Thirty five years ago, on this day, January 5th, 1989 the US National Academy of Sciences ? urged President-elect George HW Bush to actually DO something on climate because “‘the future welfare of human society’ was at risk” (Layzer 2012 page 157).
Here’s the beginning of a New York Times article, published January 6 1989 by the redoubtable Philip Shabecoff.
The National Academy of Sciences urged President-elect George Bush today to place the threat of a significant increase in global temperatures high on his agenda because ”the future welfare of human society” is at risk.
The academy urged Mr. Bush to seek alternatives to coal, oil and other fuels whose air pollutants are a main cause of the predicted global warming.
”We believe that global environmental change may well be the most pressing international issue of the next century,” the academy said. ”The United States is well-positioned to play a leadership role in coping with and gaining an international consensus on this difficult issue.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change had finally broken through the previous summer. And as candidate, George Herbert Walker, Bush had made the right noises about the greenhouse effect and the so-called “White House effect.” And now with his inauguration about to take place, folks at the National Academy of Sciences wanted to hold him to that.
What we can learn is that everybody knows that politicians have to be “reminded” of their promises repeatedly. Because if you stop pressuring them, they assume everyone else has forgotten about the promise. And they keep taking the fat, brown envelopes of cash from the usual suspects.
What happened next, Bush did everything he could to dampen the issue. And his goons were busy smearing James Hansen, et cetera. But in May of 1989, they overdid it. And Bush was forced to concede that yes, there would need to be a global treaty, and that negotiations should start for that. That led on to the text battles over the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which the US ultimately won. And here we are 30 years later, having achieved nothing. And actually, that’s wrong: emissions are now 65% higher than they were. And we’ve run out of time and budget.
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.
References
Layzer, J. 2012. Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. MIT Press
Shabecoff, P. 1989. Bush Is Urged to Fight Threat of Global Warming. New York Times, January 6
Also on this day:
January 5, 1973 – An academic article about the Arctic emerges from the Met Office
Jan 5, 2006 – strategic hand-wringing about “Our Drowning Neighbours”