Thirty three years ago, on this day, August 2nd, 1991,
The Japanese float the idea of a “Pledge and Review” solution to the climate policy blockage.
Grubb, M and Steen, Nicola (1991) Pledge and Review Processes: Possible Components of a Climate Convention, Report of a Workshop held 2 August 1991, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the negotiations towards the text of a Treaty that could be signed at the June 1992 Rio Earth Summit were basically stalled (thanks primarily, but not entirely, to US intransigence). And so all sorts of log-jam breaking schemes were being proposed.
What we learn is that where we are now, we’ve been before (especially with this – see below).
What happened next. Pledge and Review was dismissed as something that simply would not deliver the required ambition, something that would allow bullshitting and loopholes. Then it was dusted off, twenty plus years later, and became the basis for the “Paris Agreement.” And it turns out it allows bullshitting and loopholes. Who knew?
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 three years ago, on this day, July 15th, 1991, the famed US scientist Roger Revelle died. Just before he died there was an article published (he’d been arm-twisted etc by that turd Fred Singer, whom he’d known for decades) which said climate change was nothing to worry about. This article was used as a denialist talking point for decades, as part of the confusion campaigns funded by Big Oil etc.
Revelle helped to establish that carbon levels in the atmosphere were steadily rising and also taught science to a young Al Gore in the 1960s. As Revelle wrote in 1992: “There is a good but by no means certain chance that the world’s average climate will become significantly warmer during the next century.”
Singer approached him off the back of this statement, asking if the two men could collaborate on an article for The Washington Post.
Conned at death
That night Revelle suffered a heart attack and was rushed from the airport to a local hospital for a triple-bypass, and was not discharged until May that year.
Singer nevertheless continued to press the scientist to work on a journal article. “Whenever Singer sent him a draft, Revelle buried it under piles of paper on his desk. When Singer called, [Revelle’s secretary] would dig up the draft and put it on the top, and Revelle would bury it again,” records American historian of Science at the University of Harvard professor, Naomi Oreskes, in her account of the episode.
“Some people don’t think Fred Singer is a very good scientist,” Revelle told his secretary.
Later that year Singer published his article, with Revelle named as second author, in the journal Cosmos. It stated boldly: “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.”
The words were copied and pasted from an earlier article published by Singer – and directly contradicted Revelle’s own publicly stated views.
Revelle died of a heart attack the following July. Family members, friends and students all claimed that Singer had pressured or tricked the dying scientist into signing off a journal article which presented an argument opposed to his own.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Revelle was old, had been sick for some years. He was a giant of all sorts of science. The one is probably most remembered for the climate stuff, but there was a lot of formidable oceanography work going on for decades.
Why this matters is that Fred Singer latched on to Revelle and got him to “co author” a piece that said CO2 wasn’t really a problem. He then used it as part of the denial war.
George Will wrote stupid column (I know, hold the front page). Revelle’s daughter pushed back. Then when Al Gore tried to set the record straight, some anchordroid – I want to say Tom Brokaw – tried to say that it was all part of the culture war.
What we learn is that slinging mud works.
What happened next? The grad student who had to bend recanted that. Singer is dead at last, thank goodness, but my goodness, the damage he did.
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-three years ago, on this day, June 8th, 1991, the UK Minister for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, went on a (futile) mission to the US to try to get them to be less of a blocker in the negotiations around the climate treaty that had to be agreed at the Rio Earth Summit of June 1992.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the climate negotiations were upon us in full flow. The UK had just adopted the stabilisation target at least. But it was clear that the administration of George HW Bush was digging in its heels and generally being douchey. Environment Minister Michael Heseltine was therefore dispatched to see what could be done.
What we learn from this is that even under John Major the UK was trying to be less terrible than the Bush outfit. And they’re always these behind the scenes games. It is actually one of those little incidents that would be nice to cover. Heseltine was fresh from challenging Margaret Thatcher for the leadership and precipitating her departure.
What happened next? The American anti climate clique went round spreading bullshit about Heseltine and there was actually very unusually a public rebuke of this. See questions in Parliament about the July 12th 1991 article in The Times. For all the good it did. And then less than a year later, the pantomime ended with the British dispatching another envoy, Michael Howard this time, to raise the white flag on behalf of the Europeans. Targets and timetables were dead. A Tale of Two envoys…
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 three/two years ago, on this day, May 7th, 1991 and 1992, the Australian leader of the opposition’s trajectory shows an early (and permanent) retreat by “conservative” parties on the biggest question of the twenty-first century. Such leadership!!
For those coming late to the party: through the 1970s and 1980s a few politicians, from Liberals, Nationals and Labor, had warned of climate problems. The issue “blew up” in 1988 and 1989. The Liberals went to the federal election of March 1990 with a more ambitious carbon dioxide reduction target than the ALP. Yes, you read that right, more ambitious.
But then, as we see below, the new Liberal Leader, John Hewson, changed his tune (meanwhile, Prime Minister Bob Hawke was toppled by Paul Keating, who had no love for environmentalists or environmental issues. Whatsoever). So, with that said, check out the two quotes, a year apart.
The environment could be a victim of the move to reform Federal-state relations, Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Phillip Toyne said in Canberra last week.
He said environment groups see the special Premiers’ conference on federalism as posing a threat to a national ecologically sustainable development strategy.
“We think that substantial erosion of progress in the regulation and control of environmental management could be taking place,” he said.
“Much of the work is at departmental level, with the chairs of all of the various working groups coming from state bureaucracies.”
On Tuesday [7th], Prime Minister Bob Hawke met with the ESD roundtable, the umbrella body that has a general oversight of the work of the ESD working groups. About 30 people were there, including representatives from the greens, industry, the states, welfare agencies and some federal ministers.
Toyne said later: “I thought that there were some rather glib comments on the progress of the exercise.”
“it is absolutely extraordinary that there has been almost no scrutiny of the process by the media, very little information has reached us, and yet it could be profoundly affecting not only the outcomes for ecologically sustainable development but also many other aspects of national policy.”
Anon, 1991. Environment “A Victim of Reform”. Green Week, May 14, p.5.
And exactly a year later…
And in 1992, Dr Hewson captured the full flavour of the initiative in a speech to the Australian Mining Industry Council annual dinner on May 7, 1992, when he described it as sustainable development with a capital D. This move is really an exercise in fast-tracking, with an absolute limit of 12 months on government processes of evaluation, failing which the project gets automatic go-ahead.
This is dangerous, based as it is on the assumption that red, black or green tape is simply frustrating developments, rather than complex issues being carefully evaluated. There is also a quite dishonest attempt to list a long list of stalled projects without acknowledging that many had not proceeded for commercial reasons.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
This is another one of those “What a difference a year makes” Pivotal, blah blah blahs.
The context is that in 1991 the ecologically sustainable development process was underway. Yes, the greenhouse issue wasn’t as sexy as it had been because people have gotten bored. And there’s also been the small matter of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iraq, Kuwait, and the military response. But it was still a “hot” issue. And there were concerns about things possibly being watered down. Fast forward to exactly a year later and the Liberals have given up on trying to get green votes. They are still feeling the “betrayal” of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
John Hewson, who had seen off Bob Hawke, and looked like he was going to defeat Paul Keating (because it was before the wedding cake gate), felt that he didn’t have to make the same green noises that people did a couple of years previously.
What we learn is that the mood music changes and that you can track it. And this was the time when, if there had been real leadership, we would have stuck to issues, but there wasn’t. So we didn’t. And here we are,
What happened next. The Liberals came to power in 1996, under John Howard, and dialled the indifference/hostility of the Keating gang up to 11. Or 12. And 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 three years ago, on this day, April 9th, 1991, ex Federal Treasurer Peter Walsh shows he is basically a demented thug.
The former Minister for Finance, Peter Walsh, attacked Australia’s major conservation groups yesterday saying he hoped Australia’s largest company, BHP, would use common law to bankrupt Greenpeace for interfering with seismic testing.
Senator Walsh said the major environmental groups were trying to subvert economic development — an objective they had pursued with some success.
Launching a book which emphasised market solutions to environmental problems, Senator Walsh said extreme elements of the conservation movement were more concerned with “destroying” industrial capitalism than protecting the environment.
“One wonders how long a country which is unquestionably some distance down the Argentinian road will continue to allow organisations like the Australian Conservation Foundation to subvert economic growth, and particularly the growth in the traded goods sector, to the extent that they do,” he said.
A long-time critic of the conservation movement, Senator Walsh fired a broadside at Greenpeace over its recent campaign to stop BHP’s oil exploration in Bass Strait. The organisation argued that the seismic tests would disturb whales which breed in the area.
He accused Greenpeace of hypocrisy in trying to stop oil exploration using petrol-powered rubber dinghies and a diesel-powered mother-ship.
“I hope that BHP sues Greenpeace under the common law and collects damages large enough to bankrupt the organisation.”
The book, Markets, Resources and theEnvironment, was produced by the Tasman Institute which Senator Walsh acknowledged many in the Labor Party considered “only marginally less obnoxious” than the League of Rights, or the Queensland National Party.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there were battles going on over the making of environmental policy. The Ecologically Sustainable Development process was unfolding. There were negotiations, that Australia was part of, for the UNFCCC at the Rio Earth Summit the following year.
Walsh was no longer in Parliament, and so was less constrained and was becoming the batshit crazy loon in public that he probably had been for a while. And he was hoping that mining giant BHP would beat up on Greenpeace. BHP was a bit more canny than that. Greenpeace was fat with new membership, (but it couldn’t keep them and would plummet. afterwards).
What happened next? Well, Walsh went on to be one of the founding members of the Lavoisier Group. Bless it.
What we can learn from this is that recently retired politicians have stood up resentments that they like to get off their chest, and it makes good newspaper copy. And they’re suffering from Relevance Deprivation Syndrome… So you get to see fireworks, at least for a while.
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 three years ago, on this day, February 22nd, 1991, a super-annuated physicist suffering Relevance Deprivation Syndrome, was boasting of his influence (probably fairly accurately, sad to say).
In a February 1991 letter to the vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, Robert Jastrow crowed , “It is generally considered in the scientific community that the Marshall report was responsible for the Administration’s opposition to carbon taxes and restrictions on fossil fuel consumption. Quoting New Scientist magazine, he reported that the Marshall Institute “is still the controlling influence in the White House.”
(Oreskes and Conway, 2010:190) [letter dated 22nd February]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.8ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that from 1989 the George C. Marshall Institute and the Global Climate Coalition had been leading a public assault on the science and scientists. They were winning some victories, undeniably. Jastrow was motivated to overplay the George C. Marshall Institute’s influence but then again, he was largely right.
What we learn is that past their sell-by-date, physicists, overconfident who backed the wrong horses (see Jastrow in 1978, banging on about another ice age) are still useful to those who would like to stop something happening. You borrow their prestige, you create the uncertainty and especially doubt in the public mind, and you just slow everything down. And that’s what happened here.
What happened next. Team Fuckwit won the crucial battles in 1991/1992. Targets and timetables were excluded from the UNFCCC text. And Team Fuckwit kept winning battles and made a lot of money for rich people who wanted to stay rich or get richer. And there you have 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.
Thirty two years ago, on this day, October 9, 1991, an Australian politics and economics commentator Ross Gittins is, well, Ross Gittins…
MY suspicion was right: the column I wrote a few weeks back about the greenhouse effect drew a sheaf of letters from readers. I write on lots of controversial subjects, but none sends the readers scurrying to their word-processors like a mention of the environment.
I argued that, since the greenhouse problem is global and Australia’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is tiny, there isn’t much we can do about it in the absence of an international agreement.
The letters were almost universally disapproving; some weren’t too polite about it. So are my views quite out of step with the Herald’s readers’? I doubt it. People who violently disagree with something they read in the paper are more inclined to put pen to paper than those who don’t.
Gittins, R. 1991. Thou shalt not stuff up the environment. Sydney Morning Herald, 9 October, p. 15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the green moment that hit the headlines in 1988 was fading, and fading fast – even though the problems were real and getting realer. Meanwhile, Gittins needing to fill a newspaper column and get a rise out of his readers, was on display here
What I think we can learn from this is that the conversation was never very sophisticated morally or intellectually and we’ve probably gone backwards thanks to dementia, reaction formations, organised denial, you name it.
What happened next
Gittins kept scribbling, people got to read him. The emissions kept climbing. 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 two years ago, on this day, July 22, 1991, the Australian radio program “The Science Show” (ABC Radio) had two climate denialists on. Oh joy.
(See Robyn Williams letter to The Australian, 1991, Dec 6, p.10).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Science Show had from its very beginnings been aware of the dangers of climate change. So Ritchie Caleer, who had been writing about the problem emphatically since the late 60s (and had been aware of it since the early 1950s), was a guest in 1975 on the first episode.
In 1991, the politics of it national of climate, internationally and nationally were getting hot. The negotiations for a climate treaty to be signed in June of 92 were going nowhere thanks to the resolute intransigence and blocking of the United States administration.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process was reaching its final stages, drafts were being written ahead of release within a couple of months. I don’t know if the Science Show had pro-climate action guests the week before the week after. But on this occasion, they had two idiots. One was Bill Nirenberg, one of the Jasons who you can read about in Merchants of Doubt. He had helped to write the 1983 NAS “changing climate” report, saying, “Oh, it’ll be long term and there’s nothing we can do anyway.” The other guest was Brian O’Brien, one of the more active climate deniers on the Australian scene. He was able to play on the fact that he had been the scientist for NASA, as if this somehow gave him expertise on climate science. O’Brian had written various screeds about climate policy, especially attacking the “Toronto Target”.
What I think we can learn from this is that even the best media has to allow dodgy people on because if you don’t, it is “censorship”. And especially 31 years ago, there was still need to “hear both sides of the argument.” And to be fair, I don’t know how Robyn Williams dealt with that at the time, maybe he did a very good job of sending a public health warning to listeners.
What happened next
The ecologically sustainable development process was killed off by new Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and his henchmen within the Australian Federal bureaucracy. The Rio Earth Summit, rubberstamped a piss-weak climate treaty, i.e. the Americans won. And in long term, everybody lost.
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.
Twenty seven years ago, on this day, May 13, 1991, a UK
“Britain’s last Secretary of State for Energy wrote in May 1991 that ‘the environment has to be a priority in shaping global resources plans’ and expressed official support for nuclear power as an insurance policy against global warming, also pleading for higher prices for fossil fuels”
Boehmer‐Christiansen (1995; 184)- citing Wakeham, J. 1991. Nurturing a greener policy for world energy. The Times, 13 May.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 358.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the United Kingdom was trying to paint itself as environmentally responsible both domestically and internationally, and also being a big fan of nuclear. So, nothing has changed.
What I think we can learn from this
The political games keep getting played. The players change often. The rules change slowly. Ultimately the game Remains the Same the losers future generations, other species.
What happened next
UK policy making on climate and energy remained pretty disconnected until the 2003 Energy White Paper and even then things have been seriously contested and a classic mess since then. The opportunities to invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy have been mostly missed, thanks to an ongoing obsession with nuclear power and generalised animosity towards the measures you would need to take to tackle climate change. This is hardly a surprise.
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 two years ago, on this day, January 10, 1991, the New York Times ran a story that has become very very familiar.
The earth was warmer in 1990 than in any other year since people began measuring the planet’s surface temperature, separate groups of climatologists in the United States and Britain said yesterday.
A third group, in the United States, reported record temperatures from one to six miles above the earth’s surface. These were recorded from balloons from December 1989 through November 1990.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was that the US had finally been forced to agree to take part in negotiations for a world climate treaty (what became, in June 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The denial and delay campaigns were kicking into gear (the so-called ‘Global Climate Coalition’ doing its predatory delay thing). Part of the context for the whole climate awakening was how warm the 1980s had been (mild by today’s standards, of course).
What I think we can learn from this
The “warmest year ever” meme does not, on its own, ‘wake up the sheeple’. If you want to have effective long-term action, you need effective long-term social movement organisations.
