Tag: 1985

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Germany International processes

 May 4, 1985 – world leaders promise to solve “climatic change”

Forty years ago, on this day, May 5th, 1985, the declaration at the end of the G7 meeting in Bonn (then capital of West Germany) included this gem,

11th G7 summit – Wikipedia

IV. Environmental Policies

12. New approaches and strengthened international co-operation are essential to anticipate and prevent damage to the environment, which knows no national frontiers. We shall co-operate in order to solve pressing environmental problems such as acid deposition and air pollution from motor vehicles and all other significant sources. We shall also address other concerns such as climatic change, the protection of the ozone layer and the management of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes. The protection of soils, fresh water and the sea, in particular of regional seas, must be strengthened.

13. We shall harness both the mechanisms of governmental vigilance and the disciplines of the market to solve environmental problems. We shall develop and apply the “polluter pays” principle more widely. Science and technology must contribute to reconciling environmental protection and economic growth.

14. Improved and internationally harmonized techniques of environmental measurement are essential. We invite the environmental experts of the Technology, Growth and Employment Working Group to consult with the appropriate international bodies about the most efficient ways for achieving progress in this field.

15. We welcome the contribution made by the Environment Ministers to closer international co-operation on environmental concerns. We shall focus our co-operation within existing international bodies, especially the OECD. We shall work with developing countries for the avoidance of environmental damage and disasters world-wide.

Bonn Economic Summit Declaration on Sustained Growth and Higher Employment | Ronald Reagan

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 346ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that carbon dioxide had first appeared on the G7 agenda in Tokyo, 1979. The following year (Venice) the G7 had promised to double coal burning. Go figure. Through the early 1980s though, more and more reports about what was coming came out, and some clearly managed to percolate up to the senior sherpas at these summits.

What I think we can learn from this

Information has not been our problem, for a very long time. Power was our problem, and will – inevitably – be the death of us (Hannah Arendt would say the question is not power but domination. I would point Hannah to her support for segregation and decline to listen to her maunderings on power. But that’s just me).

What happened next Five months later, in next-door Austria, scientists gathered in Villach. From there and then they started to run around pushing every button and pulling every lever they could.It still took until mid-1988, with an enormous drought in the US, for the issue to break through. Then the kayfabe properly started.

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 4, 1990 – coal industry sweats over greenie influence

May 4th, 2012 – The Heartland Institute tries the Unabomber smear. It, er, blows up in their face…

May 4, 2016 – South Australian Premier preening at Emissions Reduction Summit – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
France New Zealand

: July 10, 1985 – French state commits terrorist act

Thirty seven years ago, on this day, July 10, 1985 French secret service agents planted bombs that led to the sinking of the Greenpeace ship the “Rainbow Warrior”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 346.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the French state was getting pissed off with Greenpeace’s activities around nuclear testing in the Pacific, and thought it would be a good idea to treat a non-state actor like a state and go and blow up its assets. The death came from the photographer wanting to go back on board to get his cameras, against advice.

What I think we can learn from this, and certainly what I learned in 1985, when I was not quite an adult, is that states behave terribly, especially the intelligence services. And if they can’t win the argument, then they resort to, well, blowing shit up.

What happened next: The French intelligence service operatives got caught, sentenced to minimal jail time and then released. Greenpeace didn’t go away – you can judge the strength of an actor by the nature of its enemies, and the lengths to which it is willing to go.

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
International processes Norway

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

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, June 24, 1985, the question of climate change was brought to the development table (not for the first time).

The third meeting of the world commission on environment and development began in Oslo today with serious concern over acid rain and greenhouse effects, according to a report from oslo. The seven-day meeting started with two days of public hearings at which non-government organizations testify on marine mammal conservation, possible irreversibility of acid rain effect and greenhouse effect on other energy-related issues. Dr. Irving Mintzer from the World Resources Institute (WRI) reviewed greenhouse effect by which carbon dioxide in the atmosphere impedes the ability of the earth to radiate back into space the heat from the sun. He also warned that other gases like methane and chlorofluorocarbons may amplify the warming effect of carbon dioxide. As an effect of greenhouse, the sea level would rise 70 to 100 cms and cause coastal flooding and salt water intrusion into rivers and ground water reservoirs which would disrupt the life of 40 percent of the world’s population dwelling in coastal areas, mainly in Bangladesh, vietnam, Egypt, the Netherlands and the U.S. gulf coastal areas.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 348.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in 1983 the World Commission on Environment and Development had been set up kind of a sequel or extension of the Brandt report published in 1980 and is clear from this meeting that climate was already well on the agenda.

What I think we can learn from this is that it is now 40 years since international bureaucrats were joining the dots about specific problems that would be faced.

What happened next

The Brundtland report was released in 1987. It gained a lot of traction because the second Cold War was winding down and everybody needed something new to talk about. And the environmental problems were becoming very clear especially thanks to the Amazon deforestation and the Ozone hole… Climate would explode in mid-1988.

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 States of America

December 10, 1985 – Carl Sagan testified to US Senators on #climate danger

On this day, December 10 1985, scientist Carl Sagan testified in front of a US senate hearing. He explained the basic physics of carbon dioxide build up and its consequences

“I’d like to stress that the greenhouse effect makes life on Earth possible. If there were not a greenhouse effect, the temperature would, as I say, be 30 centigrade degrees or so colder. And that’s well below the freezing point of water everywhere on the planet. The oceans would be solid after a while.

“A little greenhouse effect is a good thing, but there is a delicate balance of these invisible gases, and too much or too little greenhouse effect can mean too high or too low a temperature. And here we are pouring enormous quantities of CO2 and these other gasses into the atmosphere every year, with hardly any concern about its long-term and global consequences.”

Handy transcript here – https://theanalysis.news/carl-sagan-testifying-before-congress-in-1985-on-climate-change/

“In the fall of 1985, the Senate held several hearings on the topic of global warming and climate change in response to the report of an international scientific conference held in Villach, Austria. These were the first hearings on climate change in the Senate since 1979. The House had held hearings on rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide under the guidance of Representative Albert Gore in 1981, 1982, and 1984. Senator David Durenberger observed presciently, in his opening statement to the December 1985 hearings on global warming, that `grappling with this problem [of climate change] is going to be just about as easy as nailing jello to the wall’ (SCEPW,1986a, p. 1).

(Pielke, 2000)

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 346ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

From the mid-1970s, scientists had been getting more certain of – and worried about – the impacts of dumping extraordinary amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. They had turned up in Villach, Austria, in September of 1985, for a meeting organised by WMO and UNEP. (see here – October 15, 1985 – Villach meeting supercharges greenhouse concerns…

https://allouryesterdays.info/2022/10/14/october-15-1985-villach-meeting-supercharges-greenhouse-concerns/)
They crunched numbers, thought about the non-C02 gases and gone “ooops” and started getting sympathetic politicians (and at this point, the Republicans had not yet gone totally insane).

.

Why this matters. 

Forty years we’ve known, really. Those that knew were outspent, outgunned, outmanoeuvred by frightened and frightening goons for the status quo. The\ goons have been the death of us.

What happened next?

The Reagan Administration did everything it could to stop being bounced into a carbon dioxide treaty the way it had been (in its perception) on ozone. With a great deal of very consequential success. We’re so doomed, I cannot begin to tell you.