Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 9, 2009, Stefan Rahmstorf, climate scientist and oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research spends time and readers’ bandwidth unpicking the trickery of Bjohn Lomborg, ace lukewarmist.
“And it is telling that he then goes on to draw an “inescapable” conclusion about a slow-down of sea level rise from just four years of data. This is another well-worn debating trick: confuse the public about the underlying trend by focusing on short-term fluctuations. It’s like claiming spring won’t come if there is a brief cold snap in April.”
Rebuttal in The Guardian of Lomborg´s claim that sea level is not steadily rising, March 9th 2009.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that denialists were stepping up their campaigns of cherry-picking, doubt-mongering and so on. The so-called lukewarmists – a more sophisticated.version of straight out denial, were stepping up their campaigns of doubt and confusion and spewing out flak, ahead of another big international gathering, this time in Copenhagen.
What I think we can learn from this
The patient work of debunking a set of misleading statements is costly and ineffective. Because the mere attempt to debunk gives the appearance that there are two more or less equal sides in a debate on this issue. There really aren’t, not equal, cognitively or in terms of numbers of working scientists.
But they want to give that impression thus – the Oregon petition, (which comes up in April on this site), and so on.
What happened next
The “Gish Gallop” technique keeps getting used, because it’s a really effective tool in the absence of an educated populace that is able to think for itself.
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..
Cracking interview with Dr Jenna Ashton (aka @heritagemcr) about feminism, archives, etc.
1. Who are you, and how did you come to be an historian?
I am a Lecturer in Heritage Studies and arts-led researcher, in the Dept. of Art History & Cultural Practices, University of Manchester. I’m also Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures with our “Creative Manchester” platform, and an Associate Member of the Sustainable Consumption Institute. My work largely focuses on place-based community cultural practices and expression, along with evolving (I hope!) feminist theory and methods. As an artist, curator, and producer, I consider artmaking as a process for thinking and analysis (to misquote Mieke Bal, 2022).
It’s funny you describe me as an historian. I never think of myself as an “historian”, but a strange scholarly combination, working across the sociological, historical, visual, material, spatial, ecological. I’ve always wanted to connect the contemporary with the historical and understand things politically. I finally discovered this was called “cultural studies”, so I guess that’s where I have landed now, with a critical angle on all-things “heritage” practice and discourse.
My background education is mostly in the arts; at A Level I took all arts subjects across literature, language, performance, and film (much to the dismay of my science and sociology teachers). At Uni (I took all three degrees, BA (Hons), MA, PhD at Uni of Manchester, not being able to afford to travel elsewhere, and with other family and work commitments), I first took a combined degree across Drama, Literary Studies, Art History, and Classical Civilisation. It was a running joke that I had the longest degree title of any student graduating in my year. But I didn’t want to drop any subjects after A Levels, and I also didn’t know what I wanted to “specialize” in. So, a combined degree fulfilled that. It was horribly organised and combined students were badly supported; we didn’t belong to any one department, so we were pushed around and ignored quite a bit. It’s funny that interdisciplinarity is such a “thing” now. We were doing it via the combined programme, but we didn’t have the lingo or the zeitgeist. I loved it. I could pick and choose the modules I wanted to take and mix it up into a wonderful artsy-soup. I discovered a love of (and knack for) art history and visual studies [AHVS] (which wasn’t available during school), with a focus on feminist and social practices. I took my MA (FT) and PhD (PT) in AHVS. My PhD analysed childhoods through the lens of contemporary sculpture. It was described by the examiners as not a very “traditional” art history PhD, as it brought together visual arts, sociology, spatial theories, and psychoanalysis. To me, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world to use the visual and plastic arts to make sense of socio-psychological experiences given they emerged within a cultural context. Within a cultural studies dept. or school of art this wouldn’t have been at all odd.
Anyway, since 2018 I have been back at that same department as an employee, working mostly with colleagues in the “cultural practices” side of things or with academics in other arts and science disciplines.
So am I an historian? Kind of. “Historian” always seems such a grand title and as if you should have a very precise and defined period of expertise. I don’t have that. But historical methods are important to all scholarship and practice. I always thought it odd the separation between what I would call “straight” history (with a capital H) and “queer” history (aka art history). It still exists; the two disciplines don’t seem to talk to each other. At some point during my education (and also lived experience) feminist activists, histories, and practices helped me fuse all these disparate academic parts together with my concern for social justice issues. Feminism exists on the edges, in the gaps, defies the binaries. Feminism is also hopeful. It can see a way through the quagmire.
I have a parallel story of work and everyday life that intersects with my uni education and academic development that was/is as equally important as the learning undertaken in the Ivory Towers, but that’s for another interview.
2. Why do we need a feminist analysis and practice around archives and archiving? (Imagine I am asking that in my best Daily Mail voice, muttering about woke Corbynista stalinist social justice warriors)
Archives are part of structures of power and oppression. This is not a “woke-snowflake” interpretation, but a fact acknowledged by archivists and archival science. Archives are not neutral or objective containers of artefacts and documents but, like museums, have evolved through a process of careful (or not so careful) construction – led by the “victors” and those with power. Feminist practices seek to redress or expose structures of power relating to sex and gender (and its intersectional issues), and to evidence and promote differently gendered or sexed experiences and materialisations that have been oppressed or eradicated via oppressive patriarchal systems. Importantly, feminist practices are not just concerned with the historical record, but feed back into our contemporary cultural and social systems, reimagining, shaping, and enacting societies that are fair, equitable, and just. Feminism in the archives makes space for evidencing the marginalised and oppressed; it also enables the documenting and evidencing of its own heritage (feminism as heritage). Where women’s rights are still under threat (along with wider LGBTQ+ peoples), and our bodies are at risk from violence, poverty, and ill-health, feminist analysis and practices are required across all areas of cultural production and its materialisation and systems.
Since 2016 I have been focusing on feminist archival and curatorial practices as methodologies, working with numerous archives and collections, archivists, artists, and women’s organisations to explore these issues through practice and publishing.
In 2017 I published “The Feminists are Cackling in the Archive: A Manifesto for Feminist Archiving (or disruption)” with Feminist Review (download here). It was an invited submission, following an event on archiving women’s performance practice. The Manifesto brings together all the things I still try to do: working collaboratively with people, develop new forms via creative practice, publish varied and interesting pieces that embody the practice (not merely representative or dissemination), and work through serious issues playfully.
3. Are women still being written out of the history? If so, how, and what should people (including ‘male allies’ – because, you know, ultimately everything has to be about them) be doing about that?
First, start by reading (and citing) all the great feminist work that is being done to diversify histories and contemporary accounts of women’s experiences and practices. Second, support women-led initiatives and research aiming to “cackle” and disrupt the record (including providing the funding and infrastructure.) Third, get on and disseminate that work. Fourth, pay women decent wages across all sectors so they are not struggling to survive. Fifth , stop killing women (ideally, this should be first). Sixth, just because she’s a woman with power doesn’t mean she’s a feminist and cares about other marginalised or at-risk women (see various examples in current Conservative Government). But, stories of those women are as equally important to evidence, to remind us that social justice is the work of feminist practice, not simply putting women into powerful positions.
4. What are you working on at present/near future?
Publishing wise, I’m working on an edited collection for Routledge on “Heritage and Gender”, and an experimental authored book for Intellect on “Feminist Co-Production: as a Crochet Textile Playground” (using the work of Japanese artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam as a textile metaphor). Practice-wise, I am working in North Manchester (in neighbourhoods with high indices of multiple deprivation) leading an interdisciplinary research project making sense of community resilience under climate change stresses, and exploring the potential of arts practice for supporting social justice. Plus, I’m working on another research project supporting work around riparian treescapes for climate adaptation, land stewardship, and species reintroduction. Now (and in the near future) my work is mostly ecological, a natural progression from feminist cultural work. I also have an adopted archive of an ageing female photographer I want to work on at some point …
5. Anything else you’d like to say.
Amongst the raging at inequalities and injustice, I witness, daily, very ordinary people doing extraordinary things for humanity and other living beings. I hold onto bell hooks’ call for people to practice love and to love each other well. Feminism is hope.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 7, 2001, the US news network CNN showed what is “normal” and what is “bad” in its cosmology, when reporting on old white men in suits versus protests…
7 March 2001 CNN reports on climate protests “marring” (pointless) climate talks – Protests mar climate talks
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there were climate negotiations in Italy, at which the Americans were – surprise surprise – basically saying “fuck you.” This was shortly after George Bush was selected as President.
The Hague negotiations in November 2000 had ended in such a disaster that the meeting wasn’t finally closed. And so with your big Cheney as his vice president, it looks pretty perilous for international climate negotiations.
What I think we can learn from this
What’s important here is the framing that protest activity by civil society would besmirch the nice, cool, rational debates of our lords and masters. Now, if you put it bluntly, the journalist who wrote it, or the sub-editor who wrote it, would either say, “Well, look, it’s just a headline. And we don’t have much space.” They might agree with the point about the politics at a superficial level. But if pushed, they would say “No, why should the mob be able to influence what the smart technocrats are doing?”
And that hatred of ordinary people, and their involvement is persistent. And it’s the case that if you don’t abide by that, then you don’t get your role as a journalist or as an academic or whatever.
If you’re interested in this stuff, then obviously, reading Chomsky is a good idea, but also the life and times of Randolph Bourne who died just after World War One. Obviously Gramsci on the power of hegemony. If and how the popular press works, and any number of publications by the Glasgow Media Group etc
What happened next
Bush pulled out of Kyoto, an entirely sane and rational decision “marred” by protest.
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..
Thirty five years ago, on this day, March 7 (or thereabouts) 1988 at a conference on Gaia running from 7 to 11 March…
Richard Gammon of the US government’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at Seattle in Washington state, seems to have been the first off the starting blocks. After seeing the complete data for 1987 and the first results for 1988, he told a conference in March 1988: “Since the mid-1970s we have been in a period of very, very rapid warming. We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.”
(Pearce, 1989:3)
[“The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference” in San Diego was from March 7 to 11.]
Rarely has a hypothesis immediately sparked such a passionate response. There is something in it for everybody, from hard core scientists to philosophers, ultraconservationists, students of world religions, mystics, politicians, and space enthusiasts; they were all there in San Diego, March 7–11, 1988, for the AGU Chapman Conference on Gaia Hypotheses. For 4 days an impressive list of specialists presented and debated the pros and cons of Gaia Hypotheses from diverse perspectives: modern and ancient biology, ecology, biochemistry, the physicochemical systems of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere, and the evolution of the solar system.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 352.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “earth systems” scientists were very interested in the Lovelock and Margulis Gaia theory, enough to have a conference about it. And from the October 1985 Villach meeting onwards, the scientists and politicians were all getting more interested in just how soon the signal would emerge from the noise on climate change…
What I think we can learn from this
James Hansen was not an outlier in his June 1988 testimony. Sure, there wasn’t necessarily a majority, but what Hansen said was not all that unusual or surprising (see Schneider’s Greenhouse Century for accounts of how journalists kept looking for quotes from him to try to set up a “Hansen/Schneider split” story.)
What happened next
Within months climate change would become unavoidable for politicians. No more long grass…
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..
Thirty one years ago, on this day, March 6, 1992, US Public Radio had a segment with polar opposite views on its environment segment with Fred Singer (denialist idiot) and Anil Agarwal, of the Center for Science and the Environment, in New Delhi [link]. Agrawal made the point that while the West was talking about its luxury emissions, the mere survival emissions of poor people were being ignored, or worse, thrown into the mix as something that must be reduced. Oh how times have changed…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that negotiations for the text of a climate treaty were entering the end game, centred on US intransigence on the question of targets and timetables versus the desire of the Europeans to have a stronger treaty.
Singer had just orchestrated an open letter (see Feb 27 1992)
And National Public Radio was trying to educate people about all aspects of the debate, the science, the policy, etc. Agrawal made the point that there are such things as necessity, “survival emissions” versus “luxury emissions”, and that countries like India should have capacity to increase their emissions. Singer was just spewing the usual shite.
What I think we can learn from this
We should remember that what we now see, as a matter of fact, text of a climate treaty has been, from the beginning, intensely fought over. And the battles that were won by the evil bastards in 1992 have made it much easier for the opponents of climate action to continue to win, though they have never, to my knowledge, rested on their laurels, or taken their ongoing victory for granted.
What happened next
The French and Europeans blinked. There were no targets and timetables in the treaty. And here we are 31 years later.
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...
Twelve years ago, on this day, March 5, 2011 veteran Australian political commentator Laurie Oakes nailed the climate denialist nutters.
“Wingnuts are coming out of the woodwork. The mad and menacing phone calls to independent MP Tony Windsor are just one indication. There are plenty of others online. The carbon tax and Tony Abbott’s call for a people’s revolt have crazies foaming at the mouth. You see it on the ‘Revolt Against the Carbon Tax’ Facebook page, for example. Like this message from a Gillard-hater about a rally in front of Parliament House being planned for March 23: ‘Just like Egypt we stay there and protest continuously until she and her cronies, Bob Brown Greens etc are ousted! We have got to get rid of this Godless mistress of deceit.”’
Oakes, L. 2011. Loonies latch on to the politics of hate. The Australian, 5 March.
Oakes, 2013: 86
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was an incredibly heated culture war that had been constructed around the question of having a price on carbon emissions. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott had had multiple positions on carbon pricing and climate change (the Howard government had gone to the 2007 election with such a policy). Abbott admitted to being a weather vane n the issue
By March 2011 he had seen off Kevin Rudd and had been reportedly willing to sell his ass to become Prime Minister. In February 2011 Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard had announced that there would be an emissions trading scheme with a fixed price for two years. And as oaks puts it, all the wingnuts came out to play…
What I think we can learn from this
That settler colonies don’t deal well with the notion of environmental limits especially if someone who is only a woman is in charge.
That it is partly possible to import culture war techniques from the United States. They won’t work perfectly in other countries, but for a while, they give the appearance of effectiveness.
You also want to think about McCright and Dunlap 2011, anti reflexivity as part of the picture underneath all of this.
What happened next
Well, on the 23rd of March, there was the infamous rally with Abbott being photographed next to placards that talked about “Bob Brown’s Bitch” and “Ditch the Witch ”. The wingnuts kept coming out to play but with less than less efficacy. It’s not just left wing groups that suffer from burnout and emotacycles.
Abbott got the opportunity to show the world what a smart and effective leader he could be from September 2013. “Oops” doesn’t begin to cover 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.
It would be nice to live in Patrick J Allen’s world (FT letters “Getting mad at oil majors won’t solve energy crisis,” FT Weekend, 18 February). In that world innocent and disinterested oil companies are simply waiting for the world’s governments to agree a global carbon price.
Sadly, this world – the real one- is rapidly overheating. In this world oil companies have spent the last 35 years – from the very start of the climate negotiations – resolutely opposing such measures at both national and international levels. Whether the price is a tax or an emissions trading scheme, oil companies have been key players in the campaign of predatory delay, delaying deferring watering down either via direct lobbying, or by funding groups that deny the basic reality of 19th century physics.
Indeed, the call for a global carbon price is a classic delaying technique, because such a price would take decades to agree, even if it could be (doubtful).
These are decades during which two things would happen. One, the impacts of the carbon dioxide we have already put into the air would accelerate. Second, oil company profits would continue to climb.
Dr Marc Hudson
So, on the 19th century physics bit – before Arrhenius in 1896, there was this –
The French chemist Fourier in 1824/1827, showing that given the Earth’s distance from the Sun, and the temperature of the Earth, there must be *something* trapping heat, as in a greenhouse (see Jason Fleming’s excellent article).
Eunice Foote and John Tyndall in the late 1850s and early 1860s respectively showing that “carbonic acid” (essentially carbon dioxide in solution) traps heat…
On predatory delay –
Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.
“Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime. For delay to be truly predatory, those engaged in it need to know two things: That they’re hurting others and that there are other options.”
Why I write
I LOVE the FT – not for its pro-growth, pro-capitalism ideology, but for its intelligence, the facts it displays, the quality of its writers. As Chomsky has said, if you want a tolerably accurate view of the world, read the quality business press (albeit with your bullshit detectors set to maximum settings), because these papers are written for the people who are actually running the show, and they need accurate information, not fairy stories they want to believe or they want/need other people to believe.
And that’s why I put effort into pushing back against bad narratives about climate change that appear in the FT. If the pushback gets published, then it appears in front of people who ‘matter’. As theories of change go, it’s not much, I agree, but at least it’s not going to make things actively worse…
Twenty years ago, on this day, March 4, 2003, President Bush’s greenwash strategy was revealed in all its steaming glory
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush was clearly not going to do anything about climate change. It’s not clear that Al Gore, who actually won the 2000 presidential election, would have either, but there you are. So it became a question of how to position the issue. So-called “perception management.” And the Luntz memo basically says,
What I think we can learn from this
The battle for the control of the public mind is a never-ending battle. (Or rather, the propagandisation and the attempts to combat it, so that we can have a public sphere not dominated by rich vested interests, is never-ending). And as reality, physical reality, impinges more and more, you’re gonna find more and more people spewing propaganda and more and more people and this is the crux, wanting to believe it. So, this is not brainwashing against resistance. This is going with the grain.
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 five years ago, on this day, March 4, 1998, Gwen Andrews became the first boss of the “Australian Greenhouse Office”
“With a bureaucratic background in the Department of Finance and an unassuming manner, Andrews was probably useful early on in allaying concern in industry at the creation of the new office. However, as the AGO suffered one Cabinet defeat after another, the hopes of the staff to be part of Australia’s response to the world’s biggest environmental threat were deflated and morale fell. Andrews resigned in 2002 and later said that over her four years in the job she was not once asked to brief the Prime Minister on the issue.
(Hamilton, 2007: 99)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context for the creation of the Australian Greenhouse Office, was that John Howard had been desperate to minimise the political damage that would accrue from not making a deal or not signing on to a deal at Kyoto.
In late 1997, before the Kyoto conference, in order to get his version of the narrative installed as insurance, he had announced the creation of the Australian Greenhouse Office. As was pointed out by Clive Hamilton, the funding for this was derisory, and it was likely to achieve nothing.
And so it came to pass. Gwen Andrews was the appointed CE.
What I think we can learn from this
It’s easy for naive radicals and for liberals to think that the creation of an office or a task force is somehow progress. It is not. It is at best potential progress, the outcome of which will rely on sustained radical non co-opted action. But this is tremendously difficult because for NGOs in need of easy wins such taskforces are pure catnip, and middle-class people who have mortgages to pay, kids to educate and so forth go and get medium to well paid jobs in such structures. You see it all the time. – see the end of this report about Manchester event about airports and public hearings as a redemption ritual – https://manchesterclimatemonthly.net/2013/07/09/event-report-airports-commission-talks-climate-in-manchester-redemptionritual/
What happened next
The Australian Greenhouse office staggered on as a less and less convincing thing, fig leaf, until it was in the manner of these things discarded in 2003 or 2004.
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
Hamilton, C. (2007) Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change. Black Inc.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, March 3, 1990, a report on energy efficiency, commissioned by Australia’s Federal Government, was launched
AUSTRALIA could save money and drastically reduce emissions of greenhouse gas if it became energy efficient, a report released yesterday revealed.
The report, A Greenhouse Energy Strategy, commissioned by the Federal Environment Department, found that by the year 2005, Australia could reduce its carbon dioxide output by almost 19 per cent on 1988 levels, resulting in annual savings of $6.5 billion.
Mealey, E. 1990. Energy cuts could save $6.5bn a year. Sun Herald, 4 March, p. 37
And
In the year 2005, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by 18.8 per cent below the 1988 levels, and at the same time, Australia could save $6.5 billion a year, Federal Environment Minister Graham Richardson said on March 3. He was presenting the Greenhouse Energy Strategy report by Deni Green Consulting Services. “An annual saving on that scale has the potential to turn Australia’s economy around,” said Senator Richardson.
Anon, 1990. How energy efficiency could save money, cut greenhouse gases. Green Week, March 13 , p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia and other nations were holding various meetings, The Hague (March 1989) Nordwijk (November 1989), etc. around a climate treaty. The US and UK were both trying to slow it down. And in these various nations, environmentalists were trying to get strong policies about greenhouse gas emissions reductions. In Australia the environment department (DASETT) paid for a study by an expat American economist called Deni Green.
And on this day, a report was released, written by her, saying that energy efficiency measures would make achieving a putative 20% reduction in emissions by 2005 very, very doable.
And of course, all of this was happening in the context of a federal election to be held later the same month.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember that people have been talking about the value of energy efficiency as a greenhouse gas reduction measure for literally decades. And yet, not nearly as much progress has been made as they would have expected that the time or could have been. And it’s worth exploring why. One simple reason is that efficiency is not sexy, it doesn’t mean that the politician can stand there with a big hardhat and a high vis jacket. It also speaks to having to be limited. And modern humans hate that idea, hate having to live within limits. Or rather, the capitalists hate the idea that we would have to… see Hudson 2017 for more on this
What happened next
The Friends of Coal won all the big battles, and the idea of energy efficiency on steroids got sidelined again, of course.
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..
