Fifty eight years ago, on this day, March 8th, 1966, American thinker Kenneth Boulding was talking about the importance of how we think about our position in the universe. Hint – we are on a fragile spaceship.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that we just put people in space, everyone was thinking about space and spaceships and astronauts and spacewalks. And that sense of fragility was growing.
What I think we can learn from this is that Kenneth Boulding was a smart guy. So did other smart people, Bucky Fuller, Lewis Mumford. Barbara Ward, you name it. But our smarts didn’t save us (and our luck always runs out).
What happened next: Three years later, everyone’s got EarthRise posters. Everyone’s talking about her fragile planet. All of that kind of went away in 1972-73, at least publicly. Presumably, there’s a whole lot of people who still believe that but feel powerless and isolated to do anything meaningful about it (that Spiral of Silence). Fortunately, we learned our lessons and from 1989 We’ve been busy saving the world ever since [sarcasm].
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.
Twelve years ago, on this day, March 7th, 2012, a Queensland politician showed exactly who he was.
When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation to counter what he calls ‘the radical Green movement’, he immediately reached out to Gina Rinehart. Christensen sent her an email setting out his proposals to attack environmental groups that he claims want to hold up mining projects in the region. The exchange has now leaked.
Christensen wrote: ‘One quick thought was to hold a major rally “In Defence of the North Queensland Way of Life” in Mackay where we would encourage people in farming, fishing and mining to descend on the town for a mass show of support against the southern Green interests. If this was to be successful, we could then quickly move this movement into a formal blue collar/workers organisation that advocated for the North and against the greenies.”
There was a need to act quickly, he said, but the plan could only succeed if Rinehart and others like her got behind it. Not surprisingly, the email, dated March 7 [2012], specifically mentioned financial support.
Oakes, L. 2012. Gina and Clive are Labor’s best assets. The Australian, 26 May.
Oakes, 2013: 193
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.6ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia now had an emissions trading scheme. The nutjob army that had been riled by defeat was looking for a compensatory consolation victory. You’ve got to keep people busy. You’ve got to keep your name in the paper. So Senator George Christiansen (three words that really don’t belong together in the English language) was taking money from a mining magnate to keep the culture war going. Happy days.
What I think we can learn from this Is that culture wars need their lieutenants, need their logistics. And you can see it unfolding because it’s happening in a democracy. You can also see it in a dictatorship, I guess, but slightly more difficult. I digress.
What happened next
Christensen’s “colourful” personal life eventually meant that he was more of a liability than an asset and he is no longer a senator. The coal kept being mined, and exported.
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.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 6th, 2002, some Australian “economists” think George Dubya Bush is smart and competent.
Reducing greenhouse emissions to levels required in the Kyoto Protocol would lift unemployment and energy prices, according to new research by Australia’s chief rural and resources forecaster.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said the US approach to reducing world greenhouse emissions offered a more realistic chance of reducing the possibility of significant climate change.
Executive director Dr Brian Fisher said the US approach offered “a potential avenue for bringing global developing countries into the abatement effort, while still facilitating their economic growth”.
He said there was little value in Australia ratifying the United Nations treaty on reducing worldwide greenhouse emissions without the United States and developing nations.
Dr Fisher’s remarks follow the first modelling conducted by the Government’s main economic think-tank since the last meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Morocco in November which finalised most treaty rules.
“The consequences of Australia ratifying the Kyoto Protocol are a significant structural adjustment to the Australian economy with a severe regional impact on jobs and on several major industries,” Dr Fisher said.
In a paper to be presented today to ABARE’s annual Outlook conference, Dr Fisher said domestic electricity prices would rise by between 37 per cent and 50 per cent by 2010 and 2015 on current projections and Australia would incur a 1 per cent loss in gross national product by 2015.
Koutsoukis, J. 2002. ABARE backs US on emissions. The Australian Financial Review, 6 March, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374.3.ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bush had pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol process the year before. Bush was spouting all sorts of bullshit about the costs of doing anything about climate change and how wonderful CCS and hydrogen would be. And this was an opportunity for sycophants at ABARE to lend their important support.
What I think we can learn from this is that lickspittle is a really powerful word.
What happened next
Well Bush continued to be a douche. ABARE continued to be douchey. No social movements worthy of the name ever emerged. And the emissions kept climbing. And, you know, the rest.
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.
Seventeen years ago, on this day, March 5th, 2007, an Australia politician who had already scuppered a national Emissions Trading Scheme in 2000 came out and said what he was “thinking.”
A SENIOR Federal Government minister has expressed serious doubts global warming has been caused by humans, relying on non-scientific material and discredited sources to back his claim.
One month after a United Nations scientific panel delivered its strongest warning yet that humans were causing global warming, the Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, has questioned the link between fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution.
In a letter he wrote on March 5 to Clean Up Australia’s founder, Ian Kiernan, Senator Minchin took issue with Mr Kiernan’s criticism of the minister’s scepticism.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384.8ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Minchin, who was only from a very small and frankly not very bright state, South Australia, had been a knuckle-dragger and knuckle bruiser on climate for some time. He had successfully defeated the first effort to get an emissions trading scheme through Howard’s cabinet in August of 2000. Climate change had in about September of 2006, exploded onto the Australian public’s consciousness, for want of a better word, and Minchin was fighting the culture war.
What I think we can learn from this is that the idiotic beliefs of idiotic people can have enormous consequences if those people can call themselves senators and so forth, and sit around the table where the decisions are being made. And so it was.
What happened next
An Emissions Trading Scheme was eventually passed in 2012 and then abolished less than two years later. Thanks Tony Abbott and Rupert Murdoch and all the crumb maidens…
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 379ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that, in the run up to Kyoto, John Howard had made a series of seemingly significant promises to deflect from the fact that he was extorting a criminally generous deal for Australia. One of those promises was a 2% renewables target for Australia’s electricity. Another was the creation of a so-called “Australian Greenhouse Office.” It had been slow to be set up, and how it had basically ignored it. It was a decaying and wilting fig leaf. And the Australian National Audit Office didn’t hold back in saying so.
What I think we can learn from this is that creation of these impressive sounding bodies is a time-honoured tactic, especially among right-wingers because it gives liberals a sand pit to play in. And people who are naive about how states operate can be momentarily or permanently fooled, simply because there is now some new bureaucratic outfit. This is not to say all bureaucratic outfits are useless all the time. Only that they have the potential to be so…
What happened next the AGO was basically abandoned.
Howard kept being a complete douche until he was forced in late 2006 to be a slightly more conniving douche: he set up the Shergold group to look at emissions reductions, but by that stage, nobody believed him and his days were numbered.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 379ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that, in the run up to Kyoto, John Howard had made a series of seemingly significant promises to deflect from the fact that he was extorting a criminally generous deal for Australia. One of those promises was a 2% renewables target for Australia’s electricity. Another was the creation of a so-called “Australian Greenhouse Office.” It had been slow to be set up, and how it had basically ignored it. It was a decaying and wilting fig leaf. And the Australian National Audit Office didn’t hold back in saying so.
What I think we can learn from this is that creation of these impressive sounding bodies is a time-honoured tactic, especially among right-wingers because it gives liberals a sand pit to play in. And people who are naive about how states operate can be momentarily or permanently fooled, simply because there is now some new bureaucratic outfit. This is not to say all bureaucratic outfits are useless all the time. Only that they have the potential to be so…
What happened next the AGO was basically abandoned.
Howard kept being a complete douche until he was forced in late 2006 to be a slightly more conniving douche: he set up the Shergold group to look at emissions reductions, but by that stage, nobody believed him and his days were numbered.
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 four years ago, on this day, March 4th, 1970, a scientist talks about a human-induced Ice Age. Not likely, he finds.
I find that the present particulate loading would have to be increased by a factor of 5 to produce a 3°C drop in mean planetary surface temperature. This work was done in November and December of 1969 and was presented before the International Solar Energy Society in Melbourne, Australia, on 4 March 1970.
Earl W Barrett,, 1971 letter in Science
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that scientists, especially in America, were beginning to look seriously at carbon dioxide buildup at national conferences, starting to get findings. And scientists fancied an international jolly – sorry, “opportunity to network and further the advance of the human species’ knowledge.”
Australia was still in the dark ages on carbon dioxide buildup, it would be 1971-72 before scientists (Pearman, Pittock) started being paid to look at this stuff. Meanwhile, Melbourne was in the grip of its pollution fever. So Barrett’s comments will have free received interest in the media.
Also, in September 1969, the C02 issue had already been discussed by Australian scientists – in public fora.
What I think we can learn from this
“International networks of concerned scientists” etc. Science is international blah blah. But from the late 1960s, carbon dioxide was being looked at.
What happened next
In 1972 a clean air conference in Melbourne that had a specific set of papers about CO2 buildup. We ignored the scientists until 1988. Then we heard them but have basically ignored them since then.
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.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 23rd, 2011, the deplorables behaved deplorably.
2011 Anti-carbon tax rally in Australia with “Ditch the witch” sign and Abbott http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3171851.htm
Craig Emerson disgusted by it “wanted to vomit”- http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-23/craig-emerson-wanted-to-vomit-anti-gillard-signs/6567800
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Tony Abbott had become opposition leader in late 2009 by leading the anti climate action faction of the Coalition, against Malcolm Turnbull , who wanted to go along with some version of what Kevin Rudd was proposing with his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.
Abbott had then been enormously effective opposition leader against Rudd, and had almost won the 2010 election against Julia Gillard, in part thanks to leaks from the Labour Party Cabinet that were enormously damaging (can’t think who had the means motive and opportunity to leak that information).
And Abbott had been willing to sell his ass to become prime minister, but the independents like Tony Windsor, were not buying. So he had faced off against Julia Gillard and was proclaiming that her proposal for an emissions trading scheme was a “great big tax on everything”. And this was one of the moments where he misjudged how far he could push it. And the rally provoked a certain amount of disgust and sympathy for Gillard, the misogyny and homophobia on display. Among the signs was not something that Abbott showed himself to be particularly uncomfortable with. And he issued a non-apology apology and then kept attacking Gillard who eventually the following year, declared that she wasn’t going to “take any lectures about misogyny from that man.”
What did we learn? In the heat of battle within a culture war people do and say things that haunt them forever afterwards, fairly or unfairly. The reader can judge for themselves. Whether Abbott was fairly or unfairly branded with this incident it didn’t seem to affect his ability to win the 2013 election.
What happened next Gillard got the legislation through, Abbott repealed it. And here we are.
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, March 3rd, 1990, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s radio programme “The Science Show”, covered climate politics.
The Science Show [Episode 702] – 1990 Anzaas Congress. The 59th Annual Anzaas Congress Was Held In Hobart, February 14-16th 1990; Climate Change In The Past, A Human Response.” ;Greenhouse Modelling; Backlash To Greenhouse Warnings; Politics Of Greenhouse Science; Ozone Hole/Ozone Layer; Silly Abstract. A Comedy Piece; Coral Reefs And The Greenhouse Effect; International Environmental Policy.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.75ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone was still banging on about climate change all the time (it would only start to go away when Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq, on 2 August 1990). And on the Science Show, they needed to do the classic, “both sides of the argument.” Denialists had figured that out. And people like John Daly had realised that if you wrote a book (The Greenhouse Trap) and then weren’t invited to discuss it on the Science Show, you could cry censorship. So this is hijacking journalistic ethics and integrity for your own purposes – ”balance as bias” according to the boykoff boys.
What we learn is that the denialists have been astonishingly effective at what they do. And institutions have been unable to successfully repel or expel them and protect, well, future generations.
What happened next?
The denialists kept denying. That gave aid and comfort to the greed heads and thickos within the Labour party and the Liberal National Party and indeed the economic apparatus. And so Australia never took strong climate action. And here we are 30 years later with the consequences beginning to pile up. Happy days.
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.
Seventy years ago, on this day, March 2nd, 1954, Peter Ritchie Calder, the Scottish public intellectual, wrote about carbon dioxide build-up for a popular audience, in a major British newspaper.
It is happening: but authorities are not agreed why.
One popular theory is carbon dioxide in the air.
Normally air contains only 0.03 per cent of this gas, which acts like greenhouse glass. It lets the sun’s rays through to heat the ground and then traps this radiant heat, which remains to warm air and ground.
Experiments indicate there is a tenth more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than 50 years ago. This could account for that 2 deg. F. rise.
But why has it increased? Is it man-made? It is estimated that each year 6,000 million tons of carbon dioxide pour into the atmosphere from burning coal.
Ritchie-Calder, P. (1954) Who Said it’s getting colder! News Chronicle, 2 March, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in May 1953, Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass had made an announcement at the American Geophysical Union meeting about the consequences of CO2 buildup, although it got no attention in the quality British dailies. Someone like Peter Richie Calder, who was extremely scientifically literate and hooked into UNESCO would have known about it. The timing indicates that this might come from an early read of a UNESCO Courier article by Gerald Wendt.
What I think we can learn from this is that readers of a newspaper like the News Chronicle, which was left-wing-ish were introduced to the idea of carbon dioxide buildup as early as 1954, 70 years ago.
What happened next
Richie-Calder kept being a public intellectual and kept warning about climate change. Three examples will suffice in 1963. He talked to the Town and Country Planning Association in 1968. He had carbon dioxide buildup as one of the possible mechanisms for how on earth his presidential address to the Conservation Society in November 1958. And then, very shortly after that, he had an interview with a BBC researcher for Horizon ”Muck Today, Poison tomorrow”, where he also raised the co2 issue.
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 years ago, on this day, March 2nd, 1994, environmentalists were doing what they could to push for a carbon tax.
Canberra — The Australian Conservation Foundation has urged the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, to consider green-based Budget measures, including a radical tax on carbon.
The foundation’s president, Professor David Yencken, and its executive director, Ms Tricia Caswell, met Mr Keating yesterday. They sought support for a complex Budget submission and asked for a swift replacement for the former Environment Minister, Mrs Kelly.
Middleton, K. 1994. Conservationists Urge PM To Go For A Green Budget. The Age, 3 March p.7.
And
The Australian Conservation Foundation has proposed sweeping changes to the Federal Government’s taxation and spending practices to safeguard Australia’s future environmental and economic interests.
In its first detailed Budget submission, released yesterday, the ACF proposed measures it said would save the Government between $ 1.4 billion and $1.9 billion next financial year at the same time as promoting more environmentally responsible practices and creating jobs. The measures include a jobs levy, carbon tax, woodchip export levy, more money for public transport, and taxation incentives for nature conservation and the use of green technologies
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360.1ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that people wanting to see action on what we then called “the greenhouse effect” had been suggesting a tax on carbon dioxide usage since the “Ecologically Sustainable Development process of 91-92. And there wasn’t really any coherent ideological or economic argument against this other than squeals of pain from the people who would have to pay it, who were doing the polluting.
Australia was a signatory to the UN Framework Convention, which was going to become law. And there was going to be the first “COP” meeting quite soon. And so in order to demonstrate credibility, so the argument went, the Australian Government could introduce a low tax, which would fund some energy efficiency, some renewables and the sky would not fall. And so that was the bid – entirely sensible, but unable to overcome, as we have seen, the power of the fossil fuel lobby in Australia.
What I think we can learn from this is that politics is a blood sport. And everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost.
What happened next: The conservation lobby got their wish. There was a proposal for a carbon tax. And it was withdrawn because the opposition to, from within Paul Keating’s cabinet, egged on by the usual suspects beyond, was so successful that it was never going to get through cabinet. 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.
