Tag: 2003

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United States of America

August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant

Twenty years ago, on this day, August 28, 2003, the Environmental Persecution Agency says “protecting the environment is not our remit. Now go away” (I paraphrase, but only lightly).

2003 August 28, 2003: EPA Rules that Carbon Dioxide is Not a Pollutant

The Environmental Protection Agency rules that carbon dioxide, the leading cause of global warming, cannot be regulated as a pollutant. EPA General Counsel Robert Fabricant writes in his 12-page decision, “Because the [Clean Air Act] does not authorize regulation to address climate change, it follows that [carbon dioxide] and other [greenhouse gases], as such, are not air pollutants.” His ruling reverses the position taken by the Clinton administration in 1998. Eron Shosteck, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, is pleased with the decision. “Why would you regulate a pollutant that is an inert gas that is vital to plant photosynthesis and that people exhale when they breathe? That’s not a pollutant,” he says. Melissa Carey, a climate policy specialist for Environmental Defense, disagrees. “Refusing to call greenhouse-gas emissions a pollutant is like refusing to say that smoking causes lung cancer. The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening.” [Knight Ridder, 8/29/2003]

https://www.epa.gov/archive/epapages/newsroom_archive/newsreleases/694c8f3b7c16ff6085256d900065fdad.html

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

The context was that in September 2000, on the campaign trail George Bush had said that carbon dioxide emissions would be regulated. He then pulled the US out of Kyoto Protocol negotiations, and started talking about technology and technological fixes such as carbon capture and storage.

The EPA which had been created under President Nixon was supposed to have responsibility for pollutants so arguing carbon dioxide was not a pollutant was a good way of denying any responsibility which is what you would expect from a Bush Appointee.

What I think we can learn from this is that the Republican war against science and against the environment has changed shape in the 80s. Then it was naked and gleeful, but they learnt that that was costly and provoked their enemies. So instead they turned to this sort of stunt of tying their own hands so that they did not have a legal obligation to take action.

What happened next

Various state governments sued. The EPA it went to the Supreme Court. And in 2007 Supreme Court decided that carbon dioxide was indeed a pollutant…

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
biodiversity

August 26, 2003 – Australian “plan” to save biodiversity

Twenty years ago, on this day, August 26, 2003, another “announceable” plan was launched. People who want to believe it can. Those who don’t can be dismissed as malcontents and trouble-makers…

Kemp Acts to Protect Australia’s Biodiversity from Climate Change – 26 August 2003

Federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Dr David Kemp, today announced a new nationwide strategic approach to protect Australia’s biodiversity from the impacts of climate change.

“The Australian Government, together with the States and Territories, is developing a National Biodiversity and Climate Change Action Plan,” Dr Kemp said.

“Together we have appointed an all-governments task force to work on the Plan as a matter of urgency. Their first step is an Australia-wide consultation process which will kick off in early September, with the draft Plan to be submitted to the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council in April next year.

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

The context was that the Howard government by this stage had ruled out an emissions trading scheme (twice), it had also ruled out Kyoto ratification. So its one green pretend thing was a biodiversity strategy – nevermind that 20 years previously a National Conservation Strategy for Australia had been created. At least this would create working groups and workshops and task forces and interim reports and draft reports and press releases which would keep everyone occupied while the planet was being turned into a denuded barren wasteland of s***.

What I think we can learn from this

That when they are needing to gild the turd governments will announce the creation of new strategies/task forces/workshops etc and this will seduce enough willingly-ignorant or just plain thick and naive people as a substitute for doing anything. Works every time.

What happened next

I don’t know. Did such a strategy get created? I haven’t bothered to look. Doesn’t matter, because the natural world is getting turned to a crisp by us. What a species we are.

UPDATE – A strategy did get created. You can read it here. Thanks to Georgina on Twitter for the link.

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

Categories
United Kingdom

August 10, 2003 – a UK temperature record tumbles…

Twenty years ago, on this day, August 10, 2003, the UK recorded its highest temperature.

2003 – The highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom – 38.5 °C (101.3 °F) in Kent, England. It is the first time the United Kingdom has recorded a temperature over 100 °F (38 °C). We had been warned, 

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

The context was the UK heatwave and the European heatwave has proved then record 1000s of people are dying in Paris and hundreds more than you’d expect for that that time of year die in the UK. These are the sorts of events that are totally in line with what the climate models suggest. And yet, after some hand-wringing, we go back to sleep.

What I think we can learn from this is that extreme weather events don’t cause people to suddenly “wake up,” that people like the proverbial underlined frog, will sit in the saucepan, especially if we’re tied down.

What happened next

In 2022 another temperature record tumbled, with temperatures of over 40 degrees recorded. But it’s all just natural variations. Of course, it is, 

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
Australia Denial

August 7, 2003 – John Howard meets with business buddies to kill climate action

Twenty years ago, on this day, August 7, 2003, Australian Prime Minister John Howard was up to his old climate-trashing tricks.

Howard meets with Sam Walsh and Brian Harwood and others in Sydney to scupper an emissions trading scheme that Costello etc were putting forward.. How do we know? It’s in the leaked minutes of the LETAG group…

What do I mean? The “Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group” (LETAG) that he’d set up. He called a meeting in May 2004 asking for oil company help in killing off the renewables he had been forced to accept as part of the energy mix…

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

The context was that John Howard was under pressure to say yes to a national emissions trading scheme. One had been defeated in 2000, thanks to his henchman Nick Minchin, but this time the whole Cabinet – the Treasurer, the Foreign Affairs, the Environment guy etc were all united in agreeing that Australia should have a national emissions trading scheme. Howard didn’t want it, so he delayed the decision by a month. He then consulted with a couple of his mates, stiffened his spine, came back and afterwards and said “no.” And was able to do it, though the action was then pilloried and used by Labour in 2006-7, to show just how anti climate action Howard had been. 

By the way, we know about this meeting, but not from its memoirs or anyone else’s. But because the information is contained in the minutes of a meeting of the Low Emissions Technology Advisory Group. The minutes were not usually released, but these were leaked. And they were leaked, because at a later meeting in 2004, Howard was pleading with big business to help him smash renewables. Yes, you read that right. 

What I think we can learn from this

There is a jail cell with John Howard’s name on it at the Hague.

What happened next

Howard ruled until November 2007. And over his 11 years caused enormous damage to Australia, not just on climate policy (though obviously that’s a biggie).

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
Denial United States of America

July 28, 2003 – James Inhofe shares his genius

Twenty years ago, on this day, July 28, 2003, in a  US Senate speech, James Inhofe stated, 

“I have offered compelling evidence that catastrophic global warming is a hoax. That conclusion is supported by the painstaking work of the nation’s top climate scientists.” He cited as support for this the 1992 Heidelberg Appeal and the 1999 Oregon Petition, as well the opinions of individual scientists that he named including John Christy, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen, Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. In his speech, Inhofe also discussed the then current Soon and Baliunas controversy, and said that “satellite data, confirmed by NOAA balloon measurements, confirms that no meaningful warming has occurred over the last century.” However the satellite temperature record corroborates the well-documented warming trend noted in surface temperature measurements.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the US had pulled out of Kyoto, it was prosecuting its illegal attack on Iraq, thinking that it was going to be able to have a nice, stable dependency. The IPCC’s Third Assessment Report had come out. And the Republicans were doing everything they could to confuse matters. And this sort of showmanship from James Inhofe it’s part of the ongoing culture war and belief in American exceptionalism and human exceptionalism, endless ingenuity blah, blah, blah.

What I think we can learn from this is that there are no limits to the stupidity of old white men. Especially the right wing ones,  (not that the so-called left wing ones are not all that great either). 

What happened next

Inhofe kept going, kept attacking, as was his wont. He kept on being one of Oklahoma’s two senators until this year (2023).

(Someone could do an article comparing Inhofe’s snowball and Morrison’s lump of coal, I guess).

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
Carbon Capture and Storage

June 25, 2003 – the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum is created

Twenty years ago, on this day, June 25, 2003, the great and the good talk climate…

2003. Platts – US, EU, 12 countries agree to develop carbon capture technologies.[CSLF deal signed]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Bush administration had pulled out of Kyoto and had turned to technology in inverted commas as a way of pretending that it gave a s*** about emissions reductions. The Europeans as usual had to pretend that the Americans were not pretending and hope for the best.

What I think we can learn from this

 These technology fantasies, these fantasies of techno salvation ISM are socially necessary under the current system and frankly under any imaginable system humankind can only be there a very little reality.

What happened next

 the talk of imminent rollout of CCS has continued unabated ever since very few CCS plants have been built and the scale of the problem is beyond enormous you simply couldn’t build CCS that fast

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..

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Australia Business Responses United States of America

June 11, 2003 – US and Australian think tanks conspire vs (pluralist) democracy 

Twenty years ago, on this day, June 11, 2003, AEI + IPA vs, well, life on earth.

On June 11, 2003, AEI and an Australian think tank, Institute for Public Affairs (IPA), cosponsored a conference titled “Non-governmental Organizations: The Growing Power of an Unelected Few,” held at the AEI offices in Washington, D.C. The conference laid the ground for the launch of “NGO Watch” – a website and political campaign cosponsored by AEI and The Federalist Society.

(Hardistry and Furdon 2004)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Public Affairs were both long-lived think tanks which had been captured by the neoliberals in the 70s and 80s. And were now launching a full frontal assault on civil society and NGOs. In order to get the ignorant rabble in line. 

What I think we can learn from this is that there is a never-ending war for public perception and the power struggle to make sure that the state is insulated from popular pressure and can be a trough for favoured industries and research and development, and also function to continue to batter the proles until they submit.

And the “DDT is good for you” myth never goes away. 

What happened next

As you’d have predicted, the IPA then set about trying to attack and smother civil society organisations in the United in Australia. It set up a fake environmental group in 2005 in order to try to confuse people, because that’s who these scum buckets 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.

Categories
Agnotology anti-reflexivity Denial United States of America

March 4, 2003 – “Luntz memo” exposes Bush climate strategy 

Twenty years ago, on this day, March 4, 2003, President Bush’s greenwash strategy was revealed in all its steaming glory 

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.”

Burkeman, O. 2003. Memo Exposes Bush’s New Greenwash Strategy.  The Guardian, March 4

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that George Bush was clearly not going to do anything about climate change. It’s not clear that Al Gore, who actually won the  2000 presidential election, would have either, but there you are. So it became a question of how to position the issue. So-called “perception management.” And the Luntz memo basically says, 

What I think we can learn from this

The battle for the control of the public mind is a never-ending battle. (Or rather, the propagandisation and the attempts to combat it, so that we can have a public sphere not dominated by rich vested interests, is never-ending). And as reality, physical reality, impinges more and more, you’re gonna find more and more people spewing propaganda and more and more people and this is the crux, wanting to believe it. So, this is not brainwashing against resistance. This is going with the grain.

What happened next

Luntz sort of kind of recanted ,in 2019

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/21/frank-luntz-wrong-climate-change-1470653

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
Energy United Kingdom

February 24, 2003 – UK Energy White Paper kinda changes the game (a bit).

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 24, 2003, the UK Blair Government released a very consequential white paper.

On 24 February 2003 the Government published its Energy White Paper “Our energy future – creating a low carbon economy”. The White Paper set out a new energy policy, designed to deal with the three major challenges that confront the UK’s energy system: the challenge of climate change, the challenge of declining indigenous energy supplies, and the need to keep the UK’s energy infrastructure up to date with changing technologies and needs. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The Blair government was realising that carbon emissions reductions were easy to promise, not quite so easy to deliver.  A 2000 report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution had proposed a target of 60% reduction by 2050, and this was adopted in the Energy White Paper. Crucially, the White Paper saw no role for nuclear….

What I think we can learn from this

Getting new ideas into government is an achievement.

Keeping them there is really hard, and the work of generations. And movements.

What happened next

The Nuclear lobby fought back (of course) and by 2005 had converted Tony Blair. Then more fun and hilarity ensued, but no actual building of new nuclear power stations, which always run over budget and behind schedule.

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

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage IPCC

 February 19, 2003 – “CCS to be studied by IPCC”

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 19 2003, carbon capture and storage got another nudge forward, at least in terms of rhetoric…

19 to 21 Feb 2003 As discussed earlier, the 2002 Geneva meeting produced a plan for an exploratory workshop on the issue, which took place in November 2002 in Regina, Canada. The actual process of report preparation began after the formal decision to compile the report, made at the IPCC meeting in February 2003 in Paris.

(Narita, 2012: 90)

https://archive.ipcc.ch/meetings/session20/final-report.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

In the aftermath of the President George “The Supreme Court got me the gig” Bush having pulled the USA out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, attention turned to various techno-fixes, including Carbon Capture and Storage, which had been in the background/on the drawing board for a decade plus.

Longer term context – some had clearly been eyeing the deep oceans as places to dump waste, and this had gotten the ‘right’ scientists curious…

“Second, ocean mixing. Here too Revelle had a long-established curiosity, and here too nuclear energy pushed the topic forward. The wastes from nuclear reactors must be disposed of somewhere, and the ocean floor seemed a likely choice. In 1955 when Revelle spoke of studying ocean circulation he emphasized the need to bury the “unbelievable quantities of radioactive substances” expected to pour from civilian reactors…”

Weart 1997 342

What I think we can learn from this

Dreams of technological salvation are very popular, but always need someone to write them.  And the money to pay those people to write those fantasies has to come from somewhere…

What happened next

The IPCC’s special report on CCS came out in early 2005, and was  a very big deal – an example of the halo effect of the credibility of impact science being lent to production science.  But the CCS plants have still not yet been built, and the ones that did were all about Enhanced Oil “Recovery”.

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