There is a curious sentence in the excellent article “The power of Europe’s rebel farmers” by Alice Hancock and Andy Bounds (FT Weekend, February 10). They write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of “‘substantive agricultural production losses’… if temperatures continue to rise.”
If? To quote the famed American diplomat George Kennan, writing in 1948 in another context “we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming.”
Every year we pour more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – almost 70% per annum more since policymakers first started mouthing the pieties 35 years ago. This year atmospheric concentrations will be 425 parts per million, 100pm more than when I was born in 1970. As charted by the United Nations Environment Program’s annual “Emissions Gap” report, the chasm (or abyss) between our alleged ambition and the physical requirements to keep temperature increases even below an unsafe 2 degrees above pre-Industrial levels. grows remorselessly, every year.
There is no “if” – or but – about it. Temperatures will increase, with all the consequences we can imagine, and more than a few we cannot. Might the FT lead the way in replacing “if” with “as” in its coverage?
Thirty four years ago, on this day, February 1st, 1990, an article about possible carbon taxes from the Financial Times (London) was syndicated in the Australian Financial Review (aka “The Fin”).
“Drastic measures to combat global atmospheric pollution caused by burning carbon fuels were urged yesterday by the International Energy Agency.”
Anon. 1990. Carbon Fuel Tax May Limit Pollution Levels. Australian Financial Review, 2 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.1ppm. As of 2024 it is 422.3ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that at Nordwijk in November of 1989, nations had agreed to keep talking about talking about negotiating a climate treaty. There were other meetings coming up. And the International Energy Agency was sticking its oar in with the suggestion of carbon taxes and pricing mechanisms. Also there was a federal election pending in Australia, the climate issue was very salient.
What we learn is that debates about carbon pricing have been shaped by prestigious powerful – or prestigious, at least – outfits like the IEA in ways that I didn’t fully understand for my PhD thesis, but here we are.
What happened next,Bob Hawke narrowly won the March 1993 election with small g. green votes, and was therefore obliged to follow through with this idea of ecologically sustainable development.
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.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, November 3, 1990, the normally sane Financial Times published a brain fart of an article
Thomas, David (1990) The cracks in the greenhouse theory. Financial Times 3 November
There were claims that the IPCC organisers had deliberately excluded strong dissenters, such as Richard Lindzen, Hugh Elsaesser and Fred Singer, from participating in the IPCC. One unnamed scientist went so far as to claim that the supporters of the greenhouse theory ‘behave like Hitler’ by conspiring to prevent critics from publishing their conclusions in leading scientific journals (quoted in Thomas, 1990.)
Paterson, M (1996) Page 45
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the IPCC’s first assessment report had been delivered two months earlier. Since then, there had been fierce contestation of it. And this article in the FT was part of the push back ahead of the second World Climate Conference in Geneva and the imminent start of the climate negotiations. So the FT was wanting to cater to its various members, readers, some of whom would want to doubt awkward physical realities.
Eleven months earlier, Forbes had run a similar piece of nonsense (Link).
What I think we can learn from this
I am not suggesting that the Global Climate Coalition or the British Coal board phoned up the editor of the FT and ordered him to order an underling to write this. That’s not how power works. That’s not how the world usually works, 99.99 times out of 100.
What happened next
The FT stopped being quite so fucking useless on climate change. It’s currently quite good (especially when they publish my letters).
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.
It would be nice to live in Patrick J Allen’s world (FT letters “Getting mad at oil majors won’t solve energy crisis,” FT Weekend, 18 February). In that world innocent and disinterested oil companies are simply waiting for the world’s governments to agree a global carbon price.
Sadly, this world – the real one- is rapidly overheating. In this world oil companies have spent the last 35 years – from the very start of the climate negotiations – resolutely opposing such measures at both national and international levels. Whether the price is a tax or an emissions trading scheme, oil companies have been key players in the campaign of predatory delay, delaying deferring watering down either via direct lobbying, or by funding groups that deny the basic reality of 19th century physics.
Indeed, the call for a global carbon price is a classic delaying technique, because such a price would take decades to agree, even if it could be (doubtful).
These are decades during which two things would happen. One, the impacts of the carbon dioxide we have already put into the air would accelerate. Second, oil company profits would continue to climb.
Dr Marc Hudson
So, on the 19th century physics bit – before Arrhenius in 1896, there was this –
The French chemist Fourier in 1824/1827, showing that given the Earth’s distance from the Sun, and the temperature of the Earth, there must be *something* trapping heat, as in a greenhouse (see Jason Fleming’s excellent article).
Eunice Foote and John Tyndall in the late 1850s and early 1860s respectively showing that “carbonic acid” (essentially carbon dioxide in solution) traps heat…
On predatory delay –
Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime.
“Predatory delay is the blocking or slowing of needed change, in order to make money off unsustainable, unjust systems in the meantime. For delay to be truly predatory, those engaged in it need to know two things: That they’re hurting others and that there are other options.”
Why I write
I LOVE the FT – not for its pro-growth, pro-capitalism ideology, but for its intelligence, the facts it displays, the quality of its writers. As Chomsky has said, if you want a tolerably accurate view of the world, read the quality business press (albeit with your bullshit detectors set to maximum settings), because these papers are written for the people who are actually running the show, and they need accurate information, not fairy stories they want to believe or they want/need other people to believe.
And that’s why I put effort into pushing back against bad narratives about climate change that appear in the FT. If the pushback gets published, then it appears in front of people who ‘matter’. As theories of change go, it’s not much, I agree, but at least it’s not going to make things actively worse…
Whoop, the Financial Times has published my letter!(31st December 2022)
The excellent letter from Patricia Finney (‘It’s simple physics and chemistry – climate change will kill us all’, FT 17 December) will hopefully give readers of the FT in high places pause for thought.
There are two points I wish to clarify. First, she states “scientists have been warning about it for 30 years.” Sadly, the warnings go back to the 1950s. Through the 1970s various UK civil servants and scientists became steadily more concerned. (see Jon Agar, 2015 “Future forecast – changeable and probably getting worse”: the UK Government’s Early Response to Anthropogenic Climate Change .Twentieth Century British History, Volume 26, Issue 4). Finally, in 1980 they briefed Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. who replied incredulously, “Are you telling me I should worry about the weather?” (see John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. Vol. 2: The Iron Lady (London, 2003), 642-643.)
Secondly, Finney argues that “nothing else has worked, not petitions, not marches.” Agreed, but what hasn’t been tried, or tried repeatedly and reflexively enough, is the building of coalitions between workers, environmentalists, the young, pensioners, academics that can resist the lure of repeated feel-good mobilisations and also the dangers of being brought inside government and corporate tents for feel-good do-nothing roundtables and consultations.
Just Stop Oil has, I would guess, around 1000 activists. The UK has a population of over 65 million. In the words of the police chief in the film Jaws, “we’re going to need a bigger boat.”
