Thirty five years ago, on this day, August 3, 1988, an Exxon PR flak is drafting bullshit about “THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT”, draft written by Joseph M. Carlson, an Exxon Public Affairs Managers.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was everyone had started to bang on about climate change. And so Exxon needed to go public. But going public and saying, “yeah, we’ve known about this for 10 years and we decided a while back that we were going to be obstructive” would not be particularly helpful. So instead, they tried to baffle people with bullshit and passive language and all the rest of it.
What I think we can learn from this
What we learn is that this is just how corporates behave unless forced to do otherwise.
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, July 26, 1988, the Australian Financial Review reported on what “the greenhouse effect” might do to the energy mix (it didn’t).
Environmental problems associated with the “greenhouse effect” could force the world to replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy – which would give Australia the opportunity to become the foremost uranium supplier, according to a leading petroleum industry expert.
Mr Bob Foster, general manager, external relations, for BHP Petroleum said last week: “Australia can lead the world on how to mitigate against the greenhouse effect.”
Sargent, S. 1988. Environment problems seen with fossil fuels. Australian Financial Review, 26 July.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone had started to talk about climate change. And the biggest Australian miner BHP was able to see dollar signs because it had lots of uranium and could envisage a turn to nuclear. The deeper context is that from the 1950s and 60s onwards, advocates of nuclear had been talking about it as a greenhouse solution. See, for example, Philip Abelson in 1968, New York Times 1969 Thatcher 1979 for a very small selection
What I think we can learn from this is that proponents of the nuclear dream (or nightmare, depending on your perspective) have been using all the arguments that they can for a long, long time.
What happened next
Nuclear power did not save the world. Nuclear power was never going to save the world,
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 editor of Nature, John Maddox kept going with his general harrumphing and ignorance of what the science was actually saying, with his “jumping the greenhouse gun” editorial. It drew responses from scientists Kenneth Hare and Kenneth Mellanby
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Maddox had been being aggressively wrong about climate change for a long time (1971 – on ABC television, for instance. And earlier.).
What I think we can learn from this
Old white men who have been in jobs a long time paint themselves into a corner and can’t find ways to back down gracefully, by saying the simple words “I was wrong.”
What happened next
Hare and Mellanby replied in Nature a couple of weeks later.
Also – for fans of obscure Meatloaf…
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, June 28, 1988, NGOs suggested deep deep cuts. Ha ha ha
Developed nations should commit themselves to a 50 per cent reduction in the use of fossil fuels by 2015 to slow and then stop the warming of the Earth, a group of non-governmental organizations said yesterday at a conference in Toronto on the atmosphere.
McInnes, C. 1988. Cut use of fossil fuels by half, group urges. The Globe and Mail, 29 June.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Changing Atmosphere conference was a mix of NGOs and scientists and the engineers were pushing for a very ambitious target, as this press release based report shows, a 50% reduction by 2015
What I think we can learn from this
It was the NGOs who knew what was needed and and were “Demanding The Impossible” or “the necessary,” as you might also look at it
What happened next
The actual target presented at the end of the conference was a watered-down compromise of 20% reduction by 2005. And this was adopted with caveats by various nations but did not succeed in the United Nations process. which called merely for stabilisation by the year 2000 of rich nations (which none met) – his was of course a farce and a betrayal
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, June 26, 1988, one of the major US networks goes all in on our doom…
“The Inside Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News for June 26, 1988 featured a very unusual eight-minute environmental story that led with the greenhouse effect, linking it to the high temperatures of the 1980s. The Goddard Institute’s David Rind and climatologist Thomas Karl warned of future warming and discussed the need to decrease the production of carbon dioxide.”
sorry – can’t lay hands on source right now!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the United States was suffering a prolonged drought with the Mississippi at its lowest level ever. Farmers’ crops destroyed and heat waves. On the 23rd James Hanson had given testimony and then made statements to journalists immediately after which had caused uproar.
It’s crucial to understand as per the Grant Swinger spoof that everybody knew about the greenhouse effect more or less because it had been spoken of intermittently for 20-years and especially in 1983, less than 5 years previously.
What I think we can learn from this
Eight minutes of news broadcast is enormous. Everybody knew. The problem is not one of knowledge; the problem is one of Power.
What happened next
The fossil fuel fans fought back. They started to flood the media with b******* knowing that balance was bias. They also successfully lobbied government to go slow on international negotiations. Thirty five years later here we are.
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, June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen gave his pivotal testimony to senators.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that since the 1985 Villach meeting advocates of climate action had been pressing every button and pulling every lever that they knew. Hansen had testified before and this testimony timed to sensitise journalists before the Toronto “Changing the Global Atmosphere” conference was held on a very hot day in Washington DC with the windows closed and the air conditioning turned off.
What I think we can learn from this
You have to say the same thing over and over and over again to get anywhere. You have to be lucky with your timing. And crucially James Hanson was a small c-conservative person at that point, so coming from him it was a big deal to say that the greenhouse effect was here. Those words would not have had the same effect from some other people…
What happened next
The issue exploded. Presidential candidates were forced to address it. Hansen got smeared and ignored and uninvited to important meetings. This continued until he retired. He’s been getting arrested a lot.
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, March 7 (or thereabouts) 1988 at a conference on Gaia running from 7 to 11 March…
Richard Gammon of the US government’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at Seattle in Washington state, seems to have been the first off the starting blocks. After seeing the complete data for 1987 and the first results for 1988, he told a conference in March 1988: “Since the mid-1970s we have been in a period of very, very rapid warming. We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.”
(Pearce, 1989:3)
[“The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference” in San Diego was from March 7 to 11.]
Rarely has a hypothesis immediately sparked such a passionate response. There is something in it for everybody, from hard core scientists to philosophers, ultraconservationists, students of world religions, mystics, politicians, and space enthusiasts; they were all there in San Diego, March 7–11, 1988, for the AGU Chapman Conference on Gaia Hypotheses. For 4 days an impressive list of specialists presented and debated the pros and cons of Gaia Hypotheses from diverse perspectives: modern and ancient biology, ecology, biochemistry, the physicochemical systems of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere, and the evolution of the solar system.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 352.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “earth systems” scientists were very interested in the Lovelock and Margulis Gaia theory, enough to have a conference about it. And from the October 1985 Villach meeting onwards, the scientists and politicians were all getting more interested in just how soon the signal would emerge from the noise on climate change…
What I think we can learn from this
James Hansen was not an outlier in his June 1988 testimony. Sure, there wasn’t necessarily a majority, but what Hansen said was not all that unusual or surprising (see Schneider’s Greenhouse Century for accounts of how journalists kept looking for quotes from him to try to set up a “Hansen/Schneider split” story.)
What happened next
Within months climate change would become unavoidable for politicians. No more long grass…
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, February 27, 1988, a conference about, well, Global Change, finished in Canberra.
1988 Australian Academy of Science (1988) Global change, Proceedings of the Elizabeth and Frederick White Research conference 24-27 February 1988.
[fill in, take photo of contents page]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Australian Academy of Science had been looking at climate change since a 1975-6 report (with a 1980 conference, and then another in 1987). Meanwhile, the problems of Amazonian deforestation, ozone, acid rain etc were all very much ‘in the news’.
What I think we can learn from this
Smart people will identify problems, in great detail, but, fearful of being labelled “political” are hesitant to name the names of the people, organisations, motives and processes that are perpetuating the problems, or talk about what would actually need to be done, beyond vague “change in legislation/change in mindsets” stuff. They bring an ethical knife to a power gunfight….
What happened next
More fine words. More emissions. And here we are.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Thirty-four years ago, on this day, January 1, 1988, US President Ronald Reagan
“reluctantly signs the Global Climate Protection Act” (Agrawala and Anderson, 1999: 459)
A climate bill had been introduced in the Senate in 1986 by Joe Biden, but died in the Senate. According to Politifact “a version of Biden’s legislation survived as an amendment (29th January 1987) to a State Department funding bill.”
The bill
Directs the President to establish a Task Force on the Global Climate to research, develop, and implement a coordinated national strategy on global climate. Requires such Task Force to transmit a United States Strategy on the Global Climate to the President within a year. Requires the President to then report to specified Members of Congress on such report.
Directs the President to appoint an ambassador at large to coordinate Federal efforts in multilateral activities relating to global warming.
Directs the Secretary of State to promote the early designation of an International Year of Global Climate Protection.
Urges the President to give climate protection high priority on the agenda of U.S.-Soviet relations.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 417ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There had been a pivotal meeting of scientists in Villach in October 1985 [see AOY post October 15, 1985 – Villach meeting supercharges greenhouse concerns...] It had been sponsored by WMO, UNEP and ICSU. After it, US Senators (both Republican and Democratic) had held hearings, including with Carl Sagan as a witness in December 1985 [see AOy postDecember 10, 1985 – Carl Sagan testified to US Senators on #climate danger]. Biden’s proposed legislation was one result, and was not exactly the first bite at this cherry – see George Brown on January 4 1977 (if you wait three days, you can learn about it on this very site).
What I think we can learn from this
That it’s hard work to get politicians to actually listen to scientists, but it can, eventually be done. That the narrative of “nobody knew anything/was doing anything until summer 1988” is so vacuous to be “not even wrong.”
That (see below) – liars will rewrite history to try to make their (senile-by-then) hero look good; this is the incumbent’s advantage – anything they were forced to do can later be retconned as part of their farsightedness/largesse. This #CreditClaiming is part of the erasure of history that keeps us perpetually confused and placated. So it goes…
What happened next
The climate issue finally exploded that summer. Four years of brinksmanship and incumbent bastardry followed, resulting in the too weak “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” in June 1992.
More recently, Reagan fanbois have tried to rewrite the history, of course; https://climateconservative dot org forward slash /americas-original-climate-hero/ (no, I am not going to link to those idiots).
For more on the Reagan administration versus everything environmental, see McCright and Dunlap (2010)
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Agrawala,S. and Andresen, S. (1999) Indispensability and Indefensibility? The United States in the Climate Treaty Negotiations. Global Governance, Vol. 5, No. 4 pp. 457-482
McCright, A. and Dunlap R. (2010). Anti-reflexivity. Theory, Culture & Society. Volume 27, Issue 2-3 https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764093560
On this day, December 14 in 1988 the New York TImes reports on joint Soviet/US committee
“The national science academies of the United States and the Soviet Union, warning that the earth’s ”ecological security” is now endangered, announced today the formation of a joint Committee on Global Ecology Concerns.
The new committee will identify and investigate threats to the global environment and report its conclusions, along with policy recommendations, to their Governments and to international organizations.”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 351ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
By the end of 1988 everyone was talking the greenhouse effect, everyone wanted to say that they were taking the matter seriously, this included the Soviet Union which of course would begin to collapse the following year.
Why this matters.
This one really doesn’t, this is for historical interest only if you’re a geek like me and if you are get help.
What happened next?
The Soviet Union collapsed, the United States muscled the negotiations for a global climate treaty and made sure that nothing serious would be done.
