Categories
Australia

August 31, 1992 – “Community Energy Audit” in Canberra

Thirty two years ago, on this day, August 31st, 1992, a community energy audit began.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/137177083

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was running around “getting their house in order.” There was still money sloshing about for greenhouse stuff. Although the tap had dried up. Mostly there was still old water coming through the Rio Earth Summit that happened and now Local Agenda 21 was going to kick in and everyone was supposed to hold hands, sing Kumbaya, and do local energy audits and so forth, to “save the world.” 

What we learn is that there was a period between 1988 and 1993 when and – this was crucial, because it happened as I was hitting adulthood, or at least chronologically, if not emotionally – when it looked like we might do something, or that something could be done. And then neoliberalism which had been there, got turbocharged because it was now for a while, a unipolar world. There was nothing outside the market. 

And all that is gone and forgotten. And this All Our Yesterdays is in part a project to remember that sense of possibility. 

 What happened next, the community energy audits, either dried up or weren’t done or they continued to be done, but they were ignored, because the greenhouse issue was irrelevant, and it had been “solved” anyway because we’d held a meeting in Rio and everything was going to be fine because something something technology something something promises something something Emissions Trading something something. 

The lies we tell ourselves so that we can turn over and go back to sleep and not challenge power are astonishing. Challenging power is very very costly because power by definition can make your life miserable. 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.

Also on this day: 

August 31, 1998 – Green dollar growing on trees?

August 31, 2011 – anti-carbon tax protesters call Anthony Albanese a “maggot”

August 31, 2005 – “Stop Climate Chaos” launched

Categories
Australia

August 30, 1986 – Adelaide warned about climate change by Environment Minister Don Hopgood

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, August 30th, 1986,

ADELAIDE: Ocean levels would rise about a metre over the next 60 years and have a significant effect on the Australian coastline and coastal communities, the South Australian Minister for Environment and Planning, Dr Hopgood, said yesterday.

Dr Hopgood told the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects’ national conference that the startling prediction on ocean levels was included in the most recent information on the “greenhouse effect” known to be heating up the earth.

Anon (1986) Sea level ‘to rise metre in 60 years’ Canberra Times, August 31, p1

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 348ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the CSIRO, via the Australian Environment Council and elsewhere, had finally sounded the alarm bell, about climate change, CO2 buildup, sea level rise, etc. And so here’s Don Hopgood, a decent Australian South Australian politician, telling some people the facts of life of what the 21st century will be.

What we learn is that by 1986, Australian political elites were beginning to understand the shitstorm that was coming. Not all of them, not all evenly. It would be another couple of years before it really started breaking out. And then you got the denial in response to that. 

What happened next? In ‘89, they set up a South Australian greenhouse committee. And it made some fine promises.  And over time, indeed (since 2003) South Australia has reduced its electricity-based carbon emissions, thanks to clever policy-making, federal policies etc.

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: 

August 30, 1971 – Bob Carr (ex- NSW premier) ‘gets’ climate change

August 30, 1975 – The Science Show does climate change…

August 30, 1989 – A global tax on emissions?!

August 30, 1990 -Australian diplomats (probably) tried to water down IPCC recommendations

Categories
United States of America

August 29, 2005 – Hurricane Katrina

Nineteen years ago, on this day, August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hits Louisiana coast

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that warnings of increased intensity of hurricanes, if not their number, had been around for a while. The more local context was that the things that would protect New Orleans from a hurricane were levees and swamp lands and these were being neglected and drained because there was no money in it. And the US State was busy fighting an oil war in Iraq, and the local developers could always make more money. This was not a secret. The Times Picayune was covering it as per David Rovics’ song. There is a sort of whole false sense of inevitability. There’s also an awful sense of inevitability to the way the racism kicks in. If you’re black, you’re looting, if you’re white, you’re looking for food, and on and on and on. 

What we learn And if you want to understand how the 21st century is going to play out, have a look at the monstrosity that was the state response, and the corporate response, and the societal response by and large, to Katrina. That monstrosity shows you what you need to know. So you won’t be surprised. 

What happened next, New Orleans was “rebuilt” and gentrified and it’s slowly being eaten by sea level rise. 

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

See, also Naomi Klein See also Rebecca Solnit Paradise Built in Hell, et cetera. 

See also Kim Stanley Robinson’s eerily prescient 40 days of rain imagery!

Also on this day: 

August 29, 1990 – The Australian mining and forestry industries threaten to spit the dummy

August 29, 2008 – business tells Labor to go softly (Labor then does, obvs).

Categories
Australia

August 28, 1977 – First  Australian“Greenpeace” action, against whaling 

Forty seven years ago, on this day, August 28th, 1977, the  first under-a-Greenpeace-banner action took place. It was against the last whaling in the English speaking world, Albany Western Australia 

On 28th August 1977, activists in inflatable zodiacs took on a whaling ship in Albany, Western Australia. And they won. Known back then as the ‘The Whale and Dolphin Coalition,’ they blockaded the Cheynes Beach whaling station for three weeks, drawing global media attention to the issue of commercial whaling.

In November 1978, Australia harpooned its last whale. This long blockade was the first-ever Greenpeace action in Australia – and it was the beginning of the end of our country’s whaling industry.

Source – https://media.greenpeace.org/archive/Greenpeace-Australia-Pacific-40th-Anniversary-27MZIFJXDAG7U.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia was still permitting whaling, having perpetrated awful crimes for a couple of hundred years so that we could have lighting and so forth. You all should read Moby Dick. And this was the first Greenpeace Australia action. Greenpeace was then a very new beast, having been set up to protest nuclear testing. 

What we learn is Greenpeace got a foothold and then more in the Australian political scene. And then in 1985, I think the Rainbow Warrior got scuttled by French secret agents. Because France, because states and terrorism. 

What happened next. Greenpeace has kept going, with various peaks and troughs…

Whaling still happens – carried out by Iceland and Japan for “research”. We humans are a relentlessly barbaric species. And no, I’m not vegan. I’m a hypocrite like everyone else. 

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: 

August 28, 1971 – snarky opinion piece in New York Times. Stephen Schneider rebuts days later.

August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant

Categories
Venus

August 27, 1962 – Mariner 2 sets off for Venus

Sixty two years ago, on this day, August 27th, 1962, humans go exploring.,

On August 27th 1962, the Mariner 2 spacecraft built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was successfully launched on its way to Venus. On December 14th 1962 it passed within 35,000 km of Venus and observed the planet with its onboard instruments and returned the resulting data to Earth [1]. It was the first successful spacecraft to another planet.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 318ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that now we’d put balls, chimps and men in orbit, and JFK had set the goal for a man on the moon by the end of the decade, other planets were getting a look-see.

What we learn is that ideas about greenhouse effects are nice metaphors. And if you can apply them to other planets like Venus, then I guess it helps with the general understanding and acceptance of the problem on Earth.

What happened next? There was a flurry of articles about Venus’s Greenhouse Effect thanks to the enormous amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, meaning that the temperature on the surface of the planet was very, very high. This had already been known in scientific circles, but having the measurements and the attention meant that it got a bit more of a run in the mass media.

We kept sending rockets to other planets, especially Mars in the Vikings in the 1970s. And within another three, four years, C02 was building up in the public sphere as well as in the atmosphere. 

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: 

August 27, 1859 – The Oil Age begins. UPDATED TO BE a) accurate b) less Eurocentric

August 27, 1993 – international negotiations edge forward

August 27, 2013 – absurd claim of Nobel-prize winners’ support for Liberal non-policy is debunked.

Categories
United Kingdom

August 26, 1970 The Alkali Inspector’s report…

Fifty four years ago, on this day, August 26th, 1970,

The BBC and the newspapers reported on the latest report of the Alkali Inspectorate, which pours scorn on… worries about carbon dioxide build-up.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The Context was that the Alkali Inspectorate was feeling under fire, and thought it would lash out at carbon dioxide buildup which had been noted in public since 1966 with the Barry Commoner Science and Survival book, which featured in the January 1967 BBC science programme Challenge.

And by 1969 Kenneth Mellanby was giving talks in Coventry about the problem. Later in the year the FT was saying that it was a venerable idea. You know, it was “out there” by the late 1960s – it was out there on the radio and on television, Frank Fraser Darling’s Reith lectures, etc. 

What we learn is this was the first pushback by the British state. Epic ignorance on their part, still interesting and amusing. 

What happened next? The Alkaline Inspector came under more attention for its cosy relationship with industry. F.W. Ireland didn’t last much longer in post, and the Alkali Inspectorate was eventually absorbed within the Environment Agency. And the emissions kept climbing, of course. 

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: 

August 26, 1973 – Sir Kingsley Dunham points out the C02 problem

August 26, 2003 – Australian “plan” to save biodiversity

August 26, 2006 – First “Climate Camp” begins

Categories
Australia

August 25, 1933 – South Coast Bulletin reports “Carbon dioxide: climatic influence”

Ninety one years ago, on this day, August 25th, 1933, carbon dioxide’s influence on climate gets a mention in an Australian publication, the South Coast Bulletin.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 309ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context being that Svante Arrhenius’s proposal of Anthropogenic Global Warming had been poo pooed thanks to people like Angstrom and his mis-understanding of how carbon dioxide behaves in the stratosphere. There were still people out there interested in Arrhenius’s proposals around the weather, industrialization, etc. There was Lotka. And I think Weber, for example, said something about significantly vaporising coal mines. And this stuff was “in the air” at the time – see New York Times article the year before…

In 1912 Popular Mechanics had run an article which led to syndicated snippets in papers around the world, which occasionally get tweeted at this site as some sort of ‘gotcha’, I think.

Anyway, here we were in 1933. And in the middle of the Great Depression, people probably had a lot else on their mind.

 What we learn is that ideas like carbon dioxide impacting climate, were quiet in the 20s and 30s, but they were still there.

What happened next? The next big CO2 event was Guy Callendar in 1938 at the Royal Meteorological Society in London.

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: 

August 25, 1970 – Margaret Mead and James Baldwin rap on race…

August 25, 2013 – The IPA loses support, for being stupid climate deniers.

Categories
Australia

August 24, 1992 – Bureaucrats kill greenie-business consensus on climate action

Thirty two years ago, on this day, August 24th, 1992, the last chance to do something differently is killed off.

The Canberra Times has a front page story that begins thus:

Federal and state bureaucrats have watered down and fatally weakened recommendations agreed to by industry, conservationists and scientists to lessen the greenhouse effect, according to the Institution of Engineers, Australia.

The IEA’s claims are similar to those made by Australia’s green groups, who have pulled out of the final stages of the Ecologically Sustainable Development process in protest at what they see as undermining by the Federal Government.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/137175203

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the greenies (small g because the Green Party didn’t exist,) had forced then Prime Minister Bob Hawke to launch an Ecologically Sustainable Development policy-making process in 1990. This had come up with some good ideas, which were then watered down. And the whole thing was then being vigorously killed off by 1992. Not so much by Paul Keating, but by federal bureaucracy henchmen, who were determined that Australia’s future was about digging up more and selling it, chopping down more and selling it. And then for them, development meant growth, industrial growth, GDP growth at any cost, and they didn’t see why they should have to pretend to listen to a bunch of Luddite hippies. Now that the media was bored of listening to the “Luddite hippies”, and there was this ridiculous summit had been agreed. 

What we learn is that when we only pay attention to politicians, and business, we miss an important aspect of the resistance to sanity. Namely, the permanent bureaucracy that thinks it runs the show and often does run the show. But activists are very loathe to talk about this – some activists anyway – perhaps because it seems like a conspiracy theory. And also you’re beating up on people who can’t talk back to you but can sabotage you. Assholes, in other words. 

What happened next: A carbon tax, which would have been one small part of an overall intelligent response, was defeated in 1995. The emissions kept climbing. And the consequences are beginning to pile up…

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: 

August 24, 1989 – a Sydney council takes greenhouse suggestions on-board (or says it will).

August 24, 1994 – first signs of a split in the anti-climate action business coalition…

Categories
Geoeingeering

August 23, 1989 – Space Mirrors proposed to combat global warming. I am not making this up.

Thirty five years ago, on this day, August 23rd, 1989,

WASHINGTON — Gigantic orbiting mirrors may offer a solution – albeit a very costly one — to Earth’s anticipated woes with global warming if pollution control efforts fail, a Swiss scientist said Wednesday.

In a letter published in the British journal Nature, Walter Seifritz said he thinks it is unlikely humans will do much in the near future to reduce pollution that threatens to boost the planet’s temperature.

Carbon dioxide and other gases generated by fuel consumption and burning of tropical forests warm Earth’s atmosphere by trapping solar heat like a greenhouse.

Many scientists predict if current pollution trends continue, Earth’s temperature could rise 4 to 9 degrees over the next 70 years. Such an increase would cause a marked rise in sea levels and dramatic climate changes.

If efforts to cut emission of so-called greenhouse gases fail and serious global warming occurs, Seifritz contends ‘a remote but feasible possiblity’ would be to lower temperatures by artificially blocking the amount of sunlight reaching Earth.

‘To compensate for a temperature increase of 2.5 degrees Kelvin (4.5 degrees Farenheit), the solar radiation must be reduced by about 3.5 percent. The task could be done by satellites bearing large, lightweight mirrors,’ wrote the professor from Switzerland’s Schurrer Institute.

Kolberg, R. 1989. Mammoth mirrors could offset global warming. UPI, 23 August.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone had been banging on about climate change for a year. And now, the techno-fetishists were getting in on the act, with the idea of space mirrors as part of the whole solar radiation management gimmick. 

What we learn is that rather than look inside and examine our actual problems, we are far keener on looking outside and listening to people who point to “this thing of darkness we acknowledge is someone else’s” (That’s a riff on Prospero in The Tempest, btw). And technofixes are a really good example of that. Press bro would not be surprised. 

What happened next, we still don’t have any space mirrors. We didn’t do anything to reduce the trajectory of emissions. And we are beginning to boil, metaphorically speaking.

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: 

August 23, 1853 – first International Meteorological Conference

August 23, 1856 – Eunice Foote identifies carbon dioxide as greenhouse gas

August 23, 1971 – nuggets of ecological wisdom from Nugget Coombs.

August 23, 1971 – the Powell Memorandum

Categories
Academia Canada

August 22, 1987 – “Civilisation and Rapid Climate Change” – a short book…

Thirty seven years ago, on this day, August 22nd, 1987, a conference took place in Canada, with the snappy title

Civilization and Rapid Climate Change, University of Calgary 22 – 24 August 1987. A short book “Thinking the Unthinkable” by Lydia Dotto emerged…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Canadians had been aware of CO2 build-up for a good 15 years, like everyone else (actually, it goes back to the 1950s, but only spottily). By the early 1970s, it was becoming more of a ‘thing’. By this time, probably the June 1988 Changing Atmosphere conference had been announced.

The person who acted as the rapporteur was Lydia Dotto, who had written a book about ozone. And, you know, the anthropologists and so forth were quite right when they said “don’t expect us to meet the challenge. That’s not who we are.” And so it came to pass…

What we learn is that before Thatcher and Bush, there were plenty of people saying, “watch out.” Not just climate scientists by the mid late 80s. It also had been that Canadian documentary and so forth. And they were keeping an eye on what was happening in the US. Carl Sagan Philip called the rest of it.

What happened next: Thatcher Bush and a generation of bullshit

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

Dotto, L. 1987.

Also on this day: 

August 22, 1988 – scientists say “Australia, expect #climate refugees”

August 22, 1981 – New York Times front page story costs #climate scientists their jobs.

August 22, 2000 – Minchin kills an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme

August 22, 2011 – anti-carbon pricing rally flops