On this day 30 July 1979 Committee on Governmental Affairs one day symposium on c02 build up, synfuels and energy policy, chaired by Senator Abraham Ribicoff –
A group of scientists, warning of potential ecological imbalances and climatic changes, yesterday urged the government to slow its pursuit of a large-scale synthetic fuels program.
The scientists said the ecological changes could result from higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — one assured by-product of a switch to synfuel production.
They described the so-called “greenhouse effect” whereby heat is trapped close to the earth by increased levels of carbon dioxide, and predicted some long-term effects might be erratic world food production, severe droughts in some regions and costal flooding in others
We need to remember that some so-called solutions can make things worse – wicked problems and all that.
What happened next?
Synfuels were killed off by the Reagan Administration (not because they care about, or even knew about the scientific critique, but because they didn’t fit the narrative etc).
On this day, July 30 1989 Conservative Politician Sir Ian Lloyd was quoted in The Sunday Times as saying ‘we have, at the most, a quarter of a century to make the assessments and take action. The life of the planet may be at stake.’
Wikipedia has him saying “civilisation is clinging by our fingernails to the cliff”.
for which academic (and other) researches owe him a debt of gratitude.
Lloyd was a prescient guy who, well, later started wittering on about pyramids of uncertainty, and Bjorn Lomborg. It happens. It’s sad when it does, but it happens. See obituary here.
Why this matters.
Did the rhetoric help us resist our own death grip? No, it didn’t. It never does.
On this day, July 29 1974 a World Meteorological Organisation conference on climate modelling began, running until 10 August.
As Bert Bolin (one of THE key figures) wrote in the foreword-
At the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in June 1972, it was emphasized that the earth’s climate is of basic importance to man and his well-being. Climatic variability and possible change are still essentially unpredictable although they are significant factors in the continued development of both industrialized and developing countries. Some of the most important problems that confront us were very well summarized in the SMIC report “Study of Man’s Impact on Climate”, (1) which was available at the UN conference and served as an important reference document. In recommendation 79d of the conference, it was recommended that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in co-operation with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) “continue to carry out the GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Programme) to better understand the general circulation of the atmosphere, the causes of climatic change and whether these causes are natural or the result of man’s activities”.
At its eighth session in London in March 1973, the JOC considered in detail the role of GARP for studies of climate and its fluctuations. It was proposed that the next step towards an active programme would be the organization of an International Study Conference on the Physical Basis of Climate and Climate Modelling….
The conference was held at Wijk outside Stockholm during the period 29 July to 10 August 1974 with a total attendance of about 70 scientists from different parts of the world. Their devoted work during two weeks has resulted in the present report.
These were the building blocks – between 1970 and 1975 – when climate scientists patiently assembled the evidence, debated, refined. By about 1976/7 it was pretty clear what was coming, just a question of when (how fast, in what order). They did try to warn the politicians. And some of the politicians kinda sorta listened a bit.
What happened next?
The scientists kept at it. (Impact) Science is very very cool.. Some joined the dots, understood the implications, quicker than others. By 1979 the smarter ones were getting quite nervous….
WMO started already in the 1970’s to concentrate more than before on climate problems. An Executive Committee panel on Climate Change was established in 1975, with Dr. Bill Gibbs from Australia as Chairman, and CCL, under the chairmanship of Helmut Landsberg, from 1973, re-oriented its effort towards environmental problems related to climate. About the same time, in 1974, the Global Atmospheric Research Program had a meeting in Stockholm in order to agree on which problems related to climate that should be of main interest to this program in the next few years. In fact the meeting discussed the fundamental question to change the classical approach to climate studies from the statistical one towards a more physically-oriented one. In fact in the Stockholm Conference on the Physics of Climate in 1974, the numerical forecasting modelers who had worked for about ten years or more on modeling the general circulation of the atmosphere were now interested in trying to apply similar mathematical approaches to the global circulation of the atmosphere and to other aspects of understanding of the future climate. It would then be possible to clarify what could be expected to happen on the globe, if the increase of the carbon dioxide from human emissions from burning fossil fuel would continue without change. The Global Atmospheric Research Program, when it had been accepted by the U.N. in 1962, included a proposal for a program divided into two parts: one on the experiment to improve the weather forecasting on the basis of increased observations around the globe. This experiment, proposed for about ten years by Bo Doos in WMO, had in 1974, reached a stage where it could be expected to take place within the next five years. For that reason, Dr. Bert Bolin, who was in charge of the Global Atmospheric Research Program, thought that it was timely to start with the second part of the GARP program, namely the climate part. This was the basic reason why the Conference in Stockholm in 1974 was called and the physical foundations of climate were established.
On this day, July 28 1970 “[Journalist Claire] Sterling began an article in the Washington Post with an air of crisis, reporting breathlessly prior to the Stockholm meeting:
“Scientists still aren’t sure how much carbon dioxide we can inject into the atmosphere before heating it up enough to melt the polar icecaps, how much smog can cut off the sun’s rays without bringing a new Ice Age upon us, how many germs per cubic centimetre of water we can swallow and live, how much better or worse off the human race would actually be for using or banning DDT.”
Sterling, C. 1970. The UN and World Pollution, Washington Post, Times Herald, 28 July
.
I found this quote on page 200 of a rather excellent book called “Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism” by Jacob Darwin Hamblin
Why this matters.
Yes. 1970.
What happened next?
The 1972 Stockholm Conference did less than it might have for climate science, but the scientists kept going.
Sterling wrote a totally beserk book called “The Real Terror Network”, which influenced the senile Ronald Reagan and the professional paranoids around him –
As per Wikipedia
“The book was read and appreciated by Alexander Haig and William Casey, but its arguments were dismissed by the CIA’s Soviet analysts; Lincoln Gordon, one of three members of a senior review panel at the CIA charged, at Casey’s request, with bringing non-intelligence professional and academic review to the agency, discovered comparing CIA intelligence reports and the book that at least some of Sterling’s claims had come from stories that the CIA itself had planted in the Italian press.”
On this day, July 28 1990, journalist John Gribbin (author of several books about climate change published in the 1970s and 1980s) had a nice snippet to help us build the picture of the international efforts to scupper climate action, back in the crucial 1988 to 1992 period.;
“last month, when members of the George C. Marshall Institute, a privately funded think tank based in Washington DC, were flown in to present their maverick views on climate change, it came as no surprise to find that the room at the Hyde Park Hotel in which they gave their talks… had actually been booked by British Coal’ (John Gribbin, Why caution is wrong on global warming’.
New Scientist, 127, 28 July 1990, p. 18)
The “George C. Marshall Institute” had been set up in 1984 to slow down environmental regulation (slippery slope to Pol Pot and Stalin, don’t you know) for a while. They became an early and important node of organised climate resistance. They were – and this is gonna shock you – funded by fossil fuel companies.
The transatlantic links have not weakened. They have, in fact, strengthened.
What happened next?
The UK accelerated the decline off its coal industry, and imported lots of natural gas. This made it seem like they were making progress on emissions reductions. So that’s nice.
On this day in 2001 the Minerals Council of Australia (the lobby group for the big mining outfits tried to stiffen the Howard government’s stance on the Kyoto Protocol with a media release with the catchy title “Government Must Stand firm on Kyoto.”.
Australia had extracted/extorted a sweet sweet deal at the 1997 negotiations about rich countries reducing their emissions. It had signed the deal, but NOT ratified it. At this particular moment, the USA had pulled out, but Australia had not. There was an election coming, and one that was not looking safe for Howard (this is pre-Tampa…) Would Howard ratify in order to deprive Labor of a stick to beat him with? The MCA wanted to make sure that unlikely event did not come to pass…
Why this matters.
Keep your eyes on what the big trade associations are saying (and – to the best you can – doing).
What happened next?
Business ended up splitting on Kyoto – the Business Council of Australia had to move from “don’t ratify” to “we have no settled position” because there was a stalemate between the pro- and antis within the members of the organisation.
“‘Kyoto’ has created a veil over the climate issue in Australia in a number of ways. Firstly, its symbolic power has distracted attention from actual environmental outcomes while its accounting rules obscure the real level of carbon emissions and structural trends at the nation-state level. Secondly, a public policy tendency to commit to far off emission targets as a compromise to implementing legislation in the short term has also emerged on the back of Kyoto-style targets. Thirdly, Kyoto’s international flexibility mechanisms can lead to the diversion of mitigation investment away from the nation-state implementing carbon legislation. A final concern of the Kyoto approach is how it has shifted focus away from Australia as the world’s largest coal exporter towards China, its primary customer….”
With the benefit of hindsight, this closing sentences are amusing.
“The report said there was no cause for panic. But Mr Revelle said, “We have to be prepared to go to other sources than coal in about 50 years”.”
Why this matters.
The Canberra Times is one of the newspapers for the big decision makers in Australia. “We knew.” But the lurer of coal was too strong…
What happened next?
Four years later the Office of National Information (a spy/analyst outfit) wrote about the Greenhouse effect. Speedy, huh? Another four years or so and we got the Greenhouse Project, courtesy of Barry Jones’ “Commission for the Future.” But I am getting ahead of myself…
On this day, July 25 1997 the US Senate unanimously (95–0) passed Senate Resolution 98 (also referred to as the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.
It said – contra what the USA had already agreed when it ratified the 1992 UNFCCC – that it would sign no deals that didn’t include the developing world making cuts as well. You know, those peoples who had done nothing to cause the problem, and were already on the pointy end.
This was the at the culmination of a very well-funded and well-executed campaign by US corporate interests to reframe international environmental agreements as an attack on US sovereignty, and on the employment prospects of US workers – see for example this and this..
Why this matters.
Shows you the power of corporate mobilisations, dunnit?
What happened next?
The US negotiated a deal at Kyoto, and signed it, but it was never going to get through the Senate, even if Gore hadn’t had the 2000 election pinched from him by the Supreme Court. Then George W. Bush pulled out of Kyoto altogether, in March 2001.
On this day, 25 July, 1977 the New York Times ran a front page story, by its science reporter, Walter Sullivan. Its title – “Scientists Fear Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate“
“Highly adverse consequences” may follow if the world, as now seems likely, depends increasingly on coal for energy over the next two centuries, according to a blue‐ribbon panel of scientists.
“In a report to the National Academy of Sciences on their two‐and‐a‐half‐year study, the scientists foresee serious climate changes beginning in the next century. By the latter part of the 22nd century a global warming of 10 degrees Fahrenheit is indicated, with triple that rise in high latitudes.”
Sullivan, W. (1977) Scientists Fear Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate New York Times, July 25, p.1
On this day, July 25, 1989, the Australian Minister for the Environment, Graham Richardson, gave a speech at the National Press Club. He admitted he had been blocked by Treasury in his bid to announce on a strong target for Australian emissions reductions.
“As the Minister for the Environment, Senator Richardson, yesterday [25 July 1989] talked tough to the States about using constitutional powers to override their decisions, he admitted he had been defeated by his Cabinet colleagues on a stronger federal environmental statement.
He confirmed that the Treasurer, Mr Keating, had been a prime mover in defeating his proposal that Australia aim to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20 per cent by 2005….
His frank comments at the National Press Club were clearly aimed at shielding himself against criticism from the conservation movement and the public that he did not fight hard enough for the environment.
But they might also add to tensions between himself and Mr Keating.
Referring to a report by Michelle Grattan, The Age newspaper’s chief political correspondent, that he had been rolled, Senator Richardson said that she had not been aware that a meeting between “Paul Keating and myself was to take place the morning after the Cabinet meeting to settle the wording of the statement of this issue”.
In Senator Richardson’s view this had resulted in considerable improvement –
“None the less, my old cobber was right in suggesting I was rolled on the setting of a target for a reduction of greenhouse gases,” he said.
“I had asked Cabinet to agree to the target agreed upon by the Toronto Conference, i.e. 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2005.
“… When I put this target to our Cabinet, I came under close questioning by the economic ministers. I couldn’t sustain my argument with sufficient science.”
“I haven’t yet learnt how to lose gracefully so I was angry. I delved into the department’s records so that I could write to my Cabinet colleagues and demand a reconsideration. The cupboard, however was bare, and the letter was never written.”
Dunn, R. 1989. Cabinet reduces greenhouse target. Australian Financial Review, 26 July.
Why this matters.
So. Many. Missed. Opportunities.
What happened next?
Australia got a carefully hedged announcement about emissions reductions, so the next Federal Environment Minister could go to the Second World Climate Conference – which was the starting gun for the international negotiations for a treaty – with something in her hand.
