Tag: 2019

Categories
United States of America

August 19, 2019 – Business Roundtable repudiates Friedman Doctrine

Seven years ago, on this day, August 19th, 2019,

August 19 2019 Friedman Doctrine repudiated by Business Roundtable

The Purpose Revolution – The Friedman Doctrine Is Out; the Stakeholder Doctrine Is In

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 412ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context was that business lobbies have always regarded environmental concerns as at best an impediment, and at worst part of an International Communist Conspiracy. Business lobbies tend to be made up of today’s successful enterprises, the insurgents chasing new technologies and new production methods don’t have the financial muscle or the spare capacity to form effective lobbying groups, and if they do, that effective lobbying group will probably get taken over by the big powerful actors wanting to make sure that nothing happens.

In the early 1970s Milton Friedman had dismissed environmental concerns by saying that they would be solved under a regime of private ownership. Friedman was well aware of the carbon dioxide issue, and I can say this confidently, because he corresponded with William Barbert, and his correspondence was published in an issue of the CO2 Newsletter. And his Friedman doctrine had basically been “greed is good and everything will work out if we just let the rich people do whatever they think is best.” This is demented. This is hardly new, but it has been at various times convenient for people, not just the rich, to believe. Let me talk to you someday about how most academics are basically the equivalent of monks arguing about angels on the head of a fucking pin.

The specific context. So why did this happen in 2019. I think the Business Roundtable realised that they were doing themselves some reputational damage by failing to pretend to give a shit, and you get this, you get business lobby groups knowing that they have to look sane and reasonable if they want to be effective. See, for example, the Australian Mining Industry Council having to change both its tune and its name after it went in so hard against the Mabo decision on Aboriginal land rights in 1992.

What I think we can learn from this

xxx

What happened next

I’ll have to look and see if the Business Roundtable has suddenly endorsed Greta Thunberg. Somehow I doubt it. 

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

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References

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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

August 19, 1968 – Is Man Spoiling the Weather? (yes)

August 19 1997 – “The denialists take Canberra” with “Countdown to Kyoto” conference

August 19, 2002 – Pacific Islands make unreasonable demands about continuing to live

August 19, 2002 – Bush skips the Earth Summit

Categories
Iceland

August 18, 2019 – Plaque for a dead glacier

Seven years ago, on this day, August 18th, 2019,

“Iceland’s Okjokull glacier commemorated with plaque”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49345912

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 412ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context was that there had been warnings about shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels since the 1950s Those warnings had become more emphatic with each passing year as the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 climbed. 

The specific context was Glenn Albeicht had invented the word solastalgia, which seems to fit here.

What I think we can learn from this is that humans are capable of mourning, not just the passing of their own species or other sentient species, but also of beautiful, long-lasting aspects of this wonderful planet that we are trashing because we know what’s at stake. We know that we have not been custodians or guardians. We have not obeyed the invocations to be careful, to be carers. 

What happened next We weaponized and encouraged our worst impulses, and that is having consequences. We are in the Fafocene,

xxx

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

Xx

References

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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

August 18, 1975 – it’s gonna get hotter, not cooler, say scientists

August 18, 1991- Business Council of Australia says “fuck you, future generations,” rejects energy efficiency measures

August 18, 1996, Ex-CSIRO #climate boss shows he has lost the plot

August 18, 1997 – MENSA turns out to be dumb as a rock.

Categories
Activism United Kingdom

March 15,  2019 – Met Police film children at climate protest

Seven years ago, on this day, March 15th, 2019,

Police unlawfully spied on children as young as 10 taking part in a climate strike protest in London, documents have shown.

The previously unseen papers reveal the Metropolitan police were rebuked by the information commissioner’s office (ICO) for video surveillance of the March 2019 protest, which was attended by up to 10,000 children and young people.

Ruling the data-gathering unlawful, the watchdog said the force had failed to consider the privacy rights of the children at the protest, and had not considered their entitlement to added data protections in light of their age.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/05/met-police-illegally-filmed-children-as-young-as-10-at-climate-protest

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 411ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was the police are there to protect… the propertied classes and to subdue political dissent. There’s a lot of other window dressing stuff as well. The Met especially, as the biggest police force, leads the way in a lot of this. And ah, and had been harassing community groups, non violent groups, for a long time.

In 1968 the Special Demonstration Squad, aka spy cops. (Though spy cops is broader than that). It sent undercovers in for four or five year deployments not to gather evidence so much but as to demoralise, provoke etc. Which is absolutely what a thriving democracy, where the elites respect the rights of the peasants, behaves like.

The specific context was that in the 1990s – some of us are old enough to remember – it was still iffy for police evidence gatherers to be randomly and routinely gathering video footage at protests and demonstrations..  Now, well, normalised.

What I think we can learn from this is that in late 2018 the climate issue had burst onto the scene again, thanks to the very hot summer, though possibly not so hot by today’s standards, in the UK and Europe, the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on 1.5 degrees. Greta Thunberg had just started, but the main thing in the UK was Extinction Rebellion, co-founded by Roger Hallam and Gail Bradbrook, and they had announced a declaration of rebellion in Parliament Square. And then a month later, they had occupied five bridges in London.

And no one could know how long this wave of protest would last. So the Met were there busy filming everyone, which has various advantages.

One is you get a nice, fat database to crawl through, potentially disobedient people. 

Number two, it intimidates some people. 

Number three, it forces other people angry about it, to spend time and energy combating police overreach, rather than spending that time and energy on pushing corporations and governments to do more on climate change – so it’s a nice little sort of diversion of energy and resources. 

So it’s a win, win win for the cops, they might, at worst, get a rap on the knuckles from some legal busy-bodies, but they can largely ignore that. 

What happened next The police continued filming, of course, and now have facial recognition profiling technology thanks to various dodgy deals with people like Peter Thiel of Palantir.

The techno dystopia is being rolled out, and except for, I don’t know, Liberty and Netpol and a few other groups, everyone else is shrugging their shoulders and doing their best Bart Simpson, “What are you going to do?” imitation, myself included.

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.

Also on this day: 

March 15, 1956 – scientist explains climate change to US senators

March 15, 2001 – “First, Direct Observational Evidence Of A Change In The Earth’s Greenhouse Effect Between 1970 And 1997”

March 15, 2002 – GM bails from Global Climate Coalition

March 15, 2019 – New Zealand school strike launched, called off.

Categories
United States of America

 August 3, 2019 – another eco-fascist massacre

Six years ago, on this day, August 3rd 2019, another of the eco-fascist massacres that I fear we will see more of…

Crusius bought a semiautomatic rifle online and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point 39 mm shells. On Aug. 3, 2019, he got into his gray Honda Civic and drove nearly 10 hours toward El Paso, Texas. Entering the city, he turned into the Cielo Vista Walmart Supercenter parking lot. By some accounts, he wanted a snack, but after briefly going into the store filled with Hispanic shoppers, he returned to his car, posted a vitriolic 2,400-word manifesto to the extremist social media site 8chan and got the gun. He shot 45 people, ultimately killing 23, eight of them Mexican citizens. “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” Crusius wrote. “I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 411ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context was that settler colonialism requires racism – hatred, fear, supremacism. If you’re going to push people off land, you have to stop seeing them as people. This is not rocket science.

The specific context was that the climate issue had been deliberately polarised/politicised in the late 1980s and early 1990s, by “conservatives” seeking to maintain the status quo (which is, after all, what conservatives do). Alongside this, well, the Great Chain of Being/White Replacement Theory and So. Many. Guns.

What I think we can learn from this is that this is going to happen a lot more.

What happened next

From wikipedia 

In 2023, Crusius pleaded guilty to 90 federal murder and hate crime charges,[21][22] and he was sentenced to 90 consecutive life sentences.[23]

In March 2025, El Paso County District Attorney James Montoya offered a plea deal on state charges, allowing Crusius to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty in exchange for a life sentence without parole or appeal. This decision followed consultations with victims’ families, many of whom preferred a swift resolution.[24] Crusius pleaded guilty to the state charges on April 21, 2025, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.[25]

Victims:

  • Andre Anchondo, 23
  • Jordan Anchondo, 24
  • Arturo Benavides, 60
  • Leonardo Campos, 41
  • Angie Englisbee, 86
  • Maria Flores, 77
  • Raul Flores, 83
  • Guillermo “Memo” Garcia, 36[a]
  • Jorge Calvillo García, 61
  • Adolfo Cerros Hernández, 68
  • Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, 66
  • David Johnson, 63
  • Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90
  • Maria Eugenia Legarreta Rothe, 58
  • Maribel (Campos) Loya, 56
  • Ivan Filiberto Manzano, 46
  • Elsa Mendoza Marquez, 57
  • Gloria Irma Márquez, 61
  • Margie Reckard, 63
  • Sara Esther Regalado Moriel, 66
  • Javier Rodriguez, 15
  • Teresa Sanchez, 82
  • Juan Velazquez, 77
  •  Garcia initially survived the shooting, but died on
    April 26, 2020, as a result of his injuries.[42]

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.

Also on this day: 

August 3, 1958 – under the pole goes the Nautilus – All Our Yesterdays

August 3, 1970 – Nixon warned about climate change and icecaps melting

August 3, 1988 – Exxon tries to downplay “the greenhouse effect.” Again.

Categories
Hydrogen

June 10, 2019 – a booming market for hydrogen….

Six years ago, on this day, June 10th, 2019,

“The costs associated with hydrogen are significant – and the safety issues of hydrogen are very significant. When Norway had four [hydrogen] filling stations, one of them exploded, resulting in the whole of the infrastructure for hydrogen cars in the country collapsing

from website that won’t let me connect

and

In Sandvika near Oslo, an explosion occurred at a hydrogen filling station for fuel cell cars on Monday. Until establishing the cause of the incident, the supplier Nel has closed ten more stations.

According to Norwegian media, the explosion took place on Monday around 5:30 pm at the Uno-X station in the Oslo suburb of Sandvika. According to the company, no one was injured but one report mentions two minor injuries.

“It is too early to speculate about the cause,” Nel boss Jon André Løkke said in a telephone interview. “Our top priority is the safe operation of the stations we supply. As a precaution, we have temporarily closed ten more stations until further information is available.” 

Randall, c. 2019. Norway: Explosion at hydrogen filling station. https://www.electrive.com/2019/06/11/norway-explosion-at-fuel-cell-filling-station/

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/energy/norway-fines-nel-units-3-million-over-2019-blast-at-hydrogen-fuel-station-idUSKBN2AG2MF

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 414ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that hydrogen has many hypers, who don’t always seem to know the history (LINK).

What I think we can learn from this.  Boom!! And bust cycles happen.

What happened next The hydrogen hype continued, for a while at least.

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.

Also on this day: 

June 10, 1986 – scientist tells US senators “global warming is inevitable. It is only a question of the magnitude and the timing.” – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Antarctica

December 26, 2019 – Antarctic journeys…

Five years ago, on this day, December 26th, 2019, 

On December 26, 2019, Erin Pettit trudged across a plain of glaring snow and ice, dragging an ice-penetrating radar unit the size of a large suitcase on a red plastic sled behind her. The brittle snow crunched like cornflakes underneath her boots—evidence that it had recently melted and refrozen following a series of warm summer days. Pettit was surveying a part of Antarctica where, until several days before, no other human had ever stepped. A row of red and green nylon flags, flapping in the wind on bamboo poles, extended into the distance, marking a safe route free of hidden, deadly crevasses. The Thwaites Ice Shelf appeared healthy on the surface. But if that were the case, Pettit wouldn’t have been there. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarcticas-collapse-could-begin-even-sooner-than-anticipated/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 412ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

We are forever doing impact science, while the production science kills us all. So it goes.

What I think we can learn from this

Brave people have gathered the data.  Lazy and scared people (including myself) don’t make the data matter.

What happened next

The emissions kept climbing, obvs.

Also on this day:

December 26, 1968 – “Global Effects of Environmental Pollution” symposium

December 26, 1997 – #climate denial machine exposed again and again

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage

October 11, 2019 – London Protocol amended to allow cross border C02 transport and storage

Five years ago today (October 11 2019), the rules were amended – as they so often are – to allow for a new wheeze…

 In 2019, Contracting Parties to the London Protocol adopted a resolution (LP.5(14)) to allow provisional application of an amendment to Article 6 of the Protocol to allow export of CO2 for storage in sub-seabed geological formations. Two or more countries can therefore agree to export CO2 for geological storage. To do so they must deposit a formal declaration of provisional application with the Secretary-General of IMO, and also notify IMO of any agreements and arrangements for permitting and responsibilities between the Parties, following the existing guidance. https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/Pages/CCS-Default.aspx#:~:text=In%202019%2C%20Contracting%20Parties%20to,CO2%20for%20geological%20storage.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 411ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that CCS was becoming important for the rhetoric of mitigation, but there were various legal barriers. This helped remove one of them.

What we learn is that who is gonna let laws get in the way?

What happened next. The CCS bandwagon keeps trundling on. Too important to powerful actors not to.

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

Wettestad et al 2023. ESG on Norway and Mongstad to Longship

Also on this day: 

October 11, 1990 – Australian Federal Government makes climate promise, with fingers crossed

October 11, 2006 – “Climate Institute” begins tour of rural Victoria