On this day, June 8, 1973, the Australian Treasury released a report on economics and growth that even mentioned… climate change. Here’s a newspaper report first.
“The other difficulty in assessing resources policy is that the term first appeared in Australian Government circles last year from the Department of Foreign Affairs and was based on the assumption that resources were finite and therefore somebody should be thinking about the implications for the future and producing policies on development, use and sales.
“The Treasury Economic Paper No 2, ‘Economic Growth: Is it Worth Having?’, published today, pours a bucket of cold water on that ‘assumption, arguing that resources are not finite, that they are dynamic, growing in line with technology and demand. As an example it points out that back in the ’30s the iron ore at Pilbara was known, but it was not a resource because there was not the technology to mine it economically.
Davidson, G. 1973. Planning ahead for wise use of Australia’s resources. Canberra Times, 8 June, p.2. [Trove]
Here’s the cover,
The relevant bit of the report.
Why this matters
The economic language of “oh, it will be fine, we will innovate our way out of any problems” has been with us a very long time indeed, hasn’t it?
What happened next?
Treasury did not do a great deal of thinking about climate change for another 15 years or so, best I can tell.