Thirty years ago, on this day, November 30th, 1995,
Two days ago, Fred Hilmer, the chairman of Australia’s worst atmospheric polluter, Pacific Power, gave a talk at the University of NSW on the rationale behind the Carr Government’s changes to the electricity industry.
Professor Hilmer gave an impressive, enthusiastic sales job. The crowded room was hot as hell that afternoon and at the end of his 45-minute talk he was sweating profusely.
Even though Pacific Power is our biggest producer of greenhouse gases, the greenhouse effect and global warming were not mentioned. It was an extraordinary omission.
1995 Gilchrist, G. 1995. Just The Shock Power Industry Needs. Sydney Morning Herald. December 1, p.4.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 361ppm. As of 2025, 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 that Australia’s leaders had by this time had 7 years of having to pretend they gave a damn about “the greenhouse effect”. But the public pressure was off a bit by now…
The specific context was – a carbon tax proposal had been defeated earlier in the year, and maybe Hilmer couldn’t be bothered to pretend to give a shit?
What I think we can learn from this – they will ignore an issue if they think they can get away with it.
What happened next – John Howard became Prime Minister of Australia in March 1996 and climate policy went from incredibly bad to even worse.
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:
November 29, 1973 – Australian politician warns of climate change
November 29, 1988 – Australian parliamentarians taught climate