Category: United States of America

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United States of America

June 2, 2005 – Climate change will not, in fact, be Terminated

On this day June 2nd, 2005, 20 years ago California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced an initiative to curb greenhouse gas emissions in California as a step towards addressing global warming. 

In his speech, the governor declared, “The debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now.”

–Arnold Schwarzenegger

San Francisco, June 2, 2005

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 380ppm.  As of 2025, 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 for this was the US had pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations in early 2001, despite George W Bush’s campaign trail promise that he would regulate carbon dioxide (the real president, Dick Cheney, had other ideas).

The specific context was when the Federal government flubs an issue, various states, often including California, tries to lead – you see similar dynamics in other federal systems (Australia, Germany, whatever).

Historical context – check out the defeat of Proposition 128 – “Big Green” in November 1990.

CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : PROPOSITION 128 : ‘Big Green’ Reached Too Far, Backers Say – Los Angeles Times

What I think we can learn is this: 

As human beings – celebrity is not transferable power, necessarily.

As “active citizens” – talk is cheap

Academics might want to ponder – the way policy is, well, terminated.

What happened next: 

The emissions kept rising. The concentrations kept rising. People elected a climate denier as President. Twice. So, there’s that.

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

Too many to mention

References

 (as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.

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: 

June 2, 1986 – US Senators get going on climate

June 2, 1989 – “James Hansen versus the World” – good article on actual #climate consensus let down by title

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United States of America

May 27, 1927 – Ford ceases to produce the Model-T

Ninety eight years ago, on this day, May 27th, 1927, the Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

For more info, read this below from someone who has had a couple (cough, cough) of letters published in the pink’un.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 306ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the American economy was booming. Jazz Age, Prohibition, Gatsby etc etc.  Could the good times EVER end?

What I think we can learn from this is that the choices we are given – for “positional goods” – that allow us to demonstrate (to ourselves as much as others) our “individuality” and our “freedom” are, um corporate creations.

Is there something between this and dungeons like East Germany? I don’t know. Probably there was. But now? It’s not clear to me at all.

What happened next  The marketing of trivial differences to feed (and create) people’s insecurities was ramped up and up. The emissions went up. The concentrations went up. The Great Acceleration happened…

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: 

May 27, 1971 – Australia gets a Minister of the Environment 

May 27, 1973 – World Council of Churches wrings its hands

May 27, 1996 – Not just a river in Egypt – denial in #Australia, organised, ramifying…

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United States of America

May 26, 1978 – “Advisory Group on Climate” meeting

Forty eight years ago, on this day, May 26th, 1978,

ADVISORY GROUP ON CLIMATE MEETING, MAY 26, 1978 AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Well, to quote from Joshua Howe

“In the mid-1970s, the largest and most inclusive of America’s science advocacy organizations, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), included climate change as a potential subject of focus as it began to consider new directions for the coming decade. In 1978, the AAAS convened an Advisory Group on Climate. The committee comprised researchers from a variety of disciplines associated with climate questions, including, among others, Roger Revelle, leading agronomist and later critic of consensus views on global warming Sylvan Wittwer, Robert White of the National Academy of Sciences Climate Research Board, Science editor-in-chief Philip Abelson, and California…”

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, and PAUL S. SUTTER. “ADVISORY GROUP ON CLIMATE MEETING, MAY 26, 1978.” Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming’s Past, edited by JOSHUA P. HOWE, University of Washington Press, 2017, pp. 128–31. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnkd5.25. Accessed 15 May 2025.

What I think we can learn from this

It is almost fifty years since we had smart people sitting around nutting out the implications of this issue. That may give you pause to consider how that strategy has worked out, as strategies go…

What happened next

They produced their report. Other committees of Learned Gentlemen (and less frequently Gentlewomen)  produced reports. The reports piled up.

As per this article from The Onion.

The Time To Act Is Now,’ Says Yellowing Climate Change …

The Onion

https://theonion.com › Latest

1 Apr 2016 — ‘The Time To Act Is Now,’ Says Yellowing Climate Change Report Sitting In University Archive … The Onion. Privacy Polic

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: 

May 26, 1990 – Times front page about Thatcher going for stabilisation target – All Our Yesterdays

May 26, 1993 – more “green jobs” mush

May 26, 1994 – Australian #climate stance “will become increasingly devoid of substance” says Liberal politician. Oh yes

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United States of America

May 25, 1962- JFK speaks to a Conservation conference 

Sixty three years ago, on this day, May 25th, 1962, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took time away from shagging anything that moved and gave a speech –

Secretary Udall, Members of the Senate and the House, Governors, Secretary Stahr, ladies and gentlemen:

I am too late to welcome you to this Conference which has been going on now for 2 days, and I know that I am in no position to congratulate you upon completing the work because I think that this Conference is only a step forward in a long journey which began, fortunately, many years ago and which will continue throughout our lives.

Continues here

https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/jfkwhp-1962-05-25-a#?image_identifier=JFKWHP-AR7268-C

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 318ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that various people “in the know” were getting nervous about the impacts of technology and growth (population, consumerism). There’d been various spills, clearcutting etc. The Conservation Foundation was producing reports etc etc. I don’t know if anyone had seen Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which was about to appear in three issues of the New Yorker.

What I think we can learn from this is that, as per Sven Lindqvist, it is not knowledge we lack, but courage.

What happened next

JFK asked for – and got – a report on Carson’s book.

The climate stuff was just then coming onto the radar.  Within a couple of years, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, would include mention of it in his special message to Congress on pollution.

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: 

May 25, 1953 – “I read about them in Time Magazine” (Gilbert Plass’s greenhouse warning

May 25, 1990 – Thatcher opens Hadley Centre

May 25, 1992 Keating Cabinet discusses Rio – All Our Yesterdays

May 25 – Interview with Ben King – of #climate, education and the need for tubas

May 25, 2011 – Aussie #climate scientist smeared rather than engaged. Plus ca change…

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United States of America

May 20, 1970 – NUC Symposium on Environmental Preservation

Fifty five years ago, on this day, May 20th, 1970, the Navy Undersea Research and Development Centre (NUC) held a symposium…

“If the greenhouse effect manifests itself as a result of continued burning of fossil fuels, there is little doubt that it would be catastrophic.”

NUC Symposium on Environmental Preservation, 20-21 May, 1970 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822031466642&view=1up&seq=7&skin=2021&q1=greenhouse

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the carbon dioxide build-up issue had been steadily growing, especially since the 1965 message to Congress by Lyndon Johnson and the report at the end of the same year by the PSAC.

What I think we can learn from this is that by 1970, carbon dioxide as an issue to keep a serious eye on was becoming embedded in scientific circles. What a species we are.

What happened next.  By the late 1970s the significant uncertainties were gone. But the elite politicians did not act. In 1988 the issue broke through.

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: 

May 20, 1959 Times of India letter about Teller and CO2 – All Our Yesterdays

May 20, 1960 – Spengler suggests decline of the … whole shebang

May 20, 1976 – UK World Trends committee chair worries about the weather… – All Our Yesterdays

May 20, 1977 – Australian Prime Minister says “coal, not solar” is the future

May 20, 1990 – “Ironing out the Greenhouse Effect”

May 20, 2010 – climategate keeps delivering for denialist

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United States of America

May 17, 1969 – Ritchie Calder gives a speech

Fifty six years ago, on this day, May 17th, 1969, Lord Ritchie Calder makes his warning again…

“Degradation of the Environment at Centre for Continuing Education, University of Chicago, 15-17th May 1969”

“With this combination fish are migrating, changing even their latitudes. On land the snow-line is retreating, the permafrost line in Siberia as well as in the Western Hemisphere is being altered and the glaciers are melting. In Scandinavia, land which was perennially under snow and ice are melting and the arrow heads of over 1,000 years ago when the black earth was last exposed have been found. I am advising all my friends in Britain not to take 99 year leases on properties at present sea-level.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Ritchie Calder had known about CO2 build-up from 1954 at the latest (possibly earlier). He had warned and warned and warned (see 1963 activities). By 1968 he had become quite apocalyptic – see his Presidential Address to the Conservation Society. 

What I think we can learn from this is that smart people knew. But as per Schiller “against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain”.

What happened next Calder warned and warned (see his “Mortgaging the Old Homestead,” article and his 1975 interview on The Science Show). His son Nigel made a documentary that basically warned of a new Ice Age (The Weather Machine). Calder died in 1982, before the world “woke up”…

xxx

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: 

May 17, 1968 – “Some prophets of darkness warn of polar icecaps melting…”

May 17, 1972 – New York Times reports carbon dioxide build-up worries…

May 17, 1979 – Martin Holdgate’s A Perspective on Environmental Pollution” published – All Our Yesterdays

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Agriculture United States of America

May 15, 1963 – JFK gets told “Yeah, Rachel Carson was Right”

Sixty two years ago, on this day, May 15th, 1963,

Not long after the New Yorker series appeared, President John F. Kennedy announced the formation of a special governmental group to investigate use and control of pesticides, under the direction of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). On May 15, 1963, the committee’s report, Pesticides Use and Control, confirmed every point highlighted in Silent Spring.

MacDonald, G. 1998. Environment: The evolution of a concept. IIASA

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Rachel Carson had written a book that no publisher was interested in. The New Yorker serialised it and the shit properly hit the fan. The pesticide manufacturers and chemical companies came out swinging of course – all the techniques that would later be standard – smears, strawmanning and the rest of it. Kennedy asked his science guys to look at it…

What I think we can learn from this. We should all stage annual am-dram productions of Henry Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People” to remind ourselves of what happens if you alert folks to dangers that will interfere with capital accumulation (in a few hands).

What happened next Carson died of breast cancer in 1964. In terms of people with the biggest impact in the 20th century who isn’t a homicidal maniac, she’s pretty high up the league table.

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

President’s Advisory Committee on Pesticides, 1963

Also on this day: 

May 15, 1932 – great deluge forecast by science, reports New York Times… – All Our Yesterdays

May 15, 1950 – Getting Warmer? Asks Time Magazine… – All Our Yesterdays

May 15, 1972 – Clean Air Conference in Melbourne – All Our Yesterdays

May 15, 2006 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard spouting “nuclear to fix climate” nonsense

May 15, 2010 – another pointless overnight vigil.

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Hydrogen United States of America

May 12, 1974 – an early dose of Hydrogen Hope/Hype

Fifty one years ago, on this day, May 12th, 1974, the Grey Lady (New York Times) runs a story about the colourless gas…,

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was the Arab oil embargo, in response to US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur war, had spiked oil prices. While the oil companies were coining it, everyone was looking around for Alternatives

(environmental considerations around energy production were not an issue for most people at this point).

What I think we can learn from this– the Hydrogen hype has waxed and waned and waxed and waned… There is little new under the sun.

What happened next fossil fuels managed to maintain their “indispensible” status (with a little help from their friends, who starved the alternatives, including solar, efficiency etc, of research and development funds…). The emissions climbed, the atmospheric concentrations climbed. Fun fact – by the late 1970s, Exxon (and other oil companies) absolutely knew what was coming.

And we are here, now, at the end of the world, more or less, give or take some decades of horror.

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: 

May 12, 1971 – Swedish protest against the culling of Stockholm trees (the “Elm Conflict”) – All Our Yesterdays

May 12, 1989 – USA says it will, after all, support the idea of a #climate treaty

May 12, 1995 – Another bet between cornucopians and realists

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United States of America

May 7, 1935- a “Declaration of Interdependence”

Ninety years ago, on this day, May 7th, 1935,

Together, on May 7, 1935 – they signed the “Declaration of Dependence upon the Soil and of the Right of Self-Maintenance.” This entire movement was erased from history books with the passing of the “New Deal.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/229485.

see also Holly Buck 2020 on waste

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 309ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was endless inevitable growth had come to a crashing end in late 1929. Turns out the future was not going to be brighter/better etc. Various people were thinking also about soil depletion etc etc.

What I think we can learn from this. We don’t cope well with vulnerability – with reminders of our fragility and relative powerlessness, either as individuals or (especially?) as tribes. And we run towards myths of omnipotence and control, and wilfully repress any memory that would leave us scared. Probably should blog separately about this under some glib title about “pandemic amnesia”.

What happened next The New Deal “worked” but the thing that really lifted the US economy out of the depression was all that military spending. The mentality also worked for defeating the Nazis, at great cost. But the underlying will to power? That was safe….

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: 

May 7, 1966 – scientist warns public about carbon dioxide build-up…

May 7 1991 & 1992: From Hawke to Hewson, or “the year Australia’s political elite stopped bothering about #climate change” – All Our Yesterdays

May 7, 2001 – The American way of life is non-negotiable. Again.

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Academia United States of America

May 2, 1989 – a DC forum about “Our Common Future”

Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 2nd, 1989, a bunch of people got together to think about The Future (turns out it is murder),

Global change and our common future papers from a forum. 

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

May 2, 1990 – Nairobi Declaration on Climatic Change – All Our Yesterdays

May 2, 2009 – Australian Liberals warned of wipe-out if seen as “anti-climate action” #auspol

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

May 2, 2019 – Committee on Climate change report on net zero by 2050