DeFries, Ruth S .; Malone, Thomas F. National Research Council (U.S.), Committee on Global Change Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future 1989 Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 1989. xiii, 227 p. : ill., maps ; 28 cm. Committee on Global Change, National Research Council.
Proceedings of the Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future, held on May 2-3, 1989, at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and organized by the National Research Council’s Committee on Global Change. Includes bibliographical references.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the “Our Common Future” report had been released in 1987. It was a sequel/rehash of sorts of the Brandt report of 1980, and sat alongside the Global 2000 report. All these – whisper it – were dancing around the fact that the Limits to Growth people of 1972 were basically right but nobody wanted to admit it so everyone went along with the bright shining lies about Technology or Development or Human Rights or whatever protective incantations were popular and career-enhancing at that moment.
What I think we can learn from this. We were smart enough to spot the problems. Mostly too scared (with good reason) to point out that the maniac sociopaths in charge would never allow the actions required, because it would interfere with their power, prestige, appetites, ideology. Duck and cover? Kinda.
What happened next
In 1989 the Global Climate Coalition was formed – oil companies and auto companies and so on – to fight any meaningful policy response to climate change. They won.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the ferment of the 1960s (i.e. the hard dangerous work of civil rights activists and the hand-wringing of the liberals) was ramifying through the institutions. Here we see Orr Roberts, by all accounts a decent man, trying to carve out some space.
What I think we can learn from this. Institutional racism is a thing. Individuals try to ameliorate it, but you need a system to change a system…
What happened next. The 60s ended in the late 1970s, with exhaustion, repression, and the beginnings of a successful “fightback” (that never ended, but was on the back foot for a bit). By 1981 it was “Morning in America” again…
There’s plenty of books about elements of this – I should make a list I guess.
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.
On this day 24 years ago Australia’s status as a colony of the United States – an enthusiastic one at that – was confirmed for the (checks notes) gazillionth time.
“Washington has mounted a diplomatic campaign to deflect criticism of its repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol, instead seeking support for its goal of broadening the UN climate change treaty to include developing countries.
And Canberra is Washington’s prize recruit in this campaign.
Asked in Wednesday’s Washington Post which countries backed him on greenhouse, President George Bush said “Australia [and Canada] said they understand why the US took this position”.
“However, the Canadian government has criticised the US for pulling out of the Kyoto process. Only Australia has provided uncritical support and is therefore Washington’s “prize recruit” in its campaign to kill the Kyoto Protocol, according to a report in the April 27 Australian Financial Review.”
Hordern, N. 2001. Bush wary of `kiss of death’ for backers in protocol pact. Australian Financial Review, April 27 , p.30.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “settled” (invaded) Australia started life in 1788 as a dumping ground for convicts who couldn’t be hanged and/or sent to the American colonies. The various colonies gained measures of self-government and in 1901 the Commonwealth came into existence, but Australia was still basically a colony. Which was fine, but in 1942, after the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, it was clear the Brits weren’t going to be able to defend Oz. So the Aus Prime Minister pivoted to the Yanks – needs must. And Australia has been, in all significant respects, a colony ever since. So it goes.
What we learn. Colonial subjects like to imagine they are free. Everyone wants to imagine they are free.
What happened next. The Australian political “elite” (never were scare quotes so relevant) have continued to be craven and pathetic on climate. Why should anyone expect anything else?
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.
On this day 25 years ago, April 25, 2000, the Federal Environment Minister, Robert Hill spoke at a meeting to the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change in Washington, ‘Beyond Kyoto: Australia’s efforts to combat global warming’, 25 April 2000,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia had extorted an extremely generous deal at the Kyoto Conference (Hill had received a standing ovation at Cabinet afterwards). But it had leaked in 1998 that Howard was only going to ratify the deal if the US did (up in the air, with the 2000 election forthcoming). So Hill had to pretend all was well. And people had to pretend to be going along with that. Rude not to.
What we learn. It’s all kayfabe, innit?
What happened next. The Supreme Court handed George W Bush the 2000 election. In March 2001 he pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations. Australian Prime Minister John Howard waited until World Environment Day 2002 before doing same. Why the delay? Probably just because he liked watching the greenies twist in the wind? For the shingles, in other words.
“an alliance of prominent Silicon Valley companies—including Google, Meta, Shopify, and the payment company Stripe—announced that it is purchasing $925 million in carbon removal over the next eight years. In a world awash in overhyped corporate climate commitments, this is actually a big deal” https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/04/big-tech-investment-carbon-removal/629545/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 418ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was having actively opposed any carbon mitigation, or sat around while the fossil interests opposed it (amounts to the same thing) for thirty plus years, now “good” corporates were realising that it was very late in the day for everything, including their reputations. So, promising to invest in unicorn technologies like carbon removals was a think.
What I think we can learn from this
Only unicorn technologies can save us.
What happened next
MARC TO CHECK OUT WHERE THESE ARE UP TO
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.
On this day, 56 years ago, US President Richard Milhous Nixon gave a speech at the North Atlantic Council where he bemoans the “gathering torments of a rapidly advancing industrial technology.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in the 1968 presidential election, there had been some fleeting talk of environmental issues ( It would have been more if Bobby Kennedy hadn’t gotten whacked, but there you are) and Nixon had mouthed the right pieties.
But there’s various other contexts. First, days after his inauguration in January 1969 Nixon had to go out to Santa Barbara and look glum and competent when the Santa Barbara oil spill happened and everyone was starting to be worried about where more oil spills might come from, etc. Secondly, Nixon had the problem of the atrocities that the US military, with help from Australia and South Korean mercenaries, were committing in Indochina, and was keen to have a change of subject. So the idea of using NATO to tackle the “challenges of modern society” wasn’t as outlandish as it may seem, in retrospect.
What I think we can learn from this is that politicians will say whatever they think their marks want to hear – this is surely not controversial.
What happened next Well, within a few months, “Earth Day” was announced. Weirdly though, a good emote wasn’t enough – the environmental problems kept on coming, and the pressures to legislate kept on coming, so you had the National Environmental Protection Act signed into law, and then in a few months after that, you had the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which will possibly not last much longer, and may, in fact, be killed off between me recording this on the third of March, and you reading it on the 10th of April.
You also had the Council on Environmental Quality, releasing a report in August 1970 that has an entire chapter about the atmospheric implications of carbon dioxide build up, written by Gordon MacDonald.
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.
This takes me back almost 20 years to the GE ‘clean coal’ advert (warning – utterly delirious).
And it takes me back to another cognitively-challenged Republican Senator [?? Ed], the late and unlamented James Inhofe who threw a snowball on the Senate Floor to ‘disprove’ global warming and rile the snowflake liberals, back in 2015.
A couple of years later, in the quarry-with-a-state-attached some people persist in calling “Australia”, the then-Treasurer (who would become Prime Minister), Scotty Morrison brandished a lump of coal in Parliament. Some points to note: It was in the middle of a heatwave. He handed it on to one of the most absurd politicians of all time, Barnaby Joyce, who mimicked (?) wide-eyed joy at the gift. The lump of dead matter (the coal, I mean) was provided by the Minerals Council of Australia, the industry lobby group that has done probably more than any other to stop meaningful climate action in Australia. The lump was lacquered, so it wouldn’t smudge anyone’s hands – that’s the cleanest coal ever gets.
What’s going on here? This isn’t just trolling, an effort to “own the libs,” and maintain the morale of Good Red Blooded Americans/Australians. This is also, I suspect, some sort of desperate attempt to convince themselves of what they fear is a delusion, by having something material to hand. The Marxists talk about (or used to – I don’t keep up with the jabber so much anymore) historical materialism. This is more hysterical (2) materiality.
Where will it all end? More of these stunts. More performative anti-nature nihilism. More asshole ambit claims. O temperature, o mores.
See also
This blog post that I completely forgot I had written but says pretty much what I have said above.
David Brooks – the posterchild for overpromoted well-educated idiots – has written an entire kinda sorta mea culpa (but not really, because it is STILL the left’s fault) about ‘Where We Go From Here’ that manages to say not a single word about the climate (and ecological) debacle. Maybe if we pretend it isn’t there, or if we put our hands over our eyes, it isn’t there. See also Dave Vetter’s review of the prosperity gospel for atheists book by Ezra Klein.
I am alive to both the gendered and Fraudian aspects here, but idgaf for present purposes
On this day 18 years ago, the US Supreme Court – albeit on a 5-4 split – obeyed the laws – of physics. In a case brought by various states, because George W Bush’s people at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency were dragging their heels on doing anything about, oh, you know (checks notes)… THE END OF THE FUCKING WORLD>
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
In 1988 George W Bush’s dad, George HW, had said he would deal with the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. The toe-rag lied.
On the campaign trail in 2000 George W. Bush had said he would regulate CO2. He then, after having the presidency handed to him by his dad’s mates on the Supreme Court, pulled out of Kyoto Protocol negotiations and did everything he could to do nothing on climate change. Various state governments, fed up, sued.
What we learn. We are not a serious species. You can love us, but we are not a serious species.
What happened next. More back and forth, more “fun” and games. And the emissions climb, and Mephistopheles has turned up with the bill and is gonna drag us all to hell. So it goes.
Haven’t checked on how the Supreme Court is made up these days, but I am sure it’s chock full of intelligent, non-doctrinaire men and women alive to the contradictions of capitalism and willing to stand up for justice.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that on the campaign trail, George W Bush had promised to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. People who wanted to believe that chose to believe that this was a Kyoto ratification promise. It was not. President Cheney told his underling what to say, and the underling said it. For the benefit of short term benefit of oil and gas companies, but also by now, it was entrenched as part of the bigger “culture war.”
What I think we can learn from this
that you can trust people to pursue their material and ideological interests as they understand them in the short term and to hell with the consequences. And if someone gets cold feet, they are replaceable. They’re always replaceable.
See Julian Rathbone’s superior eco thriller The Eurokillers for a fictional representation of this.
What happened next
To absolutely no one surprised that Prime Minister John Howard pulled Australia out of Kyoto negotiations on World Environment Day the following year, 2002. But nonetheless, Kyoto was finally ratified in 2005 because the Russians wanted membership in the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, 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.
Forty three years ago, on this day, March 25th, 1982,
The CBS Evening News for March 25, 1982 included a two minute and 50 second story by David Culhane on the greenhouse effect. Chemist Melvin Calvin raised the threat of global warming, Representative Al Gore called for further research, and James Kane of the Energy Department said there was no need for haste. (Sachsman, 2000)
Carbon Dioxide and Climate : The Greenhouse Effect hearings of the House Committee on Science and Technology, 97th Congress, March 25 1982 https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002758682
See the detailed account in Nathaniel Rich’s Losing Earth
(also in C02 Newsletter Vol 3 No 3, March-April 1982)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
that the CO2 issue was something journalists had been particularly interested in since maybe the late 1970s and although Reagan and Republicans were in the ascendant, that didn’t mean that Congress had stopped chipping away. And I think in ‘82 was the first time Al Gore had held hearings
Congressional hearings are a nice hook – the experts are in town, so you can grab them for an interview. And you can get two or three minutes of quality journalism relatively cheaply and predictably.
What I think we can learn from this that Americans were being tolerably well-informed about future threats. 43 years ago. It was on the television for Christ’s sake – national news.
What happened next
CO2 kept bubbling away in the American news, famously in ‘83 with the EPA report “can we delay a greenhouse warming?” (no), and on and on at a relatively low level until it properly exploded in the summer of 1988.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check 
