Tag: 1974

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.

Categories
United Kingdom

January 9, 1974  –   The UK sets up a “Department of Energy”

Fifty years ago, on this day, January 9, 1973, British Prime Minister Ted Heath sets up a Department of Energy.

On December 13th 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath announced a 3-day working week to ration electricity use. Parliament was recalled on January 9th 1974 to hear that a new Department of Energy was being set up to co-ordinate the government’s response. However, the crisis brought down the government the following month. The incoming Labour government, under Harold Wilson, settled the miners dispute, and the new Energy Secretary, Eric Varley, ended the 3-day week on March 7th 1974.  Mallaburn & Nick Eyre (2014)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .

The context was that what was to be the first of two “oil shocks” had begun in late 1973, with oil prices basically quadrupling in a very short period of time, after Middle-East oil extractors (they’re not ‘producers’!) imposed an embargo thanks to Western support for Israel in the ‘Yom Kippur’ War.

The “environment” had been considered important enough to have its own Department in 1970, and now it was the turn of “energy”.

What I think we can learn from this

When governments set up new departments, it can be a serious and long-lasting move, or it can be, well, the appearance of action. Even if they set it up for appearance sake, sometimes it creates new opportunities for an inconvenient rash of sanity to break out

What happened next

The oil price hike saw the end of the so-called thirty glorious years of “unproblematic” (ha ha) economic growth, followed by stagflation, all sorts of difficulties, the collapse of the Keynesian consensus.  And then, in the late 1970s, the coming of Thatcher and then 18 months later, of Reagan… as celebrated (? mourned?) in the REM song Ignoreland, of which more later.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

References and See Also

Is The UK Heading For 1970s-Style Organised Blackouts?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-organised-blackouts-energy-gas-crisis-winter_uk_62f28115e4b0f9d8c020eb49

Categories
United Kingdom

December 9, 1974 – UK Department of Energy launches “energy efficiency” programme

On this day, December 9 in 1974, in the United Kingdom

“The Department of Energy launched a new energy efficiency programme on December 9th 1974, timed to reduce winter fuel use, but also anticipating a review by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee (Patterson 1978; Anderson 1993)”

Mallaburn and Eyre, 2014

We have been at this “Energy Efficiency” thing (whether to save money or ‘save the planet’) for a long long time, with not all that much to show for it, once you take Jevons Paradox into account.  Oh well.

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 330ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

The first Oil Shock was shocking people and governments into “action” (or, at least, hand-wringing)

Why this matters. 

Energy efficiency – always the bridesmaid…

What happened next?

Stagflation, a second shock, neoliberalism and a collapse in the oil price – bye-bye renewables!!!  See you in another 30 years or so…

Categories
Ignored Warnings Sweden

November 29, 1974 – Swedish Prime Minister says “risk of a changed climate due to human activities … [is] of utter importance”

November 28, 1974  Olof Palme tells Sweden “The risk of a changed climate… is of utmost importance.”

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, in a newspaper interview, nails the big long-term threat.

“Three months after the conference, the momentum concerning the threat of climate change seems to have led Olof Palme to speak out on the issue. In an article structured as a duel, Palme and the leader of the Conservative Party (Moderaterna), Gösta Bohman, talked about their vision of Sweden in 2000. Palme was asked which threat concerned him the most and answered: ‘The risk of a changed climate due to human activities … To me, this question seems of utter importance.’”

Tom Selander, ‘Partiledare om Sverige år 2000’, SvD 29 Nov. 1974, 

Source – Ekberg and Hultman 2021

Six months earlier Palme had been briefed on the issue by German climate scientist Hermann Flohn.

Why this matters.

Uggh.  We knew.  And surely other politicians could have spoken out, could have taken notice.  Presumably some did… 

What happened next?

Palme was assassinated in 1986

Categories
United Kingdom

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

On this day, November 20, 1974, the BBC showed a documentary “The Weather Machine”, which makes glancing and largely dismissive mention of carbon dioxide build-up as a cause of the changing weather patterns by then being studied more intently…

“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 November1974

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 330ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – from the early 1970s, a series of extreme weather events made the weather, well, newsworthy….

Why this matters. 

We should be fair to folks back then- there was a lot of different data and arguments out there. With hindsight it is “obvious” that carbon dioxide was definitely the culprit. Hindsight is famously 20/20…

What happened next?

Through the 1970s climate scientists became more and more convinced of what was going on, what was coming – sooner or later.  They tried to raise the alarm…