On this day, December 14 in 1988 the New York TImes reports on joint Soviet/US committee
“The national science academies of the United States and the Soviet Union, warning that the earth’s ”ecological security” is now endangered, announced today the formation of a joint Committee on Global Ecology Concerns.
The new committee will identify and investigate threats to the global environment and report its conclusions, along with policy recommendations, to their Governments and to international organizations.”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 351ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
By the end of 1988 everyone was talking the greenhouse effect, everyone wanted to say that they were taking the matter seriously, this included the Soviet Union which of course would begin to collapse the following year.
Why this matters.
This one really doesn’t, this is for historical interest only if you’re a geek like me and if you are get help.
What happened next?
The Soviet Union collapsed, the United States muscled the negotiations for a global climate treaty and made sure that nothing serious would be done.
On this day, December 13th in 1984 for the Christian Science Monitor ran an article which covered some recent research into carbon dioxide build-up.
Its conclusion? Its conclusion has not aged well.
“the alarms often raised about melting the polar icecaps and flooding coastal cities are largely speculation. And the calls that have been made to ”do something now” to begin to restrict the burning of fossil fuels are rather premature.”
On this day the PPM was 345ppm Now it is 419ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Find mid 1980s the question of future climate change caused by buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide from man’s burning of oil, coal and gas was an infrequent but no longer unusual topic of conversation in the mass media on television and print media.
What happened next?
It would be another 4 years until the question of climate change burst onto the scene and became a regular feature of newspaper and print media and the denial campaigns started
On this day, December 10 1985, scientist Carl Sagan testified in front of a US senate hearing. He explained the basic physics of carbon dioxide build up and its consequences
“I’d like to stress that the greenhouse effect makes life on Earth possible. If there were not a greenhouse effect, the temperature would, as I say, be 30 centigrade degrees or so colder. And that’s well below the freezing point of water everywhere on the planet. The oceans would be solid after a while.
“A little greenhouse effect is a good thing, but there is a delicate balance of these invisible gases, and too much or too little greenhouse effect can mean too high or too low a temperature. And here we are pouring enormous quantities of CO2 and these other gasses into the atmosphere every year, with hardly any concern about its long-term and global consequences.”
“In the fall of 1985, the Senate held several hearings on the topic of global warming and climate change in response to the report of an international scientific conference held in Villach, Austria. These were the first hearings on climate change in the Senate since 1979. The House had held hearings on rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide under the guidance of Representative Albert Gore in 1981, 1982, and 1984. Senator David Durenberger observed presciently, in his opening statement to the December 1985 hearings on global warming, that `grappling with this problem [of climate change] is going to be just about as easy as nailing jello to the wall’ (SCEPW,1986a, p. 1).
(Pielke, 2000)
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 346ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
From the mid-1970s, scientists had been getting more certain of – and worried about – the impacts of dumping extraordinary amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They had turned up in Villach, Austria, in September of 1985, for a meeting organised by WMO and UNEP. (see here – October 15, 1985 – Villach meeting supercharges greenhouse concerns…
Forty years we’ve known, really. Those that knew were outspent, outgunned, outmanoeuvred by frightened and frightening goons for the status quo. The\ goons have been the death of us.
What happened next?
The Reagan Administration did everything it could to stop being bounced into a carbon dioxide treaty the way it had been (in its perception) on ozone. With a great deal of very consequential success. We’re so doomed, I cannot begin to tell you.
On this day, December 7 in 1928 – Noam Chomsky was born.
Happy 94th birthday, Noam.
Here’s a couple of quotes, for those of you who want a taste. The first is (obvs) on climate. The second is on… heroes…
“Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it’s exactly what you’re taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you’re taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it’s called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don’t have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren’s interests is being irrational, because what you’re supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.
Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 [52]
And also, on heroes
I gather it’s your belief that when we focus on heroes in the movement, that’s a mistake, because it’s really the unsung heroes, the unsung seamstresses or whatever in this movement, who actually make a difference.
They’re the ones, yes. Take, say, the Civil Rights movement. When you think of the Civil Rights movement, the first thing you think of is Martin Luther King. King was an important figure. But he would have been the first to tell you, I’m sure, that he was riding the wave of activism, that people who were doing the work, who were in the lead in the Civil Rights movement, were young SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] workers, freedom riders, people out there in the streets every day getting beaten and sometimes killed, working constantly. They created the circumstances in which a Martin Luther King could come in and be a leader. His role was extremely important, I’m not denigrating it, it was very important to have done that. But the people who were really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. And that’s true of every movement that ever existed.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 307ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
On this day, December 3 in 1972, some climate scientists wrote a “give us money to study climate” letter to President Nixon.
“After the conference the conference organizers, (the late G. J. Kukla and R. K. Mathews) wrote to President Nixon (December 3, 1972) calling for federal action on possible climate change. At that time, with no consensus on climate change, their letter was an important impetus to expanding research. The letter noted that the “main conclusion of the meeting was that a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experience by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon.” On the question of “artificial heating” of the atmosphere, as opposed to orbital changes for ice ages, the letter concluded that “knowledge necessary for understanding the mechanism of climate change is lamentably inadequate and the ultimate causes remain unknown” (Kukla and Mitchell, 1972) [4]
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 327ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Everyone knew there’d be new money for this sort of science, and wanted a piece of the action. Not to be cynical or anything.
Why this matters.
Kulka and Mitchell were wrong. We need to remember that there isn’t this “straight narrow line” from ignorance to knowledge. The real world is messy af.
What happened next?
Iirc, they got some dosh, but within a couple of years it became obvious they were wrong
On this day, December 2 in 1964 Mario Savio, American activist, gave his famous “Bodies on the Gears” speech on the Berkeley campus of University of California.
What to do with climate change? Well, the Black Civil Rights movement, (Savio’s speech came at the end of the Freedom Summer), was an “initiator movement” for women’s liberation, gay rights and what we used to call the ecology movement. We could learn something by studying the history. And the rhetoric is first rate.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 319ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
On this day, November 24 in 1978, the Canberra Times ran a story “All coal plan to flood cities”, based on a UPI wire story about an American Physical Society meeting the day before in Florida where Dr Peter Fong called an all-coal energy policy “tantamount to suicide”
,
1977 All coal plan to flood cities Canberra Times…p. 4.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 334ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
By the late 1970s, carbon dioxide from coal and other fossil fuels was beginning to be publicly talked about as a SERIOUS long-term threat, around the world.
What happened next?
There was a late 1970s attempt to get international action. It failed. We went instead for a second Cold War, bleeding the Soviet Union to death and then rolling drunk on triumphalism into the 1990s… By which time the chance to take a different path was… well, you know the rest…
On this day, November 7 in 1973 US President Richard Nixon announced “Project Independence” to increase domestic US energy production (especially from coal), in the immediate aftermath of the first Oil Shock.
Nixon had been warned about carbon dioxide build-up, it was a known thing (see for example August 3, on this site, from 1970 “Nixon warned about climate change and icecaps melting”) But, as with Shale Gas and synfuels slightly later (under Carter), all bets are off when consumers are facing higher energy prices.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 326 ish ppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
The first oil shock was part of the turbulence that ended the “Glorious Thirty” – three decades of sustained economic growth in the West. See also “The Great Acceleration”, which has continued non-stop
On November 5, 1997, twenty five years ago today, the Global Climate Coalition [bunch of oil companies, automobile companies and assorted denialists] co-ordinates an anti-Kyoto conference. With the third meeting of the UNFCCC (United Nations agreement on climate) looming, denialists funded by the oil and car industries (among others), met to try to make life even harder for the Clinton Administration.
1997 “On November 5, the GCC coordinated a national conference opposing the Clinton Administration’s involvement in the Kyoto conference. The conference was sponsored by a number of radical anti-environmental organizations, including the American Farm Bureau Federation, People for the West!, and the Environmental Conservation Organization
A CLEAR view Vol 4, Number 16
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was xxxppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters
“Our” failure to act on climate is not JUST down to ignorance/laziness etc. It has also been helped on its way by determined and clever opponents of action.
What happened next
The Kyoto Protocol was agreed, but neither the USA or Australia ever ratified it. It limped into existence because Russia DID ratify it, as a quid pro quo for getting into the World Trade Organisation. Kyoto was supposed to be replaced in 2012, but the 2009 Copenhagen meeting ended in chaos etc. And then Paris and… oh, what a shitshow.
On this day, November 1 in 1975, climate scientist Stephen Schneider tried to keep folks eyes on the prize, given how many various books and hypotheses were already being thrown around
On the Carbon Dioxide–Climate Confusion Stephen H. Schneider J. Atmos. Sci. (1975) 32 (11): 2060–2066.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
By the mid 1970s, a cottage industry had grown up around “weird weather.”
Why this matters.
We need to remember that there were claims and counter-claims, some outlandish
What happened next?
By the late 70s it was pretty damn clear that it was a carbon dioxide problem…
