One year ago, on this day, October 9th, 2025,
A report by DEFRA and spooks was supposed to be released, but the launch – at the Science Museum – was cancelled at the last minute. A redacted version of the report has come out.
Fiona Harvey of the Guardian has done some good reporting on this.
Here’s my take
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 427ppm. 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 there was supposed to be a launch of a new report by DEFRA and with support from the spooks. Then the plug got pulled, and there have been attempts to get a Freedom of Information Act request-based information about it, all this has failed. The British state is utterly incapable of being democratic or transparent, and it will be no better under Andy Burnham. I’m saying, I’m narrating this in early July before he has become Prime Minister, it’ll be hitting your eyeballs, obviously, on October the ninth, and we’ll find out if I was right.
The specific context was the COP was coming up and the British didn’t want to embarrass the hosts, Brazil.
What I think we can learn from this we are utterly doomed.
What happened next – we continued to be very very stupid.
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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:
October 9, 1979 – Hermann Flohn warns Irish of “possible consequences of a man-made warming”
October 9, 1991 – Greens get labeled religious fanatics, don’t like it.
October 9, 2006 – @AlboMP calls for International Coalition to accept #Climate Refugees