2014- the “Green Blob” blamed 

Categories
United Kingdom

 July 19, 2006 – David Miliband gives a speech

Twenty years ago, on this day, July  11st, 2006, newly-appointed Climate minister David Miliband gives a speech

“Furthermore, if we wait until the problem is at crisis point, it will be too late to put right.“

D. Miliband, The Great Stink: Towards an Environmental Contract, Audit Commission Annual Lecture, Wednesday, 19 July

https://www.darkoptimism.org/DavidMiliband.pdf

2006, http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20061209022624/http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/ministers/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. 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 after a flurry of announcements and pronouncements from 1988 to 1992 or so, the climate issue had slipped down the agenda, wheeled out for election point-scoring (swing voters etc etc).  However, from about 2005, with the EUETS, the ratification of Kyoto and Blair’s desperation that the G7 meeting he was hosting not be about the Iraq War, climate moved back centre(ish) stage. Much as Kevin Rudd in Australia would use climate as a stick to wield, so young David Cameron, new leader of the Conservatives, would do.

The specific context was some of us were neck-deep in making Climate Camp happen. What fools.

What I think we can learn from this Talk is cheap.

What happened next.  Oh, lots of stuff, including a possible carbon rationing scheme. Then Miliband lost the leadership contest to his brother Ed, and the rest is history.

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

 November 19, 2009 – Ed Miliband on “The Politics of Climate Change”

References

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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).

Also on this day: 

July 19, 1968 – “man has already rendered the temperature equilibrium of the globe more unstable.” 

July 19, 1976 – , Scientist warns “ “If we’re still rolling along on fossil fuels by the end of the century, then we’ve had it.” 

July 19, 1977 – American public hears from a climate scientist 

July 19, 1979 – “a political view on C02”