Thirteen years ago, on this day, August 16, 2010, protestors tried to keep issues on the agenda
Even outside the venue, the protestors simply went through the motions. There were four anti-abortion advocates with basic placards, a huge plastic marijuana joint, two people dressed as polar bears, and another dressed as a blue elephant. But they were not so much demonstrating as loitering.
(Cassidy, 2010:202)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that this was the middle of an election campaign. And even the polar bear can’t be bothered. Everyone’s just going through the motions.
What I think we can learn from this
The polar bear costumes just don’t work. They should be hung up.
What happened next
Gillard was faced with painful electoral math and therefore had to bring carbon pricing back on to the table.
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.
More than 500 protesters gathered by Lake Burley Griffin and marched to Parliament House yesterday to demonstrate their support for climate change action. Walk against Warming, held simultaneously around the country, was timed to coincide with the lead-up to Saturday’s federal election. Tens of thousands of people took part across Australia, with 10,000 filling the streets of Sydney’s CBD. Protesters also marched in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne and Perth.
Kretowicz, E. 2010. TURNING UP THE HEAT; Climate crusaders walk against warming. Canberra Times, 16 August, p.4.
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 as per the BZE post a couple of days ago, the air has kind of gone out of the issue. People are confused, frustrated, bored, fed up, disappointed. They feel they were conned by Kevin Rudd, who had been revealed to be just another cowardly scuzzy politician. And what’s the point of going on a march for that especially when there’s an election coming and you don’t know who might win it. People get tired of marching.
What happened next?
Labor’s Julia Gillard, because of the electoral math, was forced to reintroduce an emissions trading scheme. This was a non negotiable with both the Greens but also some of the Independents like Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott.
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.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, August 12, 2010, the activist group “Beyond Zero Emissions” holds a Sydney launch of its “Stationary Energy Plan”, with recently toppled Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull on the stage…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Rudd government’s entirely unambitious climate policies the CPRS had taken up all the oxygen in 2009. The CPRS had then fallen on its face, and Rudd had been unable to summon the courage to call an election on the issue, or take up the suggestion of the Greens for a carbon tax. The activist group Beyond Zero Emissions decided to try to change the narrative with a plan for well beyond zero emissions.
What I think we can learn from this
This sort of bold policymaking from outside the mainstream is really good at forcing the government of the day and the opposition to slightly raise their ambition – or at least ramp up their rhetoric, albeit usually within pre existing and very technocratic boundaries The kind of breakthrough transformational stuff that is proposed, rarely, if ever, gets adopted wholesale, especially if the agenda is mature (i.e. there are lots of middle-class and rich people in and funding think tanks designed to maintain their positions).
What happened next
BZE staggered on, there were personality conflicts. And then after a while it stops being quite so fresh. It became obvious to everyone that the moment has passed, and it was someone else’s 15 minutes next 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.
A group of academics who have been working with the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (MCII) have called for diplomats attending the upcoming Bonn and Mexico climate talks and summit to take insurance into account.
A policy brief issued by the academic groups calls for insurance to play a key role in reducing climate change risks and influencing climate adaptation projects.
“Our research over the past years has shown that insurance solutions – with coordinated public-private action and some international support – has the potential to help vulnerable countries and people adapt to climate change”, stated Koko Warner (UNU-EHS), lead author of the policy brief ‘Solutions for Vulnerable Countries and People’. “Now it is time to move from knowledge to action. The need to link DRR and insurance and scaling them up is greater than ever to get the critical mass for adaptation”, Dr. Warner continued.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the Copenhagen gathering had been a complete failure. And so academics thought that if they could geinsurance companies involved, then it might shake loose some of the intransigence. I don’t know if they knew it, but Greenpeace had tried the same shtick 15 years earlier at the first COP, in Berlin, with very limited success.
What I think we can learn from this is that people always think that there is a button that can be pushed, a lever that can be pulled, to get us out of this fix. But it probably would require Cthulhu pushing and pulling with all of its tentacles repeatedly to make the machine shift.
What happened next
The insurance companies put out some glossy reports and there was some hand-wringing and the carbon dioxide kept accumulating,
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.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, July 10, 2010, the CEO of mining giant Rio Tinto was talking about what politicians could learn about the recent dumping of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had been campaigning for a mining super-tax
“Policy-makers around the world can learn a lesson when considering a new tax to plug a revenue gap, or play to local politics.” Rio Tinto CEO Tom Albanese, one week after Labor dumped Prime Minister Rudd and the super-profits tax. Cleary, P. (2011) page 80
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Rio Tinto and other companies, multinational and national, had just spent a LOT of money on television and newspaper adverts and lobbying to defeat a mining tax proposed by wounded Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Rudd had been dumped by his own party but not for mining tax reasons, simply because he was unbearable, and his staunchly loyal deputy Julia Gillard had finally had enough.
What I think we can learn from this is that after you spend all that money, you want to send a message to any other politician, warning them of what’s going to happen so that you don’t have to spend the same amount of money again, it’s the equivalent of hanging someone’s executed body on a gibbet with a sign that says “fuck around and find out.”
What happened next a minimal mining tax was negotiated by the Gillard government that clearly did not have the political capital or appetite for a fight. And the mining companies kept making money hand over fist and the Australian taxpayer continues to get shafted. Because Australia is basically a quarry with a wholly-owned subsidiary state attached.
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.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, June 30, 2010, DECC Minister, Gregory Barker, stated that the Government was committed to 5 GW of CCS by 2020 in a debate on 30 June 2010:
“… the coalition Government are committed to carbon capture and storage, which will be a major plank in our efforts to decarbonise our energy supply by 2030; we are committed to the generation of 5 GW of CCS by 2020. We see the potential of CCS, not just for our domestic use and as part of our plan to decarbonise the economy, but as a huge potential export industry for the UK in which we can not only capture new markets for British jobs, but help the world in striving to decarbonise the global economy.42”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the new coalition government was making the right noises after the previous Brown government had established a CCS competition in 2007.
What I think we can learn from this is that the promises around CCS have been persistent. The delivery, not so much.
What happened next
The first competition was abandoned. A new competition set up in 2012 was unilaterally abandoned in 2015 and there has been a long slow process of getting CCS going again since 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..
Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 24, 2010, another depressing article appeared in Nature. Why do they never print positive stories, eh?
Even soil feels the heat
Twenty years of field studies reveal that as the Earth has gotten warmer, plants and microbes in the soil have given off more carbon dioxide. So-called soil respiration has increased about one-tenth of 1 percent per year since 1989, according to an analysis of past studies in today’s issue of Nature.
The scientists also calculated the total amount of carbon dioxide flowing from soils, which is about 10 -15 percent higher than previous measurements. That number — about 98 petagrams of carbon a year (or 98 billion metric tons) — will help scientists build a better overall model of how carbon in its many forms cycles throughout the Earth. Understanding soil respiration is central to understanding how the global carbon cycle affects climate.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that this part of the ongoing work, scientific work in biological systems, is pointing out that the impacts of climate change are on the whole going to come faster and harder than we previously thought. Not always but usually.
Biologists had been looking at climate change and going “hmm” since the mid 1950s (see the great G. Evelyn Hutchinson).
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember that there is the risk as James Hansen puts it of being too reticent, as per his May 2007 thoughts (link here).
What happened next
We kept running the big experiment. And the results are coming in.
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..
Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 10, 2010, Maurice Newman, a neoliberal warrior from the 1970s onwards, gave a climate denial speech to senior ABC staff. Prime Minister John Howard had appointed him as chair in January 2007.
In a speech to senior ABC staff on 10 March 2010 he said climate change was an example of “group-think”. According to an ABC PM account of the speech: “Contrary views had not been tolerated, and those who expressed them had been labelled and mocked. Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he’s waiting for proof either way.”
(wikipedia Maurice Newman)
and
“The media hasn’t been good at picking these things up and it’s really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.
“And I brought in as well in that vain what’s been going on in climate change where there’s been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
People like Maurice Newman, long time neoliberal soldier, want to be within the commanding organisations such as universities and media, for obvious reasons. And he did what he (was) set out to do….
What I think we can learn from this
What’s interesting, what we can learn is that these terms like “groupthink” gets thrown around as if there’s some sort of profound statement. And they’re a shortcut for avoiding actually engaging with the fact that the science around the basics of climate change has been settled for a very long time. Unable to combat that. Newman and his ilk resort to name-calling and pseudo profound smears. But it’s quite effective…
What happened next
In an article in The Australian on May 8, 2015, Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, said that the United Nations is behind the global warming hoax. The real agenda of the UN “is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook,” Newman said. “This is not about facts or logic,” he added. “It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.”
The ABC has continued to be a site of struggle, and has been almost entirely hollowed out by the neoliberals and their chums. You can always track individual journalists and stack the board with non entities and lackeys and if they persist in being independent, reduce their funding until they get the message.
See also organisational decay.
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...
Thirteen years ago, on this day, February 28, 2010, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was on a then-quite-good ABC TV program called “Insiders.”
He said this: “When our kids look back in 20 years and ask the question of this generation, ‘were they fair dinkum or did they walk away from it?’, I’d rather say that I threw everything at it, threw absolutely everything at it, to try and make it work, and to try and deliver an outcome at home and abroad.
“We think we’ve got to act, and act appropriately. That’s why we don’t walk away from this one bit.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Kevin Rudd had skilfully come to power in late 2007 by using climate change as a wedge against his political opponents – first Prime Minister John Howard, and then, once he got the top job, against opposition leaders Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. But then, in 2009, he came up against junkyard dog Tony Abbott, and he lost his nerve. He was advised to call an election (see December 23 blog post from last year). He didn’t, and then didn’t figure out a way of climbing down from his climate position. He dismissed a proposal from the Greens for an interim carbon tax. He … ah, I could go on.
What I think we can learn from this
Politicians who talk about “great moral challenge” without showing skill or guts are worse than useless, because they encourage cynicism and fatalism, making it that much harder for those who come after them.
What happened next
Rudd bailed on climate. This tanked his previously high approval ratings (which were already taking a dent, it’s true) Rudd then ran off on a Mining Tax crusade. That came to an end, almost by accident, when his long-suffering and until-then loyal deputy Julia Gillard challenged for the leadership in June 2010. Gillard got some carbon pricing legislation through, but at the cost of, well, everything.
This was all unnecessary. If Rudd had had skill or guts….
NB, for any ALPers – nope, never been a member of the Greens, and when you focus on their actions during the CPRS vote, you reveal that you are unwilling to admit that your guy was not as smart or courageous as he thought, or as he needed to be.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, January 14, 2010 various investors met for the fourth meeting sponsored by the usual suspects, at the United Nations HQ in New York.
The Summit brought together more than 520 financial, corporate, and investor leaders with more than $22 trillion in combined assets. Speakers from the investment community, business, labor, and government highlighted the fact that private investment in climate change solutions is crucial for addressing the climate crisis and will not happen at the necessary scale without strong climate and energy policies that limit emissions and put a price on carbon.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was – a “Bali Roadmap” had been agreed for negotiations to culminate in a post-Kyoto Protocol deal at the December 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen. This meeting of investors will have been put in everyone’s diary months earlier, in anticipation of sunny uplands and money-making opportunities. In the event, Copenhagen ended in farce, and so the mood was probably quite downbeat. So it goes.
What I think we can learn from this
The investors won’t save us. They will talk among themselves and cling on to the trappings of power, influence, intelligence, but none of it amounts to a bucket of warm spit. They have to delude themselves, but we don’t have to fall for the same delusions…
What happened next
They kept holding conferences. New buzzwords are invented, tossed around, age out, and are replaced by new buzzwords… Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
