Category: United States of America

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Denial United States of America

August 13, 2007 –  Newsweek nails denialists

Sixteen years ago, on this day, August 13, 2007, the US publication Newsweek, which had been reporting on carbon dioxide build-up since 1953, had a very good report on the tactics of the denialists, under the clever title “The Truth about Denial.”

“Organisations and companies such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and ExxonMobil emphasise conservative climate change scenarios and highlight the potential economic costs of stricter controls” (Sharon Begley, “The Truth about Denial”, Newsweek, August 13, 2007)

Vale Sharon Begley – https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/17/sharon-begley-path-breaking-science-journalist-dies/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that climate change was absolutely back on the agenda with Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” and the fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. There was renewed vigour in the international process with lots of talk about what would replace the Kyoto Protocol. And therefore, the denialists were up to their old tricks. Sharon Begley’s article is a good summation of how and why they do what they do. 

What I think we can learn from this

Mainstream press articles can often give you the facts you need. You may need to bolt on a decent theoretical framework, but serious mainstream media (often the business press is best) can give you a bunch of worthwhile facts to be going on with.

Btw, from reading this article, it is a tolerably accurate picture of incumbents’ behaviour. In any democratic society (a) these tactics would be taughtf in school so people could defend their minds against the onslaught  and (b) of course, you would not need to be taught it because there would laws and structures that prevented the ownership of the government by concentrated economic interests. 

What happened next

The denial kept going, becoming a hydra and a T1000 at the same time.

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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Denial United States of America

August 3, 1988 – Exxon tries to downplay “the greenhouse effect.” Again.

Thirty five years ago, on this day, August 3, 1988, an Exxon PR flak is drafting bullshit about “THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT”, draft written by Joseph M. Carlson, an Exxon Public Affairs Managers.

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/3024180/1998-Exxon-Memo-on-the-Greenhouse-Effect.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was everyone had started to bang on about climate change. And so Exxon needed to go public. But going public and saying, “yeah, we’ve known about this for 10 years and we decided a while back that we were going to be obstructive” would not be particularly helpful. So instead, they tried to baffle people with bullshit and passive language and all the rest of it. 

What I think we can learn from this

What we learn is that this is just how corporates behave unless forced to do otherwise.

What happened next

Exxon funded loads of denialist groups, to the extent that the UK Royal Society asked them to knock it off. With limited effect.

#ExxonKnew

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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United States of America

August 2, 1970 – LA Times runs #climate change front page story

On this day, 53 years ago, the Los Angeles Times ran a front page story “Scientists fear climate change by SST pollution.”

In August of 1970, before the official publication of SCEP, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times – both outspoken critics of the SST- ran articles on the report, playing up the recommendation that the project be delayed. The story made the front page of both papers, with the LA Times declaring “Scientists Fear Climate Change by SST Pollution” and citing concerns about C02 and other gases trapped in the stratosphere. The LA Times quoted Kellogg specifically: “When you change something on a global basis,” Kellogg told the press, “you had better watch out.”

(Howe, 2014:53)

LA Times 2 August 1970

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The Context

That plans for a large fleet of supersonic passenger jets had gotten lots of environmental scientists wondering about the impact on the stratosphere, and ozone. Meanwhile, the Nixon administration had been pushing “the environment” as a topic for international discussion (something the Swedes had started), to change the topic from the attack on the people of Vietnam. The LA Times folks will also have known that the Council on Environmental Quality was about to release its first report, and that there was a chapter on … climate change in there, written by Gordon MacDonald.

What we can learn

We knew. But then, if you’ve been following this site, you knew we knew.


What happened next

Nixon wangled a moratorium on SSTs, hoping to regroup, but Congress got in and turned it into a ban. Fun fact – this failure was one of the key moments in the development of the planet-killing think tank “The Heritage Foundation”, set up to make sure Congress got lobbied effectively by business interests. (Blah blah Edward Feulner).

Kellogg organised a three week symposium on “Man’s Impact on Climate” the following year.

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Uncategorized United States of America

August 1, 1980 – Wall Street Journal does excellent #climate reporting

Forty three years ago, on this day, August 1, 1980, The Wall Street Journal ran a seriously good report on the problem of climate change. It included professors (inc David Rose) and also the view from trade bodies like the National Coal Association. You will be shocked, shocked to learn that they were not sold on the idea that their product was gonna create global chaos… And here we are…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that more and more scientists were coming out and saying carbon dioxide was going to be a serious factor in climate change. There had been the NAS report in 1977, but more recently, the First World Climate Conference, the Charney report and the G7 meeting in Tokyo, and the Global 2000 report.

So it’s unsurprising that the business press, (the Wall Street Journal fancies itself as the equivalent of the Financial Times but it’s not even close, would want to cover the issue). What’s a little surprising is just how good the article was. There’s a lovely dismissive quote from the coal lobby.

What I think we can learn from this is (1) as ever, if you really want to understand what’s going on in the world, quality business press is the way forward and (2) that the National coal Association was all over the issue. Of course they were. 

What happened next

Three months later, Jimmy Carter lost the presidency and America and the world lost the momentum though it continued to some extent in Europe. 

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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Denial United States of America

July 28, 2003 – James Inhofe shares his genius

Twenty years ago, on this day, July 28, 2003, in a  US Senate speech, James Inhofe stated, 

“I have offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax. That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation’s top climate scientists.” He cited as support for this the 1992 Heidelberg Appeal and the 1999 Oregon Petition, as well the opinions of individual scientists that he named including John Christy, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. In his speech, Inhofe also discussed the then current Soon and Baliunas controversy, and said that “satellite data, confirmed by NOAA balloon measurements, confirms that no meaningful warming has occurred over the last century.” However the satellite temperature record corroborates the well-documented warming trend noted in surface temperature measurements.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the US had pulled out of Kyoto, it was prosecuting its illegal attack on Iraq, thinking that it was going to be able to have a nice, stable dependency. The IPCC’s Third Assessment Report had come out. And the Republicans were doing everything they could to confuse matters. And this sort of showmanship from James Inhofe it’s part of the ongoing culture war and belief in American exceptionalism and human exceptionalism, endless ingenuity blah, blah, blah.

What I think we can learn from this is that there are no limits to the stupidity of old white men. Especially the right wing ones,  (not that the so-called left wing ones are not all that great either). 

What happened next

Inhofe kept going, kept attacking, as was his wont. He kept on being one of Oklahoma’s two senators until this year (2023).

(Someone could do an article comparing Inhofe’s snowball and Morrison’s lump of coal, 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.

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Japan United Kingdom United States of America

July 26, 1967 – Allen Ginsberg tells Gary Snyder it’s “a general lemming situation”

On this day, Allen Ginsberg wrote to his friend Gary Snyder, about what he’d heard at the ‘Dialectics of Liberation’ conference, from Gregory Bateson.

Ginsberg’s letter of 26 July 1967, sent from New York to Kyoto where Snyder was then living, in which he notes, in a telegraphic style the poets sometimes used in their correspondence:

 Now International Dialectics of Liberation—[Stokely] Carmichael angry and yelling, I stayed calm and kept chanting prajnaparamita. Gregory Bateson says auto CO2 layer gives planet half-life: 10-30 years before 5 degree temp rise irreversible melt polar ice caps, 400 feet water inundate everything below Grass Valley 58—to say nothing of young pines in Canada dying radiation—death of rivers—general lemming situation. (Ginsberg in Morgan, 2008, p. 418)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bateson had been reading Barry Commoner’s “Science and Survival” published the previous year.  The book was extremely influential in its own way, and helped get people switched on to the carbon threat.

What I think we can learn from this is that about the carbon dioxide build up,there was ‘common knowledge’ from earlier than folks realise…

What happened next

Ginsberg was on TV in September, and gave one of the first warnings about the greenhouse effect.

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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United States of America

July 24, 1980 – “Global 2000” report released.

 On July 24, 1980, President Carter addressed the public about his signature achievement. 

“Never before had our government or any other government attempting to take such a comprehensive, long-range look at interrelated global issues . . . I believe America must provide special leadership in addressing global conditions,” he urged 

(Source – Henderson thesis)

The context was that the concerns raised about “The Limits to Growth” hadn’t gone away entirely, but morphed. By the mid-1970s, they’d been able to gain a toe-hold in the US science policy-making bureaucracies, and in 1977 Carter had announced that a report would be produced…

What we can learn

Any attempt to get environmental limits onto the agenda will be met with fierce resistance.

What happened next

The Global2000 people tried to keep the momentum going, even after Reagan’s victory. The Heritage Foundation did everything it could to slow that momentum, with considerable success.  And here we are.

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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Denial United States of America

July 23, 1998 – denialists stopping climate action. Again.

Twenty five years ago, on this day, July 23, 1998, the Global Climate Coalition (industry front group set up to stop any real climate action) is busy quote mining and distorting what people have said, to give the impression of doubt, confusion etc.  Age-old tactic, that keeps working, again and again.

 http://www.climatefiles.com/denial-groups/global-climate-coalition-collection/1998-kyoto-epa-implementation-selected-quotes/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that although the US  Senate had passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution, there was still the lingering threat that a new US administration might if not actually agree to the Kyoto Protocol, then at least take international action that the Global Climate Coalition didn’t like. 

What I think we can learn from this is that the Global Climate Coalition and similar outfits, just keep on keeping on grinding away. Whether they’re winning or losing, they keep grinding away in the kind of war of attrition against sanity. And they can do that because they’re well-funded.

What happened next

The Global Climate Coalition was able to shut up shop in 2002. There were two factors. One is they had lost some of their big public-facing companies, especially automakers, because denying the existence of climate change was becoming a reputational risk. And separately, they’d won: once Bush said the US was not going to go negotiate the Kyoto Protocol. The big big battle that had been their raison d’etre since their foundation in 1989 was 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.

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Cultural responses United States of America

July 23, 1987 – Calvin (and Hobbes) versus climate change!

Thirty six years ago, on this day, July 23, 1987,  Calvin blames his mother, and her generation…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bill Watterson is a stone cold genius. The cartoon says so much about youthful exuberance and the joys of pointing the finger.

By 1987, yeah, lots of people knew already. You didn’t need to be a particular genius to understand that climate change was coming.

What I think we can learn from this is that proper humour about climate change is really hard to do. Some have managed it.

What happened next

Calvin & Hobbes kept publishing for a few more years but then went out on a high very sensibly. Showbusiness adage about leave them wanting more etc…

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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Coal Fossil fuels Science Uncategorized United States of America

 July 15, 1977 – “Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate”

Forty six years ago, on this day, July 15, 1977, the New York Times ran a front page story that makes you just groan.  Oh, and by the way, coal use is up in the last year..

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the National Academy of Science had been doing a two year investigation into weather and carbon dioxide and was about to release its report. And clearly a journalist at the Times had been given a tip off and was getting a kind of exclusive in first.

From the 50s some scientists had been saying “hey, carbon dioxide is going to be an issue,” and had slowly been able to build an epistemic community as Hart and Victor would have you call it.

What I think we can learn from this

We knew. It was, literally, front page news.

What happened next

In the mid-late 70s it all started to come together. It was then scuppered/slowed successfully between 1981 and 1985. And then with the scientific meeting in September 1985 at Villach, the push begins again.

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.