Forty eight years ago, on this day, July 11st, 1979,
“We will protect our environment. But when this Nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.”
1979 15 July – Carter’s Address to the Nation on Energy and National Goals: “The Malaise Speech”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that from the mid-1960s US Presidents had been getting warnings about carbon dioxide build-up. It meant some nice speeches and reports, but not much else. Carter didn’t mention carbon dioxide build-up in his malaise speech – it would have been very cool if he had, but the politics of it would have been terrible.
The specific context was that Carter was putting his finger on something, for all the good it did him.
What I think we can learn from this – people cannot handle very much truth, now can they?
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Larry Edwards (bio at end of interview) kindly answered some questions…
1. A bit about where and when you were born – small town, big city. What were your early encounters with “nature”
I was born (1948) and raised in San Francisco, in a district where in the 1930’s the city had sprawled out beyond its confining Twin Peaks to Ocean Beach. Nature was a nearby half-square-block park and the beach 2.5 km away. Further afield, we took a family vacation by car every other year, with nature outside the car window, if not at the destination. More often we took day trips by car down “the Peninsula” on a narrow two-lane highway through what is now Silicon Valley. and beyond. It was orchard after orchard, and, sometimes (in between) odd bits of wild-looking places, and a few big greenhouses. All gone now!—under subdivisions, corporate developments and a massive multilane freeway. It became not a wistful look at tranquil places and bits of nature, but relentlessly grim disappearances, year by year.
In my college years, I finally got out into nature often, in the county surrounding that much smaller city. And with my pals, at the end of summer I got into the High Sierras for multi-week mountaineering and rock climbing. (In the days before permits were needed to get into that wilderness!)
2. Specifically on the International Geophysical Year and how you encountered it as a primary school student. What do you remember? Were there films you saw, books you read. Was it down to a science teacher, a geography teacher?
The International Geophysical Year (IGY) was a big deal. It kicked off in July 1957, after much anticipation by the public. There were lots of newspaper stories, and a big poster in the Post Office (next to the FBI’s Wanted posters – haven’t seen those for years!). That September I started 5th grade, and Miss Phillips (who had us for all subjects) was sciency. What I remember of that year is: our ant farm; and learning more about IGY, the solar system and (in a very general way) the carbon cycle and the greenhouse effect. The latter two weren’t about “climate change” (which I didn’t become aware of until much later) but about what sustains the web of life and a comfortable climate.
Sputnik was launched that October. With the US behind in the “space race,” hot topics were that as well as science and technology in general, both in our class and society wide.
3. Do you remember what you thought at the time?
It was an exciting time for a young science-inclined kid, with new science coming out of the IGY and technology developing rapidly.
There was also the trepidation of duck-and-cover exercises under our desks, in fear of a nuclear war. Our classroom still had pull-down blackout shades for the windows, left over from WWII, which had ended only a dozen years before I started the 5th grade. For context, Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev’s epithet to the US, “We will bury you” was made in 1956. Tom Lehrer wrote his satirical song “We Will All Go Together When We Go” in 1959.
As added context for those times (but not known to me then), Keeling had started his work at Mauna Loa in 1958, and Plass’ 1955 paper and 1959 article (that you posted about recently, Marc), bracketed my 5th grade year. The 1955 paper was tentative, posing a lot of questions and needs for more data, and the 1959 article expressed an increase toward certainty about CO2 as a main cause of climate change. It seems the IGY may have helped. This context is interesting for me, looking back.
4. After the IGY, were you ‘sensitised’ to environmental issues, and books such as that of Rachel Carson?
I don’t recall particular books on environmental issues until my college years. While I was there, there was the first Earth Day (1970). From high school through college, my continual concerns were loss of nature, city sprawl, pollution, use of non-renewable resources, and the rapid spread of nuclear power projects. I was reading about all of that in newspapers, later in books like “Silent Spring” and Raymond Dasmann’s “The Destruction of California” (a big influence on me), and many others. The public internet came decades later, so it was newspapers, magazines, books, and journals (college library), plus public events.
Early in college (’67 or ‘68), a Physics professor impressed us with how just a small 2oC increase in global average temperature would be devastating, and could happen. It was a very brief side-mention during a lecture, quite apart from the course material, but his explanation was compelling to me.
One thing that really sensitized me was, during high school in the mid-1960s, Pacific Gas & Electric started building a nuclear power plant at Bodega Head, on the coast north of the Golden Gate. It was big, controversial news. Mentally, I cheered on a lawsuit against it. The suit succeeded when a “minor” fault was discovered in the rock pit being dug for the reactor vessel (though not dissuading PG&E). Later, a few miles from my college in southern California, construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant was about to begin. Seismic controversy brought the Atomic Energy Commission to town for a week-long technical hearing, held in one of the temporary WWII buildings at an abandoned Army base a few miles down the highway. I cut classes to attend the whole thing. A physics professor was fired, later, for being outspoken against the plant. Six decades on, now, the devil is still operating at Diablo Canyon, a continuing controversy for California.
The year I got my aeronautical engineering degree (1971), a huge national controversy arose over the Supersonic Transport (SST) Project. For years, Boeing and Lockheed had independently worked on their differing designs. To build a prototype had become a matter of national pride, but neither company could afford to do so. A funding bill for the prototype was progressing through Congress, in which either Boeing or Lockheed would be picked to proceed. This was unending, high-profile news. The Anglo-French Concorde had first flown two years before, with construction having started when I was still in high school.
The corporate and political promoters’ grand plan was for a fleet of 500 American SSTs, flying at over 50,000 feet. Besides the project’s cost, a big controversy was the likely climate impact. Scientists feared high-impact global chilling would result. (Perhaps they got the sign of the impact wrong, but as we know now, they were correct about how sensitive the climate is to human-caused upset.) So, throughout my senior year I wrote letters to senators (no email in those days), begging for the project to be cancelled – not that I could have any influence, but I felt I had to do my bit. Three months before I graduated, Congress killed the bill — once and for all ending this SST project. Immediately, the two companies fired 30,000 engineers and managers, depressing the aerospace industry and sending an economic shock. So, my career took a turn to other engineering and eventually to environmental and climate advocacy.
Regrets for my letter writing? No – for an informed engineer it was an ethical necessity.
5. When and how did environmental issues ‘grab your attention’?
See above.
6. Why does it matter that people were being warned as early as 1957 about carbon dioxide build-up? What does that tell us about how seriously we take long term threats?
In my recollection of the International Geophysical Year (18 months in 1957 and 1958), I have no memories of carbon dioxide build-up being an issue publicly, certainly not in terms of impacts – though I may have forgotten or missed it. Possibly, since trouble would have seemed to be in the remote future, I suppose US news coverage at the time would have been observational rather than action indicating.
Certainly, the IGY inspired wonder, not fear, at least in me. But as I learned in 5th-grade, the carbon cycle and the greenhouse effect were well enough known for an aware public to be prepared to accept the tremendous impacts of fossil fuel use and other human activities (e.g., SST aircraft) that were exposed in American newspapers and magazines (no internet yet) one to two decades later. From that later time onward, all one had to do was read, even a little, to be aware.
7. What do you see for us, as a species, as a civilisation, in the near future?
I despair, much — but I optimistically keep pressing for urgent, effective action in any way that I can. (My only hope is to influence those who have influence, having none to speak of myself.) The climate situation is now far beyond dire. We are amidst an absolute, fast-worsening disaster. Governance, nationally and globally, has abjectly failed in what the Kyoto Protocol (1997) set out to do — prevent dangerous climate change; and that failure includes the Band-Aid – the Paris Agreement.
I believe that none of the actions presently on the table is workable for ostensibly getting humanity (and the natural world) out of this disaster. There is too much reliance on quickly building renewable energy, improving energy efficiency and on voluntary reduction of energy (and other) consumption. There is, in my estimation, no substitute for strong governance in this situation, akin to WW2-like emergency measures that can “renormalize” society to achieve a rapid phaseout of fossil fuels and deep cuts in other GHGs.
The problem is that initiating such renormalization takes: “leadership” that is lacking; trust in government that is at low ebb; and time – which we keep frittering away. There is always time, but now really no time left in terms of what it takes to turn government around, and to gain public trust for that process to happen. Even in the best imagined case – of no political friction – it takes time to pass legislation and implement it.
So, where to start on this? From polling going back years, a high proportion of the people (in northern, industrial countries) recognize the climate change problem, our cause of it, and a need for action. It seems that peoples’ latent energy for action is stymied by the momentum of society’s existing norms, by individual’s fear of missing out (“fomo”) while those norms are in place, and by the inability of individuals to have any real influence on changing on changing those norms. So, in life nearly all of us go with the flow, daily and annually (e.g. with long-distance vacations).
So the big question is: “What can change the course of this mighty river of human activities, executed by individuals each following their path of least resistance?” It is obvious by now that voluntary action is insufficient. How do we come to recognize that orchestrated collective action is needed, somehow with each of us making those sacrifices that are appropriate to our impacts and our ability to sacrifice?
I believe what has been lacking all along, in each of the US, Europe and elsewhere, is “a leader” who is trustworthy and instills the “necessity” of government stepping in to instill a change in society’s climate-related norms. In other words, for quickly phasing out the production and import of fossil fuels (like in 10-15 years) and greatly reducing methane emissions. This requires a bottom-up understanding of the “necessity,” and also an “acceptance” of the program based on: a “trust” that it will “apply to everyone” and will be “fairly applied”; that “no one will be left behind” (e.g. as in a Green New Deal); and – crucially – that the program is justifiable because it “will be effective.”
All those elements are crucial, in order to make possible (socially and politically) a capable climate change control program. As Irish scientist Barry McMullin has said, “the challenge is to make unpalatable policy palatable.” I believe we have no other option, except oblivion.
The challenge is a high one, because the above needed fast pace of phasing out fossil fuels and deeply cutting methane emissions can be expected to exceed how fast (or how much) renewable energy projects can be built and efficiency can be improved, for example. Rationing of energy and some goods, at least at some times and perhaps for a long time, must be anticipated, through a trustworthy program for administering it fairly that the public can accept as being necessary and fair and that will be well enforced (to prevent or minimize cheating, even by the wealthy).
It is only the dim prospect of such a program that gives me hope. Without that I see decade, after decade, after decade going by – as before – with, at best, marginal reductions of global emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and with unbearable pain and suffering continuing over the time horizon for us and the natural world, in every way imaginable.
We have got to get our greenhouse in order, starting without delay and at the fastest pace governments and society can possibly manage, sacrifices included.
8. Anything else you’d like to say.
It seems the above is already much more than you asked for. I am on Bluesky as @radreduction.bsky.social (radical emission reduction, eh?). Here are some climate-related publications I co-authored:
There are these on my ResearchGate page (which also has non-climate-related works):
Larry Edwards has degrees in aeronautical and mechanical engineering. Early in his career he settled in a small Alaskan town. From there for nearly 50 years he has worked on pollution, forest and climate concerns, both independently and professionally and on local, national and global fronts.
Fifty-nine years ago, on this day, July 14th, 1967, Edward Mishan, had a long article in the Spectator (back when it was still a serious publication).
The rights of man and the rape of his environment: a blueprint for a peaceful revolution
Mishan, Edward J The Spectator; Jul 14, 1967;
“Of course, it happens innocently enough. Machines that are employed to produce services for some simultaneously produce ‘dis- services for others. The recipients of the services acknowledge their value by a willingness to pay for these services. Symmetrical reasoning would require that the recipients of the disservices should receive payment for absorbing these disservices. Things have not worked out this way, however. It is true that such nice calculations would not matter much in a society with only rudimentary technology and an abundance of land relative to its population but this is not the condition of Britain today.
“With the postwar growth of technology and population these disservices or ‘spillover effects the noise, smell, smoke pollution or other noxious by-products of the operation of industry or their products have become too conspicuous to be ignored any longer by civilised countries.
They range from the strangulation by traffic of cities, resorts and once-quiet hamlets to the extermination of wild life by the indis- criminate use of pesticides; from ubiquitous jets to the spreading plague of beach transistors; from the destruction by mass tourism. of the world’s dwindling resources of natural beauty to the neighbour’s petrol lawn-mower. Indeed, together these spillover effects represent the most outstanding example of postwar growth yet recorded.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 321ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the ‘diseconomies’ were steadily growing, with the coming of motorways, airport expansion etc. Yes, some things (visible air pollution in cities) seemed to be improving, but overall, the trajectory was not great. In 1961 Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had been published. In 1966 the Conservation Society had been founded/
The specific context was a couple of months before this (but after the book had been written), the Torrey Canyon oil spill had been perpetrated….
In 1965, while at the LSE, he wrote his seminal work The Costs of Economic Growth,[2] but was unable to find a publisher until 1967.[3] In this work he expanded on his original 1960 thesis[4] which stated that the “precondition of sustained growth is sustained discontent”, warning developing nations that “the thorny path to industrialisation leads, after all, only to the waste land of Subtopia”.[5]
What I think we can learn from this – the roots of the upsurge of environmental concern were there in the mid-1960s, in publications conservative and liberal…
What happened next
The Spectator went off a cliff. Is now edited by Michael Gove.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Seventeen years ago, on this day, July 13th, 2009,
Mr Gore will launch Safe Climate Australia at an invitation-only Docklands breakfast tomorrow in front of a 1000-strong crowd from the investment, science and political communities. The group will not buy into the political debate as it tries to raise $1.5 million a year to find ways to “de-carbonise” the Australian economy.
Bachelard 12 July 2009.
On 13 July 2009, approximately 30 members of the Climate Sceptics Party and supporters arrived at the venue where Al Gore, was speaking in Melbourne, to hand out leaflets for those attending, with questions to ask Al Gore during his speech.[2] Some wore T-shirts bearing the party’s slogan: “Carbon Really Ain’t Pollution – CRAP”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 388ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Gore had paid several visits to Australia by this time, usually at the behest of NSW Premier Bob Carr. Australia is in many ways a cultural colony, and doesn’t believe home-grown talent matters – it’s the foreigners who give the imprimatur (see also Stephen Schneider’s 1989 book on this).
The specific context was that Kevin Rudd’s “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” was the hot topic. It had failed in parliament once, and a second bite at the cherry was due before the end of the year, when the Copenhagen conference was happening.
What I think we can learn from this is that we have totally screwed ourselves.
What happened next The emissions kept climbing.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Forty four years ago, on this day, July 11st, 1982, Margaret Thatcher gets a briefing for a meeting with the British Antarctic Survey bosses. It casually mentions climatic change…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 340ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was folks at the Met Office were present in late 1953 when Gilbert Plass gave another presentation about his carbon dioxide theory of climatic change. The theory was pretty well known in any case (having been pooh-poohed by CEP Brooks). Through the 50s and 60s it became better known. The trouble was, the Met Office’s boss from 1965 on, John Mason, was adamantly opposed to it. In the late 1970s there had been a civil service effort to get the issue under politician’s noses….
The specific context was that shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher was briefed on the carbon dioxide threat by her chief scientific adviser. Her response was to look at him with incredulity and say “you want me to worry about the weather?” Nonetheless, international work continued, and the problem (not yet an issue) would not go away.
What I think we can learn from this Another reason to despise Thatcher.
What happened next
Mason retired as Met Office boss, and was replaced by John Houghton, who accepted physical reality (having first written on carbon dioxide build-up in 1965).
In late September 1988, to get ahead of an inevitable trend, Margaret Thatcher gave her speech at the Royal Society.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
INSERT
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Forty seven years ago, on this day, July 11st, 1979,
WASHINGTON, July 10— In a report to the Council on Environmental Quality, a group of scientists warned today of the rapidly growing impact of carbon dioxide on the earth’s climate and asked that the problem be addressed in the formulation of new energy policy by President Carter.
The scientists warned that a major increase in the burning of fossil fuels, particularly synthetic fuels, could have a disastrous impact on the environment in the relatively near future.
“Man is setting in motion a series of events that seem certain to cause a significant warming of the world climate over the next decades unless mitigating steps are taken immediately,” the report declared.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 337ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The specific context was that the First World Climate Conference had happened. Meanwhile, the G7 had name-checked carbon dioxide build-up as a possible problem, e.gHelmut Schmidt, German Chancellor was talking about it. In the US, since 1977, a growing number of scientists had been meeting, comparing notes and warning. They were especially worried about the Carter Administration’s plans for the creation of oil from shale and coal.
What I think we can learn from this we knew enough to be taking action by 1979.
What happened next. We didn’t take action in 1979. Or 1989. Or 1999. Etc. Emissions have kept climbing when they should have fallen. Consequently, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have kept climbing (soaring), and now the Fafocene has begun. Oh well.
xxx
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
“Last night I attended the Sydney talk of Canadian author and blogger Donna Laframboise, whose book, “The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world’s top Climate Expert” has recently been published here in Australia.” [some defunct blog]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 394ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that climate denialism had been around all along. One early example in Australia was John Daly and his book “The Greenhouse Trap.” In the late 2000s, when the prospect of – gasp – a price on carbon dioxide emissions – became a live political issue – the denialists swamped the airways. Various nutjobs were invited on tour.
The specific context was the Gillard ETS scheme had come into effect, having passed through Parliament in 2011. The antis (rightly) anticipated that a Tony Abbott-led government would abolish it.
What I think we can learn from this. We are a muppet species.
What happened next. Abbott did indeed repeal the actual emissions trading portions of Gillard’s Clean Energy Package. Globally, emissions kept climbing, and atmospheric concentrations kept climbing. The Fafocene has begun.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty five years ago, on this day, July 9th, 2001,
Paula Dobriansky and Donald “will asshole for money” Pearlman meet July 9,
“In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US line against Kyoto.
The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says “works against most US government efforts to address climate change”, is said to be to “solicit [his] views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies”.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was the resistance to international climate action in the late 1980s/early 1990s was channelled through the so-called Global Climate Coalition (oil companies, auto companies etc) and the Climate Council, much smaller, less gaudy and probably more effective. Basically, Don Pearlman helped the Middle Eastern dictatorships scupper meaningful climate action. Right now, I hope the scumbag is rotting in hell.
The specific context was that by now the Bush Administration had pulled out of Kyoto and was probably looking for ways to be even more evil on the question of climate.
What I think we can learn from this is that evil exists. It’s often very competent, effective and well-paid.
What happened next. Pearlman died in 2005. Too late, and not painful enough, but there you are.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The tenth edition of the CO2 Newsletter, (Vol. 2, no. 4) published bi-monthly by American geologist William N. Barbat between 1979 and 1982 is live. You can download a pdf and see the full text here.
The eight page issue has a front page story that really pushes Barbat’s favoured solution to carbon dioxide build-up – the massive roll out of nuclear power across the world.
Rather than an editorial, Barbat replies to recent correspondence. He characterises the Newsletter’s stance in this manner-
Scientific opinion seems to agree that a continued CO2 buildup poses a serious threat to coastal habitations through polar icemelt and to the world’s food productivity, at least temporarily if not permanently. However, opinion seems to be sharply divided between complacency and alarmism over timing. Our studied view is alarmist, and we advocate corrective actions which do not in themselves create worse social and economic problems.
There is an article on Fourier, and the usual mix of “excerpts from recent reports” including one from the British journal Nature
‘Greenhouse Effect – Act now, not later’. by Wendy Barnaby, NATURE 19 February 1981:
“Australian industry will argue this week that proposed greenhouse measures will slow growth in the global economy, with Australia among the countries that would be hardest hit by a fall in trade.”
“When green and gold don’t mix.” The Australian Financial Review, 8 July 1996,
Of course they will.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 362ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was
Australian business’s initial response to the greenhouse effect surge of awareness/concern in 1988 was to wait for it to blow over. When it hadn’t by 1989, they started pushing back, and by 1990 were pushing back hard both in public and especially in private.
They (especially the miners) had fought hard to defeat a carbon tax proposal in 1994-5, and were happy enough with the voluntary scheme (the “Greenhouse Challenge”) that replaced it. But still cautious and worried that their ability to make mega profits would be impaired.
The specific context was that John Howard had become Prime Minister after the March 1996 election, and took Keating’s indifferent hostility to green issues and dialed it up to eleven. The first major test was the second COP (we are now, of course, up to 31), at which Australia was under pressure to be less shit.
What I think we can learn from this – business is always going to squeal about the sky falling. That’s their favourite tactic – zap the wire that leads to people’s amygdala – because it always works.
What happened next
The COP process went on (and on, and on). The Greenhouse Challenge was a joke. Emissions went up. Howard successfully slowed the growth of renewables. The window of opportunity to do anything meaningful closed. We defenestrated ourselves, basically.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
