Thirty two years ago, on this day, August 2nd, 1992, the newspaper for Australia’s political capital reports a very stupid physicist who couldn’t cope with having backed the wrong horse and being old and now irrelevant (scientifically, if, not – sadly – politically).
“Global warming caused by sun” Canberra Times 2 August, p.5, reporting Jastrow
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that although the denialists had one relatively famous victory at Rio, it wasn’t enough. It was never enough, because they wanted to drive a stake through what they perceive to be the vampire’s heart. And, of course, they quite liked travelling around the world, feeling important because they were addressing various audiences and getting polite applause. These are old white men suffering from Relevant Deprivation Syndrome. Their days as high powered physicists were well behind them. They had fought the Cold War, they had defended Reagan’s Space Defence Initiative, (aka Star Wars), and now they had found a new grift, saying that the greenhouse effect wasn’t real.
What we learn is that Relevance Deprivation Syndrome is a tragic chronic illness, with fatal consequences for everyone else. Robert Jastrow, in the late 70s, after all, had been saying there would be a new ice age. It’s fine to be wrong. It’s not so fine to compensate by being a total prick.
What happened next, the Canberra Times kept publishing denialist screeds because journalistic “balance” as per Boykoff and Boykoff (2004). Funny how they didn’t balance pro-capitalist views with anti-capitalist and communist views, for example.
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:
August 2, 1970 – LA Times runs #climate change front page story
August 2, 2007 – Russia plants a flag on the Arctic sea-bed.