Tag: Noam Chomsky

Categories
Activism United States of America

May 1, 1971 – May Day anti-war actions in Washington DC

Fifty three years ago, on this day, May 1st, 1971, people came to Washington to throw their bodies on the gears of the machine, to stop the Vietnam War.

1971 May Day protests in Washington [Wikipedia]

See also

Mayday: The Case for Civil Disobedience
Noam Chomsky
The New York Review of Books, June 17, 1971

https://chomsky.info/19710617

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the war in Vietnam was continuing. And the war in Cambodia, the bombing, there had been years of marches, petitions, protests, and now they were trying civil disobedience, direct action in Washington DC itself. And I wonder what it was like to be there. So desperate, so exhausted, scared, determined, you name it.

What we learn is that this is written out of the official histories that the war in Vietnam stories tend to end with Kent State. And the ongoing resistance to the war, after Kent State, is kind of largely ignored. It doesn’t fit the narrative because you have to then speak of domestic violence by the state against citizens. Well, also the whole “Weather Underground” thing, blowing themselves in that Greenwich Village townhouse, didn’t really help, did it?

What happened next, Nixon won the 1972 election, which tells you a lot of what you need to know. And the war in Vietnam continued. The Americans left in 73. And my first television memory that I can date was the fall of Saigon in April of 1975. The tank crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace…

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.

See also

See also Oreskes and Conway, 2010 Page 176

See also this from Jacobin

https://jacobin.com/2021/05/may-day-1971-vietnam-war-nixon

Also on this day: 

May 1, 1980 – ABC talks about atmospheric carbon dioxide measurement

May 1, 1996 – US Congressman says climate research money is “money down a rat hole”

Categories
Letters to publications

Letter in FT: Global carbon price call is a classic delaying tactic

WHOOP! Another letter in the FT.

Here’s the text-

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. 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…

Categories
Kyoto Protocol United States of America

December 7, 1928 – Noam Chomsky born

On this day, December 7 in 1928 – Noam Chomsky was born.

Happy 94th birthday, Noam.

Here’s a couple  of quotes, for those of you who want a taste. The first is (obvs) on climate. The second is on… heroes…

 “Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it’s exactly what you’re taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you’re taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it’s called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don’t have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren’s interests is being irrational, because what you’re supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 [52]

And also, on heroes

I gather it’s your belief that when we focus on heroes in the movement, that’s a mistake, because it’s really the unsung heroes, the unsung seamstresses or whatever in this movement, who actually make a difference.

They’re the ones, yes. Take, say, the Civil Rights movement. When you think of the Civil Rights movement, the first thing you think of is Martin Luther King. King was an important figure. But he would have been the first to tell you, I’m sure, that he was riding the wave of activism, that people who were doing the work, who were in the lead in the Civil Rights movement, were young SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] workers, freedom riders, people out there in the streets every day getting beaten and sometimes killed, working constantly. They created the circumstances in which a Martin Luther King could come in and be a leader. His role was extremely important, I’m not denigrating it, it was very important to have done that. But the people who were really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. And that’s true of every movement that ever existed.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people2/Chomsky/chomsky-con5.html

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 307ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.] 

Why this matters. 

Noam has mattered. Movements matter.