Fifty two years ago, on this day, December 29th, 1972,
In Baltimore in December 1972 I gave a talk on the issue of human weather control to the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). AAAS meetings are internationally known because they bring together research scientists and policy makers to discuss the societal implications of new knowledge…. After speaking for half an hour or so, on how various kinds of human activities could change the climate, I concluded that, unfortunately, only a relatively few people were aware of the possibilities. I then quipped: “Nowadays, everybody is doing something with the weather, but nobody is talking about it.”
At the front of the audience, a distinguished-looking gentleman was taking notes: he turned out to be the doyen of all science writers, Walter Sullivan of the New York Times….
Sullivan, W. 1972. Goals for US Urged on Weather Control. New York Times, Dec 29, p.50.
(Schneider, 1989: 200)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Stephen Schneider is perhaps being a little naive here, because he’d already made headlines the previous year, thanks to a paper that he had co-written that had talked about the possibility of an ice age thanks to all the dust and smoke that was being put up. That paper turned out to be wrong and was used as a club by denialists to hit Schneider over the head with it for the rest of his life. Because that’s who they are. As for Sullivan, he had been aware of the CO2 possibility at the latest 1961 but much more likely, by 1957; he had after all written a book about the International Geophysical Year.
What we learn is that by the early 1970s carbon dioxide buildup as a problem was getting more attention. There had been an article earlier the same year in May I want to say 1972 in The New York Times. There was of course by now, the United Nations Environment Program setting up shop.
What happened next: The carbon dioxide build-up issue kept getting random reports all through the 1970s. Only in 1988 did it finally punch through.
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.
In what follows, I explain what’s a COP – hopefully telling you some things you don’t already know, offer a history of South Australian awareness of climate change, and then make some brief idle speculations on how Adelaide’s bid might fair – could it do a Bradbury?
Oh no, it’s the COPs!
COPs are the “Conferences of the Parties.” While there are plenty of parties at COPs, in this case the “parties” refers to the countries (almost the whole world) which have signed up to the UNFCCC;, which was one of the international treaties signed at the pivotal “Earth Summit” in 1992, held in Rio de Janeiro.
The first COP was in Berlin in March-April 1995 (a young Angela Merkel was a key player). There have been 28 since, and COP29 is starting today, in Azerbaijan
The basic problem is that the original treaty never specified targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries. The French and most European countries were keen, but Uncle Sam said “nope. Do that and we won’t come.”. That has meant a series of efforts to get emissions cuts agreed – Kyoto 1997 (agreed, but USA and Australia pulled out), Copenhagen 2009 (ended in tears and little else) and Paris in 2015 (warm words, no teeth). In the meantime, the burning of oil, coal and gas has soared. This means that the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has gone way up (and is increasing faster and faster, as the things that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere give up the ghost – or as the scientists call it – ‘sink failure’).
Of course, by the time Adelaide finds out if its bid is successful, the whole COP circus might be grinding to a halt, if Donald Trump repeats what he did last time round, and withdraws from negotiations.
Why Adelaide?
Anthony Albanese announced that Australia would bid to co-host COP31 with South Pacific Island nations in November 2022 (giving up on the idea of hosting it in 2024)]. It isn’t automatically capital cities that host the COP. For example when the UK hosted in 2021 Glasgow got the gig in any case. Let’s start with the obvious reason why Adelaide might not succeed; it’s not on the Pacific Coast. However, unlike Sydney and Brisbane which are, Adelaide is not the capital of a state with an enormous coal export industry that has enraged the South Pacific Island states – “awks” as the kids used to say.
A history lesson
South Australians have always known that the weather matters, and is unpredictable. Go north of the Goyder line and you’ll see the abandoned buildings of those who thought they could buck the system. Over the last 55 years though, awareness has grown of man-made problems.
In March 1970 a newly-elected Labor politician, Richard Gun, referred to carbon dioxide build up in his maiden speech (see this article on the Guardian website by Royce Kurmelovs).
In July 1970 as alarm at “ecology” (as it was then called) reached an early peak, a group of business leaders at an Adelaide luncheon were told the following
“And so the sprawling city, the maimed country, and even the air we breathe and the sea that gives us life, combine into what can only be described as a coming nightmare unless we as a people are prepared to become violently Australia-conscious and to replan, decentralise, preserve, prohibit and police. We won’t correct the situation unless first as individuals and secondly as a nation we are prepared to think, to take care and to spend money.”
But this was not a protestor who’d stormed the stage. It was in fact Bede Callaghan, managing director of the Commonwealth Banking Corporation
Already in February of that year the Liberal government of Steele Hall created a committee (of course!) on the environment. It held hearings and in May 1972 produced the “Jordan report,” which included a mention of C02, though largely a dismissive one.
And yes, it included a section – albeit understandably equivocal – on carbon dioxide.
A South Australian senator, Don Jessop mentions it in Federal parliament, in November 1973
“It is quite apparent to world scientists that the silent pollutant, carbon dioxide, is increasing in the atmosphere and will cause us great concern in the future.
And while the warnings and alarms continued through the 1970s and 1980s, with visiting professors (including pro-nuclear ones), ABC documentaries, CSIRO documentaries, and mentions of the problem by groups such as Environmentalists for Full Employment.
It is fair to say that policymaker awareness only took off in the second half of the 1980s.
In 1985 atmospheric scientists met in Villach, a city in Austria. They realised they had underestimated the impact of gases other than carbon dioxide, and that the heating they had expected to arrive in several decades was likely to come much faster. They left Villach determined to warn policymakers. The Australian result of this was that CSIRO started briefing politicians, including the Australian Environment Council. After its June 1986 meeting, South Australia’s environment minister, Don Hopgood, went public with a stark warning about sea-level rise,
The following years saw a flurry of scientific and public/political conferences, promises, exhortations and committees, all about “the Greenhouse Effect.” Internationally this culminated with the climate treaty in Rio in June 1992. South Australia had set up committees and programmes, but all this was basically swept away with the disaster of the failure of the State Bank of South Australia, Premier John Bannon’s resignation and the enormous defeat Labor experienced. The incoming Liberals paid lipservice at most, finding it easier not to kill anything off officially but let it instead die by neglect.
Climate change played little part in the debates over electricity generation that took up the second half of the 1990s. However, a determined group of policy wonks were beavering away, keen to promote renewables and action on climate. The return of Labor in 2002 was a turning point. The first (tiny by today’s standards) wind farm went live the following year. Over the years, Premier Mike Rann skilfully found wiggle-room as the Federal government was forced to continue to offer policy support. As Tristan Edis put it in a 2014 article
“The way it works is SA public servants assess the likely amount of renewable energy that will be installed in the state within the next few years as a result of the federal government’s Renewable Energy Target. Then, the South Australian government take this projection of what will be achieved under business as usual a few years from now, and duly claim it as an ambitious target that they are setting for themselves, but push out the year a bit so they claim they’ve reached it ahead of schedule.”
But Rann had been attending to the broader cultural issues as well. He invited US climate scientist Stephen Schneider to be South Australia thinker in residence in 2006. Schneider’s message – that the Millennium Drought was a harbinger of problems to come and we’d better get preparing now, resonated.
The next Labor Premier, Jay Weatherill, accelerated Rann’s trajectory. The 2016 blackout was perhaps pivotal. Two events stand out – First, Weatherill dishing it out to Federal Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and the latter just having to take it.
Second- the big battery of Elon Musk, back when progressives could look past some of his, shall we say, foibles.
By the time Labor lost power, the energy transition had such momentum – and powerful people making money from it and popular support, that the state Liberals basically ignored their Federal counterparts.
Labor has returned to power, with even bolder targets. It seems now somewhat starry-eyed about hydrogen, and alarmingly willing to do whatever Santos wants, before being asked.
What will happen?
Who knows? I’ve learned not to make confident predictions about anything other than “higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere next year.”
We will all find out in a couple of weeks. Will Edis v2.0 work? It already has in once sense: Win or lose, Adelaide raises its profile and plays the ‘inward green investment’ vibes game. It’s a smart move from a political party that has shown alertness to the opportunities national and international policy games present niche actors.
Forty seven years ago, on this day, July 19th, 1977 , Stephen Schneider lays it out.
Appearing on the Johnny Carson Show on July 19, 1977 a year after the original release of The Genesis Strategy, Schneider responded to a series of questions regarding the ability of scientists to predict the weather more than a few days in advance, a prospect that – given his experiences with Kellogg and Smagorinsky early in his career – appeared entirely possible. Other conversation topics ensued, including issues of drought, whether the climate was cooling or warming, and even whether a recent weather fluctuation caused a serious black out in New York City. Given what appeared to be signs that society was increasingly sensitive to even small-scale environmental challenges, Schneider argued for building further resilience into society. “The laws of nature frequently are not in line with some of our laws,” he stated in an attempt to distinguish between natural laws – which are stable and enduring – and man-made laws – which tend to be short-sighted, sporadic, and clumsy. Everything in human decision making, he believed, is a trade-off between risks and benefits and therefore decisions require the incorporation of value judgments to maximize margins of safety in spite of existing uncertainties.55
Henderson 2014 Dilemmas of Reticence
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Stephen Schneider was already well known because of his ice age prediction in 1971. He had just published The Genesis Strategy with co-author Lynne Merizow. Him being on Carson was a big deal, though. I think this is the first time he was on.
What we learn is that a small number of scientists were trying to communicate this stuff. early on.
What happened next: Schneider committed a faux pas by going off script and Carson never had him on again. Schneider kept being a public intellectual public figure. He was really good at what he did. RIP Stephen Schneider.
See also this excellent post – https://simpleclimate.wordpress.com/2014/01/04/when-the-climate-change-fight-got-ugly/
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.
Fifty years ago, on this day, June 5th, 1974 we start to wonder about how food production might be affected…,
1 Stephen Schneider, “Food: The Next Crisis,” The National Observer (5 June 1974): p. 18. This article appears to have been the first time that Schneider mentioned publicly the idea of a “genesis strategy” to deal with the potential long-term effects of climate on the global food supply.
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 some people were worrying about food running out as part of that Malthusian moment, and the Green Revolution hadn’t really kicked in. And past few years harvests had been weird, weird weather. Two months earlier Henry Kissinger had given his speech about the dangers of a change in the climate at the UN . And here’s Stephen Schneider talking about the impacts that changing climate will have. At this point, not everyone is entirely sure that the problem is going to be CO2 build up. That consensus doesn’t really start to firm up until ‘75 to ‘77. By ‘79, I think it’s fairly well accepted, except by a few idiots like Robert Jastrow and John Mason.
What we learn is that we’ve been worrying about where the food’s gonna come from, for a very long time. And it’s this sort of thing that we’ll have had Crispin Tickell pondering, ahead of his sabbatical at Harvard.
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.
Forty five years ago, on this day, February 1 1978 the PBS “MacNeill Lehrer Report” had various smart people talking about the climate problems ahead (Robert Jastrow, Gordon MacDonald, Stephen Schneider, Clairborne Pell). They let Jastrow go first, shilling his Ice Age is Coming book. Then Gordon MacDonald, who had been warning about carbon dioxide build-up since 1968, and had helped write the first public facing report on it in 1970, was able to respond –
“GORDON MacDONALD: Bob Jastrow talked about the natural fluctuations in climate. I think that basically the picture he drew is correct, except he left out one important factor, that is, man. Man has been doing lots of things that are going to change climate in very significant ways. For example, he`s burning oil, gas, coal, putting the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. He`s also clearing forests, turning lands that were once covered with biologically active material into areas that are no longer biologically active. That means that the carbon that was once fixed in those forests is now released into the atmosphere. These two effects plus a very important effect, that is, natural gas coming from deep within the earth, coming into the atmosphere and being oxidized, all lead to the greenhouse that you described.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 333ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
In 1977 the National Academy of Sciences had released a big fat report saying there was probably a problem about carbon dioxide buildup, and other books had been written in the mid 70s (e.g. Wilcox). So television producers, who were always needing to fill up space and to seem to have their finger on the pulse, will have looked upon this as a good topic. Schneider was a no-brainer. MacDonald and Jastrow were among the JASONs who had been up to their necks as well in ozone discussions, and MacDonald was at the time of this television appearance leading work on a JASON Technical Report “The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate.”
What I think we can learn from this
These sorts of chin-stroking documentaries and discussion panels have been going on a long time. And at one point, certainly up to this point, they had their place. But since then they have become an opportunity for middle-class people who don’t want to get off their fat asses to say “oh, there’s still a debate going on.”
What is amusing about some of the denialists is they don’t admit (or perhaps even know) that some of the people they pointed to as ‘Big Scientists Who Disagree’ in the 1990s were Ice Agers. That doesn’t fit their narrative (though they never forget to cite the paper Stephen Schneider co-authored with Rasool in 1971…)
What happened next
The contestation over whether carbon dioxide buildup mattered led to a process in 1979 known as the Charney report, which said there’s no reason to think otherwise.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
On this day, November 1 in 1975, climate scientist Stephen Schneider tried to keep folks eyes on the prize, given how many various books and hypotheses were already being thrown around
On the Carbon Dioxide–Climate Confusion Stephen H. Schneider J. Atmos. Sci. (1975) 32 (11): 2060–2066.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
By the mid 1970s, a cottage industry had grown up around “weird weather.”
Why this matters.
We need to remember that there were claims and counter-claims, some outlandish
What happened next?
By the late 70s it was pretty damn clear that it was a carbon dioxide problem…
On this day, October 26, 1975 the “Endangered Atmosphere” conference begins in…
It was co-organised by Stephen Schneider and Margaret Mead.
To quote from the preface of “The Atmosphere: Endangered and Endangering” book that followed –
“When Dr. Margaret Mead was a Visiting Scholar at the Fogarty International Center, one of her interests focused on the interactions between the world society and its planetary environment. She saw a conflict developing, and yet there was surprisingly little public awareness of the growing problems and few efforts to develop long-term national and international solutions to these problems. She therefore persuaded the Fogarty International Center to sponsor a conference on the atmospheric environment which would explore the ways to maintain it as a healthy place in which to live.
An organizing committee planned the Conference, and its members are listed in these Proceedings. We were fortunate in being able to enlist the help of Dr. William W. Kellogg, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, to work with Dr. Mead as co-organizer and co-editor of the Proceedings; he is known internationally for his work on climate change and mankind’s influence on climate. Four able and dedicated rapporteurs were also enlisted, and this report owes its existence largely to their efforts. They are Mr. Anthony Broderick, Doctors Richard S. Greeley and J. Dana Thompson, and Ms. Barbara West
1975 26-29 “Endangered Atmosphere” conference
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 328.36ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this – more and more climate scientists, agronomists, anthropologists etc were getting interested in what would happen if (when) temperatures started to go up.
Mead had known about carbon dioxide build-up as early as 1964 (and probably earlier) – she had been on the atmosphere group of the President’s Science Advisory Committee with Roger Revelle.
Why this matters.
Good people have been thinking about this for almost fifty years. And here we are…
What happened next?
In 2007 the denialists got hold of it. A terrible article – held up as an exemplar of good practice by the denialists, of course – was published. It’s all Rockefeller’s fault…
On this day, October 12 in 1976, an eminent US scientist was dismissive (in a personal letter) of Stephen Schneider et al.
12 Oct 1976 None of the “speculative ideas of people like … Schneider on future climate change are worth the paper (usually newspaper) they are written on. They mislead the public and they do the field harm,” Charney concluded in a separate letter.
Jule Charney to Warren Kornberg, 12 October 1976, Box 13 – NSF, 1955-81, Papers of Jule Charney, MIT Institute Archives, Cambridge, MA.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 328.72ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
In the mid 1970s there was a flurry of books about climate change and its impacts. Only a very few of them focussed on the importance of carbon dioxide build-up – others saw the problem in dust, or ‘waste heat’. The grand old men of the field – Charney, Landsberg et al, feared that popularisation/tabloid style claims would damage the credibility of the field.
Why this matters.
Scientists – justifiably – worry about large claims and whether they are sound, since if the claims and predictions turn out to be wrong, all scientists suffer.
What happened next?
Charney changed his tune in 1979, agreeing that unless something very odd indeed happened, then a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to serious warming…
On this day in 1971, Billy McMahon – until recently regarded as one of the worst Prime Ministers Australia had endured – was being dismissive about Paul Ehrlich, the American biologist and prominent doomster (Ehrlich was, in the long-run, right).
Mr HURFORD – I address my question to the Prime Minister. Has he read and/or heard of the views of Professor Ehrlich, an eminent ecologist, that, with the present growth in world population and taking into consideration the present known incapacity of the world to produce the necessary protein food, energy, etc. to support this population, the world is set on a disaster course?
Does he realise that these views are causing great concern in the community? Will he use the vast resources of the Commonwealth Government to appraise these views and either contradict them or notify the House as to how he can appropriately alter Government policy, and Government leadership in the world, to take into account the views of Professor Ehrlich?
Mr McMAHON»– I have not closely studied Professor Ehrlich’s statements but I have read comments about them in the Press «and» seen resumes of what he has said. I must say that I was not attracted by what he has said publicly. I well remember in my very early days at the university when 1 was studying economics that there were many other people who made similar forecasts «and» who turned out to be just as wrong. Where would we have been if we had taken notice of a most distinguished professor at the University of Sydney who said that we could not have a population much in excess of 15 million? We now know that we can take a vastly larger population than that «and» provide better living standards for people provided only that the Liberal Country Party coalition remains in government. I think the honourable member being a thoughtful person and ready to accept what I have said will know the extent to which I disagree with Professor Ehrlich.
On this day, September 7 1977, climate scientist Stephen Schneider is on the Johnny Carson show for the last time (he deviated from the script!)
“How many of you think the world is cooling?” That’s what Steve Schneider asked the studio audience of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in September 1977. And when the majority put their hands up, he explained that the recent cooling trend had only been short-term. Though the unscripted poll meant Steve wasn’t invited back to the programme, through the summer of that year he had brought climate science to US national TV. The appearances typified Steve’s efforts to bring climate change to the world’s notice – efforts that would later draw attention of a less desirable sort.
