Tag: Abii Perrin

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CO2 Newsletter CO2 Newsletter commentary

“An air of hopefulness and conviction that now feels enviable” – Dr Abi Perrin on the C02 Newsletter Vol . 1, no.2

From 1979 to 1982 American geologist William N. Barbat published 18 issues of the CO2 Newsletter. His family have kindly supplied copies and given permission for these to be digitised and shared. Every three weeks or so, an issue will be uploaded. To accompany each issue there will be a brief commentary. For the second issue, Dr Abi Perrin (see interview here) has written with her customary clarity, insight and honesty.

Dr Abi Perrin

The second installment of William Barbat’s CO2 newsletter continues his mission to “aid enlightenment on the CO2 problem, to promote constructive and timely solutions, to reduce disagreement and to encourage cooperation”. It expands on the warnings distilled in the first issue and continues to cut through the noise of scientific discussions ongoing at the time, summarising them succinctly and effectively. 

Barbat brings the role of ecosystems such as forests and oceans into focus, turning attention to the attractive idea that natural carbon sinks could “relegate the CO2 problem to a reversible status”. Detailing how a growing consensus amongst scientists was unfortunately not so optimistic, he surmises that “there is no safe allowable rate of CO2 output which could prevent temperature thresholds from being reached. Rather every single contribution of CO2 is likely to have a long-lasting effect.” 

With an air of hopefulness and conviction that now feels enviable, Barbat seems confident that the dawn of the 1980s would be an inflection point, stating that his newsletter intends to be “informative of an impending revolutionary change to leaders in government and industry.”  He celebrates the presentation of a report (an “impartial examination of the validity of CO2 forecasts”) to President Carter’s science adviser as a moment of progress: the next step towards the consideration of global warming in US energy policy. 

Amidst optimism, he is not blind to some of the hurdles on the route to action and change. “The revolutionary energy policies which are now being considered by the scientific community to bring the CO2 buildup to an early halt would require much more cooperation between government and business than appears to exist”, he acknowledges. In his discussions of carbon sinks and their capacity (or lack thereof) to reverse the “CO2 problem” he seems to realise how alluring the more convenient or comforting ‘interpretations’ of the science can be, in a way that feels prescient of many of the popular narratives that have delayed necessary accountability and action to this day. 

Looking back from 2026, a time where a rapid worldwide transition to renewable power is considered feasible and highly cost-effective, Barbat’s skepticism about the future of wind and solar is one thing that ages his writing. But perhaps the biggest is this: “Fortunately, the CO2 problem has not become an adversary issue. This issue is being treated rationally in the scientific community, in the news media, and in politics.”  He identifies apathy as a problem – that’s still with us, but 46 years later we also have to contend with widespread, mounting adversariality and irrationality. In recent months we’ve seen not just denial but effective censorship of basic climate science in the US, while in UK newspapers the volume of editorials attacking climate action overtook those supporting it.  Meanwhile global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise defiantly, we continue to trash the lands and oceans that buffer us from even-more-deadly impacts, and announcements that we have passed specific points-of-no-return receive little attention. 

There were many passages and statements in this newsletter that are frustrating and depressing by virtue of their relevance and repetition ever since. Lurking in one of the ‘Excerpts from recent reports’ was this one: “The problem facing us today is this: When should the studying stop and political action begin?” To see this kind of sentiment expressed a decade before I was born, 30 years before I cheerfully embarked on a career in scientific research, felt especially jarring. A very similar question motivated my exit from academia: was I describing a dying world at the expense of acting to protect it?

Reading these CO2 newsletters caused me to ask myself another uncomfortable question, about the communication work I’m involved with now: am I replicating the approach Barbat and others took for decades, but expecting different results? Concerted action on climate and nature must be empowered and underpinned by knowledge, but even with deadly impacts on our doorstep we cannot put our faith in awareness alone leading to proportionate, rational responses. 

See also a commentary on the first issue by Professor Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Universities of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala (Sweden).

I have a list of people I am inviting to provide commentaries (you may be on it – nominate yourselves or other people!) I would send a pdf of the relevant issue and you read it then write (or draw? make a video? a song?) 600-900 words in response, to be published just after the issue goes up.

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Interviews

Interview with Abi Perrin: “academia isn’t responding robustly to a world that’s literally and metaphorically on fire”

Dr Abi Perrin, who was one of the advised the presenters at November’s National Emergency Briefing kindly did an email interview. Her website is here. This post is especially worth your time. She is on Bluesky as @abiperrin.bsky.social.

1. Who are you? (where did you grow up, what contact did you have with ‘nature’ – how much unstructured play in natural settings –  I ask because this is a common thread among adults who have become “campaigners”) and what was the path to becoming a scientist working on malaria?  

I grew up near Manchester, without much connection to the natural world.  I liked maths and science and did an undergraduate degree that covered lots of different disciplines. Having previously sworn that biology was ‘boring’, it was there I became really fascinated by microbial life. I saw a research career in infectious disease as a way to pursue that interest whilst also doing something useful, something that I thought had potential to improve people’s lives. So I followed a pretty traditional academic path and ended up working on malaria parasite biology for about a decade. 

2. When and how did you first hear about carbon dioxide build-up as a “problem”, and if you remember your initial thoughts?

It still shocks me that I didn’t learn specifically about climate change at any point in my formal education.  When I graduated from a Natural Sciences degree in 2010 I wouldn’t have been able to describe the greenhouse effect, a phenomenon that scientists had been trying to raise the alarm about since well before I was born. Climate change was mentioned in passing around me at work and in wider society but there didn’t seem to be much urgency or fear about it. I’d genuinely believed that world leaders were dealing with it. But that changed in October 2018, when IPPC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5℃ completely dispelled the myth that it was all under control, caused a flurry of press attention, and started to activate a much broader range of people. 

3. You mention a presentation by Hugh Montgomery in 2018 as pivotal. What was it he did and presented (was this the IPCC 1.5 degrees report)?

The way Hugh laid out the IPPC’s report felt absolutely brutal at the time, but all he did was summarise what was in that report and make abundantly clear what it all meant for people, including for us in that room. It’s rare to see scientists or most other professionals speak like this, with clarity and unequivocal urgency.  To me this was as disruptive as the information he actually presented. 

4. Do activists expect too much of scientists still working within academia?  Do scientists working within academia expect too little of themselves?

It’s far from unreasonable to expect scientists and the academic community to act in line with their own knowledge and warnings, and I think it’s fair to say that (like most other parts of society) academia isn’t responding robustly to a world that’s literally and metaphorically on fire. I think my own frustration lies in the missed potential for academia to be part of really catalysing and facilitating a society-wide response. From the inside I know how futile it can feel to push against the inertia and how risky it can be to stick your head above the parapet in such a competitive, precarious working environment… but I also know that the stakes are too high for us not to try. My message to scientists is that we have more power than we often realise, and that there are many different ways to use it effectively – especially when we work together. 

5. Best case scenario – what changes does the National Emergency Briefing make by the end of 2026? What needs to have gone right – and what do “we” (define as you wish) need to have done differently to make that best case come to life?

It’s an enticing thought that amongst the Briefing’s audience there could have been hundreds if not thousands of people who had a similarly life-altering experience to my own in 2018, and those now-activated people will share what they’ve learned and activate others, leading to vital social tipping points and cultural shifts. From often-bitter experience, I know it’s not that simple. I do think it’s realistic to believe that NEB and the ongoing work that stems from it can contribute to rejuvenating and focusing the climate movement and may already have broadened the range of people who participate. However, the ‘knowledge component’ that the NEB attempts to address is just one of a combination of factors needed to empower action: we need to make sure courage, community, and practical skills are cultivated in parallel. 

6. How can people get involved in NEB?The focus for now is to get the information shared in the Briefing to as many people as possible.  This involves building pressure on politicians and broadcasters to engage with its content and fulfil their obligations to inform themselves, their colleagues and the wider public, for instance via a televised National Emergency Briefing.  A short film based on the briefing is currently in production, with plans for community screenings around the country this Spring. For more information and to get involved see https://www.nebriefing.org/take-action.