Twenty years ago, on this day, February 17, 2003, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr (long aware of climate problems) accuses John Howard of merely going along with the US in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
Bob Carr has today released a new report, sponsored by three Labor states, that he says shows that the cost to Australia of not joining the treaty will be higher than joining it. It claims that countries that do not ratify the agreement on greenhouse gas emissions will lose out on future investment opportunities in renewable energies.
Mr Carr has also proposed setting up a new office in New South Wales to oversee the use of renewable energy and carbon emissions.
He says if the Prime Minister will not act then he is forced to show leadership on the issue. “I think it’s not unfair to say of our Prime Minister, that all his instincts are very, very conservative and he’s going along with America,” he said. “He’s going along with America but if there was ever a case for running a policy independent of Washington this is it.”
ABC, 2003 Carr accuses Howard of poor leadership. 17 February 2003
Meanwhile, on the same day, Greenpeace tried to widen the existing split within the Business Council of Australia over the Kyoto Protocol….
SYDNEY, Feb 17, AAP – One of Australia’s big four banks has indicated its support for an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases.
Greenpeace today said initial findings of its survey of Business Council of Australia (BCA) members revealed Westpac supported the aims and objectives of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
AAP. 2003. Westpac supports Kyoto Protocol – Greenpeace. Australian Associated Press Financial News Wire, 17 Feb
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
John Howard was cuddling up to George Bush on everything – the attack on Iraq, trashing climate diplomacy, you name it. Carr was busy still trying to turn New South Wales into some sort of exemplar, at least for carbon trading (thus the report and the Gore-schmoozing).
Meanwhile, Greenpeace was having to do WWF’s job of splitting the business sector, because WWF was being very friendly with Howard (though to be fair, later in 2003, WWF tried to grow a pair. Sort of).
What I think we can learn from this
Finding/enlarging splits between government and business and splitting apart the (usually superficial) unity of business is something that NGOs can be good at. Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation kept at it, and it sort of bore fruit in 2006. Strange fruit, but fruit. Sort of (no, not really, but what are you going to do?)
What happened next
Howard never signed up for Kyoto, to his cost in 2007
Various “pro”-climate business groupings have come and gone since 2003. Lots of warm words, not much else, though they would all dispute that, naturally.
Carr stopped being Premier in 2005, and later served as Julia Gillard’s Foreign Affairs Minister
And we all lived hotly ever after, until we didn’t.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 16, 2007, as the second big wave of climate awareness was kicking off in Australia, a senior Liberal politician was… being himself.
It SHOULD not be seen as a sin to be cautious about the science of global warming, a senior Federal Government minister has warned.
Finance Minister Nick Minchin says “there remains an ongoing debate about the extent of climate change” and the extent of human activity’s role in global warming.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Nick Minchin had been successful in defeating an emissions trading scheme in the year 2000. And he had remained one of John Howard’s staunch culture warriors on the question of climate. From late 2006 people in Australia started to become reawakened to the climate problem and Minchin was pushing back in the way that old white men so often do. By this I mean pointing the finger at people and calling them hysterical and accusing them of panicking without bothering to think that maybe there is something to panic about.
What I think we can learn/remember from this
Just a reminder that just because someone is “successful” does not mean they cannot be a harmful dolt.
The sorts of things that Minchin accuses others of doing – cherry picking data, being unscientific – that’s all projection, that’s what he’s doing.
There are always old white men who will come out with this bullshit and of course now they’ve painted themselves into a corner and would have to admit that they had been wrong which would be psychologically devastating for them.
What happened next
Labor won the Federal election at the end of the year and fundamentally bollocksed up the politics and policy. Well done, Kevin. You’re from Queensland and you’re here to really screw things up.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Dr Dani Shanley writes a guest post about responsible innovation.
“Technology: Hero or Villain?” So reads the title of an article published in the LA Times in 1967. It states: where once “America had been a land of boundless optimism,” by the late 1960s, increasing pessimism seemed to reflect a “sour assessment of ‘progress’”. Concerns about emerging technologies were contributing to the “depressing feeling” that “technological ‘progress’ was creating new problems as fast, or faster, than it solved old ones”. At the same time, across much of Western Europe too, science and technology were the subject of increasing public ambivalence. For while modern technology may not have been producing the utopia it once promised, it was clear that its absence wouldn’t either.
It is almost impossible to avoid the hype surrounding AI, autonomous vehicles, cryptocurrency, or virtual reality.
Hero or villain; utopian or dystopian; good or bad… If you think for a minute about what we see in the media today, the landscape is full of similarly opposing claims, from public figures and tech journalists, CEOs and politicians; It is almost impossible to avoid the hype surrounding AI, autonomous vehicles, cryptocurrency, or virtual reality.
Depending on where you get your news, you might think that these technologies are going to make life easier for us all, making us happier and healthier in the process, or, that their benefits are sensationalized, that their risks are largely unknown, and that those involved in their development are unethical, immoral, and solely interested in turning a profit.
There is often a subtext to the hero or villain discussion, one which has been made increasingly explicit in recent years, which concerns what it means to develop technologies responsibly andhow technological change may trigger us to reevaluate what responsibility means.
Though thinking about what responsibility means in the context of scientific research and technological development is far from new, around the turn of the millennium, responsibility became an increasingly important concept in relation to research and innovation.
For example, we might think about how responsibility matters with regards to either the processes or societal impacts of technological change. Within the research system, codes of conduct and ethics committees have become commonplace. So too have a number of research funding criteria: for example, researchers are regularly required to include multiple perspectives in their research ; to think about the possible impacts of their research; and to attain some form of ethical clearance before starting their research. Research funding is also often organized around particular themes or focus areas, such as the UN’s sustainable development goals. Today, all of these efforts are broadly captured under the banner of responsibleinnovation.
Over the last decade or so, responsible innovation has become a popular way of thinking about whether or not we can define the right outcomes and impacts of research and innovation and subsequently, if we can agree upon these outcomes, whether we can be successful in directing innovation towards them.
it is clearly quite difficult to be against—as some have rightly asked, who could possibly be for irresponsible innovation
Internationally, this way of talking about responsibility-related concerns gained considerable traction particularly in the Netherlands, the UK,
Norway, and parts of the U.S. As a result, a variety of meetings, research groups, projects and networks have been involved in defining and institutionalizing the idea of responsible innovation.
In that responsible innovation broadly reflects valuable and worthy ambitions it is clearly quite difficult to be against—as some have rightly asked, who could possibly be for irresponsible innovation? Yet at the same time, the ambitions of responsible innovation do reflect a very particular set of concerns, over and above or perhaps even at the expense, of others.
It is important to recognize that as a way of envisioning responsibility and putting responsibility into practice, responsible innovation was not always already a matter of concern for academics and policymakers. Rather, responsible innovation came into being in a historically specific process that was shaped by previous approaches and methods which were also historically rooted in visions of how science and society (ought to) relate.
As such, it is important to consider how the web of evolving influence that shapes our understanding of responsible innovation today extends back into the distant past. Making sense of why responsible innovation reflects the concerns that it does therefore requires a critical examination of its history.
First of all, the way we talk about history often suggests that the wheels move only in one direction. For example, within the literature on responsible innovation, history is often used to support its objectives, providing a neat frame of reference for how things came to be in the present, essentially presenting the emergence of responsible innovation as the logical outcome of prior developments. From this point of view, responsible innovation is seen as an inevitable product of the past. Drawing upon less linear narratives helps to demonstrate the extent to which people have found visions of responsibility unconvincing—or at least only temporarily convincing at various times over the years.
Second, in policy making and innovation, the emphasis is often on looking towards the future. Though it is undoubtedly positive that we widely encourage anticipation of the future, it means that we often tend to overlook the lessons of history. In the case of responsible innovation, critical historical reflection not only adds nuance and depth when thinking about the imagined trajectories of technoscientific developments, but also provides important insights for thinking about the possible future(s) of the responsible innovation movement itself. In this sense, history may potentially offer us some guidance in the present. For while the present is never the same as the past, we can still learn important lessons from how things went before; or, as the old adage goes, history doesn’t repeat, but it does sometimes rhyme. Understanding the successes and failures of earlier movements could potentially inform and shape how we talk about and practice responsible innovation today.
Third, it is important that we consider who gets a say in constructing the historical narrative of an idea, a movement, or a field. We need to ask who it is who is doing the remembering. Historical reflection on responsible innovation, when it has taken place, has tended to come from insiders speaking from their own first-hand experiences. Such accounts are valuable and informative, yet, it is important to distinguish between practical pasts, which are largely based on individual experience and used as a means for people to make sense of their own lived experience in order to convey it to others; and historical pasts, which are the result of “critical enquiry”. Opening up the history of responsible innovation beyond existing insider accounts allows alternative accounts to come into view, potentially problematizing or at least providing context to the ways in which responsibility is being mobilized.
Finally, one of the problems with responsible innovation is that it focuses our attention on “innovation” – on the next big, shiny thing which promises to disrupt, transform or otherwise alter the way we live our lives, for better or worse. Responsible innovation itself was also presented as being new and transformative, with regards to the organization and functioning of the research system. Of course there has always been hype around what is new, but the problem is that this hype often clouds some of the real problems that we have, and perhaps should be spending our resources on solving. It may be far less exciting to think about infrastructures, or maintenance, for example, about the kinds of things that are essential to keeping things running – but if we are truly going to think about responsibility, and about what enables anything resembling the good life, then we also have to think about the systems, processes, and people that keep all the shiny, new things running once they become a part of our daily lives.
What histories of responsible innovation show us is that while some ideas about responsibility may have eroded and faded away, others have merely changed shape, poised to reemerge under the right conditions—say when proactive groups mobilize around alternative ideas about the future or when technological change catalyzes public concern. At a time when our world is confronted by numerous inescapable societal and environmental challenges, many of which are seen as the indirect consequences of scientific and technological developments, we must continue thinking about the different ways in which responsibility matters be that under the guise of responsible innovation, or, by any other name.
Dani Shanley is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Maastricht University working on the GuestXR project (www.guestxr.eu), which is about the construction of intelligent virtual environments. Her expertise is mainly within science and technology studies (STS) and the philosophy of technology, with a particular focus on reflexive, participatory design methodologies (or, responsible innovation), such as social labs and value sensitive design (VSD). She is primarily interested in questions concerning the ethics and politics of emerging technologies.
Dani recently defended her PhD, entitled ‘Making Responsibility Matter: The Emergence of Responsible Innovation as an Intellectual Movement’ – full text available here: http://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20221208ds
Ten years ago, on this day, February 15, 2013, a journo for the Melbourne Age writes a piece about the then-all-the-rage topic of “unburnable carbon”
Energy analysts and activists warn that most of the world’s fossil fuels must remain in the ground, and that it can’t be business as usual for the industry.
Green, M. 2013. Bursting the carbon bubble. The Age,15 February, p.16.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 397ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
This “unburnable carbon”/”carbon bubble rhetoric was all the rage 10 years ago. It looked like the UNFCCC process was going to be a slow route back to feeling that the system could deliver. Copenhagen had been a failure, Paris was two and a half years off and it was still not clear that it would provide anything. So all those people who need to believe that there are levers and buttons in the policy sphere that we can push turn their attention to the idea that investors rather than statesmen could solve the problems; they just needed to be given stark advice that investing in stranded assets was a bad idea.
How do you strand an asset? Well, ultimately, you need to have markets and regulations that make some investments,a bad idea and other investments a better one. How would you do that on carbon? Well, you would need a strong legally binding international agreement (which you can’t get), and therefore, we’re all toast.
.
What I think we can learn from this
Using one “part” of the financial system – whether it is the re-insurers, the insurers, the institutional investors as the leverage point, the secret push-this-button-to-change-the-system is a long-standing and soothing idea for a certain kind of climate-motivated person. Some of them are super-smart. This does not mean they are right.
Unburnable carbon as a meme allowed people to hold conferences, put out press releases, videos, get interviewed on Newsnight and podcasts and generally feel that things were still salvageable. Am I too cynical? My therapist says so.(1)
What happened next
You hear less about unburnable carbon these days, now that Paris and Net Zero are flooding the zone.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
As someone who read this before publication said – “I understand the dynamics of hoping there is a secret lever to pull, but in dismissing that at the same time as providing a psychological sort of explanation for why people keep coming back to this, you might be throwing the baby out with the bath water. There may not be a simple lever we can pull, but even if a mass movement formed which highly organized, highly effective and coordinated, competent, resourceful and dedicated, in the way you would like to see, it would still end up having to deal with the power of capital and would be highly involved in trying to pull these various “levers”
Eight years ago, on this day, February 14 , 2015, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband put aside their differences in order to focus on something they could all agree on: getting rid of unabated coal from our energy system. This level of agreement is almost unprecedented in the run-up to a general election and demonstrates the extent to which action to stop coal emissions has become a no-brainer. See more here.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Cameron, Miliband, and Clegg, all for various reasons, wanted to seem to be doing something on climate and coal was now largely friendless. It was being dug up in so few places that the employment implications were not there. So it was an easy win.
What I think we can learn from this
This sort of political bipartisanship, well tri-partisanship, will only happen if there’s a lot of public pressure, or an election coming, or if the issue can be circumscribed as “something must be done”, or a technology/sector is friendless enough to be beaten up.
What happened next
Cameron won the 2015 election outright and we started to see a rolling back of the weak climate actions that the Liberal Democrats had forced the Conservatives into – not that they’d ever been that hale and hearty to begin with
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 13 2007, a Canberra Times journalist had a cracking story about the politics of knowledge.
The CSIRO has confirmed coal industry bodies have the power to suppress a new report questioning the cost and efficiency of clean-coal carbon capture technologies because they partly funded the research. Dr David Brockway, chief of CSIRO’s division of energy technology, told a Senate estimates committee hearing yesterday it was ”not necessarily unusual” for private-industry partners investing in research programs – such as Cooperative Research Centres – to request reports be withheld from public release if findings were deemed to be not in their best interests. His comments followed questions by Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne regarding the release of an economic assessment by a senior CSIRO scientist of a new carbon capture technology to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power stations.
Beeby, R. 2007. Industry can gag research: CSIRO. Canberra Times, 15 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
John Howard and his government had been systematically undermining all other organisations that might keep tabs on them, or forcefully propose alternatives. Have a look at “Silencing Dissent” by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison for the gory (and they are gory) details.
What I think we can learn from this
Those who want things to stay the same will do whatever it takes to poke out the eyes and stuff up the mouths of anyone with brains and other ideas, while rewarding lackeys and toadies.
What happened next
Nothing good. The demolition of the CSIRO has, basically, continued. Oh well.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
February 12 1968 – The Motherfuckers do their motherfucking thing, with garbage in New York.
Fifty five years ago, on this day, February 12 1968, New York City was the scene of an inventive piece of activism.
“On February 12, 1968, a group of radicals led by Ben Morea collected garbage on the lower east side, trucked it, then dumped it in front of the Lincoln Center on a gala night. The event coincided with a NYC garbage strike and was meant to express both the group’s contempt for the bourgeois establishment and its support of the strikers.”
(Gottlieb, 1993: 350)
and
COMPARE NATHAN HALE “BLACK ECOLOGY”
“No solution to the ecology crisis can come without a fundamental change in the economics of America particularly with reference to blacks. Although some of the ecological differentials between blacks and whites spring directly from racism and hence defy economic correlations,44 many aspects of the black environmental condition are associated with basic economics. Blacks are employed in the most undesirable or polluted occupations,45 lagging far behind their educational attainment. About two-thirds work in unskilled and semi-skilled industries. Aggravating, and associated with, the occupational effects on the black environment is the consistently low family income of blacks which must generally support larger families. Since the turn of the century, the family income of blacks has remained about half that of whites” (Hale, 1970: 7)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Vietnam War, black civil rights, the beginnings of second wave feminism were beginning to kick off, and poor people were getting shat on (for once). At this exact point, Martin Luther King was planning for his march on Washington in the summer of 1968 (he wouldn’t be there). And the Motherfuckers and black Mask were in that milieu. The idea of bringing the unwanted waste back to the people who produced it, for them to deal with, was an inspired one. It has become a famous action.
What I think we can learn from this
Why am I talking about it on a climate change website? Because of exactly this. The super rich – and the rich – enjoying their/our imperial way of living, don’t want to know about or think about the consequences. The costs are out of sight and out of mind. Activism can be about making those costs more obvious.
What happened next
Oh, to the Motherfuckers I suppose the usual schisms and splits and anarchist pathologies. Possibly/probably helped on by COINTELPRO. But the FBI could have saved its money except of course for them it was all about the lulz and the need to dominate and control, but I’m going off on a tangent here
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Gottlieb, R. 1993. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington DC: Island Press.
Hale, N. 1970. Black Ecology. The Black Scholar Vol. 1, No. 6, BLACK CITIES: COLONIES OR CITY STATES?, pp. 2-8
Forty two years ago, on this day, February 11, 1980, the first UK Government report on climate change was grudgingly released, after suggestions it should simply be filed away…(you’ll have to wait till July 27 for the gory details).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
After much internal lobbying and discussion from 1976 onwards – and resistance from Met Office supremo John Mason, an Interdepartmental Committee on Climate Change had finally been formed and held its first meeting in October 1978. It delivered its report in early 1979. The timing was bad because the new Thatcher Government was not particularly interested shall we say.
The report was lowest common denominator and trying to dismiss or minimise the issue.
What I think we can learn from this
Official reports are always – whether it’s obvious or not – “political”, and often intensely political. There have been battles about how strong the statements will be, whether it will even get released, when it will get released (Friday night before Christmas or a cup final or whatever). This was the UK government’s first Climate report and it wasn’t anything to write home about…
What happened next
Civil servant Crispin Tickell tried to keep the flame alive. There’s a column from him in April 1980 In the times, which we will address in due course. But the climate issue bubbled under until 1988, with Thatcher paying no attention.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Thirty years ago, on this day, February 11, 1993, with a Federal election campaign underway, an academic ran the numbers on the Liberal Party’s Fightback! policy and what it would mean….
According to the director of science and technology policy at Murdoch University, Fightback! would result in a six per cent increase in car use immediately, and 28 per cent in a few years.
The table shows that Australia is the third worst polluter in the OECD region and that our poor performance is very much related to low fossil-fuel prices.
If Australia is to get its carbon emissions down to a level comparable with other OECD countries, some form of carbon tax will have to be introduced.
International pressure to move in this direction is likely to intensify over the next decade
Davidson, K. 1993. Hewson Error Of Emission. The Age, 11 February, p.13.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
From late 1991 Opposition Leader John Hewson had been successfully attacking Labor with an even more neoliberal set of policies than Labor had been using. He called it “Fight Back!” Hewson had spooked a tired Bob Hawke and this gave Hawke’s former Treasurer Paul Keating an opportunity for a second bite at the leadership cherry. Fight back indeed! Fight Back! marked the end of the Liberal experiment with appearing green, (see, January 15, blog post).
But Fightback! would, as per this report, mean that environment issues would be further down the policy agenda. And the quality of the human and natural environment would further decline.
What I think we can learn from this
The intense battles in the realm of politics, often two bald men fighting over a comb, bear no relation to the actual problems that the society or species faces. We mustn’t mistake all of that heat for light.
The Green Party’s and greens of the world have been saying this for decades, I’m saying precisely nothing new here. But hopefully, by dint of repetition, it will get into my own head.
As per February 5 blog post, we mistake the shadows on the wall for the reality. We think that because some planet-destroying goon is getting laughed out then progress is being made. And on the whole, it’s not.
What happened next
Hewson went on to lose the unlosable election to Paul Keating. Environmental matters were nowhere to be seen. Hewson over time, has had a semi Damascene conversion. I don’t know that anyone has ever asked him if he regrets the Fightback! stuff.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Twelve years ago, on this day, February 10 2011, Australian Environment Minister Greg Combet had something to say…
“The Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet, has announced the establishment of an independent Climate Commission, appointing the leading science communicator – Professor Tim Flannery – as Chief Commissioner.
Combet said the Climate Commission would provide expert advice and information on climate change to the Australian community.
“The Climate Commission has been established by the Gillard government to provide an authoritative, independent source of information for all Australians,” he said. “It will provide expert advice on climate change science and impacts, and international action. It will help build the consensus required to move to a clean energy future.”
The Climate Commission would have a public outreach role, he said, to help build greater understanding and consensus about reducing Australia’s carbon pollution.
Other members of the Climate Commission are Professor Will Steffen, Professor Lesley Hughes, Dr Susannah Eliott, Gerry Hueston and Roger Beale. The commissioners have expertise in a range of areas including climate change science, science communications, business, public policy and economics.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 396.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was trying to make a move in the climate wars which had sprung up from late 2009 when the Liberal Party’s Tony Abbott decided to call the science of climate change “absolute crap.” He became a lightning rod for a lot of people’s dissatisfaction, especially in the National Party. The idea of a commission was, I believe, that of Christine Milne of the Greens, not that Labor would necessarily be willing to admit that; Labor had been forced into an uneasy collaboration with the Greens because of the finely balanced 2010 election. The Greens insisted that Labor grasp the climate change nettle again, rather than kicking it all into the long grass.
What I think we can learn from this
These sort of top-down groups of experts are useful, but they need to be supplemented by vibrant, long lasting civil society organisations and social movement organisations. However, that requires people to innovate and do stuff differently and not fall victim to the usual movement pathologies such as the smugosphere, the emotacycle, ego-foddering etc.
What happened next
The Commission was destroyed by Tony Abbott, and then had no trouble setting up as “The Climate Council” in September 2013 (see this Guardian article).
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
