Thirty five years ago, on this day, February 27, 1988, a conference about, well, Global Change, finished in Canberra.
1988 Australian Academy of Science (1988) Global change, Proceedings of the Elizabeth and Frederick White Research conference 24-27 February 1988.
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The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Australian Academy of Science had been looking at climate change since a 1975-6 report (with a 1980 conference, and then another in 1987). Meanwhile, the problems of Amazonian deforestation, ozone, acid rain etc were all very much ‘in the news’.
What I think we can learn from this
Smart people will identify problems, in great detail, but, fearful of being labelled “political” are hesitant to name the names of the people, organisations, motives and processes that are perpetuating the problems, or talk about what would actually need to be done, beyond vague “change in legislation/change in mindsets” stuff. They bring an ethical knife to a power gunfight….
What happened next
More fine words. More emissions. And here we are.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.