Category: United Kingdom

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United Kingdom

March 6, 2009 – first “Low Carbon Industrial Strategy” announced

Sixteen years ago, on this day, March 6th, 2009, Peter Mandelson launching low carbon industrial strategy says 400,000 jobs in the next decade..

. https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/mandelson-launches-low-carbon-strategy/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that with the Global Financial Crisis in full swing, Peter Mandelson recently returned from time as a European Commissioner and bringing back a new-found love of industrial policy launched the first “low carbon industrial strategy with the all singing, all dancing Copenhagen climate conference coming up in 10 months. And of course, the Climate Change Act passed into law only two months previously. So this needs to be seen in the context of UK/EU/global efforts. 

What I think we can learn from this is that “industrial policy” as an okay thing goes back further than we thought – I mean, it was a standard Keynesian tool. However, after the post-stagflation triumph of the monetarists/neoliberals, it was career suicide in the 80s and 90s and first half of the noughties to say it, because you would be met with “beer and sandwiches at number 10” as an insult and apparently argument-winningpoint.

What happened next

Well, Gordon Brown’s premiership was at this point, already clearly a dead duck. There was an election in 2010 and to the shame of the Liberal Democrats, hungry for limousines and red boxes, they enabled the Tories (but then Nick Clegg is a Tory on everything except Europe). And although portions of the green rhetoric were kept, it was adios to industrial policy in any meaningful sense.

The low carbon industrial policy went south, but then came back and back and back again, and a new one is going to be launched in June (already pushed back from March). 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

March 6, 1992 – #survival emissions versus outright denial 

March 6, 2002 – ABARE cheerleads Bush. Blecch.

March 6, 2009 – the UK gets its first “low carbon industrial strategy”

Categories
Denial United Kingdom

February 22, 2012 – “Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act” holds a meeting…

Thirteen years ago, on this day, February 22nd, 2012,

On 22 February 2012, Richard Lindzen gave a talk to invited guests in a rented room in the Palace of Westminster.  Note that contrary to some reports about the seminar, it was not presented to UK Parliament.  Any member of the UK legislature can rent one of the many Palace of Westminster rooms for private purposes; that is what happened in this instance.

Lindzen’s presentation, the slides of which can be viewed here and video can be seen here, appeared very similar to presentations given by Christopher Monckton.  In fact, Lindzen’s talk contained many of the same climate myths we recently debunked from Monckton, which frankly does not reflect well on Lindzen.  The slides and presentation are almost identical to  Lindzen’s testimony to the US House Subcommittee on Science and Technology hearing in November 2010, which in turn was almost identical to a presentation he gave at a Heartland Institute conference 6 months earlier.  In fact, Lindzen did not even update some of his graphs with data beyond mid-2010 for his UK presentation.

Lindzen’s presentation contained so many misrepresentations that it would be too time consuming to address them all; however, we will address most of them here, including the base on which Lindzen built his house of misinformation cards.

https://skepticalscience.com/lindzen-london-illusions.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was tthat there was a very small number of very determined Conservative MPs and grandees who did not nod through the 2008 Climate Change Act. The had said from the get go that it was unnecessary and or unaffordable and or impossible. Tey did what these people always do, which is get a “prestigious” scientist to come along and tell them that they were right. Lindzen has a history of being, frankly, wrong.

What I think we can learn from this

You hold a meeting in the House of Commons, you put out a press release. It encourages your side. It might get some press coverage. It might cause some people to think that there is still a debate about the existence of climate change and the severity of it. Bish, Bosh, job done. 

What happened next is that the anti Climate Change Act people kept going, and finally, in 2023 the elite consensus around the need to do something (a lot) about climate change fractured when Rishi Sunak thought that he could cling to power when he and his underlings totally misinterpreted a by election result in London.  Hilarity did not ensue. 

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.

See also

Richard Lindzen is a very special character in the climate debate – very smart, high profile, and with a solid background in atmospheric dynamics. He has, in times past, raised interesting critiques of the mainstream science. None of them, however, have stood the test of time – but exploring the issues was useful. More recently though, and especially in his more public outings, he spends most of his time misrepresenting the science and is a master at leading people to believe things that are not true without him ever saying them explicitly.

Misrepresentation from Lindzen
Categories
Activism United Kingdom

February 19, 1981 – Ecology Party meeting in Wells warns of carbon dioxide build-up

On this day 44 years ago, (February 19, 1981) two newspapers (the Shepton Mallet Journal and the Central Somerset Gazette) reported on a meeting of the Ecology Party (now known as the Green Party). The topic? Carbon dioxide build-up and its implications.

IN THE time it takes to read this sentence, 3,000 more tons of carbon dioxide will have been released into the atmosphere.

This was just one of the astonishing statistics quoted by Mr. Fred Clarke. guest speaker at a meeting of Wells Constituency Ecology Party at the Good Earth Cafe, Wells..

He showed that pollution was more than a mere nuisance; it was a threat to the natural systems on which we depended for survival.

He demonstrated how most pollution was caused by our everyday actions rather than Torrey Canyon-like disasters. and suggested practical ways to avoid pollution. [continues].

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 previous year the UK government had decided not to keep close tabs on carbon dioxide build-up (there were some scientists urging closer engagement).  But the question of carbon dioxide build-up was well understood in environmental circles.

What we learn is that the Ecology Party was doing this sort of thing a lot. They knew what was coming.What happened next was that the scientific certainty that there was Serious Trouble Ahead grew, and in 1988 Margaret Thatcher was finally, nine years after she had first been briefed on the topic and had dismissed it, forced to acknowledge its existence.

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Uncategorized United Kingdom

Feb 11, 1970 – Prince Charles attends “Environment in the Balance” film premiere

On this day, February 11th, in 1970, Prince Charles attended a film premiere in London, as part of the opening of the European Conservation Year.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that from early 1969 everyone had been banging on about their ‘green’ (not the word back then – ‘ecological’ was more in vogue) credentials. Here are Shell Mex and BP in an early effort at would later become called “greenwashing”

What we learn is that talk is cheap

What happened next – by 1973 Ecology was yesterday’s fad. It has come back several times, with new names and new soothing blandishments about technology or harmony or whatever. But we’re all toast.

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Academia United Kingdom

February 1, 2005 – “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change” conference begins

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 1st, 2005,

… an international conference called “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change: A Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases”[17] examined the link between atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, and the 2 °C (3.6 °F) ceiling on global warming thought necessary to avoid the most serious effects of global warming. Previously, this had generally been accepted as being 550 ppm.[18]

The conference took place under the United Kingdom’s presidency of the G8, with the participation of around 200 ‘internationally renowned’ scientists from 30 countries. It was chaired by Dennis Tirpak and hosted by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, from 1 February to 3 February.[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoiding_dangerous_climate_change#Symposium_on_avoiding_dangerous_climate_change

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380ppm. As of 2025 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Tony Blair, neck deep in the Iraq War and his special bromance with George  W. Bush was very keen that the G7 in Gleneagles that year not talk about said war. So there was the Make Poverty History, bullshit. (And by bullshit, I don’t mean the sincere efforts by the NGOs and individuals, I mean UK Government.)

And there was also the climate agenda, so the academic conference at Exeter University must be seen in the context of avoiding talking about Iraq. The conference was held over three days, lots of fine words, including words about carbon capture and storage. It’s not so clear to me that anyone talked about how this was already a 20 year old agenda, if you put the starting gun at Villach..

What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve been talking about avoiding dangerous climate change, and we haven’t. And now we are “coping” with dangerous climate change – that  would have to be the title Or “bracing for the impact of the unavoided and now unavoidable existential threat climate change.” I don’t know what you would call it. 

What happened next:  More people died in the Iraq War of choice. Blair finally went in whenever it was 2007.  And no one ever was held to account for what they did.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

February 1, 1978 – US TV show MacNeill Lehrer hosts discussion about climate change

February 1, 1990 – Australian Financial Review ponders carbon tax… (via FT)

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climateFeb 1 2023 – Interview with Russell Porter, Australian documentary maker

Categories
United Kingdom

January 28, 2020 –  Scientists warn politicians #02: United Kingdom

Five years ago, on this day, January 28th, 2020, a deeply unfunny clown got an education.

A slide show that Prime Minister Boris Johnson says helped convince him on climate change has been revealed for the first time. The slides used to “teach” him about climate science have been released after a Freedom of Information request by UK climate website Carbon Brief. While Mr Johnson has urged action on climate change, he previously, as a journalist, expressed scepticism. He called the presentation, given just after he took office, “very important”. The “teach in”, as it was described in email correspondence, took place in the Cabinet Room of Number 10 Downing Street on 28 January 2020.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60203674

See Carbon Brief’s story here- 

Revealed: The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 414ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Johnson had been dismissing climate change and renewable energy for decades. His dad, as a journalist for The Spectator in the late 1960s had written sensibly about carbon dioxide build up and environmental issues. Pity his son never read any of that, eh? 

What I think we can learn from this is that an expensive education will not make you serious or smart.

What happened next. The pandemic.  The emissions dipped a bit. Then came roaring back.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

January 28, 1969 – Santa Barbara Oil spill

January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick

January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK

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Australia United Kingdom

January 8, 2018 – Joe Root doesn’t come back to bat

Seven years ago, on this day, January 8 2018, English batsman Joe Root didn’t come out to play…

But on Monday morning he was taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration and diarrhoea. It was assumed that this was a consequence of his being in the field for almost all of Sunday when temperatures in the middle soared as high as 57 degrees, initially trying to marshal England’s flagging attack, then defiantly batting for some pride and the draw.

Marks, 2018.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 408ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Australia has always had some hot days, but they’re getting hotter. And why could that be? Why this matters is we’re beginning to see cultural events and sporting events being affected by the extremes. but we dismissed them because “here always been heat waves” or whatever. 

And there are sports where it’s simply becoming too dangerous to play, or it will become too dangerous to play at certain times of day. 

But in response, these concerns will be derided as woke and people will point to one off days in 1930s when it was hotter.

NB  further on Marks writes “Later, it transpired that Root had a viral gastroenteritis bug and that his illness had noting to do with heat exhaustion, although the temperatures on Sunday could not helped his condition.”

What I think we can learn from this

Yeah, like we ever learn anything…

What happened next

Root is still playing and batting “quite well” shall we say?

He’s now the highest scoring English batsman and might reasonably expect to overtake at least Ricky Ponting quite soon and who knows, conceivably overtake Sachin Tendulkar to score the most runs in Tests. 

Sidebar, Just Stop Oil protesters tried to interfere with the 2023 Ashes and Johnny Bairstow picked one up and removed him from the field. Stewart Lee had something good to say about this…

Also on this day

Jan 8, 1958 – “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ

January 8, 1968 – LaMont Cole to AAAS about running outta oxygen, build-up of C02 etc

January 8, 2003 – Energy firms plan to “bury carbon emissions”…

January 8, 2013 – Australian Prime Minister connects bush fires and #climate change

Categories
Activism Uncategorized United Kingdom

December 31, 2022 – We Quit, says some group everyone has forgotten about.

Two years ago, on this day, December 31st, 2022,

We Quit statement by Extinction Rebellion

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 419ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that XR had been in the usual death spiral of diminishing returns. That happens to all overblown and overambitious social movement organisations who don’t understand that they’re a symptom rather than a cause. And so in order to grab a little bit more attention and try and stitch together a wider coalition or be part of a wider coalition, they made this clickbaity announcement that they were “quitting.” All they were quitting was the disruptive stuff, which was being taken on by Just Stop Oil anyway. 

What we learn is, well, have a look at this article I wrote in the Conversation, then tell me I’m wrong. 

What happened next? They didn’t get 100,000 people on a day or anywhere near it. And the main thing in my inbox from Extinction Rebellion is stuff I already knew and emails pleading for more money.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

December 31, 1997 – Government slags off Australian Conservation Foundation

December 31, 2012 – Murdoch employee throws predictable inaccurate shite at Greens…

December 31, 2022 – FT publishes letter about Thatcher and Just Stop Oil

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United Kingdom

December 14, 1995 – Monbiot nails it with “it’s happening” article

Twenty nine years ago, on this day, December 14th, 1995, George Monbiot wrote in Guardian “It’s Happening”

As memories of the scorching summer are soothed away by snow, the 600 water tankers trundling around Yorkshire have been all but forgotten.Yorkshire Water regards the situation as exceptional – the Met Office has told them that the drought was a once in 500-year event. The possibility that it might reflect a long-term trend, the company confesses, hasn’t even been raised.

The findings of the world’s foremost climate scientists, officially revealed at this week’s conference in Rome, expose a strange disjunction. We’ve all heard about global warming. Most of us are aware that the world has basked in nine of its ten warmest recorded years since the early 1980s, and everyone knows that our own summers have been exceptional. But these considerations don’t seem to connect in our heads. When two Englishmen meet, they talk about the weather, but somehow they seem to have missed the point.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) now agrees that the balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on global climate. While they are properly hedged with cautions and uncertainties, its members’ data should be enough – poor thermal insulation notwithstanding – to throw us all into a muck sweat.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first COP had taken place in Berlin in March/April of that year, and there had been an agreement that rich nations would turn up in a couple of years with proposed cuts to their own emissions, the so-called Berlin mandate. Meanwhile, and this was the hook for Monbiot’s piece, the IPCC had been launching its second Assessment Report and coming under fire from denialists like Jastrow and Singer and so on. They were targeting Ben Santer and so forth. And what Monbiot was doing was trying to say, “hey, we’re in trouble as a species.” 

What we learn is the dynamics of the problem were laid out 29 years ago and here we are having not succeeded in creating social movement organisations and social movements capable of staying in the game. And we’re doomed. So it goes. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

December 14, 1988 – Greenhouse Glasnost gets going…

December 14, 1992 – UK “releases “National programme on carbon dioxide emissions”

Categories
United Kingdom

December 13, 1978 – BBC Radio talks about climate change “One Degree Over”

Forty six years ago, on this day, December 13th, 1978, John Maddox (pictured – editor of Nature and very very much an opponent of the idea that carbon dioxide build up was something to worry about) presented a programme called One Degree Over on BBC Radio, with guests including famed Swedish scientists Bert Bolin.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the interdepartmental Panel on Climate Change was meeting and was going to really produce a report sometime soon. The World Meteorological Organisation was banging on the drum. The First World Climate Conference was due to take place in another two months, in February of 1979. And so, a radio programme about global warming was a good fit. The producer Michael Bright had already done stuff in the early 70s on “A Finite Earth?”, so was well-informed. 

What we learn is that the Meteorological Office’s John Mason was there being a dick, but Bert Bolin was also being interviewed. And ultimately, people were informed about what was at stake. 

What happened next. The new Thatcher government was uninterested in climate change. There was a discussion among Cabinet members about whether to even release the interdepartmental report. Thatcher used the climate issue to propose nuclear power at the G7 in June of ‘79. The interdepartmental report was finally released in February of 1980, to precisely no one’s interest or concern, except people like Crispin Tickell.

And the emissions kept climbing. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

December 13, 1967 – Sweden begins to save the world…

December 13, 1973 – Edward Heath announces Three Day Week

December 13, 1984 – Christian Science Monitor monitors the #climate science – ooops.