Categories
Australia

December 27, 2004 – ACF boss says “cough up”

Twenty years ago, on this day, December 27th, 2004,

How do we make people more aware of the accelerating problems of climate change? The Australian Conservation Foundation’s new president says we must make them pay for their damage – literally

Clarke, D. (2004) NEW CONSERVATION CHIEF Climate controller The Advertiser 27th December

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Federal government had once again said no to an emissions trading scheme. And the states we’re talking about bottom up. Meanwhile, the Australian Conservation Foundation, which had been banging on about how a carbon tax would be a Good Idea for 15 years, had a new president. And although the times were inauspicious Howard had been given another three years, you always have to propose your ideas even if they’re seemingly out of time and unpopular.

What happened next various other business groupings surfaced, trying to talk about climate and carbon pricing. The most consequential of these probably was the April 2006 effort with Westpac and so forth. And then, of course, when Kevin Rudd came along, carbon pricing took off. 

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: 

December 27, 1989 – Greenhouse effect = “socialist hokum”

December 27, 2009 – Art exhibition in Copenhagen saves the world

Categories
Antarctica

December 26, 2019 – Antarctic journeys…

Five years ago, on this day, December 26th, 2019, 

On December 26, 2019, Erin Pettit trudged across a plain of glaring snow and ice, dragging an ice-penetrating radar unit the size of a large suitcase on a red plastic sled behind her. The brittle snow crunched like cornflakes underneath her boots—evidence that it had recently melted and refrozen following a series of warm summer days. Pettit was surveying a part of Antarctica where, until several days before, no other human had ever stepped. A row of red and green nylon flags, flapping in the wind on bamboo poles, extended into the distance, marking a safe route free of hidden, deadly crevasses. The Thwaites Ice Shelf appeared healthy on the surface. But if that were the case, Pettit wouldn’t have been there. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarcticas-collapse-could-begin-even-sooner-than-anticipated/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 412ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

We are forever doing impact science, while the production science kills us all. So it goes.

What I think we can learn from this

Brave people have gathered the data.  Lazy and scared people (including myself) don’t make the data matter.

What happened next

The emissions kept climbing, obvs.

Categories
Uncategorized

December 25, – the White Christmas myth…

Merry Christmas/Atheistmas. Have a read of this – “How Dickens Made Christmas White”

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20181217-how-dickens-made-white-christmas-a-myth

The context was it turns out that white is not normal. To conceive of white as the normal, everything else as a disappointment is simply wrong. Am I talking about white supremacism and the normative bias around that? Well, yes, of course I am. But I’m also talking about the idea of a white Christmas – that it would snow on Christmas Day. Enough for postcards and all that. And the amazing thing is that you can #BlameDickens. There’s a really good article See, link here, pointing out that when Dickens was writing in the 1840s and 50s, he was harking back to some really severely cold winters including the last time the Thames froze solid, in 1814. Enough for an elephant to walk across. 

What we learn is that our memories and norms around what the weather was like are exceptionally unreliable. For all sorts of well-understood reasons about how memory functions – with the peak end bias and so forth. 

What happened next denialists keep pointing out that memory is faulty as if that is a knockdown argument. 

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: 

December 25, 1988 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands says “the earth is slowly dying”

December 25, 1989 – business press pushback about Global Warning “panic” begins…

Categories
Sweden

December 24, 1895 – Arrhenius explains the work that went in…

One hundred and twenty nine years ago, on this day, December 24th, 1895, Svante Arrhenius explains the work that went in…

“His preliminary calculations showed that the required changes in CO2 were in the order of 50%. Hogbom, who was present, confirmed that those changes could have occurred in geological times. It remained, however, to demonstrate this quantitatively. The construction of the model which enabled him to do so occupied him for most of 1895. Writing to a friend at the end of the year, he found it “unbelievable that so trifling a matter has cost me a full year” (5) ”

Svante Arrhenius to Gustaf Tammann, December 24, 1895, Arrhenius Collection, Center for History of Science, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm in Crawford, E. 1997 Arrhenius’ 1896 Model of the Greenhouse Effect in Context Ambio, Vol. 26, No. 1, Arrhenius and the Greenhouse Gases (Feb., 1997), pp. 6-11

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 295ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Svante Arrhenius had gone through a divorce and partly to distract himself he’d spent a year doing insane calculations about the effects that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would have. He had produced this work. He had presented this work and it was about to be published. 

What we learn is that in the days before ENIAC computers, if you were a mathematician it was like that joke “Did you hear about the constipated mathematician? He had to work it out with a pencil.” 

What happened next is his work was kind of disregarded thanks to a misunderstanding of how carbon dioxide works in the stratosphere, but it wasn’t lost altogether because some people took it seriously. Then Guy Callendar did the sums also without a computer and presented that work to the Royal Meteorological Society in front of Kenneth Hare and others. 

Fun fact. Arrhenius died in 1927. And Guy Callendar died in 1964, on the same day of the year, October 2nd https://allouryesterdays.info/2022/10/01/october-2-1927-64-svante-arrhenius-and-guy-callendar-die/

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: 

December 24, 1968 – “Earthrise” photo

December 24, 1990 – Australia as renewable energy superpower

Categories
Energy United States of America

December 23, 1973 – Solar Patent issued..

Fifty one years ago, on this day, December 23rd, 1973,

5. P. E. Glaser, “Method and Apparatus for Converting Solar Radiation to Electrical Power,” United States Patent 3,781,647, December 23, 1973.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Glaser had been aware of carbon dioxide build up at least since 1967. Possibly significantly earlier than that. He had mentioned it at a 1967 Solar Energy Conference in Tucson, Arizona and he had been talking about space satellites and microwave energy since ‘68. And here was his patent. 

What we learn is that smart people were knocking out actual plausible technofixes. 

What happened next? The idea of space-based systems was later used, I think, by the Reagan administration apparatchiks to undercut and undermine land-based systems. We should, of course, have had both. If we were smart species, that’s what we would have done. But we’re not a smart species. We are a technologically adept species, but that is distinct from being smart. And here we are with the emissions still rising. 

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: 

December 23, 2003 – Vestas opens Tasmanian wind turbine factory

December 23, 2009 – Kevin Rudd told to call double-dissolution #climate election… (spoiler – he didn’t)

Categories
Australia Kyoto Protocol

December 22, 1999 – Australian population growth and carbon reductions – not so easy…

Twenty-five years ago, on this day, December 22nd, 1999 the economics editor for the Fin, Alan Mitchell, came out with some truth bombs.

It is unfortunate that political considerations probably mean market-based policies will never play their full role, because the Productivity Commission was right.

Instead of mucking around with regulation and “education and awareness”, or fiddling at the edges with immigration, we should be slapping on a carbon tax.

Notwithstanding the claims of the Australian Industry Group, just jacking up the price of generating greenhouse gases is exactly what we should be doing.

Mitchell, A. 1999. Migrants, Kyoto don’t gel. The Australian Financial Review, December 22, p.16.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Australian Institute then run by Clive Hamilton had weighed in on the question of Australia setting very high ambition net immigration targets as potentially a bad thing. There’s been an historical quandary over this for environmentalists. Because if they oppose lots of immigration, they can be accused of being racist and selfish. And if they point out that the main boosters for a big Australia are businesses who want to depress wages and at the same time, increase the market for their products they can be accused of being Marxists, or conspiracy theorists. So they’re in a bit of a cleft stick. 

What we learn – Anyway, what’s interesting here is that the Financial Review’s economics editor pointed out that business was bullshit on this and that a carbon tax was precisely the sort of thing be required if you were going to deal with climate change 

Twenty-five years ago, today, the sin was talking a certain amount of sense on the climate issue. 

What happened next? Mitchell is now at the Sydney Morning Herald.

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: 

December 22, 1759 – “What have ye done?”

December 22, 1975 – “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth’s Heat Rises” (surely “when”?)

December 22, 1978 – UK Energy Department chief scientist worries about CO2 levels and pressure to reduce them…

Categories
Activism Brazil

December 22, 1988 – Chico Mendes murdered

Thirty-six years ago, on this day, December 22nd, 1988, Chico Mendes was murdered

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Chico Mendes had been a bit of a folk hero in the mid 80s, leading the rubber tappers union in the defence of the Amazon. And he had pissed off the wrong people. 

What we learn is that if you piss off the wrong people in many parts of the world, you will end up with a bullet in your head. In the West, they simply de-fund you and invisiblise you and deprive you of livelihood. Far more civilised here. 

What happened next? 

According to Wikipedia –

“In December 1990, Silva, his son Darci, and their employee Jerdeir Pereira were sentenced to 19 years in prison for their part in Mendes’ assassination. In February 1992, they won a retrial, claiming that the prosecution’s primary witness – Mendes’ wife Ilsamar – was biased. The conviction was upheld, and they remained in prison. In 1993, they escaped from jail, along with seven other prisoners, by sawing through the bars of their prison window. All were recaptured, including Darly Jr., who served the remainder of his sentence with the other killers before returning to Xapuri.”

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: 

December 22, 1759 – “What have ye done?”

December 22, 1975 – “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth’s Heat Rises” (surely “when”?)

December 22, 1978 – UK Energy Department chief scientist worries about CO2 levels and pressure to reduce them…

Categories
Australia

December 21, 1992 – Keating in Adelaide

Thirty two years ago, on this day, December 21st, 1992, Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating went to the provinces…

“Adopting clean production methods which minimise waste and pollution and maximise efficient use and recycling of resources is essential to the success of our manufacturing industry. The market is there for cleaner industries and cleaner products. It is also there for environmental management systems and technologies. Australians are developing those things. The drive for environmentally friendly industries and the protection of our natural environment is, in short, part of the economic drive, part of the international competitive drive in which Australia is engaged.” (Paul Keating: Statement on the Environment 21 December 1992) 

Also – The Prime Minister, Mr Keating, will announce today the ratification of two international treaties that will extend Federal Government powers over the environment.

Garran, R. 1992. Keating to flag new environmental leap. Australian Financial Review, December.21

And 

The Prime Minister’s Environment Statement, released in Adelaide on December 21, last year, was weighted heavily towards water and air quality.

It was noticeable for its lack of any of the most contentious of the pressing environmental problems, such as the setting of firm greenhouse-gas reduction targets; any attempt to implement the recommendations of the ecologically sustainable development working groups; the introduction of effective national endangered species legislation – to name just some. 

Toyne, P. 1993. Environment forgotten in the race to the Lodge. Canberra Times, March 8 p. 11.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Keating had come to power exactly a year previously. He had inherited an Ecologically Sustainable Development policymaking process, which neither he nor the federal bureaucrats were at all fond of.

Keating had not gone to the Rio Earth Summit, the only one of the OECD leaders not to do so.

The bureaucrats had spent a year shoving it into 17 committees and just generally killing it off (though they were too blatant and caused a bit of a storm…See August 6, 1992 – Australian environmentalists and businesses united… in disgust at Federal bureaucrats)

There had been a National Greenhouse Response Strategy released a couple of weeks before early December

This was him, probably through gritted teeth, having to talk about stupid green issues. And as Toyne said, it was silent on the all-important question of greenhouse targets.

What we learn is that in the same way that in nature, you’ll find the cubs and babies of another father getting unceremonious killed by the new father (and this being genetically the smart thing to do) you’ll find policies – good, bad and indifferent – that were put forward by the previous person, whether they’re in your party or on the opposition party, unceremoniously wiped out and that’s what happened here. Though you can overgeneralise this, it was simply that Keating was in thrall to the neolibs, who had hated and still hated environmentalist issues which they regard as silly green irrelevant externalities and a Trojan horse for SOCIALISM.

In 1994 Keating would chide environmentalists for their focus on the “amorphous” issue of greenhouse gases. https://allouryesterdays.info/2022/08/01/august-2-1994-australian-prime-minister-paul-keating-says-greenies-should-ignore-amorphous-issue-of-greenhouse/

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: 

December 21, 1993 – European Union agrees to ratify UNFCCC

December 21, 2005 – US activist William Rodgers commits suicide

Categories
United States of America

December 20, 1969 – AGU on climate change…

Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 20th, 1969,

By contrast, the first reference to “global warming” doesn’t appear in Google’s archives until the end of the next decade. This Dec. 20, 1969 story by United Press International headlined “Scientists Caution on Changes In Climate as Result of Pollution” is the first in Google News’s archives to unambiguously use the phrase “global warming” to describe the phenomena. https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0908/why-are-they-calling-it-climate-change-now

On December 21, 1969, the New York Times ran a UPI wire story, “Scientists Caution on Changes In Climate as Result of Pollution,” which reported that scientists discussed the possible threat of manmade global warming at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, with calls for greater monitoring of the climate:

J.O. Fletcher, a physical scientist for the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., said that “man had only a few decades to solve the problem of global warming caused by pollution.” Global warming could cause further melting of the polar ice caps and affect the earth’s climate.

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 the American Association for the Advancement of Science had held a seminar in 1968. And the American Meteorological Society held one in October 1969. The RAND Corporation had done a piece on fossil fuels, and that was being reported at this meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which readers will remember, is the same place that Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass made his bombshell announcement in 1953. It was one of the first times (and probably the first) that “global warming” was referred to in the press. 

What we learn is that there is a finite number of venues for influential commentary on the science of all this. The AGU was one AAAS was another. 

What happened next? As the 60s turned into the 70s it became less surprising to find carbon dioxide build-up mentioned as a potential environmental problem. Already in the same neck of the woods in San Francisco 9 months earlier there had been “teach-ins” about the issues – about ecology, People’s Park and all the rest of it. Fundamentally, we knew. 

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: 

December 20, 1983 – Documentary on “the Climate Crisis” shown

December 20, 2007 – UK opposition leader David Cameron gives clean coal speech in Beijing…

Categories
United Nations Weather modification

December 20, 1961 – UNGA resolution on outer space and weather modification

Sixty three years ago, on this day, December 20th, 1961 the United Nations General Assembly agreed the following

The General Assembly,

Noting with gratification the marked progress for meteorological science and technology opened up by the advances in outer space,

Convinced of the world-wide benefits to be derived from international co-operation in weather research and analysis,

1. Recommends to all Member States and to the World Meteorological Organization and other appropriate specialized agencies the early and comprehensive study, in the light of developments in outer space, of measures;

(a) To advance the state of atmospheric science and technology so as to provide greater knowledge of basic physical forces affecting climate and the possibility of large-scale weather modification;

(b) To develop existing weather forecasting capabilities and to help Member States make effective use of such capabilities through regional meteorological centres;

1961 UN GA resolution abt outer space and also weather modification (see Zilman 2009)

https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/treaties/resolutions/res_16_1721.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 318ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Soviet Union and the Americans had been hurling lumps of metal and even living objects such as chimpanzees and cosmonauts into space. And it was clear that both sides were interested in the military applications. The United Nations General Assembly, therefore passed this resolution that was partly about space and also partly about the weather and climate, giving the WMO a bigger remit to investigate – well, you saw what it said.

What we learn is that questions around weather modification – inadvertent and intentional – go back a very loooong way; 63 years in this case.

What happened next. The World Meteorological Organisation got going with GARP – the Global Atmospheric Research Programme. And by 1965-66 people were beginning to look at carbon dioxide and say “you know, we may actually have a problem “

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: 

December 20, 1983 – Documentary on “the Climate Crisis” shown

December 20, 2007 – UK opposition leader David Cameron gives clean coal speech in Beijing…