“Illustrative also would be the covering of much land by water should continuing population growth so step up man’s production of carbon dioxide that the oceans failed to absorb all of it, with the result that the carbon dioxide content, and hence the temperature, of the atmosphere rose sufficiently to melt the polar ice caps.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319 check ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by the late 1950s carbon dioxide build-ups existence and possible long term consequences was not confined to a tiny tiny minority. Anyone who read a newspaper, could understand exponential growth and 19th century could see that there might be some writing on the wall…
What I think we can learn from this
We knew enough to think about worrying.
What happened next?
No economist bothered to think about the problem until Nordhaus in the 1970s.
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.
Twenty six years ago, on this day, May 19, 1997 BP’s boss backs away from denial
“The overlapping and nesting of organizational fields implies that developments in one country or industry can disrupt the balance of forces elsewhere. For example, the landmark speech by British Petroleum’s Group Chief Executive, John Browne on 19 May 1997 represented a major fissure in the oil industry’s position, which bore implications for other industries in Europe and in the USA”
(Levy and Egan, 2003: 820)
“There is now an effective consensus among the world’s leading scientists and serious and well informed people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the climate and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature … it would be unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the mounting concern.”
He added: “If we are to take responsibility for the future of our planet, then it falls to us to begin to take precautionary action now.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Global Climate Coalition had been getting rougher and rougher on the climate science, especially around the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, and that had made some businesses nervous about the reputational risk. In the UK the new Blair Government probably wasn’t going to be terribly impressed by BP’s continued membership of the GC. There had already been defections. And so Browne, bless him, decided to put a very, very positive spin, in every sense, on the issue.
What I think we can learn from this
Capitalism is not a monolith. The fossil fuel sector is not a monolith. The oil industry is not a monolith. But we also learn, surely, that just because they’re not monolithic – on politics and presentation – doesn’t mean their actual strategies diverge very much.
What happened next
And BP is, as an article published in The Guardian on the day that I’ve narrated this, still, of course, spending much more on hydrocarbons than renewables, because they are not an energy company. They are a fossil fuel company. And if they have convinced you otherwise, best maybe to take another look.
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.
Senator David Boren comes out against BTU tax, after Burson Marstellar astroturf campaign (see Agrawala and Andressen, 1999: 470)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There had been enormous – and ultimately successful – local lobbying efforts. Boren had been picked off, in a kind of Serengeti strategy thing, but in the political sphere rather than the scientific. And this really spells the end for Clinton’s BTU.
What I think we can learn from this is that the opponents of climate action, smart, determined, strategic and well funded. These characteristics do not necessarily apply to the proponents of action, unfortunately.
What happened next
Clinton had to kill the BTU energy tax. And that was basically it for Clinton and domestic climate action (imo). It also meant that the opponents of action really had good proof of concept, and presumably, the Australians were looking at this and saying, “that’s how it’s done.”
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.
Seventy years ago, on this day, May 18, 1953, the American weekly magazine Newsweek ran a snippet about the ‘carbon dioxide is building up and we should watch out’ statement of Gilbert Plass at the American Geophysical Union (see May 5)
Newsweek; New York Vol. 41, Iss. 20, (May 18, 1953): 75 https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1953-05-18_41_20/page/74/mode/2up?view=theater
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that two weeks previously, Gilbert Plass had made some very eye-catching statements at the American Geophysical Union that had been picked up and broadcast. This is the first report by Newsweek that I can find and it was followed shortly after, by something from Time.
What I think we can learn from this
This is the moment in which the carbon dioxide theory of climate change really starts to enter into popular discourse. The context was that people were sure the world was getting hotter. It was a question of why.
What happened next
Plass did his scientific work and in 1955/56 released papers about the carbon dioxide theory of climate. There was a further paper in Scientific American in 1959. There’s a direct line between Plass and Guy Callendar with whom Plass corresponded.
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.
Fifty one years ago, on this day, May 17, 1972, the “Grey Lady” reported some basic facts.
“The continued use of fossil fuels at projected levels will mean a 20 per cent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere by the year 2000, a leading meteorologist predicted today.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Stockholm climate conference, four years in the making, was about to begin. And there were a significant number – a very small but significant number – of climate scientists and atmospheric scientists looking at carbon dioxide levels and saying “ this could be the problem.” As this site has demonstrated, by 1969/70 lots of people were being exposed to this, both politicians, but also readers of magazines and newspapers.
What I think we can learn from this
Even before the 1972 conference, there was significant awareness and concern.
What happened next
The Stockholm conference did give us the United Nations Environment Program, smaller than hoped for with less power and money. But nonetheless, UNEP was crucial in helping scientists do the research that was needed through the 70s and 80s, or rather, to get them talking to each other, across geographical more than disciplinary boundaries…
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the prospects for action on climate change in the United States – at least at the federal level – were bleak af. Obama had not bothered to fight for the Democratic energy package and climate package, and wasn’t going to punch that tar baby again. The Copenhagen summit had revealed the weakness of the international process and there was more rising despair and rising apathy than Rising Tide.
What I think we can learn from this was
Activist groups are obsessed with “days of action”, perhaps because these give them a sense of punctuation for the meaning of building up to something. It’s not necessarily a bad mobilising tactic but it doesn’t automatically mean that you are movement-building when you are repeatedly mobilising. See my articles about the emotacycle.
What happened next
Rising Tide US I think is dead, but I could be wrong. There are a broad range of other groups sunrise movement etc etc who are are more in the news.
It’s important though to remember that those people who protested were right even if they lost and and that cannot be taken away.
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 years ago, on this day, May 13, 1983, the Heritage Foundation made a clever pre-emptive assault on the impending conference of the “Global Tomorrow Coalition” in Washington DC…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 346.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Global 2000 report ordered in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter had continued to be a rallying point for environmentalists and those concerned about, well, the future. The Heritage Foundation, which had been set up in 1973, as an attack dog on precisely these questions, wanted to throw a spanner in the works and give journalists covering the upcoming conference, either ammunition or else a quandary. Report it as a “some say/others say ” horse race or, if they did not report on the Heritage Foundation’s critique, they can be smeared as “biased”, and part of the liberal media establishment.
What we can learn from this is that organisations like the Heritage Foundation are fantastically good at shaping the public discourse. They seek to minimise the splash that their opponents can make. They do this with both preemptive and responsive propaganda efforts. This only comes about if you have lots of money and the people who have lots of money understand for the most part, that funding outfits like the Heritage Foundation, or whatever new group is required, is money well spent.
What happened next
The conference happened. The Heritage Foundation released a book called The Resourceful Earth in 1984. Edited by Julian Simon who had already been attacking the Global 2000 report. And in The Resourceful Earth the meteorologist Helmut Landsberg, who was to die a year later made unfortunate predictions about what the climate would be. Oops. Landsberg, like Brian Tucker in Australia, couldn’t cope with the fact that climate science was undercutting the cherished technocracy and economic growth “values.”
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.
Twenty eight years ago, on this day May 12, 1995, the bet between those who think Technology Will Save Us and those who think that, you know, there are limits, kept going.
The Simon APS News article offers to bet environmentalists “…that any trend in material human welfare will improve rather than get worse.” This article echoes an editorial essay entitled “Earth’s Doomsayers Are Wrong” that appeared in the 12 May 1995 San Francisco Chronicle open forum. Simon then said that “Every measure of material and environmental welfare in the U.S. and the world has improved…” and that “All long run trends point in exactly the opposite direction of the doomsayers” Thus he implied that few, if any people would likely accept his bet since for the past 25 years the pessimists have been “proven entirely wrong.” When my Stanford colleague, Paul Ehrlich, and I took up his challenge1 and named 15 environment-related trends we were willing to bet would deteriorate, Simon refused claiming to the Chronicle (18 May 1995) that “I do not offer to bet on the progress of particular physical conditions such as the ozone layer” (as if its decline were not a negative measure of environmental welfare!).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 363.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in March 1995 the first meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “conference of the parties” (COP) was about to happen in Berlin. So, everyone was thinking about the future of climate action. Julian Simon, a cornucopian, had been taking bets with Paul Ehrlich and others and winning them. Simon’s bets were useful just-so stories for “owning the libs,” as we now call it, for generations of what’s the polite word … idiots.
What I think we can learn from this
You can be really smart and dumb as a rock at the same time especially if you you have an inability, for psychological reasons, to accept the basic fact that there are indeed limits on human ingenuity and the capacity of ecosystems to absorb damage.
What happened next
Julian Simon died without ever seeing his bets for what they were. And sadly Steven Schneider died when we needed him most.
The atmospheric CO2 kept accumulating and the damage has kept accumulating.
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.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, May 7, 2001, George “W” Bush’s spokesman was telling the truth.
“The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect [it]. The American way of life is a blessed one . . . The President also believes that the American people’s use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush had pulled the US out of the negotiations for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The September 11 attacks were still four months away (Bush basically read about them, was warned about them over the summer and did nowt).
Anyway, this idea that the American way of life, which is actually about the high hydrocarbon way of life for a minority of people within the US, – the wealthy, is somehow sacred. It’s fascinating from a theological point of view, prosperity, gospel and all that nonsense.
See also Bush Snr “American way of life is non-negotiable” in 1992.
What I think we can learn from this
Humans are very good, at pretending things that give them comfort and power are somehow ordained by a bearded sky god. It can form a last redoubt of “Oh, you don’t respect my beliefs as a member of the faith-based community?” (Well, no, I’m a member of the reality based community.)
What happened next
Bush continued to shit all over the planet. And in my fantasy, he’s in the next cell along to John Howard, at The Hague to be charged with crimes against humanity and future generations…
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Denis Hayes had been neck deep in the Earth Day organising of 1970 and spent the rest of the decade trying to get people to take alternative energy solar energy seriously.
The National Academy of Sciences report on climate had come out in July of 1977. Carter had signed the Climate Change Act that had been proposed by George Brown. People were beginning to think that carbon dioxide might really screw us. Increasing the amount of solar energy was clearly a good idea, but didn’t get implemented.
What I think we can learn from this
Solutions technological, political, economic, social, have existed and they have constantly been out fought, outspent by existing vested interests and the natural small c conservatism and inertia and obduracy of large technical systems.
Getting a new technology to be accepted is a very very hard task.
What happened next
Well, famously, the Reagan administration took the solar panels off the White House in 1986. But by then Reagan’s goons had already done a very good job in destroying momentum towards ecological sanity (not that a second Carter term would necessarily have delivered).
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.
