Three hundred sixty four years ago, on this day, September 13th, 1661,
“Whilst Evelyn is most celebrated for his journals documenting the plague and the Great Fire of London, Fumifugium has been widely recognised as one of the first rational, reasoned and scientific accounts of pollution (Jenner, 1995; Sinclair, 1973). It was a campaigning pamphlet that was presented to King Charles II on 13th September 1661 soon after the King’s coronation in April of that year”
(Atkins & McBride: 1267-8)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 270ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that London was becoming unbearably polluted. My goodness, how times change! Everyone was using filthy sea coal, as it was called, for heating their houses and so forth. And here was an air pollution rant delivered to the king. This was of course just after Cromwell had died and the king had come back.
What we learn here Is that “please do something mighty majesty” style activism has a long history. We’re still doing it today when we’re tugging at the sleeve of regulatory agencies, even though they’ve been captured, or parties, even though they’ve been captured, and even corporations, even though they’re capitalists and raptors.
What happened next? London’s air quality magically improved. And no, it didn’t. And then there’s a whole stream of Apocalypse literature in the late 19th century, about the London fogs just getting worse and worse. And then finally in 1952, thanks to a temperature inversion a whole lot of people died in a prolonged smog event. You can either say it was 4000, which was the estimate at the time, but later estimates say 11000. And that opened the door to a new Clean Air Act (1956) There had been many before. And despite the best efforts of the Conservative government and Macmillan’s “Macmillan manoeuvre.” The Clean Air Act had some teeth and some impact and drove policy innovation and a certain amount of technological innovation. And at least the visible quality of London became less shit. Whether the invisible (2.5ppms) got much better, is another interesting question.
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
Atkins, J. * McBride, K. 2021 “Fumifugium: Or the inconvenience of the Aer and Smoake of London Dissipated”: emancipatory social accounting in 17th century London. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal Vol. 35 No. 5, 20 pp. 1262-1286
Thirty years ago, on this day, September 12th, 1994, a nice article by a Greenpeace policy guy explains what is at stake. Is ignored, of course.
The Federal Government this week conceded that its current policies will not meet our international commitments to cut greenhouse gases by 20 per cent by 2005. The practical solutions needed to meet these targets are available, in the form of energy efficiency, solar power and public transport. What is missing is the political will to implement them.
Tarlo, K. 1994. Time to grasp greenhouse nettle. Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September, p15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Greenpeace had been banging on about climate change for a while. They had had a severe bust in their finance because people didn’t renew their membership in 1991-92 because the whole green issue seemed to have gone away after the Gulf War. They’d done a nice advert about Bush senior during his 1992 Australia visit and had also been doing legal challenges to new coal fired power stations without much success.
And here was Keating shitting on climate policy, calling greenhouse an “amorphous issue”.
Anyway, the specific context was that Keating’s Environment Minister John Faulkner was proposing a carbon tax with the money to be spent on things like energy efficiency and solar energy r&d.
What we learn is that you just have to stay in the game when the good times pass, but you just have to stay in the game. Keep your capacity to act going. Greenpeace managed it. Grassroots groups, not so much…
What happened next? Greenpeace kept going. Faulkner’s Carbon Tax died in February 1995. Keating was toast in ‘96. 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.
Eighteen years ago, on this day, September 11th, 2006 former Vice-President Al Gore was on a flying visit to Australia. Australian writer Murray Hogarth in his The Third Degree” book claims it as ‘the day’ everything changed (i.e. the climate issue broke through)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that concern/activism about Australia, and its potential vulnerability to permanent and escalating climate change had been building for a while. This was partly because of the Millennium Drought. Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth had come out. In April a bunch of businesses – Westpac et al – had had another go at saying that John Howard did not have a monopoly on what business wanted. And then in the summer, well, obviously there’d been the UK Climate Camp, which got some global coverage. There were serious moves afoot in the UNFCCC and it was clear that Bush’s and Howard’s technology focus spoiler organisations were inadequate. And along came Al Gore for a flying visit. And according to Murray Hogarth, in his short book, “The Third Degree” this was the straw that broke the camel’s back and gave Australia its big wave of climate concern.
What we learn is that there will be sort of straw that breaks the camel’s back or a spark that sets off the fire, but it’s usually a long time coming.
What happened next. Labor’s Kevin Rudd surfed the wave to topple Liberal John Howard, and then because Rudd screwed the pooch between 2008 and 2010, his deputy, Julia Gillard had to take over and clean up the mess (which she did, though it didn’t last).
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, September 11th, 1989, The New Yorker Magazine publishes ‘The End of Nature’ , an essay by William McKibben.
In an interview with the same magazine in 2014 McKibben recognised he had initially miscalculated what we are up against.
“It took me a long time to realize that the scientists had won the argument but were going to lose the fight, because it isn’t about data and science, it’s about power. The most powerful industry is fossil fuel, because it is the richest. At a certain point, it became clear that our only hope of matching that money was with the currencies of movement: passion, spirit, creativity—and warm bodies”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that for the past 13 months, everyone had been banging on about the “greenhouse effect” since James Hansen’s testimony. This had been neatly secured by Grant Swinger. And here was the first one of the first big philosophical pieces written by then young Bill McKibben. Talking about the End of Nature/
The New Yorker, of course, had been the venue for Rachel Carson’s 1962 effort Silent Spring. So this was in keeping with their general long form, big picture jeremiads (see also Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe).
What we learn is that there are specific publications where if you really want to have an influence, that’s where you need to be. Because everyone will be reading it and the mere fact that it got published there will mean that people take it seriously. Even if more interesting, important work is appearing somewhere else. Because we do mental shortcuts – we have to, because we’re surrounded by so many potential sources of information.
What happened next McKibben’s essay got published as a book. Good Book. McKibben went on to found 350.org involved in divestment and so forth. Probably still thinks that the situation is salvageable. I don’t know. Maybe I should interview him. Anyway, that’s 35 years ago.
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.
Sixty six years ago, on this day, September 10th, 1957, The Times runs a short piece – “Melting the Polar Ice Caps: Scientists Study Carbon Dioxide Threat” based on discussions at the International Geodesy conference in Toronto
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the International Geophysical Year was underway. And so there were these sorts of international conferences happening. The geodesy people had been going for quite a while. And it was at this one there were calls for urgent study of CO2. But that’s been largely forgotten.
What happened next is after the International Geophysical Year finished, the interest in carbon dioxide as a problem kind of died down a bit. And it wouldn’t be until the mid 60s that it started to come up again…
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 four years ago, on this day, September 9th, 1990, an interesting film was released. It sounds like a joke set-up: a poet, a politician and a physicist walk around a monastery…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindwalk
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Fritjof Capra was a bit of a star in New Age circles because he had a physics background and then to chuck it all in to be at the feet of Gregory Bateson and others. He had written The Turning Point, and so forth. And this film, directed by his brother is a rather interesting artefact. And it was an attempt to put these ideas to the test. I like the film. It has three significant speaking parts. There’s a poet, played by John Hurd, who’d already put on weight from the previous year’s The Package, Liv Ullman, as a Swedish nuclear physicist and Sam Waterson as a very thinly veiled Al Gore. These three meet at Mont St Michel and walk and talk.
What we learn is that it can be hard to translate relatively abstruse ideas into something that people will watch. But this is an entirely serviceable effort in my opinion, and you should get hold of it if you can.
What happened next Hurd went on to have a career that he thought was okay, but wasn’t as big as it could have been. Waterson has been around forever. Liv Ullman, I think is still alive. And Bent Capra never made another film; probably didn’t want to.
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.
Fifty two years ago, on this day, September 8th, 1972,
On September 8, 1972, [Brenda] Hean, 55, hopped aboard a two-seater World War II Tiger Moth, being flown by experienced pilot Max Price. Leaving from Hobart, they were bound for Canberra to try to win support from federal politicians to stop the flooding of Lake Pedder by Tasmania’s Hydro Electricity Commission.
One of their intentions was to skywrite Save Lake Pedder over the national capital.
The plane never made it, and the bodies and wreckage were never located.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was a federal election coming. The main hope for Tasmanian activists trying to save Lake Pedder from being drowned for a dam was a change of government.
What we learn is that it may well not have been murder, and if it was murder, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was anti-greenies or pro-Lake Pedder people, because apparently the pilot had pissed people off with his, ah “extracurricular activities”. So he may have been the target of sabotage of the plane. In any case wreckage was never found, nobody ever confessed. And as Christine Milne says, Tasmania is a bit different in other places, the truth would come out – not so much in Tasmania.
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 six years ago, on this day, September 7th, 1988,
On September 7, 1988, with the Summer of ’88 still fully in American consciousness, the ABC news programme Nightline broadcast a segment dedicated to the greenhouse effect. I was contacted as a possible guest but was later told my views were “too moderate.” Some of the exchange between “Nightline” moderator Ted Koppel and the environmental activist Michael Oppenheimer, of the Environmental Defense Fund, helps to make this dilemma quite explicit.
Koppell: Dr Oppenheimer, I’d love to be able to say to you that I think the American public can get energised over some perceived threat forty years down the road, but I don’t believe it. Do you?
[Hecht was on it to]
(Schneider, 1989: 235-6)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the American airwaves were full of greenhouse. Thanks to James Hansen’s June 23 testimony and the severe heatwave summer drought. And we’re getting to that stage in the media cycle where the responsible cautious scientists have had their say. And now in order to keep things “fresh” the bookers for these programmes are needing to jazz it up a bit with more extreme pronouncements. And previously, bookable scientists and advocates like Oppenheimer, for the Environmental Defence Fund are considered passe or too cautious. And then, of course, someone more extreme and perhaps unhinged gets booked. And then it becomes part of the culture war, with the opponents pointing to scare stories and the media can then report that and round and round and round we go.
What happened next? The climate culture war really kicked off in ‘89 with the George C Marshall Foundation, the Global Climate Coalition [it would be fun to figure out when that was born, when it started making its first pronouncements and interventions.] And this cycle continues down on to this day.
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
Ninety seven years ago, on this day, September 7th, 1927,
Wikipedia – On September 7, 1927, Farnsworth’s image dissector camera tube transmitted its first image, a simple straight line, to a receiver in another room of his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco.[23] Pem Farnsworth recalled in 1985 that her husband broke the stunned silence of his lab assistants by saying, “There you are – electronic television!”[23] The source of the image was a glass slide, backlit by an arc lamp. An extremely bright source was required because of the low light sensitivity of the design. By 1928, Farnsworth had developed the system sufficiently to hold a demonstration for the press.[25] His backers had demanded to know when they would see dollars from the invention;[27] so the first image shown was, appropriately, a dollar sign. In 1929, the design was further improved by elimination of a motor-generator; so the television system now had no mechanical parts. That year Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images using his television system, including a three and a half-inch image of his wife Pem.[citation needed]
Television, the drug of a nation
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 307ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that we had radio and if you could put pictures on that, well, whoop, you’d make some serious money. And of course, you could create the conditions for better education. Yeah, right.
What we learn is that television as a technology is coming up to its 100th birthday. I didn’t know that, I thought television was from the 30s.
What happened next BBC suspended its television broadcasting during the war, and it came back after the war. And then in the US, ownership of televisions went through the roof between 1950 and 1956. And in the UK, the thing that really got people going was the coronation.
And for the TV/environment nexus, well, yes there was some good stuff. And then there was eco-pornography (see below).
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-three years ago, on this day, September 6th, 1991,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone in science of climate science and so forth, was aware of the whole greenhouse issue. And here was some nice science about the atmosphere of Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, and the greenhouse and reverse greenhouse or anti greenhouse effect on Titan.
It didn’t, to my knowledge, have any bearing whatsoever on the politics of the time. That’s not why I’m talking about it; this site is already far too much about the politics and could do with a bit more science. So here we are.
What happened next? People kept staring through telescopes figuring out the universe. Often quite expensive telescopes.
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.
