Tag: George Monbiot

Categories
Australia Denial

December 15, 2009 – Monbiot versus Plimer on Lateline

Fourteen years ago, on this day, December 15, 2009, UK commentator George Monbiot took on and demolished Australian geologist Ian Plimer.

2009 Monbiot versus Pilmer on Lateline http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2009/s2772906.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEsygjXunTs

http://www.monbiot.com/2009/12/17/showdown-with-plimer/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was talking climate because of the recently concluded Copenhagen conference and the general upsurge in concern over the previous three years. Plimer had written a book called “Heaven and Earth” which has become a major denialist tract. Monbiot was always up for a ruck. Monbiot had already put paid to David Bellamy’s appearances by pointing out that Bellamy had completely misunderstood an aspect of glacier retreat.

What I think we can learn from this

That is rare for a single intellectual crushing and humiliation to particularly matter, but cumulatively they can, I guess.

What happened next

Plimer kept plimering. Monbiot kept publishing. Kevin Rudd did not announce the double dissolution election in response to the blockage of his wretched legislation. The Australia climate wars just got worse. And the emissions kept climbing.

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
Ignored Warnings United States of America Weather modification

1958, Jan 8: “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ

On this day in 1958 future President Lyndon Baines Johnson was speaking at the Democratic Caucus

“From space,” declared Johnson at the Democratic Caucus in January of 1958, warning of the technologically and scientifically superior Russians, “the masters of infinity could have the power to control the earth’s weather, to case drought and flood, to change the tides and raise the level of the sea, to divert the Gulf Stream, and change temperate climates to frigid” (Howe, 2014:27).

Why this matters – this sense of paranoia and fear, that matters might be beyond our control, and that we must redouble our efforts to be In Charge –  is, I fear, what is behind the coming push for geoengineering “solutions” as a kind of last throw of the dice. It’s good to remember that weather modification predates concerns about atmospheric build up of C02, and that the same types of people have been advocating both (this is not to say that there aren’t well-intentioned ‘progressive’ types who want a better world and don’t see a way out of the mess that doesn’t involve more god-technology japes).

What happened next?

As president, Lyndon Johnson gave a “Special Message to the Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty“ which included the prescient lines

“Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places”. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Entire regional airsheds, crop plant environments, and river basins are heavy with noxious materials.”

This was in February 1965  though, while LBJ was tag-teaming the USA into the thousand year long invasion of Vietnam, so the sentences possibly didn’t get the attention future generations might have hoped they would.


See also

Jan 1st: blog post – Control the weather before the Commies do…

Further reading

Monbiot,, G. (2006) No Quick Fix on Paul Cruzen

Wasser, A. (2005) LBJ’s space race: what we didn’t know then. The Space Review, June 20.