Categories
United Kingdom

July 6, 1972 – “Workers and the Environment” conference in London…

On this day, 6 July,  1972, the Trades Union Council [the peak body for UK unions) held a conference on “Workers and the Environment”

Why this matters. 

Without unions on board, you’re probably not going to be able to force state managers into major concessions that last any length of time. But unions and greenies, while they have some common interests (habitable planet, etc) ALSO have sticking points. These needed proper thrashing out, loose coalitions forming blah blah. Conferences like this coulda been a start.

Too late now.

What happened next?

The Unions had other stuff on their plate all through the 70s. And the 80s.And it’s not as if the stereotype of condescending middle-class busybodies who sneer at workers is ENTIRELY made up, now is it?
And the carbon dioxide, it accumulates.

Categories
United Kingdom

July 5, 1989 – Nuclear tries to regain some credibility, latching on to greenhouse

On this day, July 5, in  1989 

“More than 100 British scientists, including two Nobel laureates, have lent their names to an advertising campaign starting this week which says that focusing on nuclear power will worsen global warming by diverting attention from the real causes of the problem. 

“The academics, also including 15 Fellows of the Royal Society, reject claims that more nuclear power stations are the answer to the greenhouse effect, and say the Government should concentrate on “real solutions” to global warming…. 

“The two Nobel laureates taking part in the campaign are Professor Dorothy Hodgkin, emeritus Professor of chemistry at Oxford University, and Professor Maurice Wilkins, emeritus professor of biophysics at London University.”

Brown, P. 1989. Nuclear power is not the answer: scientists. Canberra Times, 5 July, p.1

Why this matters. 

Nuclear – a technology always in search of legitimacy, given its other problems (waste, security, meltdowns etc).. Its advocates had in fact been talking about coal’s nasty little CO2 problem for a long time.

What happened next?

Nuclear kept promising. Still is – see April 2022 Energy Security Strategy.

Categories
Interviews

” The whole of our societal structures, from politics to media, has completely failed” – Interview with @MrMatthewTodd

Here’s an interview with Matthew Todd, who is tireless on Twitter about the size, scale, and imminence of the climate crisis. Many thanks to him for taking the time to answer AOY’s questions. If YOU want to answer the same questions, please do so and DM them across… (One point of this project is to help expand the discussion…)

1) Who are you? When did you first hear about climate change (or “global warming”, or if you are really decrepit, “the greenhouse effect”)? What do you “do”?

My name is Matthew Todd. I am a journalist and author. I worked for Attitude, the U.K.’s best selling gay magazine, for 20 years from 1996, and was editor from 2008 to 2016. I’m the author of two books; Straight Jacket, about LGBTQ mental health, and Pride, about the LGBTQ equality movement.

I first heard about climate change when I was at school. I remember a geography teacher telling us about it; that the planet was heating up, that the ice caps would melt, that the whole of humanity could be in really big trouble. But he said of course we’ve got some decades to fix it and governments will fix it. Everyone that really scared but we all kind of believed and hoped that governments would do something about it. Obviously they haven’t. They are in total denial.

2) Has any particular post on “All Our Yesterdays” resonated with you? If so, which one(s) and why? [also, if there’s stuff you DON’T like about AOY, please do say]

No, I’ve not see anything that’s annoyed me. I think anyone trying to draw attention to the ecological and planetary crisis that we are in is a positive and I applaud everyone who does it.

3) What topics would you like to see AOY covering that it hasn’t yet?

I’d like to see more about the funded denial campaigns from the oil and energy companies to cast doubt on climate change. It’s been the number one reason why people haven’t woken up to the severity of the threat. I don’t think most people realise that oil companies have funding the handful of scientists who don’t agree with Climate Change Science and are funding the massive amount of online disinformation about the issue.

4) What have “we” – people in the “climate movement,” broadly defined – done “wrong” over the last 30 plus years? What have we not done well enough, what have we not done at all, what should we not do/not have done?

I think we should’ve just been far more radical and been out on the streets from the very beginning. I think scientists should have called out the oil company campaign of disinformation more and I think they should’ve been locking themselves to the doors of media organisations who are failing to tell the public the full truth about the reality of the crisis we face. They should do that now. I don’t mean to be critical scientists because they shouldn’t have to do that, but unfortunately the media is completely broken and I think the only way people will ever wake up is when the science is on the front pages of newspapers and people are showing emotion about it.

Celebrities have completely failed us by not raising the alarm. The whole of our societal structures, from politics to media, has completely failed. The focus on individual action has been an absolute disaster as well. Of course the concept of carbon footprint was created by BP to shift blame away from companies like themselves onto the individual. Unfortunately, people think that all they need to do is turn their mobile phone charger off and everything is going to be okay, when in fact we’re not going to survive without massive systemic global change.

5) Pivotting from that cheerfulness, tell us about any projects you are working on and how people can get involved (chance to plug your books, podcasts, campaigns).

I’m working on various things about like a one-man show and new book and a couple of plays but I have to be honest; I find it really hard to work during this time knowing calamity is heading straight towards us. The only thing that can stop it is if hundreds of millions of people rise up and demand change.

6) Anything else you’d like to say?

Get on the streets.

Categories
Australia

July 4, 2004 – @WWF_Australia try to shame John Howard into #climate action…

On this day, July 4, in 2004 WWF Australia brought together various outfits as “the Australian Climate Group.”

They said –

“An unprecedented alliance of commercial and scientific experts has formed the Australian Climate Group (ACG) which today launched its first report, Climate Change: Solutions for Australia. The Report is designed to guide public opinion and government policy towards a solution to the issues of climate change”

You can read it via here.

The context? John Howard was wrecking the joint, blocking even the most minor climate action. People and organisations kept trying to organise…

Why this matters. 

This is what (some) NGOs do – they try to build coalitions/alliances of actors to chip away at the legitimacy, the hegemony of those they don’t like. Sometimes it works, often it doesn’t.

What happened next?

It didn’t do much. This was the period of peak-Howard. Two years later, a Westpac-led effort (iirc put together by Australian Conservation Foundation) had a bit more traction.

Categories
Australia

July 3, 2008 – Greenpeace activists enter New South Wales coal power station

On this day, July 3, in 2008, 27 Greenpeace activists entered the 2,640 megawatts Eraring Power Station site north of Sydney to call for an energy revolution, and took direct action to stop coal from being burnt.

“Twelve protesters shut down and chained themselves to conveyors while others climbed onto the roof to paint ‘Revolution’ and unfurled a banner reading ‘Energy Revolution – Renewables Not Coal’. The action preceded the Australian government’s climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut’s delivery of his Draft Climate Change Review on July 4”

[sorry don’t know the source]

This text and photo is from here

Greenpeace activists, including an ex-miner, block the coal supply to the Eraring coal-fired power station by locking on to the coal conveyors. Eraring is Australia’s most polluting coal-fired power station and is responsible for 13% of Australia’s greenhouse pollution. The old and inefficient plant sends nearly 20 million tonnes of greenhouse pollution into the atmosphere every year. Each hour the coal supply is blockaded, prevents 2,000 tonnes of CO2 being released. As the government’s climate change advisor, Ross Garnaut, prepares to deliver his draft review in Canberra, Greenpeace calls for urgent action on climate change. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must deliver policies that upscale renewable energy and start replacing dirty coal-fired power.

Why this matters. 

We resist. Weakly, inadequately, but we resist.

What happened next?

The power station is finally being decommissioned.  (Not much) better late than never.

Categories
Renewable energy United Kingdom

July 2, 2013 – Ignorant man who became prime minister disses wind farms

On this day, 2nd July 2013, Boris Johnson wrote a column in the Daily Telegraph (he was getting £250k a year for this gig). Its title was “Wind farms couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding.” Johnson warned the UK is facing a major energy crisis. That at least he got right.

Offshore wind is of course a huge success story, and on-shore wind would probably have been too, but for the Cameron government making it virtually impossible to get planning permission.

Why this matters. 

This sort of ignorant glib opposition is, well, it’s one of the many reasons the species isn’t going to make it.

What happened next?

Offshore wind took off.

Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.

Categories
Australia

July 2, 2007 – Australia learns it has been left “High & Dry” on #climate change

On this day, 2nd July 2007, the highly-principled Guy Pearse (not the actor) released his brilliant book “High and Dry”.

“A Liberal Party member and former ministerial speechwriter issues a book today which depicts the Prime Minister with a stranglehold on environmental policy, deliberately surrounding himself with climate change sceptics.”

Rudra, N. 2007. Liberal attacks PM on climate. Canberra TImes, 2 July.

The problem was that High and Dry was soon “outdated,” when the Liberals were swept from office in late 2007.  Pearse wrote a cracking Quarterly Essay about what Labor was up to, published in 2009.

HOWEVER the book is well-written, well-researched and gives you names and tactics of the “Greenhouse Mafia.

The book still stands as an example of how you

  1. Do a PhD
  2. Turn a PhD into a book (a different beast)
  3. Make an impact, behave with integrity.

Why this matters. 

Names are named, repertoires exposed. This is how you are supposed to do intellectual work.

What happened next?

Pearse kept writing about this for quite a while.

Categories
United States of America

July 1, 1950 – “Is the World Getting Warmer?” asks Saturday Evening Post

On this day, 1st July 1950, the US publication the Saturday Evening Post ran a story on the world … getting warmer. Nowt on carbon dioxide (at this stage, Guy Callendar’s data were largely ignored/in the doghouse).

Why it matters

People were attuned to some warming (even though at this stage it was relatively mild)

What happened next?

By the end of the decade the answer was “yes” and “carbon dioxide is in fact accumulating in the atmosphere.” It would be another decade before enough scientists started to say it to each other, and do more research, before the real fun started…

Categories
Science

July 1, 1957- A key “year” in climate science begins…

On this day, July 1st, 1957, the “International Geophysical Year” (actually 18 months!) began.  Sponsored jointly by WMO and the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU),  30,000 scientists from more than 1000 research stations in sixty-six countries participated. (source – Page 22 Paterson, M (1996))

Why this matters. 

People were already interested in carbon dioxide build-up, and it was with funding earmarked for the IGY that senior American scientist Roger Revelle was able to hire a young post-doc called Charles David Keeling to take absurdly accurate measurements of atmospheric C02. Within two years (by early 1960) Keeling had ended the debate about whether – as per Guy Callendar – C02 was in fact climbing.

And so a data set was born

What happened next?

The carbon dioxide. It kept climbing, because humans kept burning more and more fossil fuels. Some more than others. Like there was “no tomorrow.”

To read: Walter Sullivan  Assault on the Unknown

Categories
Guest post

Guest post – “Why Our Evolutionary Roots Can Inspire Us to Address the Climate Crisis” by @adventuwe

By: Hayven Rakotoarimanana (they/them), MS

Midsummer–the two weeks following the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice (June 21)–has traditionally been a time of celebration and festival for those living in Northern Europe, parts of North America, and Northeast Asia.These northern, temperate areas laud this season’s warm temperatures and long, often sunny days. However, in South Asia, Madagascar, and parts of East Africa, this time of year marks the beginning of monsoon season, where lifegiving rains replenish the ground, parched after the long dry season.

Unfortunately, the South Asian-East African monsoon has become unreliable in recent years, fueled by anthropogenic global warming. In 2021, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh suffered one of the worst droughts in recorded history, as warmer ocean temperatures forced the seasonal monsoonal gyre to the south. The drought was most intense in Nagaland and Assam, in northeast India, along with Odisha and Rajasthan in western India. In these places rainfall during the 2021 monsoon season measured less than 50 percent of normal totals, marking this as an exceptional drought (Shagun 2021). This drought devastated crop production, creating a famine that killed thousands of people.

A year later, in 2022, an increase in the monsoon rains (which arrived months ahead of schedule) caused a deluge across South Asia and central China, causing widespread flooding that caused significant damage to life and property. The rain damage was worst in Henan, China, where more than 300 people died and roads transformed into rivers, sending cars careening down flooded streets into homes and businesses.

These erratic tendencies in the monsoons across Asia and East Africa are likely to increase with anthropogenic climate change, according to a recent study by researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (Katzenberger, Schewe, Pongratz, & Leverman 2021). Practically, this means that the coming decades will see an increase in natural disasters, floods, and famines. This not only impacts the region’s human populations, who will experience more climate-related poverty, suffering, and death, but it will also decimate the environment and non-human animal populations, many of whom are endemic and already close to extinction.

How did we get here?

The origins of the current climate crisis lie much further back than the disasters of the past two years, or even the last century or the Industrial Revolution. The roots go back much deeper, to humanity’s fundamental relationship with the rest of Nature.

For most of Homo sapiens 300,000-year history, the species lived much like other animals do: relying on the land and what it provided for survival–food, shelter, health, connection. Population levels remained in a natural balance, with births and deaths remaining roughly equivalent, allowing for long-term resource sustainability. The vast majority of human history, in all parts of the world, was one spent in harmony with nature. There was no anthropocene, since humans did not have the ability to dominate nature in a way similar to societies today.

This began to change with the advent of agriculture approximately 12,500 years ago. Farming freed humans from reliance on natural resources for survival; they could grow their own food, trap and exploit other animals, and store resources for tough times. Domestic dogs aided in hunting and defense, leading to a surplus in meat-based food. In addition, the domestication of horses and camels gave humans easy, fast transportation (at the expense of animal suffering).

The changes brought by this agricultural revolution allowed humankind to develop a number of new innovations: writing, codified religions, cities, pyramids, irrigation systems, weapons, transportation systems, and market economies. These were the catalyst for a new relationship between humanity and (the rest of) nature: Homo sapiens was no longer just one species living on the bounty of the planet, but an overlord, exploiting the land for personal and collective gain. In the mind of most post-agricultural humans, the Earth stopped being that which sustained life, and became a mere resource to be used.

It is this attitude–which became even more pronounced with the industrial revolution and the rise of modern capitalism–that drives the anti-environmental, growth-at-any-cost ethos behind the climate crisis. 

Remember your roots to save the planet

Although our species was most in tune with the Earth before the rise of agriculture, industry, and modern economics, no one is suggesting that we return to a Stone Age lifestyle. So what can we do to address climate change, in light of current technological and social conditions?

-Stop having kids. Remember that, for the vast majority of human history, net population growth was zero. Having one fewer child reduces your personal emissions rate by 60 tons of carbon dioxide per year (Perkins 2017). National policies which disincentivize reproduction, especially in countries such as India, where population growth is most severe, would be greatly effective at curbing emissions and climate change.

-Go vegan. Modern animal agriculture is one of the largest contributors to carbon emissions. Switching to a plant-based diet reduces personal carbon dioxide emissions by one ton per year (Perkins 2017). On a societal level, phasing out animal agriculture has a much larger impact, reducing carbon emissions by 68 percent annually (Than 2022).

-Consume only what you need. Today’s throwaway consumer lifestyle, which is common in the West and now booming across the Global South, is a major contributing factor to carbon emissions and global warming. Growing food, knitting clothes, and collecting rainwater can have a small impact on an individual level, and a larger one on a societal level. Taking a cue from our ancestors and letting the Earth provide as much of your food, clothing, and shelter as possible disconnects us from the exploitative-capitalist cycle, and allows us to appreciate nature as a sustainer, rather than a mere resource.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!