Tag: 1971

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South Paciific

August 5, 1971 – First “South Pacific Forum” happens

Fifty three years ago, on this day, August 5th,1971, leaders of small island states get together…

 The first Pacific Islands Forum (then known as the “South Pacific Forum”) is held in Wellington, New Zealand, with the aim of enhancing cooperation between the independent countries of the Pacific Ocean.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Vietnam War was still going on (the Americans were losing.) There were pacts of different nations, SEATO to ASEAN, all the rest of it. Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had been doing “pactomania.” BUT not everything should be seen as the machinations of the metropole. Sometimes – gasp – the “colonials” have plans of their own…

The ‘no politics’ restriction on discussion in the [south Pacific Conference] was the source of great dissatisfaction for the nascent leadership from the islands. The most pressing issues for the islands were clearly political ones involving larger questions of decolonization, but the greatest concern was nuclear testing by France.7
Matters came to a head at the 1965 meeting in Lae, Papua New Guinea, when Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara of Fiji led a major push from the island representatives to give the Conference more relevance in the actions of the SPC beyond its existing ‘advisory’ capacity. The ‘Lae Rebellion’ was ‘the first concerted effort by Pacific Islanders to protest against the structures in the SPC which ensured dominance by the colonial powers’.8
Mara was also the driving force behind the creation in 1965 of the first indigenously motivated ‘islands-only’ regional organization, the Pacific Islands Producers Association (PIPA). Formed by Fiji, Tonga, and Western Samoa outside of the domain of the SPC, PIPA provided a unified front for negotiating the prices of common agricultural products for export.
Faced with increasing irrelevance, the SPC did evolve in an attempt to meet these new challenges and demands from the island states. From 1967 onward, meetings of the Conference and Commission were held together, and the difference between the two bodies essentially disappeared by 1974.9
Despite these reforms, it was clear the SPC’s charter made the organization too limited to deal with all of the issues confronting the region, and the South Pacific Forum was founded in 1971 as an attempt to address these rising challenges.

THE PROBLEMS AND POTENTIAL OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM by ERIC SHIBUYA

What we learn is that if you don’t know something these days, you can just Google it. Pretty much go to Google Scholar. Truth – or at least the facts – will out. 

What happened next? Well, by 1987, the Commonwealth was getting interested in global warming, there was the 1987 meeting at which Margaret Thatcher got schooled. And of course, in 1988, it burst on the public agenda. And then there was the Male Declaration in 1989. And since then, AOSIS, and since then the Pacific island nations have been begging and pleading with Australia to be less of a douche. And Australia’s been like, “yeah, nah” on it. We do have the fun of Albo’s 2006 Labor Party position paper on “Our Drowning Neighbours.” And then in 2023 there’s a deal where people from Tuvalu can swap their snorkels for visas.

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: 

August 5, 1997 – Australian politician calls for “official figures” on #climate to be suspended because they are rubbery af

August 5, 2010 – academics call for insurance industry to get involved in climate fight

Categories
United States of America

June 29, 1971 – American Coal Association prez says greenies might pose national security threat

Fifty three years ago, on this day, June 29th, 1971, the “national security” argument gets an early run,

The president of the American Coal Association warned that the environmental movement could be radicalised to the point that it could weaken the United States by denying it necessary minerals and other resources.

Carl E. Bagge “Radicalism Perils Supply of Minerals.” Speech quoted in Salt Lake City Tribune, 29 June 1971, p6.

(McCormick, 1991:86)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the American Coal Association was beset by on one hand a nuclear lobby trying to eat into electricity generation and on the other side, the environmentalists. And obviously, if you want to win the argument, you slipped back into a resonant frame, and in this case, the idea of national security. They started to paint environmentalists as unwitting or witting dupes of the Kremlin. 

What we learn is that frame wars, frame walls, frame wars. Add that as a page actually. 

As per that wonderful scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove the concern around “draining our vital fluids”

What happened next? On the American Coal Association the next I know of them in relation to climate change is the rather excellent August 1 1980 article in the Wall Street Journal where they dismiss 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: 

June 29, 1956 – Just DRIVE, she said…

June 29, 1979 – G7 says climate change matters. Yes, 1979.

June 29, 1979 – Thatcher uses carbon dioxide build-up to shill for nuclear power

Categories
United States of America

June 9, 1971 – Carroll Wilson talks C02 build up at at Electricity Industry conference

Fifty-three years ago, on this day, June 9th, 1971, Carroll Wilson (who died in 1983) mentioned carbon dioxide build-up at an Electricity Industry conference.

For more, see this article in the Atlantic (paywalled).

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was Caroll Wilson was one of those  within-institution cross-organisation movers, shakers fixers well-connected, well-respected. He had already helped put together the conferences that led to the Limits to Growth report. So he would have received a fair hearing. And would have been well aware of the work that was about to get underway about the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate in Sweden.

These guys knew. Yes, there were more pressing short term concerns around air quality in cities and smog and so forth. But Caroll Wilson will have not said anything particularly surprising to the audience, they would have been aware of the CO2 issue, most of them. 

What we learn from this is that while stuff seems shocking and new, when you’re looking without the background, once you understand any given event is part of a pattern, a flow and accretion. It kind of changes perspective a little bit. 

What happened next, Wilson died in I think, 1980. The environmental push, at least the public portion of it died by 1973. 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.

Also on this day: 

June 9, 1955 – Royal Society misses the point (tbf, easily done)

June 9, 1989 – the Australian Labor Party versus the unions versus the planet #climate

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Categories
Australia

May 27, 1971 – Australia gets a Minister of the Environment

Fifty-three years ago, on this day, May 27th, 1971, the colony joins the club…

The Prime Minister, Mr McMahon, announced yesterday the appointment of Mr Peter Howson to the Federal ministry.

Mr Howson, of Victoria, will become Minister for the newly formed Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts.

Anon, 1971. Mr Howson is new Minister. Canberra Times Friday 28 May, page 1

And Mungo MacCullum

“When McMahon finally got the job in 1971, Howson lined up for his reward. Having held down a junior ministry during the Menzies, Holt and even Gorton years, he thought he was in line for promotion. But it was not to be. As he left the new prime minister’s office, a colleague asked him what he had got. Howson snarled back: “The little bastard gave me trees, boongs and poofters.””

https://www.crikey.com.au/2009/02/05/peter-howson-minister-for-trees-boongs-and-poofters/
Peter Howson, minister for ‘trees, boongs and poofters’

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had been rising concern about environmental issues, air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, pollution pollution population the culling of kangaroos and wildlife biodiversity crisis happening. There was a new prime minister Billy McMahon and he wanted to show how in touch with the ordinary man in the street he was so he created the Ministry of Environmental Affairs, Arts and Aboriginal Affairs. 

 What we learn is that while other nations were creating standalone environment departments, Australia’s ambition was pitiful and tokenistic. 

 What happened next? Howson along with many of his Liberal mates, lost the 1972 election that swept Gough Whitlam into power. And the next environment minister was Moss Cass, who was an altogether more impressive figure.

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: 

May 27, 1973 – World Council of Churches wrings its hands

May 27, 1996 – Not just a river in Egypt – denial in #Australia, organised, ramifying…

Categories
Sweden

May 12, 1971 – Swedish protest against the culling of Stockholm trees (the “Elm Conflict”)

Fifty-three years ago, on this day, May 12th, 1971, some trees in Stockholm became a focal point

 One Swedish political history was the Almstriden – “the Trees”, in 1971: street demonstrations against the Stockholm park, Kungsträdgarden. “Listen to the hu tree, you who make decisions at city hall and in the future you hear humming there”, the journalist’s words that echo Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A-changing”

Veckojournalen 18 may 1971

There’s a wikipedia page here.

And see also this from “Stockholm Art Walk”.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that this was four years into the Swedish “environmental turn” (Heidenblad), with the big conference on the environment due to happen in another year.

 What we learn is that there are these local flashpoint protests, which in and of themselves, seem insignificant but may have various consequences around radicalising some people (while also perhaps dismaying others so much that they steer clear of action). And these flash points may also reveal the fine words of politicians, just that just fine words.

What we learn is that there are lots of these little “brown m&ms” events where you can – if you want to – see that those in charge of things are not paying attention and not competent. Now, if you’re a rock star, getting on a stage and you’re worried that a spotlight will fall on you or someone else, then you’re highly incentivized to push the red stop button or pull the big lever that says stop. If however, you personally are less likely to suffer consequences, then it’s easier and safer to just go along… (and this is what was good in the neoconservative Robert Kagan’s article in November 2023 about the so called resistance to Trump; that people will make a calculation to avoid trouble and that for bad things to stop, people have to put aside their personal short-term interest and make a bigger longer decision “taking one for the team.”). 

What happened next? I think the tree got cut down. I think it didn’t matter in the cosmic scheme of things except to the tree but it’s a real brown m&m moment,

 and is also the end of Peddler and Davis BrainWrack, which should be worth mentioning. 

sidebar if you can produce all of this for something like all like yesterdays simply by going out and talking with a piece of paper, why can’t you use that exact same habit to get first drafts down have other bigger better things? There’s no reason why. So just get on with 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: 

May 12, 1989 – USA says it will, after all, support the idea of a #climate treaty

May 12, 1995 – Another bet between cornucopians and realists

Categories
Activism United States of America

May 1, 1971 – May Day anti-war actions in Washington DC

Fifty three years ago, on this day, May 1st, 1971, people came to Washington to throw their bodies on the gears of the machine, to stop the Vietnam War.

1971 May Day protests in Washington [Wikipedia]

See also

Mayday: The Case for Civil Disobedience
Noam Chomsky
The New York Review of Books, June 17, 1971

https://chomsky.info/19710617

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the war in Vietnam was continuing. And the war in Cambodia, the bombing, there had been years of marches, petitions, protests, and now they were trying civil disobedience, direct action in Washington DC itself. And I wonder what it was like to be there. So desperate, so exhausted, scared, determined, you name it.

What we learn is that this is written out of the official histories that the war in Vietnam stories tend to end with Kent State. And the ongoing resistance to the war, after Kent State, is kind of largely ignored. It doesn’t fit the narrative because you have to then speak of domestic violence by the state against citizens. Well, also the whole “Weather Underground” thing, blowing themselves in that Greenwich Village townhouse, didn’t really help, did it?

What happened next, Nixon won the 1972 election, which tells you a lot of what you need to know. And the war in Vietnam continued. The Americans left in 73. And my first television memory that I can date was the fall of Saigon in April of 1975. The tank crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace…

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.

See also

See also Oreskes and Conway, 2010 Page 176

See also this from Jacobin

https://jacobin.com/2021/05/may-day-1971-vietnam-war-nixon

Also on this day: 

May 1, 1980 – ABC talks about atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement

May 1, 1996 – US Congressman says climate research money is “money down a rat hole”

Categories
United States of America Weather modification

March 18, 1971 – “Weather modification took a macro-pathological turn”

Fifty two years ago, on this day, March 18th, 1971, a US investigative journalist digs up a weather modification scandal.

…in the jungles over North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.32 Under operation POPEYE, the Air Weather Service conducted secret cloud seeding operations to reduce traffic along portions of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Flying out of Udorn Air Base, Thailand without the knowledge of the Thai government or almost anyone else, but with the full and enthusiastic support of President Johnson,33 the AWS flew over 2,600 cloud seeding sorties and expended 47,000 silver iodide flares over a period of five years at an annual cost of approximately $3.6 million. 

In March 1971, nationally syndicated columnist Jack Anderson broke the story about Air Force rainmakers in Southeast Asia in the Washington post; several months later the Pentagon papers confirmed his information.

Jack Anderson, Washington Post (18 Mar 1971) Weather modification took a macro-pathological turn between 1967 and 1972 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the American military machine had spent the last seven years trying to defeat a bunch of peasants sorry, that’s unfair to the North Vietnamese. And it had bombed the crap and defoliated the crap out of Vietnam and killed so, so many people and they also tried lots of weather modification too.

What we can learn from this is that weather and climate studies have been surprisingly, always been intimately related to military needs, whether it is forecasting the weather for the D-Day landings in 1944, or all sorts of demented schemes to send hurricanes at the “bad guys”. See James Rodger Fleming’s 2010 book Fixing the Sky.  

What happens next 

Nixon pulled the American troops out in ‘73, the Communists took over in 75. Vietnam became, after an economically ropey interlude, a prosperous and enormous nation. People forget how many people live there now…

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: 

March 18, 1958 – Military man spots carbon dioxide problem

March 18, 1968 – Bobby Kennedy vs Gross National Product

March 18, 2010 – “Solar” by Ian McEwan released.

Categories
Sweden

March 13, 1971 – Club of Rome guy’s ethics are clubbed

Fifty three years ago, on this day, March 13th, 1971, one of the Club of Rome’s founders gets measured and found wanting…

“Most of these notes are to Alva’s husband, the economist Gunnar Myrdal. In the spring of 1971, Palmstierna wrote to Myrdal about the state of “the so-called future research”:

“ Dear Gunnar. Sending you a nasty sign of the times. Two gentlemen from this so-called Rome Club showed up at the Board of Research. They come from Boston, where they have established some kind of headquarters. One of them is called Peccei and is the vice president of Fiat. The moral standard is quite clear when you hear him, after two cocktails, say that it would be best if India were freed from people […] so that other people (white?) could take over. To his mind, accumulated DDT in Indians would be a great solution […]. Palme should never have let the rabble into the Board of Research. They represent a kind of sophisticated neofascism […].■. 

Palmstierna to Myrdal, 13 March 1971, Labour Movements Archives, Alva Myrdal’s  archive, vol.5: 066-2 Jenny Andersson Choosing Futures

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Club of Rome was getting a fair amount of attention for its reports and models. There had been a front page leak in the Observer about the Limits to Growth report, though I think it was called that yet. So the Club of Rome founder, the Italian Peccei, he was a big fish and was no doubt visiting Sweden in an attempt to drum up interest, Sweden being one of the well, originators of the “environmental turn” of the late 60s, and, of course, was about to be the host of the Stockholm conference. 

What we learn from this – shock horror, I hope you’re sitting down – is that some of the people in the Club of Rome had some pretty 19th century and all 18th century if you count the end of it, Malthusian views about how the world should be, oh, my goodness. 

What happened next? The Club of Rome’s first report was a huge success in terms of publicity, if not in impact on policymakers. Its second report less so. The Club of Rome still exists, churning out good reports, or reports, but has been joined by many other groups producing similar reports. And the emissions and concentrations keep 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.

Also on this day: 

March 13, 1989  – UK Energy Department shits all over everyone’s future by dissing Toronto Target

March 13, 1992 – Australian climate advocates try to get government to see sense… (fail, obvs).

 March 13, 2001 – Bush breaks election promise to regulate C02 emissions…

Categories
United Kingdom

February 24, 1971 – aims of the Department of the Environment

Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 24th, 1971, the aims of the then new United Kingdom “Department of the Environment” were laid out.

The aims of the Department included the renewal, improvement and protection of the environment. Its first priority, as defined in a speech by Walker on 24 February 1971, was to ensure the environment could be enjoyed by the population as a whole, especially those who lived in or experienced a bad environment at that time.772 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Department of Energy had been a Harold Wilson idea mooted in I think, late ‘69, early ‘70. There’d been a change of government thanks to the Tories unexpectedly winning the June 1970 election,, but the political and institutional momentum was behind the creation of a department for  environment.  

What we can learn is that it was in this period in the very early 1970s, that Western governments started to change the state apparatus to accommodate public and scientific concern about pollution. . So you’d get Departments of Environment in Australia and the UK and the same sort of thing in the United States. This is not to say that some of these issues hadn’t been tackled before. 

What happened next? 

Well, the Department of Environment kept on keeping on. It has changed name and shape over time – is currently called Defra.

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:

Feb 24 1994 – the death of Abbey Pond 

 February 24, 2003 – UK Energy White Paper kinda changes the game (a bit).

Categories
Denial United Kingdom

February 19, 1971 – Nature editorial on “The Great Greenhouse Scare”

Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 19th, 1971, John Maddox, ditor of the British Science Journal covers himself in glory on the topic of climate change.

19 Feb 1971 The Great Greenhouse Scare editorial by John Maddox NATURE VOL. 229 FEBRUARY 19 1971 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that more and more people were talking about carbon dioxide buildup. Maddox would presumably have known that there was going to be a Study of Man’s Impact on Climate in Sweden. He knew that the Alkali Inspectorate had come out with a report in the August of 1970. So this was another salvo and Maddox by this time was writing a book called The Doomsday Syndrome. 

What we can learn is that smart, elite, hardworking people can be fundamentally wrong. They can also dig their heels into the ground and keep being wrong, because the ego leads them to believe that they must be right. 

What happened next, Maddox published his book. As late as July 1988. Maddox was being a douche on the subject. See  “jumping the greenhouse gun.”  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.

Also on this day: 

 February 19, 2003 – “CCS to be studied by IPCC”

Feb 19, 2011 – defunding the IPCC