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Opinion

Sleepwalking down the path to catastrophe

12 May 2023 7 minute read
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

Dr Gethin Matthews, Department of History, Heritage and Classics, Swansea University

How long have the Welsh public been warned about climate change? The surprising truth is that some newspaper reports raised the alarm decades ago, with accurate predictions of the impending dangers, but the warnings fell on deaf ears. Scientists are now unanimous in their warnings of the dire consequences upon all aspects of human life unless immediate action is taken, and yet the measures taken in response are minimal. Unfortunately, this pattern is well established in Wales.

For many years an enormous number of distinguished scientists have been making stark predictions of what awaits humanity unless major action is taken to deal with the causes of climate change. These have often gained a little attention in the press, sometimes eliciting some words of concern from commentators and politicians … and then nothing changes.

Whether it is the release of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC – the latest one being March 2023) or the briefings for a COP event (2022 in Egypt; 2021 in Glasgow), or of any of the warnings put out by specialist scientists, the pattern is the same – a small ripple of attention and then the issue fades into the background noise.

As a historian, I am interested in finding out when this sequence of events began: when were the people of Wales first warned of the dangers of irreparable harm to the planet?

The first scientific predictions of climate change due to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere date back to the end of the nineteenth century, and in the 1930s a meteorologist showed how the average temperature of the earth had increased by 0.3°C over the previous fifty years.

However, these early indications of climate change seem not to have created any interest in the Welsh media.

Palm trees

The first significant report in a Welsh newspaper that I have found dates back to May 1956, when the Western Mail gave readers an attention-grabbing headline: ‘Palm Trees at the Pole as the World Grows Warmer?’. This cites the work of Swedish scientist, Professor Hans Ahlmann, demonstrating that the temperature increase was accelerating and leading to visible changes in terms of retreating glaciers and diminishing ice shelves.

Yet, although there are sentences here which should have set some alarm bells ringing, noting the potential impacts of the changes upon ‘population, economics, food and politics’, you can search in vain for any responses to these challenges.

Two years later, there is another article in the Western Mail which introduces Welsh readers to the term ‘greenhouse effect’, with an explanation of how a blanket of CO2 acts to prevent heat from escaping and thus keep the planet warm.

There is a prediction from ‘a leading climatologist’ that the present rate of increase of CO2 will raise temperatures by two degrees per century, and an explanation that this will mean the flooding of low-lying areas such as New York and the Netherlands. It is noted that technological measures are available to lessen the impact, but that these are costly.

So the information was available to Welsh politicians and decision-makers 65 years ago, warning them of the dangers of climate change and the consequences of inaction.

Yet these went unheeded for decades. It is only from the late 1980s onwards that one can find a regular stream of articles about the threats to the planet, and even then they are far away from the front page. You have to browse through to page 35 of the South Wales Echo on 14 May 1988 to find the headline ‘Glaciers Melting as Earth gets Hotter and Hotter’ – a report which shares the page with an account of how ballet dancers are planning a visit to hospitals to cheer up sick children and another excited that Michael Jackson has added another date to his UK tour.

Ignored

When trying to explain why these scientific warnings were ignored, I think it is fair to point out that there are also a large number of predictions made over the years which proved to be groundless. In the 1970s there were a number of alarming forecasts made of a ‘new Ice Age’ that would be the consequence of global cooling: you can also find any number of frivolous predictions of how people would be flying helicopters for their morning commute within a few years, or how holidays on the moon were likely within a decade.

Perhaps also the real threat of nuclear annihilation following a conflict between the superpowers was a more tangible concern. There was also, quite understandably, a concentration on other environmental matters that seemed more immediate, such as the impact of acid rain upon ecosystems and the destruction of the ozone layer due to the use of CFCs (an area where inter-governmental co-operation did lead to positive results).

However, we can also see those with a vested interest arguing against action to combat global warming.

At a political meeting at Pontyates in 1989, Dr Phil Williams (a Plaid Cymru candidate who was also a physicist at Aberystwyth University) explained that the continued burning of coal would accelerate the greenhouse effect, meaning a temperature rise of 4 or 5 degrees over a century, leading to a global catastrophe.

He urged investment in renewable energy to cut out the use of fossil fuels, while creating more jobs locally. The local NUM chairman, however, disagreed. He claimed that a Sheffield scientist had told him that burning coal was only a minor contributor to global warming: what was necessary to boost the local economy was more investment in coal and steel.

Now, 34 years on from that exchange, it is crystal clear that Dr Williams was right and, belatedly, much (though not all) government policy has caught up with the necessity of prioritising renewables.

Carbon emissions

The measure to cut carbon emissions that were mentioned in the 1958 article are now understood as essential. This report noted that ‘the upset that could be caused by an uncontrolled increase in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere … could be disastrous.’ That is what we are facing now, due to decades of inaction.

One key difference between now and the 1950s and 1980s is that we in Wales do have a limited amount of autonomy to be able to act. We know that reducing environmental damage in Wales will only go a very little way to solving what is a global issue, but as we do have some elbow room, we need to use it. One country needs to take a lead and do what is right by future generations, and hope that other nations follow.

As a historian of the First World War, in my lectures on the war’s origins I have the job of explaining to students how Europe was plunged into catastrophe in 1914, with a war that almost no-one wanted. One book published a decade ago that has established itself as a classic is Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: as the title suggests, the argument is that the countries slipped unthinking into war because no-one in power was awake to the warning signs.

Unfortunately, it seems that we have been sleepwalking towards a catastrophe for the last few decades by ignoring scientists’ reports of the dangerous consequences of our actions.


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Neil Anderson
Neil Anderson
10 months ago

One hope for Cymru is that post-independence we can release ourselves from the sleepwalkers in Fairyland across the border. We could have stronger more effective legislation that would make a material difference to our citizens – in terms of sustainable environmentally-safe employment, for one – and pull our weight in the world. Fairyland has made half-hearted commitments but has then abandoned them! Independence offers a less insecure future for us all. Nos da, Wales; bore da, Cymru!

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
10 months ago

It is not just the climate that we have ignored…

As Mr Monbiot puts it in today’s Guardian…”We are being compelled by law to accept the destruction of the living world”

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
10 months ago
Reply to  Mab Meirion

And the UK Tory government are leading the pack…

@Slash, Burn and Pillage (UK) Ltd

Iago Prydderch
Iago Prydderch
10 months ago

An historian with a doctorate on Welsh in the Gold Rushes is not an expert on climate change!

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
10 months ago
Reply to  Iago Prydderch

It does suggest that he can put 2 and 2 together though…

Interesting about his subject, do you know if it has been published?

Vyvyan
Vyvyan
10 months ago

Vested interests (e.g. oil companies, etc.) and some politicians don’t want to tackle climate change because they don’t want the profits of various fossil-fuel companies to decrease. The same politicians wring their hands whilst they do nothing meaningful.

Last edited 10 months ago by Vyvyan
Keith Parry
Keith Parry
10 months ago

To get your research funded or your third sector self employment scheme funded you have to include the magic words “Climate Change”. If you do you will get your dosh. If you don’t you wont.

CapM
CapM
10 months ago
Reply to  Keith Parry

Amazing that there are still people fixated on the mote in the eye of third sector etc that they ignore the beam in the eye of the oil business.

CapM
CapM
10 months ago

@ Iago Prydderch
 “An historian with a doctorate on Welsh in the Gold Rushes is not an expert on climate change!”
Whereas your credentials for arguing against his findings are….?

CJPh
CJPh
10 months ago
Reply to  CapM

That’s not how appeals to expertise work – this response is the quintessential response from philosophical confusion. The author’s credentials are stated on more than one occasion to suggest credibility. His expertise could shed some light, but relying on “as a historian” statements, especially in from a field of inquiry that is only vaguely relevant, don’t inspire confidence. Having said that, I thought the article’s thrust was OK – not too alarmist, if a little clumsy. Anthropogenic climate change is real. The degree and speed, how it effects human flourishing, what the nature of mitigation should be is far more… Read more »

CapM
CapM
10 months ago
Reply to  CJPh

The author’s expertise is used to investigate the media coverage of the idea of climate change over the years and does not imply that the author’s expertise is in the science investigating climate change.

The author is clearly one of many who have been convinced that manmade climate change is happening just as many people have been convinced that evolution is happening.

Of course there are people who deny one or the other or even both.

Mab Meirion
Mab Meirion
10 months ago
Reply to  CapM

How long did it take for would-be amphibians to convince other fish that they could, with practice, breath air…

Roy
Roy
10 months ago

The history of climate change especially from ice cores shows us that Co2 is a result not a cause of change as temperatures have risen and Co2 followed. Look to the receding glaciers of the Alps were tree stumps have been revealed and carbon dated as at least 1000 years old. they also found a tree date as 3500 years old, all data held in Berne Uni, also look to Iceland who have less than 5% of the island covered by trees, 1000 years ago it was 25% 2000 years ago it was 50%, government records. Look to the Greenland… Read more »

CapM
CapM
10 months ago

“By the way what is the optimum level of Co2 in the atmosphere for the benefit of planet earth?”

Depends on what you are Roy.
If you’re a cyanobacterium then after having endured a few hundred million years of sub optimal conditions you could soon see the benefit of man made climate change.

Leigh Richards
Leigh Richards
10 months ago

I am surprised that a historian seems unawares of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 which requires the Welsh Government to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in Wales to net zero by the year 2050

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