Category: United Kingdom

Categories
Energy United Kingdom

June 28,1982 – Secretary of State for Energy justifies flogging off public assets

On this day, June 28 1982 (40 years ago today) Nigel Lawson, as Secretary of State for Energy in the first government of Margaret Thatcher, gave a “landmark speech” on energy policy to the International Association of Energy Economists. I can’t find a copy of it online. Ho hum.

According to Amber Rudd, speaking more recently (18 November 2015, since you asked) –

In his seminal speech in 1982, he defined the Government’s role as setting a framework that would ensure the market, rather than the state, provided secure, cost-efficient energy.

This was driven by a desire to create a system where competition worked for families and businesses.

“The changes in prospect,” said Lawson at the time, “will help us ensure that the supplies of fuel we need are available at the lowest practicable cost.”

So, what did these fine words mean? Publicly-owned assets were flogged off and some people got even richer.

Planning became impossible. It was all “fine” (not really, but looked it to some) until we needed to think long-term and strategically about what kind of fuel sources we used to get how much energy and for what purposes. Because privately owned companies are going to want to sell more of their product, not less. This is not rocket-science.

Why this matters. 

Well, that period – late 70s, early 80s, , was probably our last best chance to do anything meaningful about climate change. Oh well.

What happened next?

With energy policy? Ha ha ha ha ha.  

We now (April 2022) have an “Energy Security Strategy” that doesn’t mention demand reduction, energy efficiency, on-shore wind. Instead it goes Full Fantasy on nuclear, CCS and hydrogen.  

Epic thread by Michael Jacobs, that ends thus –

We’re deep in the magical thinking phase, aren’t we?

Nigel Lawson? You many know him from the esteemed Global Warming Policy Foundation.

Categories
Guest post Scotland United Kingdom

June 24, 2009 – Scottish Parliament passes insufficient climate legislation; claims ‘leadership’ anyway

On this day, June 24th, in 2009, the Scottish parliament unanimously passed the Climate Change (Scotland) Act. This enabled the devolved Scottish government, led by the Scottish National Party’s minority administration, to look slightly more progressive than the UK New Labour government at Westminster. This government, then led by Gordon Brown, had passed the Climate Change Act for the whole of the UK in 2008.

Some provisions in the Scottish Act went further than the UK legislation; for example a slightly higher emission reduction target for 2020. This was the result of a parliamentary bidding war (a 42% target reduction in Scotland, compared to 34% for the UK as a whole). Also, there were to be annual targets to sit within 5 year carbon budget periods (the UK Act didn’t have those annual targets).

Sarah Louise Nash has written extensively in the academic journal Environmental Politics about the alliances that were formed in Scotland to shape the Act during a period of increased activist and media attention to climate change (paywall). A key factor was the desire for Scotland to be able to position itself as a global leader at the COP19 summit held in Copenhagen later in 2009, which ended famously in acrimonious failure.

In 2019, during the latest wave of enhanced activist and media concern about the worsening climate crisis, the Climate Change (Scotland) Act was amended to set more stringent emission reduction targets. The UK Government had just altered its legislation to set a net zero target for 2050 (up from an 80% reduction target). Scotland again followed suit and positioned itself as slightly more ambitious by proposing net zero by 2045, with interim targets for 2030 and 2040. The Scottish Green Party abstained on the Bill that introduced the new targets, arguing that an 80% reduction target by 2030 is needed, instead of the Bill’s 75% target (increased from the SNP’s proposed 70%).

Just like in 2009, 2019’s legislative change came before an important global summit that failed to meet inflated expectations. COP26, scheduled to be held in Glasgow in 2020, and delayed due to Covid until 2021, involved Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon trying, with limited success, to get on stage to position Scotland as a world leader, as cringy selfies showcased by the Murdoch Press (Sunday Times) help make apparent.

Nicola Sturgeon poses in red with various leaders at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.

Despite the talk of global leadership, the climate scientist professor Kevin Anderson noted in Scotland’s 2020 Climate Assembly that ‘when you look at Scotland’s consumption emissions, that is its total carbon footprint over the last twenty years, you will see that there has been no meaningful reduction over that twenty year period’.

The lesson to take from this history is that, despite bidding wars for the status of virtue and global leadership on climate change that help to increase legislative ambition, the numbers still fail to add up when the baseline for ‘leadership’ is so disastrously low.

Dr Robbie Watt is an academic at University of Manchester, a core group member of Climate Emergency Manchester and an all-round lovely bloke. He has another guest post on All Our Yesterdays, here.

Categories
Science United Kingdom

June 22, 1976 – Times reports “World’s temperature likely to rise”

On this day 22nd June, 1976, the Times (pre-Murdoch) ran a story with the headline “World’s temperature likely to rise”’, buried at the bottom of page 9.

“A warning that significant rises in global temperature are probable over the next century has been issued here [Geneva] by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

This would be the consequence of a build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide – which has already risen by 10 per cent in the past 50 years – because of increased use of oil and coal fuels.”

WMO were, it turns out, having a spat with the “Ice Age is coming” folks… 

Why this matters. 

We. Knew. Enough. To. Be. Worried. And taking action, by the late 1970s. This was not a deep dark state secret. This was in the fricking newspapers.

What happened next?

Sank without trace. In 1979 the WMO held the First World Climate Conference, also in Geneva. Momentum, but not enough to survive the arrival of the Thatchers and Reagans of this world…

Categories
Cultural responses United Kingdom

June 20, 1977- “Alternative Three” – An early Climate Hoax 

On June 20 1977 the mockumentary (as we would now call it) “Alternative 3” was broadcast. It was supposed to go out on April 1st, but a strike scuppered that.
So, the documentary, which – well, let’s go to Wikipedia –

 Purporting to be an investigation into the UK’s contemporary “brain drain“, Alternative 3 uncovered a plan to make the Moon and Mars habitable in the event of climate change and a terminal environmental catastrophe on Earth…

It was claimed that scientists had determined that the Earth‘s surface would be unable to support life for much longer, due to pollution leading to catastrophic climate change. Physicist “Dr Carl Gerstein” (played by Richard Marner) claimed to have proposed in 1957 that there were three alternatives to this problem. The first alternative was the drastic reduction of the human population on Earth. The second alternative was the construction of vast underground shelters to house government officials and a cross section of the population until the climate had stabilised, a solution reminiscent of the finale of Dr Strangelove. The third alternative, the so-called “Alternative 3”, was to populate Mars via a way station on the Moon.[6]

Why this matters. 

Atmospheric consequences were well enough known in the mid 70s to be the stuff of parody. I have a copy of the book – it’s WILD

What happened next?

There are still people out there who believe it.

It’s a bit like the (wonderful) Report from Iron Mountain, by Leonard Lewin.

Categories
Science Scientists Uncategorized United Kingdom

June 18, 1976- UK Meteorological Office explains things to Cabinet Office

On this day, June 18 1976 the UK Meteorological Office’s director, John S. Sawyer, replied to a request from the Cabinet Office. Two days earlier they’d asked for his take on Reid Bryson, a prominent US atmospheric scientist. Bryson was predicting imminent climate change (but NOT from the build up of carbon dioxide, which he considered a non-issue.


Sawyer was scathing – Bryson was “completely misleading and alarmist”.

The context is that by the mid-70s, with a series of “weird weather events” (including the 1976 drought, then underway), policymakers were beginning to wonder if something was up with the weather.

You can read more about this,and where I got the above information from, in the excellent paper “Computing the Climate: When Models Became Political”“by Janet Martin-Nielson. The specific quote is this –

In 1976, the Cabinet Office wrote to the Meteorological Office’s director of research, John S. Sawyer, asking for his views on Bryson’s work. Bryson is ‘‘completely misleading and alarmist,’’ replied Sawyer only two days later, and, he continued, ‘‘the evidence that a permanent climatic change of significant magnitude is in train is at best exceedingly sketchy.’’42

 J. S. Sawyer to D. C. Thomas, 18 Jun 1976, KEW, CAB 164/1379  Martin-Nielson, 2018 Computing the Climate

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that it wasn’t a straight line, that carbon dioxide build-up was only one of the ways that scientists thought the weather could change. That uncertainty can be hard to recollect in the aftermath of 1985 onwards…

What happened next?

Bryson refused to accept that carbon dioxide was driving observed climatic changes. These things happen – people don’t like to admit they backed the wrong horse.

A report on climatic change finally got presented to Margaret Thatcher in 1980. Apparently her response was incredulity and “you want me to worry about the weather.” And this, from a chemist.

Categories
Cultural responses International processes United Kingdom

June 16, 1972 – David Bowie and (Five Years until) the End of the World. Also, Stockholm

On this day, June 16, in 1972 the  UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, concluded. Four years in the making it had acted as a magnet for lots of various concerns.  It also acted as a punctuation point – the end of the first big wave of public concern about environmental matters (the next wave wouldn’t really get going until the mid-late 80s).

What did Stockholm give us? Well, the United Nations Environment Program, albeit at a much lower size and heft than some wanted.  UNEP proved crucial as an institutional ally for the World Meteorological Organisation and various groups of scientists trying to get carbon dioxide build up properly on and then up the agenda.

But on the same day, and more interesting,, was the release of the song “Five Years” by David Bowie (it had been recorded in November 1971).

Pushing thru the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over,
We had five years left to cry in

News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying

Why this matters. 

Stockholm, Bowie – yeah. Well, here we are. Fears of imminent (ecological) catastrophe have been with us before (that does not automatically mean that the latest rash of fears is unwarranted).

What happened next?

Stockholm became the major example of “how you do international environment conferences” I think, and the template has been replayed and replayed. 

Categories
Activism United Kingdom

June 13, 2008 – activists stop coal train, throw coal off. Convictions eventually quashed…

On June 13 June 2008 climate activists involved in the whole “camp for climate action” thing stopped a train heading to Drax power station in Yorkshire (the site of the first Camp for Climate Action, in August-September 2006).

They shovelled coal off it before the police arrived and arrested them all.

See Indymedia for more pictures.

They went on trial A year  later 

“Twenty nine people were convicted in July following a four-day jury trial at Leeds crown court. Today, at the same court, Judge James Spencer QC, ordered five, who had previous convictions, to do 60 hours unpaid work and three were ordered to pay £1,000 in costs and £500 compensation to Network Rail. The judge said the loss to the company had been almost £37,000. Twenty one members of the group were given conditional discharges for 12 months.”

And in January 2014… those convictions were quashed because the driver for the activists had been… undercover cop Mark Kennedy.

A re-do action by Greenpeace in September 2014 got no coverage, as best I can tell…

Why this matters. 

We should know about the brave history of direct action on climate change. It didn’t start with Extinction Rebellion.

What happened next?

Drax is now telling the world it will be storing its emissions under the North Sea

Categories
United Kingdom

May 16, 2006 – UK Prime Minister Tony Blair goes nuclear…

On 16 May 2006 UK Prime Minister Tony Blair speech gave a speech at a Confederation of British Industry event, basically saying that regardless of the outcome of the then-current “consultation” about nuclear energy, his government would forge ahead anyway.

The 2003 Energy White Paper had been very lukewarm on nuclear indeed, and this speech by Blair was the culmination of a determined lobbying fightback…

Why this matters

We need to remember that most “consultations” are window-dressing. They’ll be heavily publicised if they go the “right” way, and used as a stick to beat those opposed as “anti-democratic”. If the results aren’t what those in power wanted, they’ll be buried (released at 5pm on a Friday afternoon etc) and dismissed as “having been hi-jacked by well-organised special interests.”

What happened next

Greenpeace took the government to court over the shonkiness of the consultation, and in February 2007 they won, for what it is worth.

Despite all the plans and announcements, the nuclear power stations were not built – one in the last 12 years, massively over-budget.

Meanwhile, energy efficiency and onshore wind are ignored as ever., and the overarching question of energy demand reduction is deep in the hole.

Categories
United Kingdom

May 8, 1972 – “Teach-in for Survival” in London

Guest post by Roger of superb Green History website.

On this day, May 8, 50 years ago, students at Queen Elizabeth College, London University held a one day “Teach-in for Survival” inspired by the Ecologist publication of the “Blueprint for Survival” special issue in January 1972. They managed to get some quite high profile people to give talks and with minimal publicity the numbers booking to attend snowballed and the venue had to be switched to the Great Hall at Imperial College – over 500 people came on the day. Read the full story below.

Why This Matters

The Ecologist Blueprint had caused quite a stir in the chattering classes and even in the popular press. The students wanted to explore whether technology could reverse the negative trends (pollution, population, resource depletion, and ecological stress leading to human societal collapse) that Blueprint identified, and also to look for opportunities for practical action. In the event it became clear that only bottom up system change driven by grass roots action to transform the social political and economic system could avert the coming disaster.

What Happened Next

After an inspiring day the students returned to take their exams and get on with life. A few spent the next 50 years going on protest marches about this and that, or telling people how the ecological problems were getting much worse, or trying to get elected to get environmental action up the political agenda – completely forgetting the main lesson from the Teach-in and from Blueprint: that the changes needed require a completely different social system, not engagement with the old system.

And here we are, still making the same mistakes and time has so nearly run out.

You can read the full article on which this blog post is based here.

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage Technophilia United Kingdom

May 2, 2012 – CCS is gonna save us all. Oh yes.

On this day (May 2nd) in 2012 the UK government announced a “Carbon Capture andStorage” Cost Reduction Taskforce which would

“to advise the government and industry on the steps needed to reduce the cost of CCS, so that it could compete with other low carbon technologies in the 2020s.” (see also this press release).

CCS has long been the get-out-of-jail-free card for industry (esp oil and gas) and a lot of time and money has been spent on it. But it still ain’t here. Maybe this time will be different…

Why this matters

We need to remember that these salvationary technologies have fallen over repeatedly, and ask ourselves “gee, maybe we could focus on, you know, just using hella lot less energy?”

What happened next

CCS fell over, got picked up and dusted off, and is again flavour of the month.