Categories
Australia

April 11, 2010- Rudd fails to make a decision about the CPRS

Fifteen years ago, on this day, April 11th, 2010, Kevin Rudd’s collegial personality and organisation are on full display

The confusion was so overwhelming that some central participants genuinely cannot agree on when a formal decision to dump the [CPRS] scheme was made. A majority recall that it happened at a meeting of the Gang of Four in Brisbane on 11 April 2010.” 

(Chubb, 2014: 106)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd grand plan  for getting the carbon pollution reduction scheme through Parliament had failed when the Liberals axed Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott took charge. 

But the initial response to Turnbull’s toppling was of delight, because the perception was that Abbott would destroy the Liberals, and that people were ready to vote on climate. However, then the Copenhagen conference was a failure, and Rudd, by all accounts had some sort of breakdown. Always chaotic, he was never able to advance a discussion in a collegial manner. And there was a chaotic meeting on this day in 2010 according to the various accounts compiled by Paul Kelly. Philip Chubb and others, where it was somehow agreed that the CPRS would be dumped, but the “optics” of it, were never considered.

This would come back to bite Rudd, very firmly on the arse, not very much longer later.

What we learn is that the people “running the show” are often unable to run themselves and to run an effective decision making process. 

What happened next? Rudd pivoted to a minerals tax, which faced enormous opposition from Rio Tinto and others. But that wasn’t what did for Rudd. What did for Rudd was that his henchman briefed a journalist about the loyalty of his deputy, Julia Gillard. And that set off an absolutely monumental chain of events.

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: 

April 11th, 1987 – A matter of… Primo Levi’s death

 April 11, 1989 – “Ark” sinks its cred

April 11 – Interview with Sophie Gabrielle about memes vs Armageddon….

April 11, 2014 – Greenpeace China releases coal report – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
United States of America

April 10, 1969 – Nixon tries to go green to North Atlantic Council

On this day, 56 years ago, US President Richard Milhous Nixon gave a speech at the North Atlantic Council where he bemoans the “gathering torments of a rapidly advancing industrial technology.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in the 1968 presidential election, there had been some fleeting talk of environmental issues ( It would have been more if Bobby Kennedy hadn’t gotten whacked, but there you are) and Nixon had mouthed the right pieties.

But there’s various other contexts. First, days after his inauguration in January 1969 Nixon had to go out to Santa Barbara and look glum and competent when the Santa Barbara oil spill happened and everyone was starting to be worried about where more oil spills might come from, etc. Secondly, Nixon had the problem of the atrocities that the US military, with help from Australia and South Korean mercenaries, were committing in Indochina, and was keen to have a change of subject. So the idea of using NATO to tackle the “challenges of modern society” wasn’t as outlandish as it may seem, in retrospect. 

What I think we can learn from this is that politicians will say whatever they think their marks want to hear – this is surely not controversial. 

What happened next Well, within a few months, “Earth Day” was announced. Weirdly though, a good emote wasn’t enough – the environmental problems kept on coming, and the pressures to legislate kept on coming, so you had the National Environmental Protection Act signed into law, and then in a few months after that, you had the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which will possibly not last much longer, and may, in fact, be killed off between me recording this on the third of March, and you reading it on the 10th of April.

You also had the Council on Environmental Quality, releasing a report in August 1970 that has an entire chapter about the atmospheric implications of carbon dioxide build up, written by Gordon MacDonald.

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: 

April 10, 2006 – “Business warms to change” (Westpac, Immelt) – All Our Yesterdays

April 10th, 2010 – activists hold “party at the pumps”

April 10, 2013 – US companies pretend they care, make “Climate Declaration”

Categories
Uncategorized

April 9, 1991 – another dummy-spit by tired old man

34 years ago today, former Finance Minister Peter Walsh was spitting the dummy again. 

The former Minister for Finance, Peter Walsh, attacked Australia’s major conservation groups yesterday saying he hoped Australia’s largest company, BHP, would use common law to bankrupt Greenpeace for interfering with seismic testing.

Senator Walsh said the major environmental groups were trying to subvert economic development — an objective they had pursued with some success.

Launching a book which emphasised market solutions to environmental problems, Senator Walsh said extreme elements of the conservation movement were more concerned with “destroying” industrial capitalism than protecting the environment.

“One wonders how long a country which is unquestionably some distance down the Argentinian road will continue to allow organisations like the Australian Conservation Foundation to subvert economic growth, and particularly the growth in the traded goods sector, to the extent that they do,” he said.

A long-time critic of the conservation movement, Senator Walsh fired a broad side at Greenpeace over its recent campaign to stop BHP’s oil exploration in Bass Strait. The organisation argued that the seismic tests would disturb whales which breed in the area.

He accused Greenpeace of hypocrisy in trying to stop oil exploration using petrol-powered rubber dinghies and a diesel-powered mother-ship.

“I hope that BHP sues Greenpeace under the common law and collects damages large enough to bankrupt the organisation.”

The book, Markets, Resources and the Environment, was produced by the Tasman Institute which Senator Walsh acknowledged many in the Labor Party considered “only marginally less obnoxious” than the League of Rights, or the Queensland National Party.

Lamberton, H. 1991. Walsh attacks greenies. Canberra Times, 10 April, p.3.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122355943

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Walsh from Western Australia (that’s not insignificant) absolutely loathed “greenies,” as per his comments in March 1990 on the eve of the federal election victory that was handed by to Labor by small g-green voters.

Walsh, as a columnist in the Financial Review, would bang on this drum repeatedly. 

What I think we can learn from this is that the Australian Labor Party has always had a faction that has absolutely loathed greenies and resented having to compete for small g green votes because they are wedded to one particular vision of prosperity (pave the planet, redistribute the crumbs from the developers’ pockets and call it social justice). They also don’t like having to engage in debate with people who don’t have precisely the same world view as them because they are brittle af.

What happened next

Walsh kept on being a prick and was a leading light in the Lavoisier Group of climate denialist pricks. 

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: 

 April 9, 1990 – Australian business launches “we’re green!” campaign

April 9, 1991 – Peter Walsh goes nuts, urges BHP to sue Greenpeace – All Our Yesterdays

April 9, 2008 – US school student vs dodgy (lying) text books

April 9, 2019- brutal book review “a script for a West Wing episode about climate change, only with less repartee.”

Categories
anti-reflexivity Australia Denial United States of America

“Snowballs and morons and coal lumps, oh my”: on the hysterical materiality of old white men

Today some moronic Republican senator [Redundant adjective? Ed] brandished a lump of coal in the US Senate (thanks to Aaron for alerting me)

Via this Bluesky

This takes me back almost 20 years to the GE ‘clean coal’ advert (warning – utterly delirious).

And it takes me back to another cognitively-challenged Republican Senator [?? Ed], the late and unlamented James Inhofe who threw a snowball on the Senate Floor to ‘disprove’ global warming and rile the snowflake liberals, back in 2015.

A couple of years later, in the quarry-with-a-state-attached some people persist in calling “Australia”, the then-Treasurer (who would become Prime Minister), Scotty Morrison brandished a lump of coal in Parliament.  Some points to note: It was in the middle of a heatwave. He handed it on to one of the most absurd politicians of all time, Barnaby Joyce, who mimicked (?) wide-eyed joy at the gift.  The lump of dead matter (the coal, I mean) was provided by the Minerals Council of Australia, the industry lobby group that has done probably more than any other to stop meaningful climate action in Australia.  The lump was lacquered, so it wouldn’t smudge anyone’s hands – that’s the cleanest coal ever gets.

What’s going on here?  This isn’t just trolling, an effort to “own the libs,” and maintain the morale of Good Red Blooded Americans/Australians.  This is also, I suspect, some sort of desperate attempt to convince themselves of what they fear is a delusion, by having something material to hand.  The Marxists talk about (or used to – I don’t keep up with the jabber so much anymore) historical materialism.  This is more hysterical (2)  materiality.

Where will it all end? More of these stunts. More performative anti-nature nihilism. More asshole ambit claims.  O temperature, o mores.

See also

This blog post that I completely forgot I had written but says pretty much what I have said above.

Wind beneath their contempt

Petromasculinity 

Anti-reflexivity – see video

Footnotes

  1. David Brooks – the posterchild for overpromoted well-educated idiots – has written an entire kinda sorta mea culpa (but not really, because it is STILL the left’s fault) about ‘Where We Go From Here’ that manages to say not a single word about the climate (and ecological) debacle. Maybe if we pretend it isn’t there, or if we put our hands over our eyes, it isn’t there.  See also Dave Vetter’s review of the prosperity gospel for atheists book by Ezra Klein.
  2. I am alive to both the gendered and Fraudian aspects here, but idgaf for present purposes
Categories
Australia

April 8, 2015 – Australian Energy White Paper “devoid of vision”

Exactly 10 years ago today, April 8 2015, the coalition government of Australia released an energy white paper that even the craven/supine ABC called “devoid of vision.” 

The White Paper promotes increasing competition and production of energy, while reducing the cost of electricity.

Renewable energy was described as “important” in the Energy White Paper, but existing policies to support it are due to be dismantled.

Phillips, S. 2015. Energy White Paper: short on vision. ABC Environment, 10 April.
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/04/10/4213491.htm [Dead link – make of that what you will….]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 401ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Liberal Party had gone to the 1990 federal election with a more ambitious emissions reduction target than the governing Australian Labor Party, but had reaped no significant environmental electoral benefit from this.

By 1992 it was clear that the Liberals – who felt stabbed in the back – were going to “cut the green crap”, as they did (the Nationals had never been on board).

Since then, whether in government, the Coalition had been rampantly hostile to any significant or actual limits on carbon dioxide emissions growth domestically or internationally. There was a brief period from 2006 to 2009 where they had to pretend, but with the coming of Tony Abbott, in late 2009 as leader of the opposition and then Prime Minister, it was clear that nothing would get done on climate.

The Energy White Paper was a reflection of that. 

What I think we can learn from this side bar. You’re never more than two or three years away from an Energy White Paper. None of them actually matters much. Very occasionally, one does. 

What happened next Abbott was so fantastically incompetent as Prime Minister – he was kind of like somewhere between Liz Truss and Donald Trump that he got turfed by his own party. Then again, Malcolm Turnbull wasn’t much better, and he got turfed in turn, and the puppet show continues. Wow. And the emissions keep climbing, and the atmospheric concentrations surge. And the consequences are arriving for even the ‘civilised’ (read rich) people. What times.

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: 

April 8, 1970 – Australian National University students told about C02 build-up…

April 8, 1980 – UK civil servant Crispin Tickell warns Times readers…

April 8, 1995 – Australian environment minister says happy with “Berlin Mandate”

April 8, 1995 – Journo points out the gamble on climate – All Our Yesterdays

April 8, 2013 – Margaret Thatcher died

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage

April 7, 2011 – More empty CCS pledges…

Fourteen years ago today, governments make their usual big empty promises…

At today’s [7 April] meeting in the United Arab Emirates, Ministers at the Clean Energy Ministerial endorsed recommendations from the Carbon Capture, Use and Storage Action Group chaired by Australia and the UK  https://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/purpose/carbon-capture-and-storage-tantalisingly-close/21533.article

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that CCS had fallen over in both these countries (the fizzling out of the first competition in the UK, “Zerogen” dying in Australia. Meanwhile, the international process was still in pieces after the fiasco in Copenhagen.  Still, it doesn’t hurt to make promises you will never be held to, does it?

What I think we can learn from this is that the CCS promises never end.

What happened next  CCS got put back together, as a promise, in the UK, in the following years. Then, in 2015 George Osborne (Chancellor) pulled the plug, which lead to the “Kipling Manoeuvre”, as some genius called it.

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: 

April 7, 1980 – C02 problem is most important issue…”another decade will slip by” warns Wally Broecker to Senator Tsongas

April 7, 1995 – First “COP” meeting ends with industrialised nations making promises…

April 7, 2010 – Ziggie tries to sprinkle Stardust – 50 nuclear reactors by 2050 – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Kyoto Protocol Russia

April 6, 2001 – “EU takes Kyoto fight to Moscow”

On this day, 24 years ago, 

EU takes Kyoto fight to Moscow

April 6, 2001

MOSCOW, Russia — A European Union delegation has arrived in Moscow to discuss the fate of the Kyoto climate treaty.

The delegation started a international tour on Friday aimed at shoring up support for the treaty now that Washington has pulled out of the agreement.

CNN.com – EU takes Kyoto fight to Moscow – April 6, 2001

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that George W Bush who had “won” the 2000 election via the Supreme Court, had immediately backtracked on a campaign-trail promise to regulate CO2 emissions.  Funny that. And by crashing the international negotiations, he forced the Europeans to try to stitch things back together again. Thus the trip to Moscow.

What I think we can learn from this is that you can’t trust Americans.

What happened next The Russians finally decided in 2004 that they’d do the deal – in exchange for World Trade Organisation membership.  Kyoto came to be, and so the whole “what do we replace Kyoto with?” caravan got moving, until the wheels fell off at Copenhagen in 2009.

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

 April 6, 2006 – Canadian “experts” (not) keep culture wars going.

April 6, 2006 – the anti-climate dam of John Howard begins to crack…

April 6, 2012 – Genetically-modified humans? – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage Coal

April 5, 2005 – Clean Coal conference begins in Sydney

Exactly 20 years ago, the first “clean coal” conference began in Sydney. 

“The Australian Coal Association says advances in technology have boosted the prospects for a zero emissions power station in the New South Wales Hunter Valley in the not too distant future.

“New clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage projects will be the main topics on the agenda at this week’s inaugural COAL21 annual conference which gets under way in Sydney today.”

Conference considers clean power generation – ABC News

COAL21 – 1st COAL21 annual conference (Conference) | ETDEWEB

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia had become the world’s biggest coal exporter in 1984 primarily from Queensland and New South Wales. From 1988 Australian political elites had had to pretend to give a damn about carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. There had been efforts to get a carbon pricing mechanism (first a tax and then an emissions trading scheme). All of these had come to nothing. 

Australia had pulled out of the negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol, despite having extorted an extremely generous reduction target, the reduction being an increase in their emissions. But nonetheless, there were presentational concerns and probably some well-meaning people within various public and private bodies who genuinely believed that clean coal could be a thing, and it’s always nice to believe technosalvationist fairytales.

What I think we can learn from this is that people believe what they need to believe. People say what they need to say, and the emissions keep climbing. 

What happened next

People said what they wanted to say, other people heard what they wanted to hear, 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.

April 5, 1971- a UK scientist explains “pollution in context”

April 5, 2008 – Charlton Heston dies, star of first movie to mention the greenhouse effect

Categories
Australia Denial

April 4 –  2005 – APEC conference at Parliament House “Managing Climate Change: Practicalities and Realities in a post-Kyoto future”. 

On this day 20 years ago, a denialist/delay-ist bunch of idiots gathered at Parliament House… The conference was sponsored by Xstrata and ExxonMobil…. (further gory details here)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Kyoto Protocol had finally come into effect thanks to the Russians saying yes in exchange for World Trade Organisation membership. This meant that formal negotiations for a “post-Kyoto” protocol/agreement would be beginning soon.

Meanwhile though, Australia and the UK were on the outer, and scrambling to come up with plausible sounding “ways forward” (mostly involving fantasy technologies. Meanwhile, the denialists were still thick … on the ground.

This event is kind of a sequel to a 1997 conference “Countdown to Kyoto”, with overlapping attendees and presenters.

What we learn Morons gonna moron.  And scumbags gonna lie (down) with morons.

What happened next The scumbaggery continued. The emissions climbed, and the consequences began to rock up. So it went.


References

Australian APEC Study Centre – SourceWatch

This from Jennifer Marohasy

Mixing Views on Climate – Jennifer Marohasy

Papers from the Managing Climate Change: Practicalities and Realities in a post-Kyoto Future conference held in Canberra on 4th April are now available at Tech Central Station.

This is perhaps a first conference where acknowledged ‘climate skeptics’ including Professor Bob Carter have given papers alongside Australian government representatives including Dr Brian Fisher from ABARE.

A delegate from the Chinese embassy spoke about the need for China to reduce its reliance on coal as an energy source and China’s intension to build possibly 6 new nuclear power stations over the next 15 years.

Senior Cliamte Negotiator from the US Department of State gave an interesting and fairly technical paper on US policy directions.

Papers also include a contribution from author of Taken by Storm and key contributor to the ‘hockey stick’ debate, Canadian Ross McKitrick.

The conference papers are supplemented with Background papers that include an analysis of global carbon trading prospects.

The “Tech Central” link takes you to this

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-upApril 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Australia

April 4, 1978 – the Australian Financial Review boosts the neoliberal nonsense.

47 years ago today, The Fin published an article, by economics commentator Paddy McGuinness which helped the Center for Independent Studies gain popularity. 

“Where Friedman is a pinko.”

Further, there is this myth that shucks, grassroots battlers built the Centre for Independent Studies by the sweat of their brows. Er, no

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the post-war Keynesian consensus was crumbling thanks to oil shocks, stagflation, worker militancy, etc, and the goons who had been keeping their powder dry and forming networks – especially The Atlas network – were hoping to get a serious toe hold in Australia. The Institute of Public Affairs was not really fit for purpose, as far as they were concerned back then. So the Center for Independent Studies looked like a potential prospect, And so it came to pass with Anthony Fisher visiting twice etc etc (see above). 

What we learn is that neoliberal ideas of selfishness, stupidity, short-sightedness, disdain for any talk of limits need to be nurtured. Because they’re so batshit crazy that turning them into “common sense” requires a hell of a lot of effort. This effort was being undertaken in the United States, especially, it had never gone away. 

There is the recent book The Big Myth by Oreskes and Conway, and there are many others, including by Wendy Brown, Philip Mirkowski.

And Australia became “neoliberal” in 1983 with the arrival of the Hawke-Keating government and the intellectual capture of Paul Keating. We called it at that time, economic rationalism, Australia became a vastly more unequal, fearful and desperate society over the following 45 years. 

Also on this day

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

April 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis