Categories
On This Day

On this Day February 23, solar energy (1974), Scientist worries (1977) Denialist shite (1993), best FT letter ever (2024)

In the early 1970s, with fears the oil would run out (or come under the control of untrustworthy A-rabs, which amounted to the same thing), there was intense interest in “alternative” energy sources. Australia was one of the leaders on solar research

February 23, 1974 – CSIRO Solar energy conference

By the mid-1970s the carbon dioxide build-up problem was beginning to cut through, especially in the aftermath of the very hot summer of 1976….

February 23, 1977 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about carbon dioxide build-up. 

Although the “greenies” had been defeated by about 1992, angry old white men, deprived of relevance, were still fulminating. Take a bow, former Hawke-era minister Peter Walsh…

 February 23, 1993 – Peter Walsh spouting his tosh again

The best ever letter. No notes. 

Feb 24, 2024 The best letter to have ever appeared in the Financial Times

Are there other climate-related events that happened on this day that you think deserve a shout out? If so, let me know.

As ever, invite me on your podcast, etc etc.

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United States of America

February 22, 2004 – secret Pentagon report predicts apocalypse by 2024

Twenty two years ago, on this day, February 22, 2004 a report in The Observer…

Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that politicians had received warnings for a long long time.

The specific context was that the Bush administration’s denial of climate science was getting more and more pushback. Meanwhile, the Pentagon was trying to perhaps find other things to talk about besides the Iraq War, which wasn’t quite going how they planned. The war had gone how they planned, the occupation, not so much so. There had been various sorts of security studies of climate impacts. It’s fairly obvious that it would not just affect geopolitics, but the ability to fight; everything, how much water soldiers needed, and on and on and on.

What I think we can learn from this is that just because it’s a military study doesn’t mean it’s not horse shit. Because the authors are trying to get more money. That’s what the author of almost any report is trying to do; more money, more attention, jobs for their mates. That’s how all of these games are played. And so if you actually look at what the report predicted 20 years hence, i.e. now it has not come to pass. So we should always be careful that just because it’s in a secret report doesn’t mean it’s in any way accurate.  

What happened next: More reports. More inaction. More despair.

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.

Also on this day: 

February 22, 1991 – Denialist gloating about influence on Bush

February 22, 2012 – “Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act” holds a meeting…

February 22, 2013 – Idiotic “Damage” astroturf attempted by miners

February 22, 2020 – CO2 pipeline accident – “Like something out of a zombie movie”

Categories
On This Day

 On this Day – February 21 

Fifty four years ago today, a BBC documentary tackled the entirely-predictable (and well-funded) backlash against eco-concerns….

February 21, 1972 – Horizon and the backlash against “selling doomsday”

Forty eight years ago today, a workshop organised by the technocrats at the International Institute for Advances Systems “Analysis” took place. The technocrats will save us all (spoiler: no they won’t)

Feb 21, 1978 – “Carbon dioxide, climate and society” workshop

Twenty two years ago convenient and soothing lies about “clean coal” got a run at a conference in Australia.

February 21, 2004 – “Turning coal clean and green.” Sure. Any day now.

Are there other climate-related events that happened on this day that you think deserve a shout out? If so, let me know.

As ever, invite me on your podcast, etc etc.

Categories
Denial

February 20, 2010 – Chirstopher Booker being a tit, for once

Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 20, 2010,

In an article which appeared in The Sunday Telegraph on 20 February 2010, Christopher Booker purported to correct the misquotation contained in The Real Global Warming Disaster but this article contained yet further inaccuracies.[30] As a result, Houghton referred the matter to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC Reference 101959). Following the PCC’s involvement, The Sunday Telegraph published on 15 August 2010 a letter of correction by Houghton stating his true position.[31] An article supportive of Houghton also appeared in the edition of 21 May 2010 of New Scientist.[32]

The correct quotation was, “If we want a good environmental policy in the future we’ll have to have a disaster. It’s like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there’s been an accident.”[33]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the journalist Christopher Booker (a founder and first editor of Private Eye) had been writing various idiotic denialist screeds for a while. There was an audience for them among a certain kind of person who doesn’t want to admit that all the nice things that we have come with a price tag, and that people who are enjoying more of the nice things than other people are might have a responsibility to cut back and to help those other people, because that would be, well, that would be, in their eyes, an unfair infringement on their “liberty” and so forth and so forth. Also these people are enraged that it turns out that the dirty hippies who they’d been disparaging by this time for 40 years were right. 

So the way it works is that some awful book gets published, It doesn’t matter that it’s full of inaccuracies, that it has had no real peer review, it’s a book, and in the eyes of journalists, that makes it newsworthy.

And in the eyes of editors with pages to fill, well, they can get op eds and excerpts out of it, “all the adverts fit to print, all the news printed to fit,” and so on. 

And so what you see here is Booker just making shit up and being wrong and back and forth, back and forth, other people like scientist John Houghton having to waste precious time and energy, which Houghton had been having to do since, well, the early 1990s.

The specific context was that Copenhagen had ended in nothing, the “Climategate” bullshit was in full flow and the denialists had the winds at their backs.

What I think we can learn from this is that Christopher Booker may have been a talented journalist early on, but as an assessor of science and as a man of honour, he was a complete failure.

And those who took comfort in his lies, distortions, exaggerations are also frankly, failures. 

And of course, the Telegraph has continued to be a failure, as we see from its repeated apologies and quote clarifications in its ongoing, frankly psychotic campaign against net zero and Ed Miliband.

What happened next: The denial never stopped. It never will. These people painted themselves into a corner. To admit that they’d been wrong would destroy them emotionally, cognitively, so they won’t, but then they’ll pivot to, well, it’s too late to do anything about it, regardless of what the cause might be.

Booker died in 2019

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.

Also on this day: 

February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist

February 20, 1970 – South Australian premier sets up an Environment Committee

February 20, 2017 “Clean Coal” money being spent on PR

Categories
Science Scientists

February 20, 1979 “An Assessment of the Possible Future Climatic Impact of Carbon Dioxide Increases”

Forty seven years ago, on this day, February 20, 1979 the following was published – 

“An Assessment of the Possible Future Climatic Impact of Carbon Dioxide Increases Based on a Coupled One-Dimensional Atmospheric-Oceanic Model” Hunt and Wells

https://doi.org/10.1029/JC084iC02p00787

A radiative-convective equilibrium model of the atmosphere has been coupled with a mixed layer model of the ocean to investigate the response of this one-dimensional system to increasing carbon dioxide amounts in the atmosphere. For global mean conditions a surface temperature rise of about 2°K was obtained for a doubling of the carbon dioxide amount, in reasonable agreement with the commonly accepted results of Manabe and Wetherald. This temperature rise was essentially invariant with season and indicates that including a shallow (300 m) ocean slab in this problem does not basically alter previous assessments. While the mixed layer depth of the ocean was only very slightly changed by the temperature increase, which extended throughout the depth of the mixed layer, the impact of this increase on the overall behavior of the ocean warrants further study. A calculation was also made of the temporal variation of the sea surface temperature for three possible carbon dioxide growth rates starting from an initial carbon dioxide content of 300 ppm. This indicated that the thermal inertia of the slab ocean provides a time lag of 8 years in the sea surface temperature response compared to a land situation. This is not considered to be of great significance as regards the likely future climatic impact of carbon dioxide increase.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was the idea that carbon dioxide build-up could warm the planet goes back to Arrhenius in 1895. The idea got nudged forward by Guy Callendar in 1938 onwards, and then pushed to the next level by Gilbert Plass in 1953.

The specific context was that by the late 1970s, it was broadly agreed among the relevant scientific community that there was serious trouble ahead, and this is laid out in painstaking and painful detail in William Barbat’s CO2 Newsletter, which I am releasing through the course of 2026.

What I think we can learn from this is that information on its own, the truth on its own, will not set you free.

What happened next: More studies, more emissions, more concentrations, spasms of protest, but no action worthy of the name to actually bend the emissions curve down, and certainly reducing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 via various so called draw down projects is a complete fucking fantasy.

And I didn’t have kids because the second half of the 21st Century is going to make the first half of the 20th look like a golden age of peace, love and understanding. But I’m standing here narrating this, looking at sparrows and finches and things and I guess it’s my job just to enjoy it for as long as I can. I suppose.

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.

Also on this day: 

February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist

February 20, 1970 – South Australian premier sets up an Environment Committee

February 20, 2017 “Clean Coal” money being spent on PR

Categories
Arctic

February 20, 1969 – The Arctic will melt

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, February 20, 1969,

“Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two.”

Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea Catastrophic Shifts in Climate Feared if Change Occurs; Other Specialists See No Thinning of Polar Ice Cap

By WALTER SULLIVAN February 20, 1969. New York Times.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the Arctic had been perceptibly warming since the end of the 19th century. And this had been spotted onwards and onwards from 1916 onwards. It was not a particularly controversial finding, though, the mechanism was in dispute, and the speed with which the changes would hit were within dispute.

The specific context was that all things environmental were a hot topic, because in January of 1969 the Santa Barbara oil spill had happened. You’d also had the Earth Rise photo from NASA, and everyone was beginning to worry about the impacts of man’s activities.

What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve known that we were causing havoc and mayhem for a long time. We haven’t always been accurate on how that havoc and mayhem would unfold, because, well, after all, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. It’s worth noting that Walter Sullivan, their science correspondent, had been neck deep in the International Geographical Year, publicity or reporting, so he knew what he was talking about.

It was also Sullivan who, in 1981 reported on James Hansen’s findings, I think, in August, and that ended up costing Hanson some funding, which had already been granted because the Reagan administration was, well, the Reagan administration. 

What happened next: More and more attention paid to the melting of ice caps and the freeing up of polar sea lanes, etc. And now as of 2026, well, the fights are on.

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.

Also on this day: 

February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist

February 20, 1970 – South Australian premier sets up an Environment Committee

February 20, 2017 “Clean Coal” money being spent on PR

Categories
On This Day

On this day Feb 19 – fearful symmetries…

Fifty five years ago John Maddox is fulminating against the concern over carbon dioxide build-up. Yeah, Maddox, that one is gonna age like a glass of milk (30+ yrs later, he admitted he was wrong. Sort of).

February 19, 1971 – Nature editorial on “The Great Greenhouse Scare”

Exactly 10 years later? An article on, erm, acting now not later. Forty five years after this, we’re still not acting. Just pretending.

February 19, 1981 – Nature article “Greenhouse Effect: Act Now, Not Later”

On the same day (and perhaps some in the room had seen the editorial?) people in the Ecology Party, since renamed the Green Party – were talking about the climate threat. Forty five damned years.

February 19, 1981 – Ecology Party meeting in Wells warns of carbon dioxide build-up

The IPCC, ever the technocrat-dominated body, announced it would study the fantasy that is CCS. They released the report in September 2005.

 February 19, 2003 – “CCS to be studied by IPCC”

As the public gets worried about climate change, the lobbyists, with many tools at their disposal, spring into action…

 February 19, 2007 – Australian gas lobby hard at work…

Normally I don’t do an “on this day” post if I am putting up something new. But there were too many fearful symmetries here to be ignored.

Categories
United Kingdom

February 19, 1958 – the “Council for Nature” forms

Sixty eight years ago, on this day, February 19 1958, 

A meeting at Linneas Society London, from which Council for Nature group forms.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that in the 1950s it was becoming clear that industrialization wasn’t just an issue for cities air quality, but also large chunks of the beautiful English countryside and diverse species were being wiped out. This had been going on for ages. Of course, I don’t want to say that it was just in the 50s.

The specific context was -well, I don’t know about the Council for Nature, presumably the Tory government wanting to look like it gave a shit. And there will have been people within the Tory government who did give a shit.

What I think we can learn from this is that there are always these fine sounding names slapped on state bodies that are there ostensibly to regulate and protect. These bodies always run out of steam, get captured, get corrupted, and occasionally renewed, but during their capture and corruption, they waste a lot of people’s time and hope and then cause cynicism, despair, apathy, which you could argue is ultimately a feature, not a bug.

What happened next: 

Oh, these groups come and go, get rebranded and waste a lot of everyone’s time and hope.

The Council for Nature. Nature 181, 867–868 (1958). https://doi.org/10.1038/181867a0

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.

Also on this day: 

February 19, 1971 – Nature editorial on “The Great Greenhouse Scare”

February 19, 1981 – Nature article “Greenhouse Effect: Act Now, Not Later”

February 19, 1981 – Ecology Party meeting in Wells warns of carbon dioxide build-up

 February 19, 2003 – “CCS to be studied by IPCC”

 February 19, 2007 – Australian gas lobby hard at work…

 

Categories
Academia Coal United States of America

February 18, 2003 – “Coal Fires Burning Around the World: A Global Catastrophe”

Twenty three years ago, on this day, February 18, 2003,

This special coal fires edition of the International Journal of Coal Geology is a by-product of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium entitled Coal Fires Burning Around the World: A Global Catastrophe, held on February 18, 2003 in Denver, CO. The purpose of the symposium, organized and convened by Glenn B. Stracher of East Georgia College, Robert B. Finkelman of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA, and Tammy P. Taylor of Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, was to disclose the severity of the coal fires problem to the scientific, engineering, and lay communities and to promote interest in the interdisciplinary study of this environmental catastrophe.

http://www.sciencedirect.com.manchester.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S0166516204000096

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that scientists had been measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere accurately since 1958, and had been speculating about shitfuckery of monumental proportions, And from the late 70s that speculation had firmed up, there were various efforts to disprove or to test the idea significantly. For example, the Charney Report. But these had come to naught because of politicians’ ignorance and a lack of a social movement/civil society push.

It’s fairly elementary. 19th century physics, Greenhouse gases trap heat. Carbon dioxide is one, not the only greenhouse gas. If you put lots more of it into the atmosphere, you will get more heat. Take a look at Venus..

The specific context was that by 2003 it was clear that the United States, under George W Bush was not going to be any better, in fact, possibly even worse than his dad, and that there was going to be hell to pay. 

Of course, that hell would be paid, in the first instance, by all the other species on the planet, and people, mostly not rich and white and people not yet born. But hell has a way of catching up with you. And here we are in 2026. 

What I think we can learn from this is that the warnings have been endless, and there is a subset of humanity that just doesn’t give a fuck, and they are able to hire all sorts of goons, physical goons like ICE, intellectual goons like, well, frankly, most of academia, including humanities and well, it’s their planet. We just cling to the edges of it

What happened next: Bush kept being Bush. He was then, from sort of 2002-3 onwards, bigging up” technology”, which is always their answer, regardless of how implausible it is. 

And the emissions and the concentrations and the impacts they kept making themselves felt.

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.

Also on this day: 

February 18, 1991 – Governor Bill Clinton says would give “serious consideration” to cuts of 20-30 per cent by 2004.

February 18, 2011 – Scientist quits advisor role (because ignored on climate?)

February 18, 2004 – “An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science”

Categories
2003 Australia Carbon Pricing Finance Capital Kyoto Protocol Westpac

 February 17, 2003 – A bank wants to make money, and “save the planet”

Twenty three years ago, on this day, February 17, 2003,

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 376ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the idea of rich countries having to reduce emissions was there from the beginning of public international climate concern in 1988, but the administration of George HW Bush had, using its diplomatic muscle, prevented targets and timetables for reductions being in the UNFCCC’s text at that point, Australia was playing, and I mean that in every sense, the role of a “responsible middle power”. However, the domestic forces arrayed against emissions reductions and policy instruments like a price on carbon dioxide to make reductions happen were extremely strong. 

The specific context was that in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol had been agreed, Australia had managed to get an extremely generous increase in its reductions. De jure 108% but de facto, once you took into account the land clearing clause, 130%.

In September 1998 the Canberra Times reported that Cabinet had decided it would not ratify Kyoto unless the Americans did. In March 2001 the Bush administration pulled the US out of Kyoto, and in June of 2002 Howard had followed through on that, choosing to make the announcement on World Environment Day, primarily, I assume, to own the libs. 

But business had seen value in Kyoto ratification. New South Wales had lots of forests and could get so-called carbon credits, but only if Australia ratified. Meanwhile, carbon trading was going to enable nice fat fees for consultants and bankers in lots of loopholes, but Howard was opposed. Therefore it’s not particularly surprising to see Westpac coming out in favour.

What I think we can learn from this is that “capital” is not unitary, not a monolith. There are competing, overlapping, conflicting interests, all of which need managing, usually within and between trade associations, but sometimes just the big beasts – the really big beasts – doing it behind closed doors.

What happened next: later on in that year, Howard blocked an emissions trading scheme for Australia that all his Cabinet wanted, and he went on to win another election. Westpac kept on talking, and in 2006 combined with the Australian Conservation Foundation, the biggest green group to push the case for “Early action on climate change” in April of 2006.

Meanwhile, during all this, the emissions kept climbing, the concentrations kept climbing, and the chances of humans, humanity, civilization, whatever label you want to stick on it, avoiding the absolute worst consequences of its own behaviour, shrank.

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.

Also on this day: 

February 17, 1993 – President Clinton proposes an Energy Tax.

February 17, 2003 – “please ratify Kyoto Protocol” advisory group begs John Howard

February 17, 2003 – Bob Carr says John Howard showing poor leadership (too generous!)

Feb 17, 2004 – Zero Emissions Technology Conference in Australia. At peak excitement of tech solutions

February 17, 2013 – celebrities arrested at Whitehouse, protesting Keystone XL