On this day, February 6 2007 new Labor leade Kevin Rudd had asked Prime Minister John Howard if a submission proposing an emission trading scheme had gone before cabinet in August 2003 and if that proposal was rejected.
Rudd – and frankly everyone else – knew the answer was “yes”. It had been extensively reported, since at least 2004. In August 2003, Howard had met with some business mates and killed off the Cabinet proposal (which the entire Cabinet, including Joe Hockey, Peter Costello etc were behind). See here – August 7, 2003 – John Howard meets with business buddies to kill climate action
Rudd was just trying to embarrass Howard, who had a couple of months before performed a screeching U-turn and appointed Peter Shergold (civil servant) and some business cronies to look at an an ETS.
What we learn – it was all theatre
What happened next. Howard’s U-turn made him look weak rather than caring, and he was swept from power. Kevin Rudd then saved the day (subs, please check).
And you can read a typically sane and not-unhinged response, which has aged so very well indeed, here. Or you could if it weren’t a mysteriously dead link, and seems to have been removed from the “website” of the nutjobs.
Could it be that they have realised that it’s not a good look?
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush Jr. had already been a massive pain in the ass on environment issues. Or, to be more accurate, he allowed the gang that was controlling him to run riot in a more slightly more subtle way than had happened under Reagan. And there had been repeated exposes and reports on the tactics and subterfuge used by Bush. This report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which had been set up in the tumult of the late 60s, was one among many. And probably had an eye on the fact that the negotiations in Bali in December of 2007, had been earmarked as creating “the Roadmap to Copenhagen.” There’s always a new roadmap path, etc. And they all prove to be delusions.
What we can learn, you can expose, the emperor has been naked, you can pull back the curtain and show the guy who was screaming at you not to look at him. And it doesn’t change anything. Because the audience is just that – spectating. Only if we had active social movement organisations, capable of sustaining pressure and defending themselves against co-optation, repression and exhaustion might – and I underscore the word might – we have gotten somewhere. But we didn’t. And now we won’t.
What happened next? Bush was replaced with Obama. Obama made one attempt to get through some pretty weak climate legislation, and then refused to spend any more political capital on the issue. But he made some fine speeches. So that’s alright then.
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.
Fifteen years ago, on this day, October 12, 2007, Queensland is Queensland, again…
The presiding member handed down his decision on 15 February 2007, dismissing QCC’s objections and recommending the applications for the mines be granted without any conditions sought by QCC or any conditions addressing greenhouse gas emissions. He doubted the fact that anthropogenic greenhouse emissions were contributing to climate change and pose a severe threat to the environment.
(McGrath, 2007: 225)
There was an appeal, President McMurdo, with whom Holms JA and Mackenzie J agreed, found that the fact President Koppenhol relied upon material doubting the existence of anthropogenic climate change, ‘in the circumstances… amounted to a denial of natural justice to QCC.’
The Court of Appeal ordered the decision to be set aside and the matter remitted to the Land Court (which had assumed jurisdiction for mining objections by the time the appeal was decided) to be determined according to law.
Six hours after the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment on 12 October 2007, the Queensland Premier and Minister for Mines announced the Queensland Government would enact special legislation to ‘ensure the coal mine’s future’.
(McGrath, 2007: 226)
Within hours of the Queensland Court of Appeal handing down its decision, the State’s Premier, Anna Bligh, announced her government would legislate in Xstrata’s favour – an announcement all the more striking because Xstrata had just been the beneficiary of similar legislation in the Northern Territory after the Territory Supreme Court upheld a challenge by the Northern Land Council against the Territory government’s approval of an expansion of Xstrata’s McArthur River zinc mine. Despite the prevalence of special legislation in Australia approving major projects without adequate environmental scrutiny or proper public participation, Xstrata set a record in being the beneficiary of two such Acts in five months.
(Bonyhady, 2007: 23)
Government to legislate to ensure coal mine’s future. Media Statement from Premier Anna Bligh and Minister for Mines Geoff Wilson, 12 October 2007.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Queensland governments of any political persuasion have a long and sordid history of siding with developers and the white shoe brigade. Nothing really much changes whoever’s in government. And of course governments are able to use the police forces as attack dogs and the court system as usually their rubber stamp.
What I think we can learn from this
The game is the game and the game is rigged.
What happened next
The Queensland government has kept going into that for big infrastructure projects.
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.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, September 6, 2007, some American congressmen hold a hearing about what might be done…
2007 “The Future of Coal Under Carbon Cap and Trade”, Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing
As Congress turns its eye toward global warming legislation this fall, Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming will host Governor Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming, the CEO of American Electric Power, and other experts for a hearing exploring how to maintain coal as part of the energy mix for America and the world, while avoiding dangerous global warming. Chairman Markey and the rest of the Select Committee will learn about advanced coal technologies like carbon capture and storage, and how a framework for cutting emissions could affect the development and deployment of this technology and the future of coal-fired power plants.
WHAT: “The Future of Coal Under Carbon Cap and Trade”, Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming hearing
WHERE: 2172 Rayburn House Office Building and on the web at globalwarming.house.gov
WHEN: Sept 6, 2007, 9:30 AM
WHO:
Governor Dave Freudenthal, Wyoming
Michael Morris, Chairman and CEO, American Electric Power
Carl Bauer, Director, Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory
David Hawkins, Director, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center
Robert Sussman, Partner, Latham & Watkins, LLP
Stuart Dalton, Director for the Generation Sector, Electric Power Research Institute
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 European Union had started an Emissions Trading Scheme. There was a regional scheme in the United States with if I recall rightly seven or eight north-eastern states and the idea and expectation was that whoever became President in 2008 there would be space for a national scheme potentially. And therefore these sorts of “what if, what shape” events were being held in what MSA users would call the policy stream.
What I think we can learn from this is that people anticipate the near future and want to be ready for it so they can get rich. And that’s what so much of carbon pricing has been about – not actually reducing emissions, because if you wanted to reduce emissions you would do different things and you would have to start doing them now rather than letting the so-called market which you’re busy creating decide.
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.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, August 13, 2007, the US publication Newsweek, which had been reporting on carbon dioxide build-up since 1953, had a very good report on the tactics of the denialists, under the clever title “The Truth about Denial.”
“Organisations and companies such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and ExxonMobil emphasise conservative climate change scenarios and highlight the potential economic costs of stricter controls” (Sharon Begley, “The Truth about Denial”, Newsweek, August 13, 2007)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change was absolutely back on the agenda with Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” and the fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. There was renewed vigour in the international process with lots of talk about what would replace the Kyoto Protocol. And therefore, the denialists were up to their old tricks. Sharon Begley’s article is a good summation of how and why they do what they do.
What I think we can learn from this
Mainstream press articles can often give you the facts you need. You may need to bolt on a decent theoretical framework, but serious mainstream media (often the business press is best) can give you a bunch of worthwhile facts to be going on with.
Btw, from reading this article, it is a tolerably accurate picture of incumbents’ behaviour. In any democratic society (a) these tactics would be taughtf in school so people could defend their minds against the onslaught and (b) of course, you would not need to be taught it because there would laws and structures that prevented the ownership of the government by concentrated economic interests.
What happened next
The denial kept going, becoming a hydra and a T1000 at the same time.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Putin wanted to throw his weight around and planting the flag on the Arctic seabed was a good “strongman” gimmick. The Arctic was, as long predicted, warming quickly, and literally changing the map of the world. Resources, wars, land-grabs, the usual stuff…
What I think we can learn from this is that the Westphalian system (created at the end of the 30 years war) is a failure, We have known that the tensions about borders and the “Law of the Sea”/”Law of the atmosphere” have been growing and growing. We’d seen it with acid rain then with ozone than with climate.
What happened next
The Arctic kept melting. People kept exploring for oil. Greenpeace got arrested. And Putin? Putin kept being a quality human being.
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.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, April 27, 2007, a US gas company had to stop smearing coal…
Washington – The founder of a group that ran a series of newspaper ads attacking the coal industry for selling a product that they called “filthy” says the campaign is ending.
The effort, promoted as pro-environment, was sponsored by a rival energy company, a natural-gas-production company, and sparked a round of protests from members of Congress and trade associations.
Fialka, J. 2007. Ad Campaign Bashing Coal Is Ended After Uproar. Wall Street Journal, 27 April.
“the ads were placed anonymously by a two-week-old group called the Texas Clean Sky Coalition. Only one of the nation’s largest gas producers, Chesapeake Energy Corp., acknowledged helping finance the advertising campaign — which easily cost several hundred thousand dollars.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a natural gas company had been trying to use climate concerns to boost its own product. And this is something that the gas industry has been looking at with more or less interest in – throwing coal under the bus, framing coal as the dirtiest fuel. Therefore gas automatically becomes sort of some kind of “transition fuel”.
What I think we can learn from this
It’s a seductive myth. That, yes, we need a long term transition. But while we’re getting there, gas can help. What we learn is that this fossil fuel industry is not in any sense united, though, we should note that people who do gas and oil tend to have the same bosses.
What happened next
Didn’t the guy who founded Cheseapeake Energy do suicide by Porsche? Yes, yes he did.
And threw loads of money the Sierra Club’s way to help them fund their anti-coal campaigns…
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.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 16, 2007, as the second big wave of climate awareness was kicking off in Australia, a senior Liberal politician was… being himself.
It SHOULD not be seen as a sin to be cautious about the science of global warming, a senior Federal Government minister has warned.
Finance Minister Nick Minchin says “there remains an ongoing debate about the extent of climate change” and the extent of human activity’s role in global warming.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Nick Minchin had been successful in defeating an emissions trading scheme in the year 2000. And he had remained one of John Howard’s staunch culture warriors on the question of climate. From late 2006 people in Australia started to become reawakened to the climate problem and Minchin was pushing back in the way that old white men so often do. By this I mean pointing the finger at people and calling them hysterical and accusing them of panicking without bothering to think that maybe there is something to panic about.
What I think we can learn/remember from this
Just a reminder that just because someone is “successful” does not mean they cannot be a harmful dolt.
The sorts of things that Minchin accuses others of doing – cherry picking data, being unscientific – that’s all projection, that’s what he’s doing.
There are always old white men who will come out with this bullshit and of course now they’ve painted themselves into a corner and would have to admit that they had been wrong which would be psychologically devastating for them.
What happened next
Labor won the Federal election at the end of the year and fundamentally bollocksed up the politics and policy. Well done, Kevin. You’re from Queensland and you’re here to really screw things up.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 13 2007, a Canberra Times journalist had a cracking story about the politics of knowledge.
The CSIRO has confirmed coal industry bodies have the power to suppress a new report questioning the cost and efficiency of clean-coal carbon capture technologies because they partly funded the research. Dr David Brockway, chief of CSIRO’s division of energy technology, told a Senate estimates committee hearing yesterday it was ”not necessarily unusual” for private-industry partners investing in research programs – such as Cooperative Research Centres – to request reports be withheld from public release if findings were deemed to be not in their best interests. His comments followed questions by Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne regarding the release of an economic assessment by a senior CSIRO scientist of a new carbon capture technology to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power stations.
Beeby, R. 2007. Industry can gag research: CSIRO. Canberra Times, 15 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
John Howard and his government had been systematically undermining all other organisations that might keep tabs on them, or forcefully propose alternatives. Have a look at “Silencing Dissent” by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison for the gory (and they are gory) details.
What I think we can learn from this
Those who want things to stay the same will do whatever it takes to poke out the eyes and stuff up the mouths of anyone with brains and other ideas, while rewarding lackeys and toadies.
What happened next
Nothing good. The demolition of the CSIRO has, basically, continued. Oh well.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 5, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard got ridiculed on an ABC television programme.
Howard’s problem was that he had changed his policy but not his political strategy. He refused to genuflect before the icons: Al Gore’s scare, the drought as proof of a climate transformation, and Kyoto sanctification. For the ABC, Howard was now a figure of undisguised ridicule. His Lateline interview of 5 February 2007 began with this mocking question from Tony Jones: ‘Can you recall exactly when it was that you ceased being a climate change sceptic and became, in effect, a true believer?’
(Kelly, 2014:131)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Australian Prime Minister John Howard had a track record of 10 years of successful opposition to any action on climate, using all means fair and foul. He had finally been pushed because of an impending election into appointing one of his mandarins, in this case, Peter Shergold to examine an emissions trading scheme. Therefore journalists were beginning to have fun with Howard’s U-turn. Howard had to do the U-turn beacuse climate concern was being expertly used as a wedge issue by new opposition leader, Kevin Rudd.
What I think we can learn from this
Journalists who don’t really “get it” can still land blows. But the real problem is that the landing of these blows has an emotional release effect on viewers who think “ah, the system is working, the system is correcting, this bad person who I don’t agree with will be gone soon”. They don’t then think about what they need to do for the long-term. It’s a kind of court jester catharsis thing.
What happened next
Howard was defeated. In the November 2007 election, Kevin Rudd came in with lots of promises, but no real action and poisoned the well, creating cynicism, which is still present.
References
Kelly, P. 2014. Triumph and Demise: The broken promise of a Labor generation. Melbourne University Press.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
