– My question is directed to either the Minister for Science or the Minister representing the Minister for National Resources. I ask whether the Minister is aware that the solar energy report of the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources states:
There is no Australian energy policy and in the absence of any central direction to co-ordinate a search for alternatives, the complacency that currently exists will continue.
Is the Minister aware also that the Chairman of the Committee, Senator Thomas, endorsed at least the first part of that statement this morning on the radio program AM? Does the Minister agree with that proposition? If not, is he able to indicate what is the energy policy of the Government?
Senator WITHERS:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP
-I shall take this question as I think it properly belongs in the area of responsibility of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for National Resources. I have not had the advantage of reading the report put down in the Senate yesterday by my friend and colleague, Senator Thomas. Therefore, I think it would be unfortunate if, not having read the report, I were to make any comment on it. However, as the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has drawn my attention to it, I shall look at it and certainly shall draw the honourable senator’s comments to the attention of my colleague in the other place . https://historichansard.net/senate/1977/19770505_senate_30_s73/#subdebate-3-0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there had been interest in solar energy, especially in the aftermath of the first oil shock, ‘73-74 but that with the return of a Liberal National Government, some of that enthusiasm melted away.
The specific context was that there were lots of attempts at energy investigations and so on. (What’s interesting here is that thanks to what’s being said in Parliament, you can learn what is and isn’t being said on the radio, and to a lesser extent, the television and TV and radio are much harder things to research than newspapers.)
What I think we can learn from this is that when you have plentiful supplies of coal, investigating solar seems stupid and unfriendly to the incumbents, and people who are unfriendly to the incumbents tend not to prosper in our political systems.
What happened next. Solar energy advocates kept banging on, largely ignored. There was a petition in late ‘77. Solar only really took off in the 2010s onwards.
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 353ppm. As of 2026 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Congress had been holding hearings about carbon dioxide build up since, well, the first ones I can find are the Tsongas one in 1977 (and a bigger one in 1980). And there had been plenty of others through the course of the 1980s. Famously, in December 1985 Carl Sagan had explained the greenhouse effect and the need to do something about it to Senators. Then in ‘87 push the aftermath of Villach gained momentum and adherence and various American NGOs with three or four letter acronyms,
And in 1988 their push succeeded, and the issue broke through.
The specific context was that George H. W. Bush had won the 1988 election, and on the campaign trail, he had promised to convene an international meeting. It was becoming obvious, however, that the Bush administration was not going to listen to scientists like James Hansen. It was instead going to listen to people who were telling it convenient truths.,
What I think we can learn from this. that politics is the long hammering of hard boards, as per Max Weber.
What happened next. Bush was exposed as silencing Hansen by Al Gore. And then the following year, Bush tried to not invite Bert Bolin, the head of the IPCC, to his much-delayed international conference.
And the emissions climbed, the concentrations climbed and doom approaches.
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.
I went to a student meeting. I am not a student. It was excruciating, obvs. Not because they were students, but because it could have been so much better but wasn’t, for the usual reasons. We are so doomed.
There’s a scene in George Orwell’s masterpiece (imo, ymmv) Animal Farm. The animals – the chickens, cows, Boxer etc, have just received such a face slap that they can no longer lie to themselves about what has happened to “their” Farm and their beloved Revolution. They can no longer pretend to themselves that they have not exchanged the drunken boot of Mr Jones for the trotter and paws of the pigs and the dogs. They walk down to a meadow and they start to sing what was the revolutionary song, Beasts of England. This below is a very long quote, but I put it in because it captures what Orwell was aiming at so beautifully, and it is worth your time.
The animals huddled about Clover, not speaking. The knoll where they were lying gave them a wide prospect across the countryside. Most of Animal Farm was within their view–the long pasture stretching down to the main road, the hayfield, the spinney, the drinking pool, the ploughed fields where the young wheat was thick and green, and the red roofs of the farm buildings with the smoke curling from the chimneys. It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm–and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property–appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she could have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race. These scenes of terror and slaughter were not what they had looked forward to on that night when old Major first stirred them to rebellion. If she herself had had any picture of the future, it had been of a society of animals set free from hunger and the whip, all equal, each working according to his capacity, the strong protecting the weak, as she had protected the lost brood of ducklings with her foreleg on the night of Major’s speech. Instead–she did not know why–they had come to a time when no one dared speak his mind, when fierce, growling dogs roamed everywhere, and when you had to watch your comrades torn to pieces after confessing to shocking crimes. There was no thought of rebellion or disobedience in her mind. She knew that, even as things were, they were far better off than they had been in the days of Jones, and that before all else it was needful to prevent the return of the human beings. Whatever happened she would remain faithful, work hard, carry out the orders that were given to her, and accept the leadership of Napoleon. But still, it was not for this that she and all the other animals had hoped and toiled. It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones’s gun. Such were her thoughts, though she lacked the words to express them.
At last, feeling this to be in some way a substitute for the words she was unable to find, she began to sing Beasts of England. The other animals sitting round her took it up, and they sang it three times over–very tunefully, but slowly and mournfully, in a way they had never sung it before.
They had just finished singing it for the third time when Squealer, attended by two dogs, approached them with the air of having something important to say. He announced that, by a special decree of Comrade Napoleon, Beasts of England had been abolished. From now onwards it was forbidden to sing it.
The animals were taken aback.
“Why?” cried Muriel.
“It’s no longer needed, comrade,” said Squealer stiffly. “Beasts of England was the song of the Rebellion. But the Rebellion is now completed. The execution of the traitors this afternoon was the final act. The enemy both external and internal has been defeated. In Beasts of England we expressed our longing for a better society in days to come. But that society has now been established. Clearly this song has no longer any purpose.”
Frightened though they were, some of the animals might possibly have protested, but at this moment the sheep set up their usual bleating of “Four legs good, two legs bad,” which went on for several minutes and put an end to the discussion.
So Beasts of England was heard no more.
[end of chapter 7, since you ask].
I think about that scene a lot, whenever I attend (okay, hate-attend) meetings of groups that say they are undertaking the difficult task of unfucking the world. Last night I thought about that scene a lot. “What’s my scene?” as the Hoodoo Gurus used to sing (probably still do?)
”I’m a betting man, but it’s getting damn lonely…”
The meeting started late. While we waited there was no invocation to “turn to someone you don’t know (well) – firm allies once didn’t know each other once, and we need to thicken the webs of loose (and close) ties, because you may have skills and resources that someone else could really use.” Or something warmer. Who cares. Something. Anything.
There was no gentle way to bring silence and commence the meeting. What happened to the chair raising their arms above their head and then other people following? XR used to do that and it was good – far better than tentative and then-more forceful/desperate announcements/shouts, which is what we got.
There was no gentle welcome, asking us to centre ourselves, to think about our responsibilities to make a better movement, and the opportunities the meeting held for that. Instead we were told things we knew, with jargon that would almost certainly alienate a ‘newbie’. Then we had two Zoom connections from interstate. These were mercifully not as long as anticipated, but neither were they in any way surprising. What was astonishing (to me – I am clearly old and out of touch) was that people responded to a guy on zoom who wanted them to repeat the second half of a (carefully chosen to avoid further legal imbroglios) chant. I did not know that was a thing, and – to quote another song – “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.”
He left us with the hope that he would see us at a ‘big mobilisation in the future.’ Everyone’s happy place, I guess.
Then – and this still staggers me – it was over to ‘debating’ two motions to some upcoming student congress or conference basically ‘demanding’ (yeah, good luck with that) the Australian Government do x or y that they were plainly, obviously, never going to do. So, we were to debate things that
Nobody in the room was likely to have any disagreement with (certainly not one they show in public)
Were never going to be enacted.
And this is how you build an empowered, strategic and competent movement. Oh yes.
So, the speeches to the motion (nobody was asked to specify if they were speaking for or against – it was clear, man, that everyone was, you know, in favour) were all pure Dave Spart. As I said to a friend this morning, I had the fleeting thought that I was in some incredibly elaborate social psychology experiment where everyone else in the room was in on the gig – that this was playacting those scenes in Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the People’s Front of Judea you know, like, debate important motions about the Roman, you know, Empire, man. There were, perhaps, people with clipboards and stop watches waiting to see how long I could stick it out (as per that early-ish episode of the TV show Community).
But no, it was all on the up and up. “build a movement”, “class politics” “expose it as a system” “full on orwellian um censorship.” “It’ really important, you know, strength of this movement”
It was mildly interesting that the entire first motion got ‘debated’ with only men delivering their pearls of wisdom. [Audience demographics – 50 people present, 45 under the age of 25, I’d guess. Male/female roughly 50/50. Overwhelmingly white] I wondered how long this would continue- the whole meeting? But then in motion 2 some women piped up. Matters did not improve. Who knew that women could be just as jargon-y and dreary as the menfolk? It’s almost as if it’s the human condition.
We’re so toast. As per Frank Turner
Well it was bad enough the feeling, on the first time it hit,
When you realised that your parents had let the world all go to shit,
And that the values and ideals for which many had fought and died
Had been killed off in the committees and left to die by the wayside.
But it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left,
And got let down again by some poor excuse for protest –
By idiot fucking hippies in fifty different factions
Who are locked inside some kind of Sixties battle re-enactment.
So I hung up my banner in disgust and I head for the door.
Have a gentle way of starting, of centering people.
Design the meeting not around (non)violent agreement with two shitty motions (lobbying the Labor government is no more ‘radical’ than lobbying the Labor Party, my Dave Spartolescent friend) but around a set of questions that can be answered by a mix of on-paper answers (means good ideas don’t get discarded because they come from Miss Triggs) and small group discussions) around
What are we doing that we need to do we need to more of and what skills/knowledge/relationships do we lack to do that?
What are we NOT doing that would be good to do that we are not doing because we lack skills/knowledge/relationships – where do we get those?
What are we doing that feels good, but actually doesn’t contribute to the likely success (or slower failure) of “our “movement” (‘man’) to like, you know, bring down, you know, the capitalist imperialist, you know, system, man.”
Shoot me. Shoot me now. NOW, dammit.
There is no hope
It won’t be done differently. We lack the absorptive capacity, the impetus to develop that. The incentive structures are all wrong.
These meetings are about managing our despair, about knowing that the pigs and their dogs have won, and that all we can do is soothe-sing to ourselves and each other. We sing Beasts of England. Some of the lyrics get banned, but the song remains the same.
We will never put ourselves under any pressure to innovate, because there is a stable system for the gaining of activist credibility tokens, and why upset it?
Meanwhile, the bodies pile up and the emissions pile up. I wonder what those in the majority world, on the receiving end of the slow violence and fast violence dished out by the Empire and its proxies would think of events like the one I went to last night. Nothing printable. “Building a movement” my very fat arse. No more hate-attending for me, methinks.
Twenty five years ago, on this day, May 3rd, 2001,
The executive director of the GCP said in a Senate estimates hearing on May 3, 2001 that only one in 10 companies had met their emission reduction targets. (See also Report of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, “The Heat Is On: Australia’s Greenhouse Future”, chapter 8.)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Australian political elites had been made aware of climate change as a threat in the 1970s; you had the Australian Academy for the Advancement of Science, Australian Academy of Science Symposium in September of 1980 you had the monograph that came out of that on the CO2 problem. You had the Office of National Assessments report. And, of course, from 1987 onwards, you had the CSIRO etc, banging the drum. Oh, you’d also had the Australian Environment Council, in 1986
Business had defeated a couple of proposals to put a price on carbon dioxide, (which is the only language they understand), first during the ESD ecologically sustainable development process, and then in 1994-95 they had defeated the carbon tax, and instead the Keating government had created a worse-than-useless “greenhouse challenge” voluntary scheme.
The specific context was that the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had come out, and George W Bush had pulled the US out of negotiating the Kyoto Protocol. It was pretty clear that if Howard were to win the upcoming election, he would do the same, whereas Labor would ratify.
What I think we can learn from this. This talk of “waking up” or “being woken up” has been going on for so long, and we prefer to be asleep.. And here we learn that, of the companies that had set emissions reductions targets, which was not all of them, by any means, only one in 10 were hitting those targets. So an adult government that gave a shit about more than its own comfort and power would change course. It would say, “we’ve tried the voluntary approach, it didn’t work,” and would legislate. That is, of course, reader, not what happened, and John Howard and his gang of fuckwits have condemned us all to hell.
What happened next. The Greenhouse Challenge was rebooted with very similar effects and finally basically ignored. There was a fierce battle over a carbon price between 2006 and 2012 and then in 2014 the carbon price was abolished by Tony Abbott, the thug disguised as a prime minister.
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.
Costs and benefits of carbon dioxide. Nature 279, 1 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/279001a0
Bondi, H. David Davies’ editorship ends. Nature 283, 1 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/283001b0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Nature magazine had been reporting on CO2 build up, or at least mentioning it in passing, since 1964, and had editorialised that it was a ‘scare’ in 1971 under the editorship of John Maddox.
The specific context was that from the mid-70s onwards, there was a build up of awareness internationally, especially in Europe and the United States, about CO2 as a pollutant. And in April, as alluded to in the editorial itself, there had been a four day workshop on CO2 build up and societal impacts in Annapolis, Maryland. Among the British attendees were Crispin Tickell, who at that point was a consigliere for British European Commissioner Roy Jenkins, and Tom Wigley, who was head of the Climatic Research Unit.
And this is exactly the same time that obviously Margaret Thatcher is coming to office, and the report by the Interdepartmental Group on Climatology is working its way through the system. There’s no mention of the Nature editorial in the files I’ve seen National Archives, which does not, of course, mean that it was not discussed. It simply means that there isn’t a surviving minute of it.
What I think we can learn from this is
That intelligent people from the mid-late 70s were well aware of the CO2 build-up issue.
That our Lords and masters didn’t pay any attention and that they simply sought advice from the people who were going to tell them the things they wanted to hear
Or maybe they had the misfortune to go to the wrong advice-givers and would it have been different if they’d gone to CRU? I don’t know. We’ll never know. We can’t know history doesn’t provide those experimental points.
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 Queen of England is afraid. International C.E.O.’s are nervous. And the scientific establishment is loud and clear. If global warming isn’t halted, devastating sea-level rises will be inevitable by 2100. So how did this virtual certainty get labeled a “liberal hoax” in the U.S.? Try the same tactics Big Tobacco used to deny the dangers of smoking.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that American journalists had been writing about carbon dioxide build-up as a potential problem for a very long time. One of my favourites is from the Chicago Tribune front page in March of 1982, but there are others.
And here we see Mark Hertsgaard, author of Earth Odyssey, among others, doing a magazine feature at a time when the Kyoto Protocol has finally been ratified, and there was clearly going to be an international process to replace it with something “better”, and at a time when the Bush regime had lost all credibility because of both international factors such as the resistance to the occupation of Iraq, and its useless response to Hurricane Katrina. It was at this point, nine months since New Orleans…
What I think we can learn from this. that there have been think-pieces in chin-stroking liberal magazines for a long time. but the question is always, “who’s going to make something happen?”, which is then a question of “who is going to mobilise what resources and find new resources and intervene how in ‘the system’ (man)?”
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.
Comprehensive plan for carbon dioxide effects research and assessment. Part I: the global carbon cycle and climatic effects of increasing carbon dioxide
Technical Report · 01 May 1978 as cited in CO2 Newsletter Vol 1 no 1
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2026 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that scientists had been aware of carbon dioxide build-up as a definitive fact since the late 50s. Through the 60s and into the early 70s, it had slowly built up momentum as “something to worry about.” In the mid 70s, that changed because of new science, a consensus that we were on the brink of a pronounced global warming, as per Wally Broecker in August 1975.
The specific context was that the Energy Research and Development Agency, which was transmogrifying into the Department of Energy, had funded by this stage, a bunch of studies into CO2 build up, some of which had been published, but most which had not. The obvious one is Oliver Markley.
And you see here in this scientist trying to figure out who should study what, or what should be studied, when and how, what assessments etc.
What I think we can learn from this. 50 years since the work began, and here we still are, 50 years later: “how many angels on the head of a pin.” The caravan should have moved on to “Why haven’t we been doing anything about it?” and perhaps even to “Why didn’t we do anything about it?” And here we are still not tackling those questions, because they would be way too painful.
What happened next. Well, the DOE and AAAS held a four day symposium in Annapolis, Maryland, April 2 to April 6, 1979 which should have been an important event for UK climate. Tom Wigley of CRU was there, as was Crispin Tickell, and there was an editorial, presumably by David Davies in Nature of May 1979, which we will come to in a couple of 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.
Forty years ago today, there’s another of those well-catered greenwash events…
INDUSTRY: CARING FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
HRH, JOHN DAVIDSON, ANTHONY BIDDLE, BRUCE FALKINGHAM, JEREMY QUICKENDEN, PATRICK WEATHERILT, WILLIAM WILKINSON, BRIAN LETCHFORD, NICOLA LYON, JONATHAN FRANKLIN, JOHN HINCH, MARTIN HOLDGATE, MICHAEL SPURR, GEOFFREY LARMINIE, RICHARD LINDSELL, ANTHONY CLEAVER and WILLIAM WALDEGRAVE 30 April 1986
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 347ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the environment concerns had never really completely gone away after the early 1970s. Industry had created various astroturf and greenwashing initiatives at an international level, things like the WICEM that had been meeting in, I think, Versailles, I want to say, in 1984.
The specific context was that the ozone hole had been discovered. Amazon rainforest, deforestation, oil spills, fairly regular industrial accidents and disasters and so industry was always wanting to claim that it was a responsible corporate citizen, blah, blah, blah,
What I think we can learn from this is that you will always find politicians, especially on the right, but also centrists, which is pretty much everyone these days, are willing to play along with that, because that’s who donates the campaign funds, and that’s who provides the non-executive directorships once the party or the electorate finally tire of you.
What happened next: The greenwash really kicked into gear from sort of 1990 onwards. We need to think of greenwash and denial as two cheeks of the same arse.
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 nine years ago, on this day, April 29th, 1997,
“The challenge for Australia on global climate change”, 29-30 April 1997: summary of proceedings
One of those chin-stroking talkfests organised by
National Academies Forum, Australian Academy of Science, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, Australian Academy of Science, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, 1997.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Australian political elite had been warned about carbon dioxide through the 70s and 80s, and had chosen to ignore it until it couldn’t really be ignored any more, in ‘88. After an initial signal of willingness to be proactive and constructive, they had fairly quickly retreated into the asshole position that they hold today.
In 1995 they had grudgingly signed on to the Berlin mandate – meaning they would come to the third COP (in 1997) with some plan for emissions reductions, and then had decided that they were not going to do that under new Prime Minister, John Howard. And most of 1997 was taken up with the Howard Government, sending diplomats around the place to try and get “differentiation” (an exemption for Australia).
Anyway, these sorts of conferences and seminars and events were happening because middle class people and so-called intellectuals want to believe that they are contributing to the betterment of the species and of its future. This is how they sleep at night, because having to admit that they were passengers on a train straight to hell would offend their amour-propre.
The specific context was that it was obvious that the Prime Minister (John Howard) was scientifically illiterate and a climate denier who was doing everything he could (which was a lot) to fuck shit up (to use a technical term). “Awks” as the kids used to say.
What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve been doing yakkety yak on climate for a very long time, and we will continue to do yakkety yak.
What happened next: Australia got an insanely generous deal at the Kyoto conference, an emissions reduction quote, in quotes of 108% actually closer to 130 once you took into account the land clearing clause, the emissions kept climbing. Australia’s fossil fuel exports kept climbing. The atmospheric concentrations of CO2 kept climbing. And after a certain delay, the despair and the fear of people who can read the Keeling Curve began climbing as well.
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.
In a 1987 meeting between UK climate scientists organised by DoE and NERC, it was considered “crucial that the UK supports truly global and multi-disciplinary approaches to studying the climate system. Clearly, the potential local impacts of any suggested climate change are of paramount importance to the UK but we must guard against any suggestion that climate-change issues can in general be studied from a parochial regional viewpoint. Regional studies should be conducted with proper regard being paid to results stemming from a global approach.”
Rapporteurs’ draft notes, ‘Man-made Climate Change: Planning the UK Research Strategy’, Institute of Hydrology, Wallingford, 28–29 April 1987. Provided to the authors by David Carson.
Citation for published version (APA): Mahony, M., & Hulme, M. (2016). Modelling and the Nation: Institutionalising Climate Prediction in the UK, 1988–92. MINERVA, 54(4), 445-470. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024-016-9302-0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that after the Villach conference, and with the Met Office making more and more of a noise, it became obvious that sooner or later, carbon dioxide build-up would hit the policy agendas, and these sorts of meetings were presumably happening through ‘86-87.
The specific context was that the Conservatives had put carbon dioxide build-up in their manifesto for the 1987 election, and things were beginning to move. A bit.
What I think we can learn from this is that before Thatcher did her u-turn, responsible people were beginning to think about what the state response should be.
What happened next: In September 1988 Thatcher gave her pivotal speech at the Royal Society, and then it was on for young and old…
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.
