Seven years ago, on this day, February 20th, 2017, money earmarked for technology was revealed to have been spent on propaganda.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 406.6ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Australian coal industry had created a levy on its members that was allegedly going to be spent on investigating low emissions technologies, it was called ACALET. But it turns out that CCS is mind bogglingly expensive. And given that the pressure for emissions reductions had gone away because Prime Minister Tony Abbott had abolished the Gillard Emissions Trading Scheme, they decided to syphon off money into PR efforts.
What we learn is that money collected to save the world can easily be repurposed to screw the world and sustain the rich and powerful.
What happened next? It was a one-day scandal.
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:
February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist