Category: United States of America

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United States of America

February 18, 1991 – Governor Bill Clinton says would give “serious consideration” to cuts of 20-30 per cent by 2004.

Thirty four years ago, on this day, February 18th, 1991, it was reported that Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas had said he was open to deep emissions cuts…

The 1992 US election intervened as a factor in the negotiations during that year. All the potential Democratic candidates favoured a quantified target on C02 emissions on the European model. Clinton also said he would give “serious consideration” to cuts of 20-30 per cent by 2004 (ECO, 18 February, 1991). This injected a dynamic into the US’s position, and it might well be possible to attribute some of the change in that position to this.

(Paterson, 1996: 87)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the international negotiations on a climate treaty had just begun. It was clear that the George HW Bush administration was opposed to strong action, but it wasn’t clear then perhaps, just how strongly they were (thanks to the success of the Sununu faction within the White House). The liberation of Kuwait by US forces and a “Coalition of the Willing” was underway, and a lot of people just assumed that George Herbert Walker Bush would definitely be a two-term president- that he would waltz it. So the Democrats who were putting themselves forward were doing it perhaps as long shots. They didn’t know at this point that Ross Perot would enter the race. 

Btw the numbers Clinton was suggesting were in excess of the “Toronto Target” proposals.

What I think we can learn from this is that the Democrats were all pushing for emissions reductions targets, as per “The American President” with Michael Douglas a few years later (for a good take down of that film, see Unclear and Present Danger podcast, btw). 

What happened next is Clinton managed to secure the nomination despite having to admit that he was a philanderer and a draft dodger. The darker allegations were largely swept under the carpet because he was the favored son. Clinton became president, for all the good that did anyone beyond business interests, and the rest is history.

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.

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International processes United States of America

February 16, 2014 – US climate envoy John Kerry denounces “shoddy scientists and extreme ideologues”

Eleven years ago, on this day, February 16th, 2014 climate envoy John Kerry says “look over there”:

Climate change may be the world’s “most fearsome” weapon of mass destruction and urgent action is needed to combat it, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday, comparing those who deny its existence or question its causes to people who insist the Earth is flat.

In a speech to Indonesian students, civic leaders and government officials in Jakarta, Kerry laid into climate change deniers, accusing them of using shoddy science and scientists to delay measures needed to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases at the risk of imperiling the planet. He also went after those who continue to dispute who is responsible for such emissions, arguing that everyone and every country must take responsibility and act immediately.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/john-kerry-blasts-climate-change-deniers-shoddy-scientists-1.2539163

[And the link here It has been 404ed… http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm ]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was “eyes on Paris” for what was going to be the latest “last chance to save the Earth”, but there were still people chuntering about climate change not being a problem, and Kerry was getting stuck into them.  Partly to avoid the weakness of the proposals being put forward, by him and his ilk, I guess.

What I think we can learn from this is that there are always people chuntering about it not being a problem. And one of them is now President of the United States, and the bots are all spouting the bullshit about false predictions and everything’s fine and so forth. nd people want to believe it, and so they do. 

What happened next

The denialists didn’t go away. And you neither did the lukewarmers. 

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.

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Cultural responses United States of America

February 14, 1972 – the Lorax is animated…

Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 14th, 1972,

The book was adapted as an animated musical television special produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, directed by Hawley Pratt and starring the voices of Eddie Albert and Bob Holt. It was first aired by CBS on February 14, 1972. A reference to pollution of Lake Erie was spoken by one of the Humming-Fish as they depart; it remains in DVD releases of the show, although later removed from the book. The special also shows the Onceler arguing with himself, and asking the Lorax whether shutting down his factory (thus putting hundreds of people out of work) is practical.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was running around talking about the environment. The Dr Seuss book The Lorax was part of that big picture. So. hardly surprising that an animation of it should be made.

What I think we can learn from this that old people, young people, everyone in between, people really did know in the late 60s -early 70s, what was at stake. And people who cared were unable to sustain public attention, because issues get old, and there was so much else going on; a war to protest, to try to end multiple wars for the state managers reconfiguring the American Empire. They had a lot on –  not that they ever intended to do anything about environmental degradation. 

So a few people thought that the dominant party could be persuaded. The “good chaps” theory of government, perhaps. 

What happened next Dr Seuss died in 1991. The Lorax got remade,

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United States of America

Feb 9, 1990 – Carl Sagan on military spending vs. climate spending

February 9, 1990 – Carl Sagan vs climate complacency

Thirty five years ago, on this day, February 9th, 1990,Carl Sagan gave the keynote speech at the 5th “Emerging Issues Forum” at the University of North Carolina.

Here’s a video of the relevant clip

Now, there are policy makers who would like to respond as follows and you have perhaps seen this sort of opinion in the pages of, naturally the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. It’s the first place to expect a complaint about having to change anything. 

‘It’s too uncertain’ they say. This is serious stuff. There are a few scientists with computer models and who can be sure that they know what they are talking about and you want us to turn everything upside down because some scientist say that things are going to get a few degrees warmer. It’s a few degrees warmer on the stage than it is in the audience. You don’t see any catastrophe up here do you? 

I’d like to pose the following question: Imagine this kinda thinking back in the height of the Cold War. You know the United States – so, let me ask a question – How much money do you think the United States has spent since 1945 on the Cold War? Sometimes they ask this question then from the back of the audience comes in answer ‘billions and billions‘. A huge underestimate – billions and billions. The amount of money that the United States has spent on the Cold War since 1945 is approximately 10 trillion dollars. Trillion, that’s the big one with the ‘T’. What could you buy with 10 trillion dollars? The answer is: You could buy everything in the United States except the land. Everything. Every building, truck, bus, car, boat, plane, pencil, baby’s diaper. Everything in the United States except the land, that’s what we have spent on the Cold War. 

So, now let me ask: How certain was it that the Russians were going to invade? Was it 100% certain? Guess not since they never invaded. What if it was only let say 10% certain? What would advocates of big military buildup have said? We must be prudent. It’s not enough to count on only the most likely circumstance. If the worst happens and it’s really extremely dangerous for us we have to prepare for that. Remote contingencies if there is serious enough have the prepared for. It’s classic military thinking – you prepare for the worst case. 

And so now, I ask my friends who are comfortable with that argument, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, why doesn’t that same argument apply to Global Warming. You don’t think it’s 100% likely? Fine. You are entitled to think that. If it’s only a small probability of it happening since the consequences are so serious, don’t you have to make some serious investment to prevent it or mitigate it? I think there’s a double standard of argument working and I don’t think we should permit it.

And here is a great transcript etc of the whole speech.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Sagan had already tried to communicate the challenge, see his December 1985 address to some senators.

What I think we can learn from this is  that Sagan was a fantastic communicator.

What happened next Sagan died in 1996, far too young.

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.

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International Geophysical Year United States of America

February 8, 1956 – Roger Revelle sexes up the dossier to House Committee on Appropriations

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, February 8th, 1956, US scientist Roger Revelle was giving TESTIMONY BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956

You can read it here.


Fossil fuels and Carbon dioxide
Dr. REVELLE. . . . There is still one more aspect of the oceanographic program which I thought you gentlemen would be interested in. This is a combination of meteorology and oceanography.
Right now and during the past 50 years, we are burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas. The rate at which we are burning this is increasing very rapidly.
This burning of these fuels which were accumulated in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and which we are burning up in a few generations, is producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air. Based on figures given out by the United Nations, I would estimate that by the year 2010, we will have added something like 70 percent of the present atmospheric carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is an enormous quantity. It is like 1,700 billion tons. Now, nobody knows what this will do. Lots of people have supposed that it might actually cause a warming up of the atmospheric temperature and it may, in fact, cause a remarkable change in climate. . . .


Warming of the earth
We may actually, for example, find that the Arctic Ocean will become navigable and the coasts become a place where people can live, then the Russian Arctic coastline will be really quite free for shipping, as will our Alaskan coastline, if this possible increase in temperature really happens.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that big science cost big money, and Revelle was trying to assure Congressmen that this was money well spent. And so came up with various stories and scenarios. 

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists have to know how to keep the money flowing. This is a perennial problem in the area of big science, but using the word big  like that has a pejorative implication, doesn’t it? We’re no longer in the era of people tinkering in their sheds, much as we like to hark back to that with the folk Story of Google.

What happened next … the International Geophysical Year.

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United States of America

January 29, 1980 -Exxon HQ tells its Vice-Presidents that CO2 build-up is “a potentially serious problem”

On this day, 45 years ago, the head of Exxon’s Science and Technology Department laid out some basic facts. We know this thanks to the sterling investigative work of Inside Climate News. You can read the whole thing here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that since 1977, Exxon scientists had been helping educate the C-suite about what Exxon’s product (i.e. fossil fuels) might be doing to the atmosphere, and helping oceanographers with their research.

What we learn is that, to coin a phrase “Exxon knew.”

What happened next Exxon kept supporting climate research for a couple of years. In the mid-80s it did a reverse ferret and became the denial generating and supporting scamp we all know and love.

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, obv

Also on this day: 

January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift

January 29, 2004 – John Daly, Australian skeptic, dies

January 29, 2006 – Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

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United States of America

January 28, 1987 –  Scientists warn politicians #01: United States

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, January 28th, 1987.

1987 Scientific basis for the Greenhouse effect. 

Testimony by Gordon MacDonald given to a joint hearing before the Subcommittees on Environmental Protection and Hazardous Wastes and Toxic Substances of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, One-hundredth Congress, first session, 28 January 1987.

page 123 of Abrahamson 1989

(Wally Broecker also gave testimony)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that after the scientific meeting in Villach, Austria in October 1985 atmospheric scientists saw both an opportunity and a need to push hard on carbon dioxide build up. And so you had various bits of testimony, perhaps most famously, Carl Sagan in December 1985 . You’d had other greenhouse hearings all through the 80s, thanks in part to people like Al Gore. Some of these had been the subject of television news stories (for example Walter Cronkite in 1980). 

What’s perhaps interesting about this is you have Gordon MacDonald, who, by this time, had been writing about weather modification and carbon dioxide for 20 years, and also Wally Broecker, who had been trying to get politicians interested (see his 1980 letter toPaul Tsongas). 

What I think we can learn from this is that before the issue finally broke through in 1988 there was a steady increase, especially from the mid 80s, of scientists pushing to turn a problem into an issue. 

What happened next

The Long, Hot Summer and drought, the endless summer, as Andrew Revkin would have it, of 1988 provided the final impetus. That was the year that James Hansen gave his testimony and the Changing Atmosphere conference happened. Candidate for the presidency, George Herbert Walker Bush, talked about solving the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. And then Margaret Thatcher gave her speech at the Royal Society, and the issue had indeed arrived.

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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United States of America

January 27, 1967 –  Time Magazine talks carbon dioxide build-up

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, January 27th, 1967,

After the usual litany of localised issues, it ends with this remarkable set of paragraphs. 

Other scientists are concerned about the tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide released into the air by the burning of “fossil fuels” like coal and oil. Because it is being produced faster than it can be absorbed by the ocean or converted back into carbon and oxygen by plants, some scientists think that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 10% since the turn of the century. The gas produces a “greenhouse” effect in the atmosphere; it allows sunlight to penetrate it, but effectively blocks the heat generated on earth by the sun’s rays from escaping back into space.

No Apocalypse. 

There has already been a noticeable effect on earth—a gradual warming trend. As the carbon-dioxide buildup continues and even accelerates, scientists fear that average temperatures may, in the course of decades, rise enough to melt the polar ice caps. Since this would raise ocean levels more than 100 feet, it would effectively drown the smog problems of the world’s coastal cities.

The waters, however, need never rise. Within his grasp, man has the means to prevent any such apocalyptic end. Over the short run, fuels can be used that produce far less pollutant as they burn. Chimneys can be filtered so that particulate smoke is reduced. Automobile engines and anti-exhaust devices can be made far more efficient. What is needed is recognition of the danger by the individual citizen and his government, the establishment of sound standards, and the drafting of impartial rules to govern the producers of pollution. Over the long run, the development of such relatively nonpolluting power sources as nuclear energy and electric fuel cells can help guarantee mankind the right to breathe.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Time had first covered the possible problem of C02 build-up in 1953, in response to Gilbert Plass’s statements at the AGU meeting. The more immediate context was that questions of pollution, air, water, noise had been exercising American journalists and writers for several years. There’s the wonderful song Pollution by Tom Lehrer two years earlier. 

And the crucial context, perhaps, is not so much Lyndon Johnson’s message to Congress in February 1965 but Philip Abelson’s editorial in Science two weeks before Time published this 

What I think we can learn from this is that if you were reading either Science or Time magazine or both back then, the idea of carbon dioxide build up as a problem was there at the beginning of 1967 which is 58 years ago. This was not arcane. This was not bizarre. This was 1967. Alongside this, you also had, of course the book Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner, that had come out the previous year. 

What happened next

Time and Newsweek kept doing the sort of hand wringing, “What have we done?” reports As did US News and World Report. And then, really, by late 1969 the environment “took off” as an issue.

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 27, 1967 – James Lovelock told to keep schtum about climate change by Shell science boss

January 27, 1989 – UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27, 1986 – Engineers try to stop NASA launching the (doomed) Challenger Space Shuttle

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Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

January 26, 1972 – “Enhance Oil Recovery” with carbon dioxide kicks off.

Fifty three years ago, on this day, January 26th, 1972, a new technology came along.

CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been carried out in the United States and Canada since the 1960s. The world’s first large-scale CO2-EOR project, Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee (SACROC), has been implemented by Chevron in the oilfield in Scurry County, Texas since January 26, 1972 [13]. The CO2 for this project comes from the natural CO2 fields in Colorado and is pipelined to the oilfield for flooding. More than 175 million tonnes of natural CO2 in total were injected in the SACROC project during 1972–2009 [14].  

Ma et al  – 2022. Carbon Capture and Storage: History and the Road Ahead. Engineering Volume 14, July 2022, Pages 33-43

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that economies were still growing at a rate that we would now consider either astonishing or Chinese. Energy companies were looking to extract more oil and gas, of course, and to do it as cheaply as possible. In retrospect, we can now see this is the formal beginning of enhanced oil recovery. But at the time, I guess it was just one more experiment (EOR had already been piloted on a much smaller scale). 

What I think we can learn from this is that EOR, which is still the raison d’etre behind CCS, or the only way that it will make money, has a long history, longer than 1972. 

What happened next

Well, CCS had a long, slow development process. There were studies in the late 70s through the 80s. There was momentary interest in it in 1989 and then the people who would have done it realized how much it would cost and how they could get more bang for their buck elsewhere. And CCS finally took off in the 2000s because the Kyoto Protocol looked like it might come into force, and rich nations needed something with which to pretend to be taking action.

Somebody should write a book. Oh, wait.

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 26, 1970 – British PM offers US a “new special relationship” on pollution. (Conservative then tries to outflank him.)

Categories
United States of America

January 23, 1968 – US federal bureaucrat flags carbon dioxide build-up as “rapidly accelerating and alarming”

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, January 23rd, 1968, a US federal government bureaucrat, Roy F Bessey, flags the possible long-term problem of carbon dioxide build up.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that more and more people were switching on to the possibility of global, rather than local, impacts of “the Great Acceleration”.  President Lyndon Johnson had namechecked carbon dioxide build-up in a February 1965 address, and in January 1967, the editor of Science had led an editorial about the atmosphere with C02 build-up…

What I think we can learn from this is that by 1968 it is not terribly surprising to see experts saying that there might be trouble ahead.

What happened next

That trouble ahead? It’s arrived, hasn’t it?

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 23, 1957 – New Zealand scientist warns about consequences of carbon dioxide build-up  

January 23, 1992 – denialist bullshit in the Fin

January 23, 1995 – The Larsen B starts to break up with us.. (Ice, Ice, baby)