Seventeen years ago, on this day, October 12th, 2008,
“The GetUp Climate Torch Relay reached its finale yesterday with a great event on the lawns in front of Parliament House.
While Messrs Rudd and Turnbull were otherwise occupied with the melting global financial system (as opposed to melting polar ice caps), Greens leader, Senator Bob Brown was on hand and spoke passionately, vehemently and inspirationally.
Can’t tell you too much about what he said as I was running around taking pics and helping people off-stage etc.
It was a brilliant day. It was short on political rhetoric and big on tips and traps for reducing, recycling and reusing. The GetUp theme was: Be a super hero for climate change, so there were orange capes for [people] to don to signify their will to reduce their use of precious natural resources.”
http://the-riotact.com/overheard-at-the-getup-climate-torch-relay-finale-sunday-12-october/9247
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 386ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. 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 by now Australia was two years into its “omfg, climate change” spasm, and events were beginning to look a little tired.
The specific context was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd spent most of 2008 flying around having meetings with world leaders about the Global Financial Crisis. In the meantime, the policymaking process around a “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” was descending into farce, with ever more giveaways to business.
What I think we can learn from this – repertoires get old. Politicians are slime, usually.
What happened next – Rudd’s CPRS was defeated twice, and he didn’t even have the guts to call a double dissolution election. Spineless twunt.
References
Torch relay to prompt alternative energy awareness – ABC News
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:
October 12, 1976 – Jule Charney throws (private) shade on fellow climatologists…