Category: United States of America

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Environmental Racism, United States of America

 Feb 11, 1994 – President Clinton proclaims the end of environmental racism.  Yeah, right.

On this day, in 1994, Bill Clinton, the President of the United States, signed an Executive Order telling all government departments – not just the EPA – that they had to consider environmental racism. The clue is in the name – “Federal Actions To Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.”

Now the crucial thing here is that these moments in history get put down as “Oh, enlightened leader leading,” but if you actually peel back, he’s (and it is usually a he) putting his name on something that is the result of years of tireless, dedicated campaigning by people whose names don’t appear in the history books. And there is always this bias towards the personality of an individual. This does not mean that the personality of individuals does not matter in specific moments. But for this sort of bread and butter (attempted) institutional change probably it doesn’t. 

Why this matters

We all need to understand that institutional racism isn’t something that’s only there with the Metropolitan Police – it is baked into society. 

What happened next? 

Well, is the USA less institutionally environmentally racist? Is it? [This is not to criticise the heroic efforts of countless people fighting for justice!]

See also – Dr Robert Bullard – Father of Environmental Justice

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Ignored Warnings United States of America

Feb 8, 1965- All the way with LBJ – first President to say “carbon dioxide is building up”

On this day in 1965 President Lyndon Baines Johnson gave a “Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty.” 

He said

“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. Motor vehicles and home heating plants, municipal dumps and factories continually hurl pollutants into the air we breathe. Each day almost 50,000 tons of unpleasant, and sometimes poisonous, sulfur dioxide are added to the atmosphere, and our automobiles produce almost 300,000 tons of other pollutants.”

Those words were written by – or at the very least based on the research of – Roger Revelle. Exactly 9 years earlier, on 8 February 1956  Revelle had given “Testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations.” And he’d told the Congressmen present

“There is still one more aspect of the oceanographic program which I thought you gentlemen would be interested in. This is a combination of meteorology and oceanography. Right now and during the past 50 years, we are burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas. The rate at which we are burning this is increasing very rapidly. This burning of these fuels which were accumulated in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and which we are burning up in a few generations, is producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air. Based on figures given out by the United Nations, I would estimate that by the year 2010, we will have added something like 70 percent of the present atmospheric carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is an enormous quantity. It is like 1,700 billion tons. Now, nobody knows what this will do. Lots of people have supposed that it might actually cause a warming up of the atmospheric temperature and it may, in fact, cause a remarkable change in climate. . . .”

And here we are.

Sources- 

REVELLE, ROGER, and PAUL S. SUTTER. “TESTIMONY BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956.” Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming’s Past, edited by JOSHUA P. HOWE, University of Washington Press, 2017, pp. 60–63, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcwnkd5.13.

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IPCC United States of America

February 6, 2001: ExxonMobil Lobbyist Calls on White House to Remove Certain Government Climate Scientists

On this day, in 2001, the oil company Exxon was throwing its weight around trying to get specific scientists pushed off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

In a memo to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), ExxonMobil lobbyist Randy Randol denounces esteemed climate scientist Robert Watson, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as someone “handpicked by Al Gore” who is using the media to get “coverage for his views.

He asks “Can Watson be replaced now at the request of the US?” In addition to Watson, Randol names other climate experts who he wants “removed from their positions of influence.” 

You can read the document here, on climate files.

And they succeeded. Bob Watson only served one term where the normal expectation was two. And this is because he was too independently minded and wasn’t going to waffle about technology saving us. 

This is not a new story. Historically scientists have come under ferocious attack, not just for their climate work, but also ozone hole, asbestos, you name it. There’s a lovely example in An Enemy of the People, the play by Henrik Ibsen, which by the way, inspired the movie, Jaws… but I digress. 

Why this matters

We need to remember that a lot of what we see and hear and take as accepted fact, is actually constructed for us actively or passively, and that critical voices have been removed. For the benefit of continued capital accumulation. This is Gramsci in action, people. This is how hegemony is constructed and maintained. 

What happened next

The IPCC kept producing reports and is producing another one. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates thanks to the actions and inactions of people like you and me who have failed to build the kinds of movements that could have made a difference despite having freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of information. It might be a good idea for us to look ourselves in the mirror.

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Propaganda United States of America

Feb 5, 1974 – Energy security, meet anti-Arab sentiment #propaganda

On this day, February 5 1974, the American Electric Power (AEP) ran the first of its advertising, cartoon campaigns, with Arab sheikhs, holding the US to ransom (Sethi, 1977). 

This is of course, part of the first energy shock, as it’s known, which had started in late 1973. With basically a quadrupling of petroleum prices and actual shortages at petrol pumps in the developed world, because the energy producer cartel OPEC, decided to punish those countries who had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. (This is not to say that there had not been concerns about energy before late 73.) 

What’s interesting is that the oil companies were able to, or keen to shift the blame and tap into, frankly, long established anti-Arab sentiment in the United States. 

Why this matters 

We need to understand that issues around energy and energy security are visceral. And that those who are benefiting like to find someone else for the anger, fear, uncertainty to be pinned on. A bit like the tactic of the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket, who picks on one soldier as the scapegoat, as the lightning rod. 

What happened next? 

President Nixon announced Project Independence which was going to see a huge growth in domestic energy production, especially coal. Prices sort of stabilised, but then we had in the 70s stagflation, the collapse of the Bretton Woods global consensus, . And by the end of the 70s, thanks to the dedicated efforts of some think tanks and politicians, and good luck, (but they were in the right place at the right time, which isn’t always easy) we have the coming of what we now call neoliberalism. This is, of course, antithetical to any form of collective provision or planning, which is what you would have needed to deal with a collective action  problem like climate change, but here we are. This is not to say that the AAP advert is responsible for all of that, to the removal of any doubt

Btw, AEP kept going with their campaign.  See also this advert on 31st July 1974

An Unlikely 1970s-Era Environmentalist

References

“Feb 5 1974 first advert in AEP campaign with the two sheiks appears in the “New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and 69 dailies and 192 weeklies in the area served by American Electric Power System’s group of companies.” Sethi, S. 1977. Advocacy Advertising and Large Corporations: Social Conflict, Big Business Image, the News Media and Public Policy. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, p.115.

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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.