Category: United States of America

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United States of America

April 15, 2007 – climate change as force multiplier

Nineteen years ago, on this day, April 15th,

 CNA’s Military Advisory Board finds that climate change acts as a threat multiplier for instability and poses a serious threat to America’s national security.

https://www.cna.org/analyses/2007/national-security-and-the-threat-of-climate-change

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the idea that climate change would have profound geopolitical implications goes back to the late 50s. Then in 1980 you have William Barbat’s essay in “resource wars” in the CO2 newsletter.

The specific context was that the climate issue had broken through again because of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, which had been published in February. The negotiations that were hotting up for a UNFCCC COP in Bali, at which “a roadmap to Copenhagen” (where everything would be sorted out) was to be agreed. These are the lies we tell ourselves.

What I think we can learn from this is that identifying a threat is one thing, doing anything about it is something else entirely. 

What happened next:  We went from Copenhagen to Paris to wherever the next “last chance to save the world” is supposed to be but I think actually, everyone’s kind of realised that the game is up. The cops will keep happening, sort of, but no one’s heart is in it.  

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.

Also on this day: 

April 15, 1965 – Murray Bookchin warns about carbon dioxide build-up

April 15, 1969-  Coventry lecture – Mellanby says Air Pollution could cause flood… – All Our Yesterdays

April 15, 1974 – war criminal Henry Kissinger gives climate danger speech

April 15, 1974 – Kissinger cites climate concerns

Categories
Activism United States of America

April 14, 2018 – David Buckel’s climate-inspired suicide

Eight years ago, on this day, April 14th, 2018,

lawyer and environmental activist David Buckel burned himself to death in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in what has been called the first self-immolation in the name of climate change. 

The Self-Immolation of David Buckel: Towards a Postdramatic Activism

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 408ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that suicide as a political protest probably goes back a very very long way. The most famous 20th century example would be the Buddhist monks in Vietnam in 1963. There was a guy at the Pentagon in 1965 too.

The specific context was that it was clear from (at the absolute latest) the early 2000s that we were not, at a species level, going to take the steps necessary.

What I think we can learn from this is that we’re doomed.

What happened next:  The protest didn’t lead to the growth of the kind of mass movements, capable of outlasting repression, co-optation, exhaustion that we need. Or needed.  What we need now is a freaking time machine.

Vale David Buckel.

But this is not, in my opinion, the way forward. Suicide doesn’t build movements. If you need help, well, I don’t know what the numbers are in your country, but in the UK there’s the Samaritans. 

Also on this day: 

April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson

 April 14, 1980 – Carter’s scientist, Frank Press, pushes back against CEQ report – All Our Yesterdays

April 14th, 1989 – 24 US senators call for immediate unilateral climate action

Categories
Science United States of America

April 12,  1968 – brief mention of carbon dioxide build-up in Science

Fifty eight ago, on this day, April 12th, 1968,

12 April 1968. Brief mention of C02 build-up  Hibbard, W. R. (1968). Mineral Resources: Challenge or Threat?: Can technology meet our future needs for minerals and still preserve a livable environment? Science, 160(3824), 143–149. 

doi:10.1126/science.160.3824.143 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that by 1968 intelligent people involved in air pollution, atmospherics etc were well aware of carbon dioxide build up. It had been mentioned by Lyndon Johnson in the beginning of 1965 and in November 1965, the President’s Science Advisory Committee, PSAC had released a report Restoring the Quality of Our Environment, which had an entire chapter on CO2 build up. By 1967 in articles about air pollution in Time and Newsweek and so forth would have a paragraph on the topic.  

What I think we can learn from this is that by the late 60s, the dangers were understood. It was not clear if they  would  the potential dangers were understood. It was not clear that they would definitely emerge, if there were competing theories, but knowledge was there.  

What happened next:  We kept ignoring the problem. In 1988 it “broke through” and became an issue. But we mostly continued to ignore it.

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.

Also on this day: 

April 12, 1955 – Coventry Evening Telegraph – “Melting Ice Could Menace the World” – All Our Yesterdays

April 12, 1992 – seminar asks “How sustainable is Australian Energy?” (proposes switch to gas)

April 12, 1993 – “environmental economics” gets a puff piece

Categories
Activism United States of America

April 11, 2016 –  “Juliana versus US”

Ten years ago, on this day, April 11th, 2010,  

Pre-trial hearings were held in March 2016 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin. The U.S. Department of Justice argued that there was “no constitutional right to a pollution-free environment”, and that the court system was not the proper venue to affect such changes.[12] Coffin ruled in April  (11th) 2016 recommending that both motions to dismiss were denied; Coffin found that while the case was “unprecedented”, it had sufficient merit to continue.[13] 

https://mashable.com/2016/04/11/youth-climate-lawsuit/?europe=true

Juliana vs United States

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 404ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that activists have at various times, used laws to force corporations and governments to do things. 

The specific context was that  one of James Hansen’s granddaughters and a bunch of other people had launched a legal case Juliana versus the United States. 

What I think we can learn from this is that there’s no constitutional right to clean air, it turns out, anyway. 

What happened next:  They lost and Trump has removed the endangerment clause, so the EPA is free to do what the EPA wants to do, largely, which is ignore climate change. 

Also on this day: 

April 11th, 1987 – A matter of… Primo Levi’s death

 April 11, 1989 – “Ark” sinks its cred

April 11 – Interview with Sophie Gabrielle about memes vs Armageddon….

April 11, 2014 – Greenpeace China releases coal report – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Academia United States of America

April 4, 1979 – DOE and AAS meeting

Forty seven years ago today, they’re half-way through what SHOULD have been a crucial meeting…

2-6  April Annapolis Maryland DOE and AAAS meeting on social science and climate.

CRIPSIN TICKELL PRESENT – see his October 1979 article in EUROPE

YOU HAVE DONE THIS ONE!!
April 4, 1979 – DOE and AAAS meet on social science and climate – All Our Yesterdays

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that since 1977 the Department of Energy had been hosting conferences, famously Miami Beach in March of 77 and commissioning reports about carbon dioxide build up. The Carter administration was “on it” as it were – or the Carter administration wasn’t, but people working in the DOE were. And I think a lot of this is probably down to a nuclear physicist called Alvin Weinberg. Anyway, here we are in April of 79 and the crucial things here are that 

  1. Tom Wigley of the Climatic Research Unit was present and presenting.

b) Crispin Tickell, then the consigliere for Roy Jenkins, was present at this meeting. We know this thanks to Tickell’s October 1979 article in Europe magazine.

The specific context was that by 1979 smart people were beginning to “freak out”, in a very measured and contained way.

What I think we can learn from this is that we have known for so long.  And done so little (well, made the whole shituation much worse).  

What happened next:  

Nature ran an editorial in May 1979 that namechecked this conference. The DOE asked people like Schelling to do a report on the societal implications that was released in early 1980 and whatever progress was being made towards tackling the carbon dioxide problem was halted with the coming of the Ronald Reagan gang in January of 1981 and here we are completely fine. Fuck. Risk. 

Also on this day

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

April 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Science Scientists United States of America

 March 28, 1980 – Idiotic climate paper published in Science

Forty six years ago on this day, March 28th, 1980 a truly pathetic paper found its way into the pages of Science.

Idso, S. 1980 – The Climatological Significance of a Doubling of Earth’s Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration 

The abstract ran(t) as follows. [source]

The mean global increase in thermal radiation received at the surface of the earth as a consequence of a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide content is calculated to be 2.28 watts per square meter. Multiplying this forcing function by the atmosphere’s surface air temperature response function, which has recently been determined by three independent experimental analyses to have a mean global value of 0.113 K per watt per square meter, yields a value of </= 0.26 K for the resultant change in the mean global surface air temperature. This result is about one order of magnitude less than those obtained from most theoretical numerical models, but it is virtually identical to the result of a fourth experimental approach to the problem described by Newell and Dopplick. There thus appears to be a major discrepancy between current theory and experiment relative to the effects of carbon dioxide on climate. Until this discrepancy is resolved, we should not be too quick to limit our options in the selection of future energy alternatives.

And a few weeks later, there was this exchange…

From ‘Effects of Carbon Dioxide Buildup in the Atmosphere’, Hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, April 3, 1980:

“Senator (Dale) BUMPERS. . . The fact that there has been no political response to the testimony we have had here for at least 3 years, the last 3 years, about the potential for dramatic climatic effect upon the earth by the buildup of CO2 (the point that the whole problem is such a long term problem) is well taken.

“Congress has not responded and we are getting some conflicting information too. People who have testified have not been . . . precise and definitive. …

“For example, ‘Science magazine’ on March 28 estimated that the average Earth temperature rise from doubling the world’s atmospheric CO2 is about 26 hundredths of one degree Celsius, which is about 1 tenth of the value generally estimated.

“Dr. (Gordon) MACDONALD (Chief Scientist of MITRE Corporation). Could I comment on that point?

“Senator BUMPERS. Yes.

“Dr. MACDONALD.I have looked in detail at that paper. It is a very strange paper.

“Senator BUMPERS. Shall I throw it away?

“Dr. MACDONALD. Yes. The final result is the product of two numbers. One is described very badly. The other is described as a result of the search under preparation. One can reconstruct the reasoning and do the proper calculations, and would have to multiply the second number by a factor of six, the first number by a factor of two to get the proper description, so that number is off by a factor of about 12.

“Dr. (William) KELLOGG (Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research): I quite agree with what Dr. MacDonald has said. The conclusion is based on a calculation at the surface at a point. It does not apply to the global carbon dioxide question as it stands.

“Dr. MACDONALD. That is correct.”

(Quoted in William Barbat’s wonderful CO2 Newsletter.)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that there are always scientists who need to be “edgy”. And that is fine, because science needs doubt, conflict etc.  But it has to be, you know, robust. Not demented.

The specific context was that Idso had form

What I think we can learn from this is that Idso was not the sharpest tool in the box. 

What happened next. Idso kept Idsoing. He’s dead now, which is a tragedy for climate science.

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

Barbat in CO2 Newsletter

Also on this day: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Energy United States of America

March 28,  1984 – Exxon guy presents on CO2

Forty two years ago, on this day, March 28th, 1984, an Exxon scientist presented on climate change. 

They knew. Exxon knew.


March 28 1984  Exxon guy – Henry Shaw, Presentation to EUSA/ER&E Environmental Conference: CO2 Greenhouse and Climate Issues

7, 14 (Mar. 28, 1984), https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6530733-1984-Exxon-Henry-ShawPresentation-CO2/. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 345ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Exxon, by the late 70s, was fully switched on to the problem of carbon dioxide build up, and had allowed its tankers to be used to collect samples. Exxon knew, in other words, this is one of the last public or semi public discussions of CO2 that Exxon would do without casting doubt and denial, which began in ‘88. 

What I think we can learn from this is that well Exxon kept on knowing but the weather changed within the C suite, and they basically decided denial was their friend for their business model.

What happened next

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Science United States of America

March 25, 1957 – Plass et al. at La Jolla

Sixty nine years ago today, March 25, 1957, Gilbert Plass was at a Scripps conference in La Jolla, California.

Proceedings of a Conference held at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, 25-26 March 1957: 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that scientists had been doing science for, well, the word science comes from the 1820s before that, they were “natural philosophers.” Concern/awareness that carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere might eventually warm up the Earth, I suppose can be dated to Svante Arrhenius in 1895-96. His work was contested and then largely, but not totally ignored. Guy Callender had given a presentation in 1938 to the British Royal Meteorological Society.  

The specific context was that in 1953 Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass, building on Arrhenius and Callendar, had started the ball rolling on “carbon dioxide build-up as a problem.” In the next couple of years other people had said similar. And then by this time, the International Geophysical Year was about to kick off.

And we know now, thanks to the work of Rebecca John that Charles David Keeling had been doing Carbon Dioxide measurement for various oil companies. 

Revelle and Seuss had been working on papers.

What I think we can learn from this is that by 1957 a whole bunch of American (mostly – though here I am doing a real injustice to the Swedes) scientists, including Joseph Kaplan etc, were looking at carbon dioxide and going, “you know, this might well be a serious problem.”  

What happened next Plass published another article in Scientific American in 1959 which was advertised in the Observer. Plass was there in January 1961 in New York, and again, 63 in New York at the Conservation Foundation’s meeting, and that was his last that I can find around any engagement with the CO2 issue. He had said everything he planned to say. He’d worked on it now for over 10 years, and he understandably moved on to other things. It was a basic physics problem that he had solved.

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

March 25, 1982 – congressional hearings and CBS Evening News report

March 25, 1988- World Meteorological Organisation sends IPCC invites.

March 25, 1995 – “Women and the Environment” conference in Melbourne 

March 25, 2013 – Australian Department of Climate Change axed

Categories
Media United States of America

March 22, 1982 – Chicago Trib front page story about … climate change

Forty four ago, on this day, March 22nd, 1982,


The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that journalists had been writing these sorts of stories for a long time; since the 60s, really, (since the 50s, but it was speculation). But from the late 60s, speculation was beginning to harden up.

The specific context was that scientifically, there had been the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in January of 1982 in Washington, DC. Hanson and Flohn, nd other people had made the statements they did, so maybe that helped nudge the Chicago Trib writer, Richard Kotulak (who is still alive).

What I think we can learn from this is that there were switched-on journalists in 1982 which is 44 years ago, and switched-on readers. We knew plenty.

What happened next The carbon dioxide problem had another moment in late 1983, but it didn’t really become front page news again until 1988 thanks to hard “problem entrepreneur” work by dedicated scientists.

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

March 22, 1960 – US Television warning of carbon dioxide build up, courtesy Athelstan Spilhaus…

March 22, 2007 – Unions talk good game on climate

March 22, 2007 – Fairfax tells its staff to Be Green, for an hour. 

March 22, 2012 – flash mobs and repertoire exhaustion

Categories
Science Scientists United States of America

March 17, 1982 – An overview of US carbon dioxide/climate research is written. 

Forty four years ago, on this day, March 17th, 1982

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that since 1977, at the beginning of the Carter Administration, there had been workshops, seminars, conferences etc. By 1982 A LOT was known. 

The specific context was that this research was having precisely zero impact on policymakers, who were Reaganaut nutjobs

What I think we can learn from this is that we knew plenty and that we had our chances and we blew them.  

What happened next. The emissions kept climbing. And climbing. And so did the concentrations. 

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

March 17, 1976 – UK Weather boss dismisses climate change as “grossly exaggerated”

March 17, 2006 – Rio Tinto says “CCS is key to cutting greenhouse gases.” Oops, then…

March 17, 2007 – Edinburgh #climate action gathering says ‘Now’ the time to act

 March 17, 2014 – Carbon Bus sets off to the North