Tag: New Scientist

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Technophilia technosalvationism United Kingdom

October 8, 1964 – Party X and Party Y (techno and eco) – seminal article in New Scientist

Sixty years ago, on this day, October 8th, 1964,

 Nigel Calder’s article in New Scientist on 8 Oct 1964 (at the time of the 1964 general election). Calder’s article expressed dissatisfaction with the similar policies offered by the two main parties, and called for the creation of two very different political parties, X and Y. This seminal article basically espoused two different visions of the future: ‘Party X’ technocratic, ‘Party Y’ ‘ecological’. What is interesting about Calder’ s vision is how much of the vision for ‘Party Y’ was to become part of the early 1970s environmental message.

(Herring, 2001)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 320ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that awareness of environmental problems was growing. Whether it was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, or the Buchanan report about traffic in cities. And it was clear that there were unmet political needs because both main parties were all about economic growth. And the proposal for a technocrat party and an ecological party as we would never call them was a sensible one. But there are simply too many cross cutting needs and myths. These are not the official lines as people see them, because people think they can have their cake and eat it. And for a certain amount of time you can, but eventually, you look down and you have an empty plate and a face full of food. You no longer have your cake.

What we learn is that these debates about technology “versus” ecology whatever, they go back. Well, they go back earlier than 1964. But they were expressed plainly in New Scientist in 1964.

What happened next? The article was, I’m told, influential in some circles, largely ignored more broadly.

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

Xxx

Also on this day: 

October 8, 1959 – Shell says “nothing to see here” on carbon dioxide build-up

October 8, 1971 – Lord Kennet pushes back against Nature’s “John Maddox” on the greenhouse effect.

October 8, 1978 – The Times runs an “ice caps melting” story

October 8, 1988 – Aussie poet and activist Judith Wright in final speech, warns of environmental problems ahead…

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United Kingdom

July 28, 1990 – science writer John Gribbin explains why caution is wrong on global warming

Thirty four years ago, on this day, July 28th, 1990 UK science writer John Gribbin nails the problem.

AT WHAT POINT will politicians take real action to curb the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? A summary of the situation runs as follows: ‘Some blinkered optimists argue that until the case against carbon dioxide is proven, it is pointless to take any action to curb it. But since the only proof will be when the rains start to fail in North America and there is no spare grain to rush to famine regions, this hardly seems sensible.’

Gribbin, J. 1990. Talking Point: Why caution is wrong on global warming. New Scientist, 127 28 July, p. 18.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that John Gribbin had been writing about climate systems as a trained physicist and science journalist for a good 15 years in New Scientist and so forth. He’d written various books and was well qualified to understand what the IPCC was saying in its various reports. By this time Working Group 1 had already reported and the synthesis report was due to happen.

There were by now outfits like the George C Marshall Institute, and World Coal Association trying to play denialist minimalizing games, and Gribbin was speaking out against taking their shit seriously.

What we learn is that by 1990, it was extremely obvious both that the world was going to warm and that denialists – for reasons of their own – would deny. The siren sounds of denial were to be warned against. 

What happened next. Look around you. Who won? Who lost?

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: 

July 28, 1970 – American journalist warns about melting the icecaps…

July 28, 1990 – American #climate denial comes to London

July 28, 2003 – James Inhofe shares his genius

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Denial

June 26, 1975 – Denialist Richard Scorer being stupid

Forty nine years ago, on this day, June 26th, 1975, an overconfident man was being over-confident. And fundamentally, dangerously, wrong.

Scorer, R. 1975 The danger of environmental jitters. New Scientist, June 26 p702- 703

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that environmental concerns were still bubbling along. The greenhouse issue was still bubbling along. None of it with the prominence in the public mind that it had a couple of years before. But still enough for sceptics, like Richard Scorer to do a standard “denounce the greenies for being hysterical, emotional, unscientific, irrational.” fear, this stuff writes itself.  Scorer wasn’t alone in this of course – there was also John Maddox, John Mason et al.

What we learn is that the culture war must be fought, just pull the trigger to feel powerful, lay down some so-called suppressing fire at your enemies. Label them hysterical, ignore the arguments. Bish bosh. 

What happened next – as late as 1987 Scorer was peddling the same tosh.

Scorer’s 1987 greenhouse denial in the Guardian letters page.

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: 

June 26, 1986 – “our children will grow old in a world that fragmenting and disintegrating.”

June 26, 1988 – it’s SHOWTIME for climate…

June 26, 1991 “environment is not flavor of the month any more”

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Germany IPCC UNFCCC

April 8, 1995 – Journo points out the gamble on climate

Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, April 8th, 1995, Fred Pearce of the New Scientist points out that there is a gamble going on (as did Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman three years earlier).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14619720-300-world-lays-odds-on-global-catastrophe/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first COP had just finished. Rich nations had been resisting emissions cuts using scientific uncertainty as their final excuse. But Swedish scientist Bert Bolin, who had been banging on about climate change, and carbon dioxide build up since 1958, at the latest, was telling them that the IPCC Second Assessment Report would be out later this year and that they shouldn’t expect to be able to use the uncertainty card for very much longer, more or less.

What I think we can learn from this is that the really sharp battles at the end of 1995, were all about that. I hadn’t quite grokked that before.

What happened next

Well, there were really sharp battles at the end of ‘95. From the middle of ‘95 efforts by denialists to smear individual scientists (the “Serengeti Strategy”) and the process in order to slow progress towards a serious protocol.

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: 

April 8, 1970 – Australian National University students told about C02 build-up…

April 8, 1980 – UK civil servant Crispin Tickell warns Times readers…

April 8, 1995 – Australian environment minister says happy with “Berlin Mandate”

April 8, 2013 – Margaret Thatcher died

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Carbon Capture and Storage

November 2, 2006 – “RIP C02” says New Scientist

Seventeen years ago, on this day, November 2, 2006, the New Scientist

MANY countries would love to bury the problem of rising carbon dioxide levels and forget about it. Soon they will be able to do just that, hiding CO2 away in caverns, aquifers and porous rocks beneath the seabed.

The London Convention governing burial of material in the sea was amended on 2 November, making it legal to bury CO2 in natural structures under the oceans. Twenty-nine countries ratified it, including the UK, China and Australia.

Anon (2006) R.I.P. CO2. New Scientist, November 18, Pg. 6

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was certain people and organsiations had been pushing for carbon sequestration technologies, carbon capture and storage. 

Wth the storage, there had been early suggestions that you simply have the CO2 into the very deep oceans, and it will then liquefy and sink. That was maybe not such a good idea. The fallback came up of saline aquifers and so forth. But the law still needed to be changed at an international level. And this was the moment that that happened.. 

What I think we can learn from this is that if there are laws in the way they can be changed. I think it was Rockefeller, who said, “I paid lawyers to tell me how to get something done, not that it’s against the law” words to that effect. Laws are there not to protect the “environment” or poor people, they are there to put a nice gloss on what the rich are doing. And to chain the poor. They make the laws to chain us well. 

What happened next

CCS did not happen next. Has not happened yet. Yet

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.

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International Geophysical Year United States of America

 April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

Sixty six years ago, on this day, April 4, 1957, the then-new popular science publication ran a story on the issue of carbon dioxide build-up, in the context of the imminent “International Geophysical Year”, which was to start in July…

New Scientist piece on c02 buildup

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Since Gilbert Plass’s statements in May 1953, the carbon dioxide theory of climate change (as propounded by Guy Callendar) was one of several competing theories. There were not, yet, however, super-accurate measures of atmospheric C02. Thanks to Roger Revelle and Charles David Keeling, that would soon change…

What I think we can learn from this

There has been popular knowledge of carbon dioxide build-up for a very long time.  It might therefore be the case that the “Information deficit” model of campaigning is at best misguided.

What happened next

The data from the International Geophysical Year, and Keeling’s meticulous measures at Mauna Loa, would show that yes, atmospheric carbon dioxide was definitely rising. Whether that was a distant small problem or a more immediate big problem, that would take some hashing out…

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..

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Science Scientists United States of America

March 7, 1988 – “We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate” 

Thirty five  years ago, on this day, March 7 (or thereabouts) 1988 at a conference on Gaia running from 7 to 11 March…

Richard Gammon of the US government’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at Seattle in Washington state, seems to have been the first off the starting blocks. After seeing the complete data for 1987 and the first results for 1988, he told a conference in March 1988: “Since the mid-1970s we have been in a period of very, very rapid warming. We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.”

(Pearce, 1989:3)

[“The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference” in San Diego was from March 7 to 11.]

Rarely has a hypothesis immediately sparked such a passionate response. There is something in it for everybody, from hard core scientists to philosophers, ultraconservationists, students of world religions, mystics, politicians, and space enthusiasts; they were all there in San Diego, March 7–11, 1988, for the AGU Chapman Conference on Gaia Hypotheses. For 4 days an impressive list of specialists presented and debated the pros and cons of Gaia Hypotheses from diverse perspectives: modern and ancient biology, ecology, biochemistry, the physicochemical systems of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere, and the evolution of the solar system.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 352.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that “earth systems” scientists were very interested in the Lovelock and Margulis Gaia theory, enough to have a conference about it. And from the October 1985 Villach meeting onwards, the scientists and politicians were all getting more interested in just how soon the signal would emerge from the noise on climate change…

What I think we can learn from this

James Hansen was not an outlier in his June 1988 testimony.  Sure, there wasn’t necessarily a majority, but what Hansen said was not all that unusual or surprising (see Schneider’s Greenhouse Century for accounts of how journalists kept looking for quotes from him to try to set up a “Hansen/Schneider split” story.)

What happened next

Within months climate change would become unavoidable for politicians. No more long grass…

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

Kaufman E., 1988. The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference  Eos, Transactions American Geophysical UnionVolume 69, Issue 31 p. 763-764 https://doi.org/10.1029/88EO01043

Pearce, F. (1988) New Scientist

Pearce, F. (1989) Turning up the heat

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Science

 January 13, 2021 – New Scientist reports on types of intelligence required to deal with #climate change    

Two years ago, on this day, January 13, 2021, Robert J Sternberg, an American academic who has been studying intelligence for decades, argues in a New Scientist article that, well

“We’ve got intelligence all wrong – and that’s endangering our future”

IMAGINE a world in which admission to the top universities – to Oxford or Cambridge, or to Harvard or Yale – were limited to people who were very tall. Very soon, tall people would conclude that it is the natural order of things for the taller to succeed and the shorter to fail.

This is the world we live in. Not with taller and smaller people (although taller people often are at an advantage). But there is one measure by which, in many places, we tend to decide who has access to the best opportunities and a seat at the top decision-making tables: what we call intelligence. After all, someone blessed with intelligence has, by definition, what it takes – don’t they?

We have things exactly the wrong way round. The lesson of research by myself and many others over decades is that, through historical accident, we have developed a conception of intelligence that is narrow, questionably scientific, self-serving and ultimately self-defeating.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933174-700-weve-got-intelligence-all-wrong-and-thats-endangering-our-future/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 415.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 418. .

What I think we can learn from this

Robert Sternberg has produced so much useful work (on love, on creativity/intelligence).

The game is rigged, and those rigging it want to keep the game as it is. Basically, a bunch of extractivist violent arrogant planet-killers think they are God’s gift, because they made God in their image.  And here we are.

What happened next

We keep relying on our “intelligence” to get us out of this.

Meanwhile, are our brains gonna fry? https://undark.org/2022/12/22/why-climate-science-shouldnt-forget-to-factor-in-brain-health/

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

References

Sternberg. R. (2018)  “Why Real-World Problems Go Unresolved and What We Can Do about It: Inferences from a Limited-Resource Model of Successful Intelligence”

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/6/3/44
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Science Scientists

October 15, 1985 – Villach meeting supercharges greenhouse concerns…

On this day, October 15 in 1985, scientists from around the world began a meeting that would lead to the final arrival of the climate “issue” on the international agenda.  Here is the beginning of an article by prominent science writer Fred Pearce, writing in 2005…

“The week the climate changed; Villach, a sleepy spa town in southern Austria, is not an obvious place from which to change the world. But 20 years ago this week, a conference there became the spark that lit today’s burning concern about global warming. Before Villach, the greenhouse effect was a subject for specialised physicists – a possible problem for future generations and nothing more. After Villach, global warming swiftly became the world’s top environmental story. The conference, say the people who were there, was the catalyst for the formation of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the gatekeeper for the science of climate change – and led to the Kyoto protocol. So what happened? Was it atmospheric chemistry or personal chemistry?

Pearce – “The Week the Climate Changed” New Scientist

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 343.35ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – since the early 1970s there had been international meetings of scientists to look at Man’s Impact on the Climate/Environment, in various places (Williamstown, Wijk, Norwich, Villach). From 1972 some of these meetings had been co-sponsored by the UN Environment Program, alongside the World Meteorological Organisation. The models got better, the scientists got surer of what was happening, what might happen…

The Villach 1985 meeting is the one at which the non-carbon-dioxide greenhouse gases got properly added up, and they realised trouble was afoot, less hypothetically and sooner than they’d been thinking…

Why this matters. 

History is good, isn’t it? If you didn’t think that, you’d not be reading this site.

What happened next?

American senators got the message – in December we’ll talk about Carl Sagan’s testimony in December 1985.  The US Department of State, nervous about being bounced into binding international action on carbon dioxide the way they had been about ozone, decided to slow the whole thing down and make sure governments got to vet scientific statements…

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United Kingdom

October 8, 1959 – Shell says “nothing to see here” on carbon dioxide build-up

On this day, October 8 in 1959, an article appeared in New Scientist (then a pretty new publication)  by Dr M.A. Matthews, employed by Shell. It cast doubt on idea of carbon dioxide increase having any effect on climate

1959 Shell “The Earth’s Carbon Cycle” Article

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 313.33ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm – but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – The International Geophysical Year had focussed on many things, including the atmosphere. Academic articles were beginning to appear looking at carbon dioxide build-up.  Already through the 1950s various scientists had begun to speculate…