One hundred and thirty-one years ago, on this day, January 6th, 1883, the New York Times took the righteous mickey out of something that had recently appeared in the UK scientific journal Nature…
Anon, 1883 – The Atmosphere, New York Times, January 6, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 293ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context is that everybody talks about the weather (but nobody does anything about it). And there was all sorts of speculation back and forth about what air quality might do to people. And this, of course, is one of the denialist “arguments”; “people have always been worried about the weather, therefore, there’s nothing new under the sun. Therefore, there’s nothing to worry about.” This is every bit as vacuous as it appears at first sight, but it’s very effective among people who just want to stick their fingers in their ears and shout la la la, which seems to be most everyone most of the time.
What happened next? Well, there’s other stuff that’s interesting (watch this space) but then in 1896, Svante Arrhenius’ article about carbonic acid was published.
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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, January 5th, 1989 the US National Academy of Sciences ? urged President-elect George HW Bush to actually DO something on climate because “‘the future welfare of human society’ was at risk” (Layzer 2012 page 157).
Here’s the beginning of a New York Times article, published January 6 1989 by the redoubtable Philip Shabecoff.
The National Academy of Sciences urged President-elect George Bush today to place the threat of a significant increase in global temperatures high on his agenda because ”the future welfare of human society” is at risk.
The academy urged Mr. Bush to seek alternatives to coal, oil and other fuels whose air pollutants are a main cause of the predicted global warming.
”We believe that global environmental change may well be the most pressing international issue of the next century,” the academy said. ”The United States is well-positioned to play a leadership role in coping with and gaining an international consensus on this difficult issue.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change had finally broken through the previous summer. And as candidate, George Herbert Walker, Bush had made the right noises about the greenhouse effect and the so-called “White House effect.” And now with his inauguration about to take place, folks at the National Academy of Sciences wanted to hold him to that.
What we can learn is that everybody knows that politicians have to be “reminded” of their promises repeatedly. Because if you stop pressuring them, they assume everyone else has forgotten about the promise. And they keep taking the fat, brown envelopes of cash from the usual suspects.
What happened next, Bush did everything he could to dampen the issue. And his goons were busy smearing James Hansen, et cetera. But in May of 1989, they overdid it. And Bush was forced to concede that yes, there would need to be a global treaty, and that negotiations should start for that. That led on to the text battles over the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the US ultimately won. And here we are 30 years later, having achieved nothing. And actually, that’s wrong: emissions are now 65% higher than they were. And we’ve run out of time and budget.
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
Layzer, J. 2012. Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. MIT Press
Forty two ago, on this day, January 4th 1982, a symposium “The Global 2000 Report to the President: The Authors Update Their Work”, was held in Washington DC.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
What we can learn is that determined people have been trying to keep the issue of environmental degradation/destruction/humanity’s Death Wish, on the political agenda. And to put it back on the political agenda when it gets “de-agendized.” Tried tirelessly, for a very long time; that they did not succeed is not really their fault. Or maybe it is, I don’t know. And they were clever in trying to combine voices and build a sense of momentum, a “one two” punch as it were. And you see this again later, in June of 1998, and 1988, when Hansen gives testimony, just before the Toronto conference on the Changing Atmosphere.
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
Dearborn, N. W. (1983). Global 2000: Radar for the ship of state. Futures, 15(2), 111-125
In this month, 54 years ago, eminent Yale biologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson reflected on the effectiveness of Senate hearings for investigating environmental dilemmas, including carbon dioxide build-up.
“Though dire effects on climate of an increase in CO2 have been predicted, this is far from being adequately established (5). The cycle is not really fully understood, as was made clear in the discussion; carbon dioxide may well prove to be the least objectionable or in small amounts the only beneficial addition to the atmosphere from industrial sources. It is rather worrying to find one of our best senators and three eminent scientists trying to talk about the reversibility of CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere from industrial sources without a single mention of a green plant”
(Hutchinson, 1970, p18-19).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that some Senate hearings with Democrat Senator Edmund Muskie (who had been Vice President candidate in 1968) and so forth, SR 78, had happened. This was in the context of Richard Nixon being in the White House and trying to pick up the environment issue, but also raising concerns, with Earth Day impending. Yale biologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson had been talking about CO2 build up as a factor in changing biology since 1947-48, he was mates with Margaret Mead, and Gregory Bateson. And Hutchinson had promoted the idea of the Conservation Foundation holding a meeting specifically about CO2, in March 1963. And then he’d been too sick to attend.
Anyway what’s interesting in this “Marginalia” thing is there’s a bunch of useful insights about how language works and so forth. But Hutchinson himself is understandably uncertain about what impact raised CO2 levels might have. Just because he’s been familiar with the issue, perhaps because he’d been familiar with the issue for a lot longer than anyone else.
What we learn is that smart people had known about CO2 for a long time when we’re discussing it in ‘69.
What happened next? The only real fruit of all this was UNEP and the modelling work done by Bolin et al as part of GARP. And it would take another 20 years, almost before the issue finally 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.
References
Hutchinson, G.E. 1970. Marginalia “Wisdom is justified of all her children.” American Scientist, Vol. 58, No. 1 pp. 17-20 https://www.jstor.org/stable/27828926
And you can read a typically sane and not-unhinged response, which has aged so very well indeed, here. Or you could if it weren’t a mysteriously dead link, and seems to have been removed from the “website” of the nutjobs.
Could it be that they have realised that it’s not a good look?
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush Jr. had already been a massive pain in the ass on environment issues. Or, to be more accurate, he allowed the gang that was controlling him to run riot in a more slightly more subtle way than had happened under Reagan. And there had been repeated exposes and reports on the tactics and subterfuge used by Bush. This report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which had been set up in the tumult of the late 60s, was one among many. And probably had an eye on the fact that the negotiations in Bali in December of 2007, had been earmarked as creating “the Roadmap to Copenhagen.” There’s always a new roadmap path, etc. And they all prove to be delusions.
What we can learn, you can expose, the emperor has been naked, you can pull back the curtain and show the guy who was screaming at you not to look at him. And it doesn’t change anything. Because the audience is just that – spectating. Only if we had active social movement organisations, capable of sustaining pressure and defending themselves against co-optation, repression and exhaustion might – and I underscore the word might – we have gotten somewhere. But we didn’t. And now we won’t.
What happened next? Bush was replaced with Obama. Obama made one attempt to get through some pretty weak climate legislation, and then refused to spend any more political capital on the issue. But he made some fine speeches. So that’s alright then.
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.
What we can learn from this is that awareness of potential peril and long-term big changes was out and about in mainstream and far left circles. And of course, mainstream ideas draw on observations and insights from the margins, the extreme left and extreme right. Blah, blah, Overton Window, blah, blah.
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, January 1st 1981,
Climate Change and the Society: Consequences of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
was published.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that American and European climate scientists had been pretty sure from the mid-1970s onwards serious warming of the planet was coming thanks to the additional carbon dioxide that was being put into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. I think they were also pretty sure that we wouldn’t, as a species, do anything serious to reduce our emissions. How right they were. And so the puzzle began, well, what impacts will come not just physical impacts, but sea level rise, heat, but how will that play out? How will society be affected? And how will society respond? One of the authors, William Kellogg had been in and around climate issues, carbon dioxide issues specifically, for a good 10 years. The other, Schware, had written this in 1980. And the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis (IIASA) had been holding workshops about this sort of thing. So the book, although it seems very, very prescient, emerged as all books do, from strands of academic – or intellectual, for the two are not the same – work.
What we can learn is that smart people could see this coming and couldn’t see a way of stopping it. I think for what it’s worth, there probably were ways of stopping it, but it would have required a fundamental rethink of what resistance to capital looks like. And also how those on the progressive left – or whatever it wants to call itself – organised themselves and each other, how they measured success, etc. None of that happened then. None of it is happening now. None of it is likely to happen.
What happened next – The Republican and conservative administrations of Reagan and Thatcher kept doing everything they could to keep environmental issues down the agenda. With Reagan who kind of overdid it, leading to a backlash (see Dunlap and McCright 2010). And with Thatcher, there was the persistent issues of acid rain and then ozone until finally, in 1988, even she had to concede that the greenhouse effect was a thing. Kellogg lived a long time, long enough to see most of its predictions come true.
In June of 1982 Kellogg and Schware had an article in Foreign Affairs, the major US foreign policy journal.
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
Schware, R. 1980. Toward A Political Analysis Of The Consequences Of A World Climate Change Produced By Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/5415330
Fifty four years ago, on this day, December 29, 1969, there was
Symposium on Climate and Man, 136th Meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science, Boston
This from a pre-symposium teaser, published in Science, tells you enough to be going on with –
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by 1969 environmental issues, air quality issues, long-term effects of carbon dioxide issues, were pretty well-known in the scientific community, the “environmental” community, and were becoming quite well known with anyone who could read any quality newspaper. A one-day symposium on the topic when everyone’s gathering together anyway for a meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science was quite fun.
What I think we can learn from this
There was early knowledge early discussion, if you want to call 1960s early.
What happened next
The next seriously consequential meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with regards to climate change was the 148th in 1982 which was held in New York, with James Hansen and Herman Flohn both sounding off. Though I’m sure people who were involved in the big AAS processors in between will tell you otherwise
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
Battan, L. J. (1969). Climate and Man. Science, 166(3904), 536-537.
Forty five years ago, on this day, December 28, 1978, things go wrong.
With the crew investigating a problem with the landing gear, United Airlines Flight 173 runs out of fuel and crashes in Portland, Oregon, killing 10. As a result, United Airlines instituted the industry’s first crew resource management program.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been other recent airline disasters which were ultimately down to to crews failing to do the smart thing. My favourite is the Tenerife KLM PanAm disaster caused by an arrogant Dutch guy – but broader systemic breakdown and bad habits was behind it of course, it always is.
What I think we can learn from this
it was these disasters that got the aircraft manufacturers and the State and the insurers together and insist that the way that pilots and crews interacted was the subject of better training. So you get crew resource management and notechs- the non-technical aspects. This would be a huge boon for social movement organizations but they just can’t get their heads around this stuff…
What happened next
Crew Resource Management became a thing. Aviation by the 90s had become absurdly safe, once the hijacking and blowing up aspect got taken care of.
Even with the 737 disasters and the icy pilots, if you look at the number of flights and number of passengers vs actual loss of life from commercial aviation it is absolutely safe now. Pity about the planet, but you can’t have everything…
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..
Fifteen years ago, on this day, December 18, 2008, American climate activist Tim DeChristopher took a bold action that landed him in prison.
In December 2008, he protested a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction of 116 parcels of public land in Utah‘s redrock country by successfully bidding on 14 parcels of land (totaling 22,500 acres) for $1.8 million with no intent to pay for them.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
that the state is endlessly auctioning off land for extraction; that’s the ideology of extractivism. In 2008 the climate crisis was already absolutely freaking clear – you’d had the fourth assessment report of the IPCC, you were getting all the weird weather and worse. Everybody knew.
What I think we can learn from this
When you spoof the money for you interfere with the money myths, people get particularly irate because well it’s a fetish and nobody likes to be reminded that it’s a fetish.
What happened next
Tim Christopher did some jail time, 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..
