Thirty six years ago, on this day, February 8th, 1988 there was a documentary about “the greenhouse effect”, a good seven months before Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher did her u-turn and Big Speech at the Royal Society.
This documentary report by Horizon examines the devastating effects of the Greenhouse Effect (earth’s temperature rising) and how man is causing it.
S1988E06 The Greenhouse Effect
February 8, 1988 BBC Two
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that more and more people were getting wise to the climate issue. It was popping up in the media in scientific journals, et cetera. Etc. And it was exactly the kind of issue that prestige BBC documentary television needed to be making.
What we can learn from this is that Thatcher’s remarkable speech in September 27, 1988 looks less and less like prescient or like leadership, and more and more like scrambling to catch up ground that was getting away from her.
What happened next? In June of ‘88, American scientist James Hansen gave his famous testimony and the conference in Toronto, the changing climate happened. And the policy window properly opened.
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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, December 25, 1988 Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands came out swinging, contradicting what she had had to say three months earlier…
“Together with the publication of the report ‘Concern for Tomorrow’ (Netherlands Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection), the Queen’s 1988 Christmas speech represents a watershed moment for sustainable environmental policy in the Netherlands. Queen Beatrix observed that ‘the earth is slowly dying and the inconceivable – the end of life itself – is becoming conceivable’. Her speech, devoted almost entirely to problems of environmental deterioration, was in open disagreement with her earlier address to Parliament in Sept. 1988. The latter speech, written by the Dutch Council of Ministers, stated that recently ‘the country has become cleaner. This applies in particular to water and air: E. Tellegen, ‘The Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan’ (1989) 4(4)” The Netherlands Journal of Housing and Environmental Research, pp. 337–45, at 337.
van Zeben 2015, p.340 (footnote 1)
“We human beings have become a threat to the planet”
Greenpeace Global Warming Report 1990, p.113, apparently
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was in the same way that Australia would sit up and take notice about the ozone hole and skin cancer, Dutch people would sit up and take notice about sea-level rise. But what’s interesting is that the Queen here explicitly went against what the government had forced her to say at the opening of Parliament 3 months earlier – that basically everything was fine and hunky dory. Her statement had a bit of a bombshell impact, at least in the Netherlands.
What I think we can learn from this
That some royals were willing to come out and call it like it actually is.
What happened next
Dutch academics came up with Transition Management which was basically “let’s get everyone in a room hold hands and then Shell and other big actors can basically take over the process, empty it of all meaning and threat to the incumbency, and then we’ll have to scratch our heads and pretend to do some soul-searching about the role of academia and academics within advanced capitalist States, but we won’t – we will just keep going with the same bullshit because nobody has any other idea, or if they do they don’t know how to implement 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..
References
van Zeben, J .(2015) Establishing a Governmental Duty of Care for Climate Change Mitigation: Will Urgenda Turn the Tide? Transnational Environmental Law, 4:2, pp. 339–357 doi:10.1017/S2047102515000199
Thirty five years ago, on this day, December 19, 1988, celebrities get on board an Ark, for a star-studded launch…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was this exuberant ex-Greenpeace director (who had been a Daily Mirror hack) and had written in the early 70s about environmental depletion. He had gotten some money to put together a big manifesto. They had celebrities on board and it was going to be all-singing all-dancing. There were going to be little Arks, it was going to combine the business end, the social movement end the celebrity end – all singing all dancing all of the time.
And it did not come to pass
What I think we can learn from this
People get high on their own supply. People get drunk thinking that what needs to happen will therefore happen because it needs to happen. But that’s circular and it doesn’t reflect reality. But then reality is no fun.
What happened next
By July 1989 Ark had collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.
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..
Thirty five years ago, on this day, November 29, 1988, Australian members of parliament have a grip and grin photo opportunity to show how much They Care about the greenhouse issue. See this from the Canberra Times.
Parliamentarians of all political persuasions were encouraged to test the Wets and the Dries yesterday. But in this case the Wets and Dries were more in the realm of science than politics.
The Wets and Dries Testing Unit forms part of a display on climatic change held at Parliament House by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and opened yesterday by the Minister for Science, Barry Jones.
The display covers climate change and greenhouse-effect research being carried out by the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian National University as well as the Commission for the Future.
Mr Jones encouraged his colleagues to take a hands-on approach to the equipment the better to understand Australia’s field work.
He said that if Australia were to deal effectively with potential problems resulting from the greenhouse effect it would have to work carefully with all international bodies. Australia should also work closely with neighbouring regions such as the Pacific Islands, which faced annihilation if nothing were done.”
Wednesday 30 November 1988 Canberra Times page 22
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a few days after Bob Hawke had opened the Science Centre, here was his science Minister Barry Jones trying to get politicians from both Labor and Liberals and Nationals to have “hands-on experience” of climate change at an event in Canberra. In 1988 everyone was running around being concerned about climate (we called it ‘the Greenhouse Effect’ back then), or saying they were.
What I think we can learn from this
This sort of photo op jamboree serves multiple purposes. You can tell when you organise these things who turns up and who doesn’t, who sends her apologies, who doesn’t bother how engaged they are. Those turning up will want to get their photo in the newspaper, so that they can say to concerned constituents or “Yes, I recently attended X.”
Journalists get cheap/reliable copy. Everyone’s a winner!
What happened next
The follow-on to the Greenhouse Project didn’t get funded. And so a separate entity Greenhouse Action Australia had to be founded. Jones lost his ministerial seat in factional infighting in 1990. And these sorts of jamborees became less doable after 1990, because it’s old news and because Liberals decided that they didn’t really want to try to capture green votes having failed to do so in 1990. Back to the betrayal, myth, Dolchstoss 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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, November 23, 1988, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke gives a speech to open the “National Science and Technology Centre
The Government has also shown it is prepared to coordinate research in new and emerging areas of inquiry, such as our recently announced studies into the Greenhouse effect. Just two weeks ago Australia was elected to vice Chairmanship of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change set up by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organisation. This gives Australia a leading position in the panel activities which are seen as a prime focus for world activity on the Greenhouse effect.
(Compare Thatcher at Hadley in 1990)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that if there hadn’t been all the concern about greenhouse and Greenhouse 88, and all the rest of it, it wouldn’t really have been something that Hawke would have bothered with perhaps so much, or certainly wouldn’t have been covered. But we were at peak global warming interest in 88, 89 and into 1990.
What I think we can learn from this is politicians will turn up to the opening of an envelope. If everything is going to be easy for them and they’re not likely to get heckled. See also, Thatcher opening the Hadley Centre in May 1990.
What happened next
Hawke needed small g-green votes to win the March 1990 election. The Liberals felt betrayed and have maintained their suspicion/loathing of “greenies” pretty much ever since.
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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, November 9, 1988, the director of the United Nations Environment Program, the Egyptian scientist Mostafa Tolba, gave a stark opening address at the first meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Tolba, M.: 1988, ‘Warming: Warning’, Opening Speech at the First Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, November 9.
Oreskes and Conway 2010, page 184
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the IPCC had been set up after negotiations, especially with the Americans. They wanted an intergovernmental panel that was frankly dependent, because they didn’t want to get “bounced” in the way they perceived they had been over the question of Ozone, by Bob Watson and his ilk (including Tolba).
What I think we can learn from this is that the institutional settings the terms of reference, who’s going to fund what, who’s going to deliver what and how matter.
What happened next
The IPCC delivered its first assessment report in 1990. Was attacked (see Ted Benton in the Greening of Machiavelli anecdote about Sundsvall).
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.
On this day in 1988 the Canberra Times ran a cartoon by Geoff Pryor nailed the Australian response to “the Greenhouse Effect” (and is still tolerably accurate today, 35 years later)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351,7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had just been the “Greenhouse 88” conference in all capital cities and Darwin. Everyone was grappling with “what is to be done?” The coal industry was sitting tight, thinking it was all a fad that would blow ever…
What we learn is that we have learnt nothing.
What happened next? Ideas for a carbon price and extra funding on energy efficiency and renewable energy were defeated. The coal export and LNG export infrastructure were radically expanded, and a small number of people got very very rich. Pryor kept drawing for the Canberra Times until 2008, and then did some more drawing for the Saturday Paper.
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.
There used to be a trade journal called “Australian Journal of Mining”. Anthropologically it was quite interesting. Among all the stuff about, well, mining – new machines, the Perils of Regulation, etc (standard trade journal fare) – there was also the occasional “Know Your Enemy” thing – including hit jobs on Bob Brown (“The Paid Piper”), Deep Ecology as Fascism (Fascism being anything that might affect profits, obviously) and this from November 1988. The timing is telling – in that month there was a huge conference, linked by television satellite hook-ups (then relatively new) held in all Australian state capitals and also Darwin. It was called “Greenhouse 88” (there’s a post about it coming up).
The AJM were having none of this particular greenie scare about carbon dioxide, which was clearly not only harmless, but was probably GOOD for you…
Thirty five years ago, on this day, September 27, 1988, the USSR’s Foreign Minister gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
“Other prominent politicians also made important statements. Eduard Schevardnadze, then Soviet Foreign Minister, made a stronger speech to the UNGA on 27 September 1988, where he proposed that UNEP should be transformed into ‘an environmental council capable of taking effective decisions to ensure ecological security’.”
Page 35 Paterson, M (1996)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. and
The context was that everyone was talking about climate – it was “one of those moments.” And the issue was still fresh. What shevardnadze was proposing was simply what had been proposed in 1972 for a stronger UNEP rather than a small research and cajoling outfit. It was defeated in 1972, and ignored in 1988. And here we are.
What I think we can learn from this is that the necessary institutions are unlikely to come into existence without out and much bigger bottom-up effort. But it’s hard for the bottom-up people to campaign for a “big institution “which will be faithless and which will treat them like dirt.
What happened next
UNEP stayed small and the United States contained and controlled the treaty process.
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
On this day, 35 years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the pivotal “Changing Atmosphere” conference in Toronto, a meeting of the Australian government’s Federal Cabinet calls for a report on what can be done.
But it did lead to THIS report, in April of the following year
NB Thanks to Senator Rex Patrick for the tweet about this, and to Sally who can’t wander who alerted to me to it.
The context
The spooks at the Office of National Assessments had produced a report for Cabinet about the Greenhouse Effect, back in 1981, but it’s not clear it was ever discussed or seen by Fraser/Howard/Peackock etc. Through the 1980s, climate scientists got more certain – and more vocal – about the threat. Hawke’s science minister Barry Jones had LONG been aware of the climate problem. Jones had managed to get funding for a “Commission for the Future” (something New Zealand had had already, and the Swedes had done too in the early 1970s).
“The Commission’s chair, Phillip Adams, recalls that problems such as nuclear war, genetic modification, artificial intelligence, were all proposed. Finally, though:
…the last bloke to talk was right at the far end of the table. Very quiet gentleman… He said, ‘You’re all wrong – it’s the dial in my laboratory, and the laboratories of my colleagues around the world.’ He said, ‘Every day, we see the needle going up, because of what we call the greenhouse effect.‘
The first big project that the Commission for the Future did – in combination with the CSIRO – was “The Greenhouse Project”, with Australian scientists Graeme Pearman and Barrie Pittock neck deep.
The Greenhouse Project had launched in September 1987. There was a big scientific conference a couple of months later. The Toronto conference (which Pearman attended) was in June, by which time preparations were already well underway for a series of public meetings, linked by satellite, to happen in the capital cities of every state, in November 1988 (Greenhouse 88).
What we can learn
We knew enough to act. The pushback from industry and denialists began in 1989, and was successful in scuppering what might have been a half-decent response. And here we are.
What happened next
A detailed report was tabled to Cabinet the following April. It makes frankly horrifying reading. In May 1989 the Federal Environment Minister tried to get the Cabinet to agree to a target of a 20% reduction in emissions by 2005. He was blocked by Paul Keating, Treasurer.
Eventually, just before the Second World Climate Conference, the Australian Cabinet DID accept a version of the “Toronto Target” but with so many caveats as to make it pointless. And Keating, still in Cabinet, extracted an agreement that the Productivity Commission would produce a report.
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.
