Tag: 1974

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United Kingdom

November 20, 1974 – “The Weather Machine” is broadcast

Fifty years ago, on this day, November 20th, 1974,

On Wednesday evening, immediately following The Frost Interview, the BBC broadcast its much heralded, prestige extravaganza The Weather Machine (BBC2, November 20, 9.00 p.m.); the latest in a series of annual productions which began so successfully back in 1970 with Violent Universe. Excellently assisted by the studio commentary of Magnus Magnusson, the modulated narrative tones of Eric Porter and, more importantly, by the availability of a six figure budget, producer Alec Nisbett endeavoured to squeeze into 120 minutes of airspace the fruits of twelve months globetrotting 

Nature 22nd Nov 1974.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Nigel Calder son of Peter Ritchie-Calder had already produced a couple of very popular BBC specials, which were kind of tentpole things that the BBC were quite proud of. And now he was talking about the Weather Machine in the context of a lot of weird weather and competing theories, such as ice age, because of dust, heating, because of waste heat heating, because of carbon dioxide, and so forth. 

What we learn from a close reading of the files at the BBC Written Archive Centre, is that there was a hell of a hoo ha after this, because the Met Office’s John Mason in particular, was basically being a total ass. And Calder and the BBC felt they had to stand up for Calder. It all fizzled out after a couple of years. But it goes towards a further explanation of why Mason was so hostile to the carbon dioxide issue, even though it wasn’t what Calder was pushing. Mason was surely of the opinion “all these bloody amateurs should just leave it to the experts” ignoring, of course, the fact that lots of the people pushing carbon dioxide were more expert than him. But never let the facts get in the way of a good red mist. 

What we learn was that television programmes can cause mayhem. 

What happened next? Mason kept being a douche on climate issues for quite some time, with sadly, great effect, slowing down any UK consensus and activity. I do wonder what people like Herman Bondi thought of Mason over this issue. 

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: 

November 20, 1930 – the Fox is born!! 

November 20, 1973 – “Is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Disintegrating?”

November 20, 1974 – BBC airs “The Weather Machine”

November 20, 2008 – Green capitalism flexes a (weak) BICEP

Categories
Energy Science

October 18, 1974 – Weinberg’s “Global Effects of Man’s Production of Energy” published

Fifty years ago, on this day, October 18th, 1974,

Alvin Weinberg, ‘Global Effects of Man’s Production of Energy’, Science 186 (18 October 1974), 205. Weinberg wrote that the world might reach ‘climatological limits’ within 30–50 years. Noting the uncertainty surrounding the results so far, he called for two responses. ‘First, climatologists should recognize the profound implications of this question and do the basic research in global modelling … so that, say 20 years from now, we can base our energy policy on a much sounder understanding of this limit than we now possess’; and, second, since the ‘problem of global effects of energy production, like….’

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the United Nations Environment Programme had been going for a couple of years, since the Stockholm conference. Science had been publishing articles, Weinberg had been paying attention. The modelling conference had just finished in Sweden. Weinberg as a big fan of nuclear thought that this was another selling point for nuclear – that its carbon emissions were so much lower.

What we learn why it matters is that the pro nuclear gloss on climate mitigation has been around for a long time. Weinberg was a serious player. 

What happened next? Well, in 1979, Weinberg visited Australia and gave a speech which got reported in the Canberra Times and so forth. It explicitly mentioned nuclear as a climate solution. And again, that puts into context; what I thought was unusual in 1981 of the various Liberal and Country Party Senators talking about it was not that big a deal. People knew by the early 1980s, people knew who were paying any real attention.

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: 

 October 18, 1983 – All US news networks run “greenhouse effect” stories

October 18, 1983- US news networks tell the truth about #climate. Yes, 1983.

Categories
Science Scientists Sweden

August 10, 1974 – Stockholm conference on climate modelling ends

Fifty years ago, on this day, August 10th, 1974, the pivotal Stockholm conference on climate modelling, (29 July to 10 August) ended.

For more about this conference, see here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that after the 1972 Stockholm Environmental Conference the United Nations Environment Program had been set up, and there was money and interest sloshing around for computer modelling of climate. It was fairly crude by today’s standards, but, you know, baby steps. There was Bolin, Flohn and the others. And presumably, Olof Palme was being kept informed. Flohn certainly briefed Palme at some point. I think that year 

What we learn is that the scientific understanding of the build up of the consequences of the buildup of CO2 came along in leaps and bounds in the 70s. They’re only a couple of years away from “yellow danger light” as per Thomas Malone in July of 1977. Of course, the old beasts – Landsberg Charney and John Mason, were pooh poohing it all together. And Reid Bryson was angry that his dust theory was going tits up. But it was real, the emerging carbon consensus. That’s what we learned. 

What happened next. A meeting in Norwich the following year put the death to the cooling idea. The Energy and Climate report of the National Academy of Sciences came out in 1977. And then, of course, the First World Climate conference in 1979. And that’s the end really, of there being serious debate about the CO2 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: 

August 10, 1980 – “Energy, Climate and the Future” seminar in Melbourne

August 10, 2003 – a UK temperature record tumbles…

Categories
Australia

July 13, 1974 – Adelaide hears about carbon dioxide build-up

Fifty years ago, on this day, July 13th, 1974,

Btw, Hare had been present for Guy Callendar’s presentation at the Royal Meteorological Society in 1938

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is that scientists had been doing further study about CO2. It was definitely building up. No one disputes that. What impact that might have on our species as a whole remains to be seen. That’s not entirely surprising. 50 years ago, Kenneth Hare would cover this.

What we learn is that if you were paying any attention, you could see the threat coming. But then we’ve been paying attention since 1988, which is only two thirds of that time 50 years and we’ve done nothing. Actually, that’s not strictly accurate. We’ve made things worse.

What happened next? Every so often carbon dioxide would pop up as an issue in Australia. Further context is that there had been the 1972 Friends of the Earth seminar, the 1973 UNESCO-sponsored conference at Flinders University, and Senator Don Jessup had made his statements in Parliament. You know, it wasn’t unheard of…

What happened next; more news articles, more awareness, no action, 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.

Categories
Romania

June 24, 1974 – Conference on “Science and Technology for Human Development” opens in Bucharest

Fifty years ago, on this day, June 24th, 1974, smart people fret.

Conference on Science and Technology for Human Development, Bucharest, organised by World Council of Churches, 24 June-02 July 1974, 1973-1974

Scope and Contents The conference was organised to conclude the five-year ecumenical enquiry on ‘The Future of Man and Society in a World of Science-Based Technology’.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is that in the aftermath of the environment conference in Stockholm in June of 72, every man and their dog is holding conferences with words like science, technology, and environment. And here’s one in Bucharest, behind the Iron Curtain. 

What we learn is that there are fads and that people want to jump on bandwagons. I’m also being too cynical. If you’re bothered about the future of the species,in the mid-70s, you would be holding conferences with titles including the word science technology, environment. What else are you going to do?

What happened next. The 70s went on with stagflation and threats of internal reaction. There’s a mildly amusing blog post or Twitter thread or whatever I saw about Henry Kissinger changing Gerald Ford’s tune on IMF bailout for the UK because Kissinger foresaw the threat of internal revolution in the UK. 

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 24 1985 – Climate change rears its head at a development meeting…

June 24, 1986 – New Yorkers get to watch a documentary on “The Climate Crisis”

June 24, 2009 – Scottish Parliament passes insufficient climate legislation; claims ‘leadership’ anyway

Categories
United Kingdom

June 8, 1974 – People get together, in Coventry

Fifty years ago, on this day, June 8th, 1974, the party that became the Green Party was formed, You can read more about it at the superb Green History website, see for example here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that after Blueprint for Survival, published as a special issue of The Ecologist, there had been interest in creating a new political party to represent the “what was needed for survival” policies to enact the blueprint (though “party” is doing a lot of work there – many were more interested in a broader-than-party-politics movement. The organisation was called People, and it held its first conference in Coventry. You can read more about it here and here. It changed its name to the Ecology Party, and then later changed its name to the Green Party. 

What we learn from this is that environmentalists have understood the need for policy change and fairly early realised that it wasn’t going to happen in the mainstream parties. These would have decent individuals like Waylon Kennett, but the logic that the “grey parties” were wedded to was too, all encompassing. 

What happened next well, the Ecology Party stood candidates and had its first general election broadcast in 1979. And it has generally been a force for sanity. Not that people are particularly keen on listening to sanity. 

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 8, 1973 – Australian Treasury dismisses carbon dioxide build-up. Yes, 1973. 

June 8, 1973 – Australian Treasury forced to acknowledge carbon dioxide…

June 8, 1993 – Clinton defeated on his “BTU” tax.

June 8, 1997 – US oil and gas versus Kyoto Protocol, planet

Categories
Food United States of America

June 5, 1974 – “Food, the Next Crisis”

Fifty years ago, on this day, June 5th, 1974 we start to wonder about how food production might be affected…,

1 Stephen Schneider, “Food: The Next Crisis,” The National Observer (5 June 1974): p. 18. This article appears to have been the first time that Schneider mentioned publicly the idea of a “genesis strategy” to deal with the potential long-term effects of climate on the global food supply.

(Henderson 2014, Dilemmas of Reticence)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was some people were worrying about food running out as part of that Malthusian moment, and the Green Revolution hadn’t really kicked in. And past few years harvests had been weird, weird weather. Two months earlier Henry Kissinger had given his speech about the dangers of a change in the climate at the UN . And here’s Stephen Schneider talking about the impacts that changing climate will have. At this point, not everyone is entirely sure that the problem is going to be CO2 build up. That consensus doesn’t really start to firm up until ‘75 to ‘77. By ‘79, I think it’s fairly well accepted, except by a few idiots like Robert Jastrow and John Mason.

What we learn is that we’ve been worrying about where the food’s gonna come from, for a very long time. And it’s this sort of thing that we’ll have had Crispin Tickell pondering, ahead of his sabbatical at Harvard.

What happened next? There were more food and adaptation related issues. See The Great Adaptation: Climate, Capitalism and Catastrophe by Romain Felli for more details.

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 5, 1990 – The Australian Capital Territory adopts the “Toronto Target”

June 5, 1993 and 2011- let’s have a march for #climate… It will make us feel good.

June 5, 2002 – John Howard says Australia won’t ratify Kyoto Protocol

Categories
Coal United States of America

March 12, 1974 – Clean Coal advert in the Wall Street Journal

Fifty years ago, on this day, March 12th, 1974, there was some usual “green” propaganda in the business press.

March 1974 “Clean coal” advert in Wall Street Journal

http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/422541/1974-03-12-sco-wsj-cleaning-coal.pdf

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 there was an energy crisis going on. And therefore, more coal was in the offing (see President Nixon’s “Project Independence”) but that would come with serious acid rain issues because of all the sulphur. And therefore the people flogging it wanted to be able to say that they were taking measures to fix that, were responsible corporate citizens, et cetera, et cetera. Now this is a good decade before the term “greenwashing” was invented, but the idea was well and truly in place and had been for a long time. 

What we can learn from this is that long before the climate issue became salient, coal companies were very good at painting themselves as responsible and green.

What happened next? Clean Coal battles continued. Eventually in 1990. George HW Bush, under pressure from the Canadians, and some domestic interests, signed into law, a Clean Air Act 1990. That gave us the enthusiasm for carbon trading. 

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 12, 1963 – first scientific meeting about C02 build-up

March 12, 1963 – first ever carbon dioxide build-up conference

Categories
Australia Renewable energy

February 23, 1974 – CSIRO Solar energy conference

Fifty years ago, on this day, February 23rd, 1974, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) held a solar power conference.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia had been experimenting with wind and solar power for a few decades. Certainly wind turbines were used to pump water. And we could have used that expertise and all of the sun and all of the space and wind to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. In an alternative universe where we weren’t such stupid murder apes, we would have done that. But here we are.

What we learn is that people have been banging on about renewables for a long, long time. And see also Mark Diesendorf’s entirely plausible claim that coal interests undermined the CSIRO renewables research from the 1970s onwards.

What happened next? The solar energy people kept trying to get things to work. But it was another 40 years before shit got real. 

See also

https://publications.csiro.au/publications/publication/PIlegacy:402

Roger N. Morse, 1977. Solar Energy in Australia. Ambio, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 209-215 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4312278

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 23, 2009 Penny Wong flubs the CSPR… The CPSR..  THE PCRS. Oh, hell. #auspol

February 23, 1977 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about carbon dioxide build-up. 

Categories
United Nations United States of America

April 15, 1974 – war criminal Henry Kissinger gives climate danger speech

Forty nine years ago, on this day, April 15, 1974, war criminal, sorry “Secretary of State” Henry Kissinger gave a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. It used a security frame around climate change (which at that stage was not ascribed just (or even at all) to carbon dioxide build-up – plain old dust was also seen as a culprit).

 Kissinger Speech at 1974, the sixth special session of the General Assembly (which called on WMO to undertake a study of climate change). “The poorest nations, already beset by man-made disasters, have been threatened by a natural one: the possibility of climatic changes in the monsoon belt and perhaps throughout the world.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The US had been trying to use environmental concerns as a way of distracting from or re-dressing (but not redressing) concerns about its military activities (a euphemism for napalming babies).  So, Nixon had tried to get NATO to look at environmental problems – see Hamblin’s book “Arming Mother Nature.”.

And here we still were, with Nixon mired in the Watergate scandal that would force his resignation within months, with Kissinger trying a different angle.

What I think we can learn from this

“Climate change” was, is and will be a political football. That does not mean it is not real and very deadly.

What happened next

One amusing outcome was that Kissinger’s speech was used as ammunition by Nugget Coombs, Australian civil servant (retired by this stage) to get the Whitlam Government to request the Australian Academy of Science to look into the issue.  The AAS did this – holding a conference of experts, including Hermann Flohn.

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.