Tag: Canberra Times

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Australia

April 29, 1967 – Canberra Times reviews Science and Survival

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, April 29th, 1997, there was a book review in the Canberra Times which gave those who wanted to know enough to worry about. The book in question was Barry Commoner’s “Science and Survival”.

“Our factories, our cars, pour smoke and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and the consequences? Smog, of course; city-dwellers have come to take that for granted, though the time is coming when we must ask ourselves how much smog we are prepared to tolerate. But, worse than this, the “glasshouse effect” of atmospheric carbon dioxide must be increasing the temperature of the earth; and a report by the US President’s Science Advisory Committee has seriously considered the possibility of the Antarctic ice cap melting within the next few centuries, and raising sea level by some 400 feet — and engulfing many of the world’s major cities in the process.”

Aitchson, G. 1967 -A menace ot mankind?” Canberra Times, April 29, p.10

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Barry Commoner’s Science and Survival had come out the previous September and had been favourably reviewed by the Guardian and The Telegraph. And now, the Canberra Times.

What we learn is that this book was a crucial node in increased awareness of the climate issue. Not just because it was reviewed well, but because it inspired documentary makers such as Richard Broad and Roy Battersby. 

What happened next, The Canberra Times kept reporting on pollution issues. A Senate Select Committee inquiry started the next year. Were they inspired by reading Science and Survival? who knows…

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: 

April 29, 1970 – Washington DC symposium talks about carbon dioxide

April 29, 1998 – Australia signs the Kyoto Protocol

Categories
Australia Nuclear Power

January 31, 1979 – Alvin Weinberg’s “nukes to fix climate change” speech reported

Forty four years ago, on this day, January 31, 1979 the Canberra Times’ Tony Juddery reported on a speech by American scientist Alvin Weinberg, then visiting Oz.

Weinberg was basically saying “nukes and lots of them, or else suffer climate change.”

Juddery’s take? “A visiting true believer ignores the option of solar technology.”

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/136977708

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Weinberg had been pretty sure about the climate problem and also sure about nuclear’s role in doing something about it since 1974, probably a lot earlier. He was on a tour in Australia, one of those typical “let’s bring out an expert, get some bums on seats, feel like we are an important outpost or colony in the boonies.” 

Judderry of the Canberra Times was a colourful character and did a good job explaining it.

So 1979 a couple of weeks before the First World Climate Conference was going to happen. This was not a big deal down under.  Fun fact; only one Australian WW Gibbs, of the Bureau of Meteorology  went. No one from CSIRO not Pittock, Pearman, not even the boss, Brian Tucker; it just wasn’t a high priority back in the day. 

What we learn

The great and the good were explaining reality to Australian political elites by the late 1970s. But yokels gonna yokel.  And I guess this puts the National and Country senators (Collard etc) efforts in 1981 in perspective…

What happened next.
In November 1981 the Office of National Assessments finally did a report. 

The polymath and Science Minister (1983-1990) Barry Jones got hold of the issue. Finally, in 1986 things began to move.

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: 

January 31, 2002 – Antarctic ice shelf “Larsen B” begins to break up.

January 31, 1990 – Environmental Racism – then and now… Guest post by @SakshiAravind

Categories
Australia

January 19,1992 – they gambled, we lost

Thirty two years ago, on this day, January 19th, 1992,

“One of the CSIRO’s top scientists says doubters of the greenhouse effect are gambling with the future of the world. Dr Graeme Pearman, coordinator of the CSIRO’s climate change research program, said yesterday there was little doubt global warming was a reality according to all the best scientific models.”

Anon, 1992. Greenhouse cynics gambling with future. Canberra Times, January 20

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the denialist campaigns in Australia, helped by imported American scientists, had been successful. And the Hawke and then Keating governments had significantly softened their stance, their already weak appetite for economic measures, such as a carbon tax. Pearman, who had been studying the climate issue for 20 years by this stage, knew what was at stake and was publicly pushing back. 

What we can learn from this is that scientists have been correctly predicting that the gamble was going on and correctly predicting that there might be losers in that gamble. 

What happened next is that a carbon tax came back onto the agenda in 1994-95. It was again defeated, then tax became ETS in the late 90s. Everyone was talking about it. And then finally Tony Abbott killed it off. More broadly Pearman has been very public about the struggles back then.

And we are toast. 

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: 

January 19, 1968 – Engineers are not ecologists…

January 19, 1976 – The carbon consequences of cement get an early discussion.

January 19, 2015 -Four utilities pull out of an EU CCS programme…

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

January 12, 1995 – Australian carbon tax coming??

Twenty nine years ago, on this day, January 12th 1995 the game of chicken and dare around a carbon price in Australia was coming to a head. A front page story in the Canberra Times began as follows,

“A greenhouse gas levy remains firmly on the Government’s agenda, with the bureaucratic working group responsible for developing the levy meeting for the first time yesterday.”

 Henderson, I. 1995. Greenhouse gas levy remains to the fore. The Canberra Times, 12 January, p.1.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Australian Conservation Foundation (a big green NGO) and others had been pushing for a carbon tax for years initially as part of the Ecologically Sustainable Development policymaking process. And although they had suffered defeats, they didn’t let it go. New Environment Minister John Faulkner had taken that on board and he had also taken on board Phlilip Toyne who had been a major force in the Australian green movement as head of the Australian Conservation Foundation. 

What we can learn is that there is a great deal of believing when you’re top of the web or “dissent ecosystem”, (not that you can be at the ‘top’ of such a thing) in that when you’re a big player it’s tempting to believe that you can join the system and change the system from within. Then there’s a logic to doing so, or wanting to do so: beyond easy claims and smears of careerism, and parlaying radicalism to take one of the jobs for the boys. Toyne tried. He failed to get the tax up – but that was because the opposition to it was clear and clever and the support for it did not have its shit together.

What happened next a month and two days after this was in the newspapers, Environment Minister John Faulkner pulled the plug on a carbon tax. Instead, there was a meaningless voluntary scheme, the Greenhouse Challenge, which was reheated a couple of times, but frankly, never amounted to a bucket of warm spit. 

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

Jan 12, 1983 – RIP to the “master organizer in the world of science”, Carroll Wilson

January 12, 2008 – Australian mining lobby group ups its “sustainability” rhetoric #PerceptionManagement #Propaganda   

Categories
Renewable energy

December 24, 1990 – Australia as renewable energy superpower

Thirty three years ago, on this day, December 24, 1990, a letter appears in the Canberra Times… 

Renewable energy 

YOUR excellent report from Washington, DC, presenting evidence that renewable energy could substitute for coal, oil and gas in the 21st century (CT, December 17) needs to be supplemented with some information about the Australian situation… Commonwealth support for renewable energy has been very weak.

Canberra Times 24th December 1990

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/122332903/13000347

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was talking about moving away from fossil fuels moving towards renewables. Would it be possible? Over what time-scale? etcetera 

Except when they weren’t and they were trying to sit on things, which is what the Australian government eventually took to doing.

What I think we can learn from this

The Politics of technology R&D – what gets funded, what doesn’t, by who, with what end-goals is always really interesting, well usually.

The crucial thing is this is Australia which could have been ahead of the game on wind power solar geothermal hydrogen you name it. But the problem was we had so much damn coal and natural gas, and the people who owned those resources also, in effect, owned the state and the policymaking process and have won all the big battles.

What happened next is we didn’t do that “clean energy transition.” We may yet in the future who knows, but it will be too little too late, by definition.

The age of consequences is beginning and the dildo of consequences never arrives lubed.

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

November 29, 1988 – Australian parliamentarians taught climate

Thirty five years ago, on this day, November 29, 1988, Australian members of parliament have a grip and grin photo opportunity to show how much They Care about the greenhouse issue. See this from the Canberra Times.

Parliamentarians of all political persuasions were encouraged to test the Wets and the Dries yesterday. But in this case the Wets and Dries were more in the realm of science than politics.

The Wets and Dries Testing Unit forms part of a display on climatic change held at Parliament House by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and opened yesterday by the Minister for Science, Barry Jones.

The display covers climate change and greenhouse-effect research being carried out by the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Australian National University as well as the Commission for the Future.

Mr Jones encouraged his colleagues to take a hands-on approach to the equipment the better to understand Australia’s field work.

He said that if Australia were to deal effectively with potential problems resulting from the greenhouse effect it would have to work carefully with all international bodies. Australia should also work closely with neighbouring regions such as the Pacific Islands, which faced annihilation if nothing were done.”

Wednesday 30 November 1988 Canberra Times page 22

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a few days after Bob Hawke had opened the Science Centre, here was his science Minister Barry Jones trying to get politicians from both Labor and Liberals and Nationals to have “hands-on experience” of climate change at an event in Canberra. In 1988 everyone was running around being concerned about climate (we called it ‘the Greenhouse Effect’ back then), or saying they were. 

What I think we can learn from this

This sort of photo op jamboree serves multiple purposes. You can tell when you organise these things who turns up and who doesn’t, who sends her apologies, who doesn’t bother how engaged they are. Those turning up will want to get their photo in the newspaper, so that they can say to concerned constituents or “Yes, I recently attended X.”

Journalists get cheap/reliable copy. Everyone’s a winner!

What happened next

 The follow-on to the Greenhouse Project didn’t get funded. And so a separate entity Greenhouse Action Australia had to be founded. Jones lost his ministerial seat in factional infighting in 1990. And these sorts of jamborees became less doable after 1990, because it’s old news and because Liberals decided that they didn’t really want to try to capture green votes having failed to do so in 1990. Back to the betrayal, myth, Dolchstoss etc.

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
Antarctica

November 27, 1969 – Canberra Times runs pollution article, mentions melting ice-caps

Fifty four years ago, on this day, November 27, 1969, the Canberra Times ran a piece about pollution….

Paul Backshall of London Reuters with Pollution: Gases in the Atmosphere article, reprinted in Canberra Times Thursday 27 November 1969, page 18 Check out Trove here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was writing articles about air pollution at this point. Someone in Reuters in London had written something of that ilk, and the Canberra Times had syndicated it. 

What I think we can learn from this is that newspapers are hungry beasts and will syndicate things, even if it doesn’t have much of local spin to it, especially if the issue is popular enough.

What happened next

The Canberra Times kept reporting. Everybody was aware of what was at stake. What didn’t happen was that we didn’t stop the party. And now, the hangover…

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

November 6, 1988 – Australian cartoonist nails response to #climate change

November 6 1988 

On this day in 1988 the Canberra Times ran a cartoon by Geoff Pryor nailed the Australian response to “the Greenhouse Effect” (and is still tolerably accurate today, 35 years later)

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110611748/12738842

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351,7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had just been the “Greenhouse 88” conference in all capital cities and Darwin. Everyone was grappling with “what is to be done?”  The coal industry was sitting tight, thinking it was all a fad that would blow ever…

What we learn is that we have learnt nothing.

What happened next?  Ideas for a carbon price and extra funding on energy efficiency and renewable energy were defeated. The coal export and LNG export infrastructure were radically expanded, and a small number of people got very very rich.  Pryor kept drawing for the Canberra Times until 2008, and then did some more drawing for the Saturday Paper.

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 Carbon Pricing

August 30, 1989 – A global tax on emissions?!

Thirty four years ago, on this day, August 30 1989 the Australian newspaper the Canberra Times reported on the crazy ideas that … might have made a difference.  What a stupid stupid species we turned out to be.

“A third set of more imaginative options are ruled out as too costly. These include a global tax on carbon emissions, major investment in renewable energy, and the banning of coal.”

Guest, I. 1989. World Bank tackles global warming. Canberra Times, 30 August, p. 9.

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 debates about the responses to climate change – what we used to call the greenhouse effect – were well underway, because various nations were adopting or thinking about adopting emissions reductions targets such as the Toronto Target. What’s entertaining in this is the question “compared to what?” So, if there had been a global carbon emissions tax and the money raised had gone into investing in renewable energy and compensating the workers affected by the demise of coal, then we might have gotten somewhere… But it would all have been too costly to save the world.

What I think we can learn from this is that the ideas we needed were there but turning ideas into a political program requires more skill and resources than we had. This is largely (but not totally) because of the veto power of business and the obduracy of large technical systems and so on.

What happened next

We never got a carbon tax. We got attempts at emissions trading schemes. The so-called major investments in renewables came very late, too late. And although we may exit coal, we will do it far too late.

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

July 6, 1993 – Australian bipartisanship on climate? Not really…

Thirty years ago, on this day, July 6, 1993, the Canberra Times reported on how everyone had a beef with the Keating government on climate…

The agreement between Commonwealth and state and territory governments on broad environmental issues was widely criticised yesterday by both sides of the debate during an environmental law conference in Canberra

The chief protagonists were Phillip Toyne, former chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation and now Visiting Fellow at the ANU’s Centre for Environment law, and Dr Brian O’Brien, a Penh based consultant and physicist and former chairman of the WA Environmental Protection Authority. 

1993 Campbell, R. 1993. Both sides criticise green agreement. Canberra Times, 6 July, p.4.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Labour government of Paul Keating had just won the “unwinnable” election of 1993, despite the economy having been in the toilet. The ALP had been silent on the greenhouse issue, as had the Liberals, and the concern of 1988-1991 a distant memory.

What I think we can learn from this is that you can have two people attacking a government from “opposite perspectives” (so Toyne is a greenie and O’Brien as “nothing to see here everything is okay” kind of guy) but that doesn’t mean that the government is right. It can simply mean, as it does in this case, that one lot of critics are simply wrong. 

But we so often take triangulation as the safest course. And of course, “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”

What happened next

Toyne ended up as a civil servant, albeit briefly, trying to get a carbon tax through. O’Brien kept trading on his time with NASA. And being an ass. 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.