Categories
United States of America

Feb 9, 1990 – Carl Sagan on military spending vs. climate spending

February 9, 1990 – Carl Sagan vs climate complacency

Thirty five years ago, on this day, February 9th, 1990,Carl Sagan gave the keynote speech at the 5th “Emerging Issues Forum” at the University of North Carolina.

Here’s a video of the relevant clip

Now, there are policy makers who would like to respond as follows and you have perhaps seen this sort of opinion in the pages of, naturally the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. It’s the first place to expect a complaint about having to change anything. 

‘It’s too uncertain’ they say. This is serious stuff. There are a few scientists with computer models and who can be sure that they know what they are talking about and you want us to turn everything upside down because some scientist say that things are going to get a few degrees warmer. It’s a few degrees warmer on the stage than it is in the audience. You don’t see any catastrophe up here do you? 

I’d like to pose the following question: Imagine this kinda thinking back in the height of the Cold War. You know the United States – so, let me ask a question – How much money do you think the United States has spent since 1945 on the Cold War? Sometimes they ask this question then from the back of the audience comes in answer ‘billions and billions‘. A huge underestimate – billions and billions. The amount of money that the United States has spent on the Cold War since 1945 is approximately 10 trillion dollars. Trillion, that’s the big one with the ‘T’. What could you buy with 10 trillion dollars? The answer is: You could buy everything in the United States except the land. Everything. Every building, truck, bus, car, boat, plane, pencil, baby’s diaper. Everything in the United States except the land, that’s what we have spent on the Cold War. 

So, now let me ask: How certain was it that the Russians were going to invade? Was it 100% certain? Guess not since they never invaded. What if it was only let say 10% certain? What would advocates of big military buildup have said? We must be prudent. It’s not enough to count on only the most likely circumstance. If the worst happens and it’s really extremely dangerous for us we have to prepare for that. Remote contingencies if there is serious enough have the prepared for. It’s classic military thinking – you prepare for the worst case. 

And so now, I ask my friends who are comfortable with that argument, including the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, why doesn’t that same argument apply to Global Warming. You don’t think it’s 100% likely? Fine. You are entitled to think that. If it’s only a small probability of it happening since the consequences are so serious, don’t you have to make some serious investment to prevent it or mitigate it? I think there’s a double standard of argument working and I don’t think we should permit it.

And here is a great transcript etc of the whole speech.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Sagan had already tried to communicate the challenge, see his December 1985 address to some senators.

What I think we can learn from this is  that Sagan was a fantastic communicator.

What happened next Sagan died in 1996, far too young.

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.

Categories
Netherlands

 February 9, 1970 – HRH Prince of Netherlands points to carbon dioxide build-up

Fifty five years ago, on this day, February 9th, 1970, HRH Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands nailed it.

“The pollution of the biosphere is such a danger–only one of the threats to human survival, but currently probably the greatest and most immediate. The effects of carbon dioxide build-up are only now beginning to be recognized and assessed, and we shall have to take a long hard look at the whole question of the burning of fossil fuels. In my view we should be paying much more attention than we do to the collection and storage of solar energy, so that, in terms of power, we can live on income rather than on capital.

H.R.H. (1970). The European conservational scene. Biological Conservation, 2(4), 242–245. doi:10.1016/0006-3207(70)90002-9 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Europeans had been switched on to climate change. And this is really the apotheosis of it, when His Royal Highness, the king Prince Consort of the Netherlands, explicitly mentions carbon dioxide build up at the beginning of the European Conservation Year, in the midst of a “great environmental awakening”

That’s really happened recently , you can argue Torrey Canyon in 1967 and the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969 and lots of other events since then (rivers catching fire etc).

What I think we can learn from this that the Dutch Royal family was on to this long before 1988 when Queen Beatrix gave her warning on Christmas Day.

What happened next The eco moment lasted for another two and a half years, and then was kind of finished off by a big public event, the Stockholm conference, that it’s like kind of an orgasm, and after all that effort and that moment of pleasure, people feel spent. 

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.

Categories
International Geophysical Year United States of America

February 8, 1956 – Roger Revelle sexes up the dossier to House Committee on Appropriations

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, February 8th, 1956, US scientist Roger Revelle was giving TESTIMONY BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956

You can read it here.


Fossil fuels and Carbon dioxide
Dr. REVELLE. . . . There is still one more aspect of the oceanographic program which I thought you gentlemen would be interested in. This is a combination of meteorology and oceanography.
Right now and during the past 50 years, we are burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas. The rate at which we are burning this is increasing very rapidly.
This burning of these fuels which were accumulated in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and which we are burning up in a few generations, is producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air. Based on figures given out by the United Nations, I would estimate that by the year 2010, we will have added something like 70 percent of the present atmospheric carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is an enormous quantity. It is like 1,700 billion tons. Now, nobody knows what this will do. Lots of people have supposed that it might actually cause a warming up of the atmospheric temperature and it may, in fact, cause a remarkable change in climate. . . .


Warming of the earth
We may actually, for example, find that the Arctic Ocean will become navigable and the coasts become a place where people can live, then the Russian Arctic coastline will be really quite free for shipping, as will our Alaskan coastline, if this possible increase in temperature really happens.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that big science cost big money, and Revelle was trying to assure Congressmen that this was money well spent. And so came up with various stories and scenarios. 

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists have to know how to keep the money flowing. This is a perennial problem in the area of big science, but using the word big  like that has a pejorative implication, doesn’t it? We’re no longer in the era of people tinkering in their sheds, much as we like to hark back to that with the folk Story of Google.

What happened next … the International Geophysical Year.

Categories
Podcasts Predatory delay

Podcast Review: Alex Steffen’s “When We Are”

I’ve only listened to three of these so far

  • Feb 3 Letting Go of Everything We Expected
  • Jan 24 2025 Why I remain Optimistic
  • Jan 21 Trump Makes it Official: No-one is coming to save us – showing that it “you’re on your own “  using a quote from Jesse Keenan – see also this one.

Steffen, who came up with the term predatory delay, is good at compassionately addressing people’s disorientation and inability to do themselves a sitrep, (though he doesn’t use those phrases.)

And the crucial point is that things are accelerating, and therefore OODA Loops are being hacked, not just by actual enemies, but by events. There’s that famous quote that I use too much from Walt Benjamin about the Klee painting – this wreckage that piles up at our feet, we call it progress.

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

I’m in this sense of disorientation, alienation, things moving too fast has been going on since sort of the joint processes of the massive urbanization and industrialization of the early 19th century, in the coming of “modernity.” See also “the hypertrophy of objective culture” by ol’ Georgie Simmel.

It goes back before then, of course, it’s never as if there wasn’t changes, as Steffen himself very clearly articulates, 

These really valuable 10 or 12 minute podcast. It’s a good format (see also Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American). Doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Steffen has useful things to say, and he says them well. He’s good on this question of, you know, being “optimistic”, and distinguishes it from hope and hopium . He points out that he grew up in the 70s and 80s, (as did I), with all of this sense of, you know, “the 100th monkey” bollocks and global change in consciousness. 

And Steffen doesn’t think that’s going to happen, but he also doesn’t think we’re all going to die next Tuesday. And he makes an interesting point that in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, there was such massive destruction, dislocation, millions murdered, but life went on and things got better.

Hmmm I mean, you could argue that’s because large parts of the world were physically untouched, especially the United States and Australia, and that food was not or the availability of food globally was not a concern. 

We shall see what happens if we make it to the 2030s and 2040s in some kind of shape. But I do think that there is a non-trivial – I’m not saying it’s large – but it’s a non trivial chance of generalized sort of well, for want of a better term, “generalised global societal collapse.”

And then, of course, this question of “What do you mean by that word collapse?” Because it covers everything from the Great Depression through to Mad Max apocalypse.

Anyway, look, these podcasts by Steffen are worth your time. 

Categories
Australia

February 7, 1995 – Australian Treasurer claims UNFCCC treaty contains loopholes and get-out clauses

Thirty years ago, on this day, February 7th, 1995,

Treasurer Ralph Willis stated that the UNFCCC contained ‘let-out clauses’ and that the government might decide that a less ambitious target was appropriate Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 7

February 1995, 582 (Ralph Willis, Treasurer).

The Government also confirmed yesterday that it would be forced to renege on international targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the turn of the century.

The Treasurer, Mr Willis, told Parliament the Government would examine the “let-out clauses” of the United Nations agreement to stabilise greenhouse gas emission levels to 1990 levels by 2000.

“Those are not unimportant clauses (and) they have to be taken into account when considering whether we need absolutely to tie ourselves to achieving the (targets),” he said. “(But) we are concerned with ensuring that Australia does everything in its power to try to live up to its obligations to the convention.”

The backdown would be highly embarrassing for the Government in the lead-up to the International Convention on Climate Change in Berlin next month

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that very day, there was a round table about a carbon tax. Ralph Willison was in Parliament and was busy saying that there were get out clauses in the UNFCCC document that Australia would investigate and, if necessary, exploit so much for Australia as a middle power. 

What I think we can learn from this is that there is no bit of paper that anyone will sign that won’t be ignored if it becomes inconvenient to them.

What happened next

There was no carbon tax. There was finally a carbon price in 2012 that didn’t last very long. Tiny Abbott abolished it. The emissions kept climbing, and we’re absolutely doomed. 

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.

Categories
Australia

February 6, 1969 – Senate Select Committee warned about CO2 build up by Professor Harry Bloom

The text below is from Royce Kurmelovs’ book Slick. You can read more about Bloom (and also the South Australian politician Richard Gun, who was the first parliamentarian to raise the question of C02 build-up, in early 1970), here.

Fifty six years ago, on this day, February 6th, 1969, Australian senators investigating air quality were warned about the carbon dioxide build-up problem by a Tasmanian chemistry professor, Harry Bloom..

But it was 6 February 1969, at a hearing in Hobart, when they heard from University of Tasmania professor Harry Bloom.

Prof Bloom was a man cursed with unique foresight. He would later carry out the first tests showing the Derwent River was contaminated by heavy metals but would largely be ignored until independent testing confirmed his assessment. It was an experience he would unfortunately be familiar with when he called attention to the catastrophic risk posed by climate change.

“Carbon dioxide build-up in the world has been calculated to be such as to be able to produce serious changes, not only in climatic conditions but also in health conditions all over the world in not too many years, say 50 to 100 years. I think the whole situation is one which needs very desperate and immediate action. I think we have to know what is at present in the atmosphere, and one ought to do something about it.”

Kurmelovs, R. (2024) Slick

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Senate Committee on Air Pollution had been agreed against the backdrop of growing concern about air quality in cities and awareness of issues both local and global.

What we can learn is that intelligent people and academics – the two are not always the same – were paying attention to the scientific literature and becoming informed about the carbon dioxide build up problem in the late 1960s, which is earlier than many think.

What happened next. In September ‘69 the air pollution report was released. It included significant mention of carbon dioxide as a problem. There was no serious legislative action – well that’s possibly a little unfair – there was on some things. And over the coming year or two departments of environment were set up, ministers appointed – you know, the usual stuff…

More about Bloom –

Source – https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/261606396

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 6, 1995 – Australian business versus a carbon tax

February 6, 2001: ExxonMobil Lobbyist Calls on White House to Remove Certain Government Climate Scientists

Categories
AFrica

 February 5, 1986 – Thomas Sankara Imperialism is the arsonist of our forests and savannas 

Thirty nine years ago, on this day, February 5th, 1986 President of Burkina Faso  Thomas Sankara dropped some truth bombs in Paris.

This struggle to defend the trees and Forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. . Imperialism is the arsonist of our forests and savannas,”  

Shttps://www.marxists.org/archive/sankara/1986/february/05.htm

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 347ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Thomas Sankara was a throwback to the 1960s and 70s, military fatigue, fiery language. And here we have fiery languages, 100% accurate.

What I think we can learn from this is that people on the pointy end of capitalism, imperialism, and expropriation don’t need textbooks or PhDs to explain to them that they are getting shafted and that the planet is getting shafted. They just need their eyes. And they have them.

What happened next Sankara was killed in a bloody military coup the following year. And that kind of rhetoric about imperialism and expropriation, exploitation, devastation was not really apparent in the Brundtland Commission. Oddly enough.

For more on Sankara, see this 2020 piece on Verso’s blog.

Categories
Russia

 February 5, 1993 – Space Based Energy experiment takes place

Thirty two years ago, on this day, February 5th, 1993,

If you happened to be looking at the sky in Europe on a cold night on February 5 1993, there is a chance you could have seen a dim flash of light. That flash came from a Russian space mirror experiment called Znamya-2. Znamya-2 was a 20-metre reflective structure much like aluminium foil (Znamya means “banner” in Russian), unfurled from a spacecraft which had just undocked from the Russian Mir space station. Its goal was to demonstrate solar energy could be reflected from space to Earth. https://theconversation.com/reflectors-in-space-could-make-solar-farms-on-earth-work-for-longer-every-day-220554#:~:text=Each%20time%20a%20reflector%20passes,its%20hours%20of%20electricity%20generation.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had been various proposals about using space based satellites to capture the enormous amounts of the sun’s energy and redirect it to specific points on Earth, space based mirrors, etc, not as weapons for that too, but for limitless, reliable energy generation and space based energy satellites are a fascinating thing. 

See also the novels The Dynostar Menace (1975) and also Quatermass by Nigel Kneale that came out in 1979 [interesting looking podcast here] and the Children of the Pylons.” 

What I think we can learn from this We dream of limitless “free” energy, but there are some upfront charges

What happened next 

Ripped from last month’s headlines…

“China plans to build enormous solar array in space — and it could collect more energy in a year than ‘all the oil on Earth’”

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.

Categories
Australia Economics of mitigation

February 4, 1998 – Ombudsman on ABARE and its dodgy af #climate modelling

Twenty seven years ago, on this day, February 4th, 1998, greenies ‘win’ – an admission that a state-funded outfit shouldn’t have excluded them (which it did so it could push out economic modelling bullshit unfettered).

Ombudsman releases ABARE investigation report

Commonwealth Ombudsman Philippa Smith said the ACF complaint about ABARE raised important issues about how government agencies developed and consulted on public policy. 

In June 1997, the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) complained to the Ombudsman because the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics (ABARE) refused to waive the $50,000 per annum fee required to join a steering committee it convened to provide a ‘sounding board’ and data and technical advice for its GIGABARE climate change model.

GIGABARE and MEGABARE are climate change economic models which analyse the economic effects of greenhouse gas emission policy.

Ms Smith said: ‘In my opinion ABARE’s climate change modelling is best characterised as a public good and relates to important public policy issues.

‘Any Steering Committee or consultative process with these responsibilities should strive for a balance of interests and technical skills rather than being a mechanism for fund raising.’

Ms Smith said the case also highlighted the importance of planning and protocols in the receipt, acknowledgment and use of external funding or sponsorship by agencies allowing outside involvement in developing important public policy issues.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366ppm. As of 2025 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics (ABARE) had been putting out bullshit numbers about the cost of climate mitigation thanks to its ridiculous MEGABARE economic model, the Australian Conservation Foundation had tried to get on the board overseeing mega bar without paying the 50k a bar had said no. ACF had complained to the ombudsman, and the report came out on this day. 

What I think we can learn from this is that economic modeling exists to make astrology look respectable, as per, John Kenneth Galbraith, these are just made up bullshit numbers, but once they are in an official report and then spouted by the minister or the Prime Minister, they take on a solidity that they do not deserve, and the people trying to stop anything from happening know this, which is why it’s one of their favorite techniques.

What happened next ABARE and other outfits kept peddling utter fucking Tosh, and the newspapers kept publicizing it because it was good, cheap, free copy.

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.

Categories
Podcasts

Podcast review: Every breath you take, Alice Bell on Cursed Object podcast

So, following on from review of Rebecca John talking about Charles Keeling and the Air Pollution Foundation on the History of California podcast, here’s some brief thoughts on Alice Bell on the Curated Object.

If you know of podcasts that deal – even tangentially – with the history of man-made climate change (research, politics, etc), then let me know.

Alice Bell, author of Our Biggest Experiment, was recently a guest on the Cursed Object podcast.

The objects she brought were

a) a jar of London air (Euston Road)

b) a 1989 edition of the Radio Times which was all about Being Green (I’ve seen that issue, it’s extraordinary).

Bell was a confident and engaging guest, and the whole episode is worth your time.

Three things stood out for me, but your mileage will vary.

  • Bell’s point about the intertwining of energy and democracy – e.g Plug plot  Riots (there’s also all that Carbon Democracy stuff by Timothy Mitchell, I don’t remember is she mentioned it. She probably did.
  • The point that people who went climbing mountains and glaciers in the 19th century left, ah, “spoor” which is now back with us, thanks to all the melting.
  • A nice anecdote about how, when she was doing walking tours of London’s climate history (Shell, DECC etc) then different people would turn up to take part with their own stories – one couple whose first date, in 1947, had had to be moved because the smog was so bad the busses weren’t running (before the 1956 Clean Air Act, the response to the deadly December 1952 smog, air quality was astonishingly bad. It still is, just less visible now).