Category: United States of America

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Predatory delay United States of America

Feb 4, 2002- Global Climate Coalition calls it a day (“Mission accomplished”)

On this day in 2002, the Global Climate Coalition shut up shop, basically declaring mission accomplished. Well, they’d probably done it a few days earlier, but Imma use this – Anon. 2002. Global Climate Coalition Bows Out. Chemical Market Reporter, , Vol. 261, Issue 5, 4 February – as the marker.

The friendly sounding coalition – actually, an industry group dedicated to stopping action on climate change – had been formed in 1989, when it looks like serious action was possible and even probable, with new US President George HW Bush, having declared on the campaign trail, that those who were worried about the greenhouse effect should not discount the White House Effect.

Even then moves were  well afoot within Bush’s administration, especially under Chief of Staff, John Sununu, to make sure that the environmentally concerned people were sidelined. And that the whole issue just got kicked into the long grass. There were those who would cast active actual doubt on the science but usually, the Global Climate Coalition was a little bit more subtle. 

However, in 1995/6, it had gone too far, launching full throated vociferous attacks on the IPCC second assessment report. In 1997 Shell had pulled out because of the reputational risk. And this was followed later, by other groups, including Ford and GM. By February 2002 it was no longer needed. Because the administration of George HW Bush’s son, George W. Bush, was clearly not going to do anything on climate, having already pulled out of Kyoto. The Global Climate Coalition had therefore, lived as long as it needed to.

Why this matters

Don’t be fooled by names. When they say they’re something they are usually the opposite. They’re very determined. They’re very clever. They’re very well funded. They stick around, they do the work. They get what they want, usually, not always, but often. 

What happened next

Although the Global Climate Coalition was dead, individual companies continued to finance both outright denial and also predatory delay. And they’re still at it, of course. Full stop.

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United States of America

Feb 2, 1992- that “sarcastic” memo about exporting pollution…

On this day, February 2nd 1992, following a leak from Friends of the Earth, Jornal de Brazil breaks the story that a “sarcastic” memo was signed by Laurence Summers, then Chief Economist of the World Bank, about the economic good sense in off-shoring pollution.

“Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of dirty industries to the LDCs [less developed countries]?… The economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable, and we should face up to that… Under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted; their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City… The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostate cancer than in a country where under-five mortality is 200 per thousand.”

This just after the negotiations for a climate treaty to be signed in Brazil in 1992 had begun. Oops.

What happened next

It got mentioned during the Senate Hearings for Summers to get the Secretary of the Treasury gig in 1993. That’s about it.


Why this matters

As “satire” it wasn’t exactly Swift, now was it. And in the pre-Basel agreement world, many didn’t see the funny side.

See also – the wikipedia page, natch. 

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United States of America

Feb 2, 1970 – For once, “Time is on our side”

On 2 February 1970, TIME magazine’s front cover had a picture of ecological thinker Barry Commoner against two possible backdrops

According to Egan (2007) Time

“incorporated a new “Environment” section. The editorial staff chose for that issue’s cover a haunting acrylic painting by Mati Klarewein of Barry Commoner, its appointed leader in “the emerging science of survival.”  Commoner was set in front of a landscape half of which appeared idyllic and the other half apocalyptic, presumably suggesting the environmental choices facing humankind. The urgency of those choices was implicit.” (Egan, 2007:1) 

Commoner had already written a bunch of important books, and would write many more (see Egan, 2007) for more on this. While we are here though, Commoner’s four laws of Ecology deserve a mention –

  • Everything is connected to everything else
  • Everything must go somewhere,
  • Nature knows best, 
  • There is no such thing as a free lunch. 

Why this matters

We need to remember, imo, that the stark choice keeps getting put, and we keep resiling from it, but by not choosing, we are, in fact, choosing…

What happened next

The “Malthusian moment” passed by 1973. Commoner ran for President in 1980, but didn’t cost Carter the election the way Nader cost Gore in 2000.

Commoner died, aged 95, in 2012. See Green Left Weekly obituary here.

References

Egan, M. 2007 Barry Commoner and the Science of Survival: The remaking of American Environmentalism. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

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United States of America

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climate

On this day in 2007 as the IPCC’s 4th assessment report was about to be released, Jeremy Grantham, chairman of a Boston-based fund management company, sent out another of his quarterly letter to clients. It included a commentary on the United States’ policy toward climate change, particularly that of the current administration. 

Its title was “While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data,”

It included the observation that 

“Successive US administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain.”

David Roberts of Grist called this a “four page assault on US energy policy.”

Given Cheney/Bush’s enthusiasm for coal and oil, and hatred of all things environmental,, it was a fair cop.

Why this matters.

There’s this idea – carefully cultivated and promulgated – that the only people banging on about climate change are Luddites and “leftists.” As Grantham, and others, show, plenty of capitalists can see the nose on their face (n.b. that doesn’t mean capitalism is sustainable).

What happened next?

Grantham has kept it up. In November 2012 he wrote another piece, in Nature, that is well worth your time – “Be persuasive. Be brave. Be arrested (if necessary)”

According to Wikipedia, that source of all reliable information “In August 2019, he dedicated 98% (approximately $1 billion) of his personal wealth to fight climate change. Grantham believes that investing in green technologies, is a profitable investment on the long run, claiming that decarbonizing the economy will be an investing bonanza for those who know it’s coming.[26”
Oh, and he thinks the bubble is about to burst.

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Predatory delay United States of America

Jan 30, 1989 – Je ne fais rein pour regretter… #climate jargon

On this day, January 30, in 1989, James Baker, Secretary of State for the new George HW Bush administration gives a speech propounding so-called “no regrets” actions on climate change (or “global warming” as it was also known). This means, in essence “let’s do things that we would do anyway, that will have other benefits.”

“No regrets” was an attempt to square the circle and to keep everyone more or less on the same page, but the denial campaigns that were just kicking into gear were not satisfied. And in the end, the Bush administration threatened to not attend Rio, if targets and timetables for emissions reductions by wealthy countries were included. That is very consequential, down unto this day. 

Baker has lived a very, very long life, and has continued to campaign on climate as a “climate hawk.”

See also that cartoon 

 Which even has its own wikipedia page.

But at least one person thinks (and with reasons) that we should stop using it.

See also positive externalities.

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Agnotology Science Scientists United States of America

Jan 29, 2006: Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

Jan 29

On this day, the New York Times released a report, written by Andy Revkin, about how famed climate scientist James Hansen was being subjected to attempts at gagging him by some of George W Bush’s appointed goons. You can read all about it here. There’s a whole (very good) book about the campaign, called Censoring Science.

Hansen had already been up against this sort of stuff in 1981, when the incoming Reagan administration had cut his funding in retaliation to a previous front page story on the New York Times.

Why this matters? 

Because if scientists, charities, think tanks, civil trade unions, etc, are gagged and silenced, then the public don’t get a real sense of “what’s up” (though by now, it amounts to wilful ignorance, and anyway, information on its own counts for nothing). This is all part of the long war against impact science, usually by no means exclusively, on the part of the “ right “. You have to remember that when the “left” is in charge, it also doesn’t go particularly well for independently minded scientists.

What happened next

Hansen is still publishing. You can see his Google Scholar page here  because Hansen is in the old Yiddish term, a mensch.

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Agnotology anti-reflexivity Greenwash Predatory delay Propaganda United States of America

Jan 15 1971: greenwash before it was called greenwash #propaganda

On this day in 1971, at the conference of the “Economic Council of the Forest Products Industry” in  Phoenix Arizona some chap called Richard W. Darrow gave a speech “Communication in an Environmental Age”

“We will do those things that earn us attention and gain us understanding, or we will live out the remainder of our professional lives in the creeping, frustrating, stultifying, stifling grasp of unrealistic legislative restraints and crippling administrative restriction. A public that ought to understand us – and thank us for what we are and what we do – will instead clamor for our scalps.”

There was, as you can see, a real panic in business circles. The fear was that previously quiescent ‘citizens’, at first cowed by so-called “McCarthyism”[it pre-dated that drunk] and then stupefied by consumerism – might actually get up on their hind legs. If they demanded real regulation, real control, so the planet didn’t get turned into an uninhabitable slagheap, then the fun times (for business) would be over. In 1971, before neoliberalism, before pervasive computing, before all the other wonders that the last 51 years have brought us, such fears were legit.

What has happened since? The kinds of “public relations” “professionals” Darrow represented have honed their game. Seven months later, the Powell Memorandum and the rise of the neoliberal think tanks. The crushing of labour unions, the spectacularisation of everything (to go all Debord for a minute). Greenwash, the constraining of imagination, the destruction of hope. Yeah, it’s not looking good for our species, is it?

“Source: Conley, J. (2006) , ENVIRONMENTALISM CONTAINED: A HISTORY OF CORPORATE RESPONSES

TO THE NEW ENVIRONMENTALISM. PhD thesis   

Conley, 2006: p69-70.  

Conley continues – “Having established a special unit to provide services on environmental health issues in 1966, Hill & Knowlton became a leading advocate and provider of environmental PR in the 1970s and beyond.”

See also

Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky

Taking the Risk out of Democracy by Alex Carey

Global Spin by Sharon Beder

This isn’t just a battle of “ideas”: this gets very ‘kinetic’

The War against the Greens: The Wise-Use Movement, the New Right, and Anti-Environmental Violence by David Helvarg

FT 12th January 2022  Activists target public relations groups for greenwashing fossil fuels

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Science United States of America

1983, Jan 12: RIP to the “master organizer in the world of science”, Carroll Wilson

Jan 12, 1983 – RIP Carroll Wilson, “master organizer in world of science” (and early climate connector)

On this day, in 1983, a man died who you’ve almost certainly never heard of, but is one of the many who tried – ultimately unsuccessfully – to raise the alarm over 50 years ago.

 “Wilson then turned to larger issues, pioneering a new format for studying and publicizing major scientific problems in world development. In 1970, for the first study, he assembled a multi-disciplinary group that produced, in one month, Man’s Impact on the Global Environment. The study was an important catalyst of debate within the U.S. on the greenhouse effect and other major environmental consequences of technology, including the SST. The following year Wilson brought together 35 atmospheric scientists from 15 countries in Stockholm to produce Inadvertent Climate Modification: Report of the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate.” 


(Text here. Hyerlinks added by me)

Here’s a four page article  on him, which has him as crucial midwife to the Limits to Growth report – 

“The chain of events which led to the book began when Carroll Wilson introduced Jay Forrester, S.M. ’45, head of the System Dynamics Group at M.I.T., to the Club of Rome – an independent, international forum for the “great issues.” Forrester saw that the problems of growing complexity considered by the Club of Rome lent themselves to computer modeling. He produced two models and one of his collaborators produced a third on which some of Forrester’s colleagues based The Limits to Growth.”

And here is a jpg of an obituary which calls him “a master organizer in the world of science”.

Why it matters – we should pause to remember the efforts of the Revelles, the Bolins, the Wilsons and others. It wasn’t for lack of warning from scientists that we stuffed this one up.  And hoping that another scientist will turn up, with just the right graph, and just the right tone of voice, is at best stupid. At worst it is a wilful refusal to be a citizen.

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Agnotology United States of America

1964, Jan 11: The Merchants of Doubt have work to do

On this day, January 11, in 1964 the  Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., published the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States. 

It sparked national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.  But of course, as documented in the “Merchants of Doubt” by Naomi Oreskes and Stephen Conway, the tobacco industry was waaay ahead of the curve, having started highly effective campaigns to cast doubt on the science, and then to reframe it all as “personal responsibility”. Sound familiar? It should: the subtitle of the must-read Oreskes and Conway book is “How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming”.
Why it matters. This “agnotology” (the creation of ignorance) has been a staggeringly successful tool of predatory delay.  And “education” is no defence.  In fact, those who’ve received “good” educations are often more vulnerable to insidious propaganda and careful framing than those who did not have the right clothes, accent, habitus to get through the obstacle course and win the prizes. If educated people (including the author of this blog) had gotten off – and stayed off – their asses in the early 90s, we might – just might – not be looking down the business end of 4 degrees by the end of the century. Oops

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Ignored Warnings United States of America Weather modification

1958, Jan 8: “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ

On this day in 1958 future President Lyndon Baines Johnson was speaking at the Democratic Caucus

“From space,” declared Johnson at the Democratic Caucus in January of 1958, warning of the technologically and scientifically superior Russians, “the masters of infinity could have the power to control the earth’s weather, to case drought and flood, to change the tides and raise the level of the sea, to divert the Gulf Stream, and change temperate climates to frigid” (Howe, 2014:27).

Why this matters – this sense of paranoia and fear, that matters might be beyond our control, and that we must redouble our efforts to be In Charge –  is, I fear, what is behind the coming push for geoengineering “solutions” as a kind of last throw of the dice. It’s good to remember that weather modification predates concerns about atmospheric build up of C02, and that the same types of people have been advocating both (this is not to say that there aren’t well-intentioned ‘progressive’ types who want a better world and don’t see a way out of the mess that doesn’t involve more god-technology japes).

What happened next?

As president, Lyndon Johnson gave a “Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty“ which included the prescient lines

“Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places”. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials.”

This was in February 1965  though, while LBJ was tag-teaming the USA into the thousand year long invasion of Vietnam, so the sentences possibly didn’t get the attention future generations might have hoped they would.


See also

Jan 1st: blog post – Control the weather before the Commies do…

Further reading

Monbiot,, G. (2006) No Quick Fix on Paul Cruzen

Wasser, A. (2005) LBJ’s space race: what we didn’t know then. The Space Review, June 20.