Categories
Science

March 4, 1970 – “Variations of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere” submitted

Fifty five years ago, on this day, March 4th, 1970, a snappily titled academic paper was submitted

 Variations of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere By BERT BOLIN and WALTER BISCHOF, Institute of Meteorology, University of Stockholm

(Manuscript received March 4, 1970; revised version May 28, 1970)

ABSTRACT

Six years of measurements (1963-1968) of carbon dioxide in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere are presented. The data reveal an average annual increase of the C0,-content of 0.7 +O.l ppm/year, while during this time the annual industrial output has increased from about 1.9 ppm to 2.3 ppm/year. Thus the increase in the atmosphere is about & of the total output. Considerations of the possible increase of vegetative assimilation due to the higher COX-content of the atmosphere reveals that this is at most of the output, probably considerably less. The net transfer to the oceans thus is at least equal to + of the industrial output. The transfer rate across the sea surface seems effective enough not to represent an appreciable resistance and the decisive factor for determining this transfer therefore is the ocean circulation or turn over rate. The figures quoted indicate that 20-25 %, of the world oceans must have been available during the time of rapid increase of the industrial output of CO, (the last 30-50 years) to explain the rather large amount that has been withdrawn from the atmosphere. Still a continued increase of the fossil fuel combustion as forecast by OECD implies that the C0,-content of the atmosphere at the end of the century will be between 370 pprn and 395 ppm as compared with 320 ppm, the average value for 1968.

The amplitude of the seasonal variation is found to be about 6.5 ppm at 2 km and 3.5,ppm in the uppermost part of the troposphere. The phase shift of the seasonal variation between these two levels is 25-30 days. On the basis of these data a vertical eddy diffusivity K = 2. lo6 cm2 sec-l is derived. The amplitude of the seasonal variation in the lower stratosphere, 11-12 km, is less than…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bolin had been switched on  fifteen years previous to the issue of carbon dioxide build up. He’d studied, after all, under Rosby, who died prematurely. Bolin had really caught hold of Keeling’s data and understood even then, I think the implications, (see 1959 Science Notes). 

Bolin kept beavering away on the science, but also on the politics. And this paper is fairly typical. The findings are not necessarily startling, but in retrospect, they are part of the ominous “pending debacle” of it all.

(Fwiw, Bolin was also helping Keeling in Europe at this time, I’d need to go and reread Keeling’s biography to get the details right)..

The other context is that by the time this was submitted, even the king of the Netherlands was talking about CO2 build up at the beginning of 1970, the European Conservation Year. 

What I think we can learn from this is that we knew plenty, we just didn’t understand and we didn’t want to accept the implications. 

What happened next  Bolin kept at it. The 1970s saw him begin to team up with Mustafa Tolba, head of the United Nations Environment Program, which was possibly the one thing that emerged from the Stockholm conference in 1972. 

Bolin would talk to journalists about CO2 build up (see 1978 BBC radio documentary).

 Bolin was the obvious pick, unanimous, I think, to be chair of the IPCC, which he obviously held for quite some time. And if anyone can be said to have died a good a well-timed death, it’s Bolin. He died just after the 2007 Bali COP, which obviously he did not attend because he was too ill. The Bali COP saw the “roadmap to Copenhagen” laid out. So he died thinking that maybe just maybe, we wouldn’t be entirely too late to act on the warnings that he had been giving since 1959 

Thank goodness he was not still alive to witness Copenhagen. 

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 4, 1998 – The Australian Greenhouse Office gets a boss…

March 4, 2003 – “Luntz memo” exposes Bush climate strategy 

March 4, 2023 –Letter in FT: Global carbon price call is a classic delaying tactic

March 4, 2003 – Republicans urged to question the scientific consensus…

March 4, 2004 – The Australian National Audit Office skewers the Australian Greenhouse Office

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage Germany

March 3, 1980 – International Workshop on the energy climate Interactions in Germany

Forty five years ago, on this day, March 3rd, 1980,

International Workshop on the energy-climate Interactions, March 3-7, 1980, Munster, Germany 

here’s on research about what we now call carbon capture and storage…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the German climatological scientific elite, people like Herman Flohn and others, including IASSAere well into the energy climate society question in the late second half of the 1970s. Tis workshop is part of all that work. 

What I think we can learn from this is that by the late 70s, people whose job it was to think about energy systems and their impact on “the environment”  were pretty sure there were interesting times ahead. Now, of course,  cynics will say “well, they’re paid to speculate on possible problems so they can get funding for workshops in “nice places”, and advance their careers.” And this is, of course, perfectly circular and is undisprovable. It also  ignores the fact that physics exists, that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that was established in the 1860s, 120 years before this workshop. 

What happened next All through the 1980s up until ‘85 you see these sorts of workshops  – scientists meeting, scratching their heads, exchanging ideas, becoming more and more sure. Tthen Villach really is the starting gun, and you can say that it wasn’t science, it was the political opportunity structure, because ozone was giving them kudos. And power, social power. Or you can say it was pure play “the science”, (see Wendy Franz).

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: 

March 3, 1990 –  “A greenhouse energy strategy : sustainable energy development for Australia” launched … ignored #auspol

March 3, 1990 – Energy efficiency could save billions a year, Australian government told (says ‘whatevs’).

March 3, 1990 – The Science Show on the “backlash to Greenhouse warnings”

Categories
International Geophysical Year United States of America

March 2, 1956 – IGY oceanography meeting on “clearer understanding”

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, March 2nd, 1956,

A modest plan crystallized in meetings of experts arranged by the U.S. National Committee for the IGY in early 1956. Here two senior scientists, Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, argued the value of measuring CO2 in the ocean and air simultaneously at various points around the globe. The ultimate goal was “a clearer understanding of the probable climatic effects of the predicted great industrial production of carbon-dioxide over the next 50 years.” But the immediate aim was to observe how seawater took up the gas, as just one of the many puzzles of geochemistry. Revelle had become interested in the question through his own research, which had been amply supported by the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and other federal agencies, whose interest in the oceans was whetted by the competition with the Soviet Union.

The committee granted Revelle some small funds for measuring CO2. The key actor in this, and much else in getting greenhouse gas studies underway, was Harry Wexler, a meteorologist turned administrator who served as Chief of the Scientific Services division of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Wexler was an outstanding example of the thoughtful officials who worked behind the scenes to identify and promote promising research, while the scientists they supported got all the credit”

Clearer understanding:” Minutes of IGY Working Group on Oceanography, Regional Meeting, 2 March 1956, Washington, DC, copy in provisional box 96, folder 243, “IGY-CSAGI Working Group on Oceanography,” Maurice Ewing Collection, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. 

This from Spencer Weart’s wonderful website –

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the International Geophysical Year was going to start in 15  months, and it was going to be an 18 month collaboration of measurement and experiments around, well geophysics. 

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists had a wish list of things that they wanted to investigate so they could better understand what was going on. Just in general, carbon dioxide build up was certainly known of, but it was by no means a central focus of the Geophysical Year.

What happened next

Roger Revelle was able to use a bit of spare money so that Charles Dave Keeling could start measuring CO2 at insanely precise levels

NB As per Rebecca John’s archival work – Keeling had already been measuring for the industry funded “Air Pollution Council”.

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: 

March 2, 1954 – UK newspaper readers get Greenhouse lesson from Ritchie-Calder 

March 2nd, 1997- RIP Judi Bari

March 2, 2009 –  Washington DC coal plant gets blockaded

Categories
Uncategorized

March 1, 1970 – so many tribes, so few common interests

Fifty five years ago, on this day, March 1st, 1970,

In 1970, New Republic was moved to describe the American environmental movement as “the biggest assortment of ill-matched allies since the Crusades- young and old, radicals of left and right. Liberals and conservatives, humanists and scientists, atheists and deists.” In his study of American environmentalism, Joseph Petulla identifies three main traditions: the biocentric (nature for and in itself), the ecologic (based on scientific understanding of interrelationships and interdependence among the parts of natural communities), and the economic (the optimal use of natural resources, otherwise described as the utilitarian approach to conservation).

(McCormick, 1991:ix)

New Republic 1 March, 1970, 8-9.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that at the beginning of 1969 the Santa Barbara OilSpill and the publication of the Earthrise photo got people thinking about degradation and destruction of the planet. And folks who were fed up with or not into protesting about the Vietnam War and getting their heads pummeled now had a different issue. But as the quote above suggests, everyone was “talking about it”, and that surely meant that a coalition or “alliance” or coalitions and alliances wouldn’t hold. People’s pre-existing cognitive perspectives and material interests would reassert themselves. 

And so it came to pass within three years, especially after the 1972 Stockholm conference and the creation of various institutions like the EPA, the “broad support” had evaporated like morning mist.

What I think we can learn from this is that everyone can agree that “something must be done”, fewer on what that something is.  And fewer still will take the action to try and make it happen. Others will be content with this or that shiny bauble to make themselves feel good.. 

What happened next

The first big eco wave had crashed along on the rocks of oil, energy, exhaustion, etc, by 1973. 

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: 

March 1, 1954 – Lucky Dragon incident gives the world the word “fall out”

March 1, 1967 – Carbon dioxide as important waste problem

March 1st 2010 – scientist grilled over nothing burger…

Categories
Australia Denial

February 28, 2007 – Australian denialists release idiotic regurgitated pamphlet, as part of attempted spoiler operation

Eighteen years ago, on this day, February 28th, 2007,

2007 Nine Facts about Climate Change Ray Evans [Originally published in November 2006 as a PDF (click here, 1.5 Mb). Launched in Canberra by Sir Arvi Parbo on 28 February 2007]

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/greenhouse-science/climate-change/evans2007-4.php

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Lavoisier Group had been banging on since 2000 to the partial embarrassment of would-be allies. Now that climate was so steadily back on the agenda, the old war horses like Ray Evans were saddling up for another battle, possibly one last battle. 

And the date, of course, is to coincide with a Labor Party summit in Parliament House where Kevin Rudd would talk about “the great moral challenge of our generation.”

What’s interesting about this one is that senior business figure Avi Parbo, by this time fairly ancient and a major figure in 15 years earlier in seducing Hawke’s Labor Party was lending his name to this tosh. RDS?

What I think we can learn from this is that for every action, there is an equal and spittle-flecked reaction, maybe not equal, but there’ll be one, because denialists want to provide sympathetic journalists with an opportunity to do a “yes, but” story.

What happened next

Evans kept pushing his nonsense faded and died in I think about 2014. But denialism did not die, and never will.

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: 

February 28, 1984 – Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect hearings

Feb 28, 2003- Australian business lobby switches from opposition to “no position” on Kyoto ratification #auspol

February 28, 2010 – Australian Prime Minister says won’t walk away from climate. (Then does, obvs.)

Categories
Australia United States of America

February 27, 2002 – an embarrassing “technology partnership” is launched (as Kyoto spoiler attempt)

Twenty three years ago, on this day, February 27th, 2002,

Climate Action Partnership Announced Between Australia and the United States

The governments of the United States and Australia today announced an agreement to establish a Climate Action Partnership. The agreement was reached following meetings on climate change held in Washington this week between Dr. David Kemp, Australian Minister for the Environment and Heritage, and several senior members of the U.S. Administration, including: EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality James Connaughton, Deputy Secretary of Energy Francis Blake, and Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky.

The U.S.-Australia Climate Action Partnership will involve the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of State and their Australian counterparts.

The initial meeting will be coordinated by Under Secretary of State Dobriansky and Dr. Kemp.

The partnership will focus on practical approaches toward dealing with climate change.

Informal working groups will involve officials, under senior-level leadership, from the Departments of Commerce, Energy and State and the Environmental Protection Agency, and their Australian counterpart agencies, as well as research bodies and industry. They will focus on such issues as emissions measurement and accounting, climate change science, stationary energy technologies, engagement with business to create economically efficient climate change solutions, agriculture and land management and collaboration with developing countries to build capacity to deal with climate change.
Released on February 27, 2002

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 373ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that George W. Bush had already pulled the US out of negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol. Everyone assumed that Howard, sooner or later, would announce that Australia was going to follow this because of the 1997 leak (LINK).  and also Howard wanting to remain in total lockstep with the Americans, especially after September 11. But more generally, Australia has always been a 51st state or colony since 1942.

If you’re not going to ratify Kyoto, then you need something else to soothe potentially worried voters. The most obvious something else is “tchnology will save the day.” It’s a brilliant narrative because it goes with the grain of technophilia, and because you can dismiss opponents of it as Luddites.

Here we see the Federal Environment Minister, David Kemp, who’s replaced Robert Hill, at the US Embassy, wittering about technology. 

What I think we can learn from this: There’s no bullshit so humiliating that greasy pole climbers in vassal states won’t eat it up and ask for seconds.

What happened next

These various “Technology Partnerships” took up a lot of bandwidth and achieved nothing, And the emissions kept climbing

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: 

February 27, 1988 – Canberra “Global Change” conference ends

February 27, 1989 – Barron’s “Climate of Fear” shame…

February 27, 1992 – climate denialists continue their effective and, ah, well EVIL, work

Feb 27, 2003 – the “FutureGen” farce begins…

Categories
Australia

February 26, 2007 – ABC’s Four Corners tackles climate (again)

Eighteen years ago, on this day, February 26th, 2007,

Four Corners documentary – Read extended interviews, key reports and international commentary on the global warming debate.

Date: 26/02/2007

CLIMATE CHANGE REPORTS

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/129911/20141213-0133/www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s1857355.htm

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in sort of September, 2006 the climate issue had burst back on to the Australian political agenda thanks to the Millennium drought, Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, the Stern Review, etc, There had been a massive “walk against warming”, and the question over as well, what was going to replace the Kyoto Protocol, and would Australia be in it?

 By now Kevin Rudd had seized control of the Australian Labor Party from Kim Beasley, and was using climate as one of the sticks to beat John Howard with. So climate was extremely salient, and of course Four Corners, which is the ABCs flagship current affairs program had already tackled climate repeatedly in the 90s. In early 2006 it had broken the story about the “greenhouse mafia.” 

What I think we can learn from this is that when you’re on the upswing of an issue attention cycle iI feeds on itself. It’s easy to write more stories. The public’s appetite for more stories has not been sated

What happened next is that climate stayed high on the political agenda for a surprisingly long time. This was because no solution was successfully implemented. Then the minority government of Julia Gillard, between 2010 and 2013 needed to push through carbon pricing legislation (this was exceptionally bloody). 

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: 

Feb 26, 1981 – Science writer warns readers about the greenhouse in the Guardian….

February 26, 1988 – Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman warns of “Dramatic Warming”

 Feb 26, 1998 – Australian “clean coal” is on the way (again).

February 26, 2014 – Advanced Propaganda for Morons

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

February 25, 2003 – Australian Treasury says “carbon pricing. It’s not rocket science”

Twenty two years ago, on this day, February 25th, 2003,

In an attachment to a cabinet memorandum dated 25 February 2003, Treasury warned that “the current approach to domestic emissions mitigation is not a sustainable long term approach, with its heavy reliance on spending programs, prescriptive regulation and ‘picking winners’”.

Treasury said this would come “at a very high economic cost” whereas any credible long-term climate change strategy must involve shifting the bulk of the responsibility to emitters.

It said a broad-based market mechanism, such as an ETS, had the benefit of “inducing a least-cost path to reducing emissions and best positioning the economy to respond to future developments” https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/01/liberal-coalition-cabinet-papers-emissions-

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in June, 2002 John Howard had said that he would not be putting Australia’s membership of participation in the Kyoto Protocol forward for ratification,e. Australia would be outside. 

But the climate issue was still live, with the Millennium drought ongoing and various attempts to sensitize people. There had been an attempt to get an emissions trading scheme through Howard’s cabinet, in August of 2000. That had been defeated thanks to Nick Minchin as the front person. And at this point, I suspect it was fairly clear that there was going to be another attempt at putting an ETS through. Treasury was simply saying what was obvious .

What I think we can learn from this is that there really was, among people who work on the economy, not a lot of debate about the need for some sort of price on carbon. That’s what you do. You raise the price of things that are causing harm, and hopefully you use the money to research things that will cause less harm. That’s the theory anyway.

What happened next Howard would literally, single-handedly killed off the emissions trading scheme later, in 2003. The emissions kept climbing, and we are absolutely toast. 

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: 

 February 25, 1981 – National Party senator nails the climate problem

Feb 25 1992- business groups predict economic chaos if action is taken on #climate

Feb 25, 2007 – “Clean Coal Initiative” as move in game of one-dimensional electoral chess #auspol

February 25, 2011 – Alan Jones versus sanity

Categories
Interviews

Kevin Anderson pt 4 – the Climate Change Committee is not independent, and has “systematically undermined the Climate Change Act.”

Climate scientist Professor Kevin Anderson has said that the much-vaunted Climate Change Committee has “systematically undermined the 2008 Climate Change Act – an Act that, in my view, was far ahead of its time.” 

Interviewed before making a presentation at a January 30th public meeting in Glossop, England, Anderson was continued his point by saying that the Committee was independent in name only.

“It is not an independent committee. It was set up by government to give advice to government, and it is paid by government. Nothing in that implies independence. Through private discussion with a very senior CCC member, I was left in no doubt that the CCC chooses to push government as hard as they think government is prepared to be pushed – and that any harder, and their advice will be ignored and the Committee sidelined.”

The interview covered a range of topics, and is being released in installments. Part one, on the physical impacts we can expect is here. Part two, on “Team Mann vs Team Hansen” and the speed of recent warming is here. Part three on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ support for a third runway at Heathrow, aviation in general and the quality of advice being offered is here.  The interview was conducted by Dr Marc Hudson, who has interviewed Professor Anderson on several occasions over the past 15 years. Dr Hudson runs All Our Yesterdays, an  “on this day” website about climate politics, technology, protest that covered events from 1661 to the present day.

The transcript of the relevant portion of the interview can be found below.

You are free (and of course encouraged) to use this material for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Please cite both the source (i.e. that the interview was conducted by Marc Hudson, and the URL of this page

For more of Kevin’s work see Climate Uncensored,

I think it’s a very alternate universe when you get the gig [as Ed Miliband’s SPAD] over Chris Stark. So what will Chris Stark say, or has he said, and he should be saying what you’ve just said. So, what’s going on there? How come the politicians are not even getting the sort of scientific advice that they should? And this leads into your and my concern about the cognitive, intellectual corruption of academia, which, with a few honorable exceptions, has “not covered itself in glory.” To throw in as many cliches as I could.

Kevin Anderson 20:15

Well, obviously, Chris Stark was previously the CEO of the Government’s Climate Change, Committee. But he’s now gone on to become Ed Miliband’s advisor on climate change issues, particularly on decarbonising power.

My problem with the Climate Change Committee is that it has systematically undermined the 2008 Climate Change Act – an Act that, in my view, was far ahead of its time. This would have been much less an issue if the academic and expert community had not run scared of countering the CCC’s preference for what they deemed to be politically acceptable rather than what is scientifically necessary to deliver on our climate commitments.

The CCC is not an independent committee. It was set up by government to give advice to government, and it is paid by government. Nothing in that implies independence. Through private discussion with a very senior CCC member, I was left in no doubt that the CCC chooses to push government as hard as they think government is prepared to be pushed – and that any harder, and their advice will be ignored and the Committee sidelined.

I see that as a perfectly reasonable position to take if you then don’t claim to be an independent committee. But it also then requires the academic community to hold the CCC to account – based on the science, our analysis and the climate commitments our governments repeatedly sign up to. But that hasn’t happened – quite the opposite.

Set against a weak academia and a similarly weak funding agency, the UKRI – or as it was called previously the research councils, – the CCC have effectively dictated the research agenda. When the CCC has said jump we’ve asked how high – rather than why!.

First our research had to fit with a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050, then it was 80% by 2050, then carbon budgets were introduced, but quickly shifted to a Net Zero 2050 framework. In effect, the boundaries of analysis have been dictated by the CCC, as if the committee is some form of Oracle. This was bad enough. But with Chris Stark becoming the CEO, he was such a highly effective leader of a government committee, a real smooth operator, that a weak academia was left even more in thrall of the CCC. So, whilst we might endeavour to do objective research on cutting emissions, it is inevitably set within the CCC’s deeply political boundary – one that is far removed anything aligned with our Paris temperature and equity commitments

I realise very few if any academics will agree with me here, at least in public, though it’s a different story in private, but I see the CCC as having fundamentally misinformed and let down, not just the UK policy makers and the public, but of course, the people who already are and will be impacted by climate change. But this failure has been actively facilitated by the supine academic community that has not stood up for academic integrity, simply bending to will of the CCC; just look at the ubiquitous ‘net zero 2050’ framing of our research, language and publications; barely a whimper of dissent. It’s the old cliché, bad things happen whilst good people stay quiet. Sadly, and very specifically on mitigation (so not on climate science), I see cowardice rather than academic integrity as the collective hallmark of our contribution thus far.

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

February 24, 2011 – the fateful press conference of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Greens Bob Brown…

Fourteen years ago, on this day, February 24th, 2011,

She announced this in her courtyard, alongside the Green party (as for the multi-party committee the previous year) and this time also bringing in the independent MPs. Look, it said, parliamentary numbers are locked in, this is not a hypothetical any more – she had the will, and it would be done. An hour later in question time the PM would describe the carbon price as ‘a scheme that would start with a fixed price for a fixed period, effectively like a tax’ – no lawyer language or weasel words, no hiding: she was going to make the case.

I was one of those who thought it seemed like the best of a bad lot of options at the time.

Instead, it became proof that she’d lied.

(Cooney, 2015: 87)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the 2010 Federal election had led to a hung parliament (not as much fun as it sounds, say the ‘comics’). This meant that neither Labor nor the Coalition could form a government without getting the agreement of a bunch of independents (and one Green). And most of the independents wanted… a carbon price. So Julia Gillard signed on the dotted line and created a Multi-Party Committee on Climate Change. The Liberals and Nationals were invited, but declined to take part. The MPCCC beavered away and on this day a press conference was held. The evening held extra horrors for the PM, who – and this is hard to believe – had not workshopped/rehearsed a response to the obvious question “How come you’re introducing a carbon price when you said days before the last election that you wouldn’t?” 

Here’s some more quotes –

Prime Minister Julia Gillard called a media conference for mid-morning on 24 February 2011 to announce the Discussion Paper on a proposed carbon mechanism. It was a showing of the prime minister flanked by other MPCCCC members from the Labor Party, the Greens, Rob Oakeshott and me. Before I went down to join the group for a photo my policy adviser, John Clements, cautioned me about standing with the group. He thought that being seen with the Greens might be interpreted as agreeing with their agenda. He didn’t quite say it would be, ‘A courageous decision, Mr Windsor,’ in the best Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey voice, but that’s what he meant.

(Windsor, 2015: 137)

It is my greatest regret that I did not provide more fearless advice to Julia to avoid this error [tax/fixed price]. Labor’s carbon price was an emissions trading scheme and we should have argued that until we were blue in the face.

(Combet, 2014: 252)

Within twenty-four hours the ‘no carbon tax’ election pledge cut through the electorate like a scalpel. Every media interview for months was dominated by a broken promise that was falsely marketed as a ‘lie’. Debate on climate change and carbon pricing was derailed by the poisonous politics. My job was to try to make the science and policy the issues once again.

(Combet, 2014: 252)

On 24 February 2011, six months after the election, a proud Julia Gillard announced agreement in principle between Labor and the Greens on a carbon pricing scheme for Australia. The Greens and the independents stood beside her in the prime minister’s courtyard, Bob Brown given virtually equal status. Gillard was making minority government work. In the process she signed her death warrant as prime minister.

(Kelly, 2014:362)

Abbott’s media conference the same day saw one of the most brutal assaults by an Opposition leader in a generation. Labor never saw it coming. Abbott called Gillard’s position ‘an utter betrayal of the Australian people’ and predicted a people’s revolt. He enshrined the issue as trust: ‘If the Australian people could not trust the Prime Minister on this, they can’t trust her on anything.’ He said ‘the price of this betrayal will be paid every day by every Australian’ in terms of higher power prices. Abbott launched a campaign that would make Gillard unelectable. Yet most of the ALP thought they had just negotiated a minority government triumph.

(Kelly, 2014:362)

What I think we can learn from this is that optics matter.

What happened next?  An indescribably wild six month fight about carbon pricing, with it on the front page of the Australian “newspaper” almost every day…

See also all the misogynistic crap about “Ju-Liar,” “Ditch the Witch” and “Bob Brown’s Bitch”

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.