Thirty three years ago, on this day, April 9, 1990, Australian business tried to get ahead of the ‘green debate’
1990 “Launching its first policy on the environment in Sydney yesterday, the Business Council of Australia lamented the standard of the green debate.”
Lane, B. 1990. Business hitches a ride with green bandwagon. Australian Financial Review, 10 April.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Business had been caught flat-footed and/or complacent about resurgent interest in green issues. They had also perhaps thought that the Liberal National Party would be back in power in 1990 and take care of them, so why make a big effort? It didn’t turn out like that – Labor scraped back in at the March 1990 Federal Election.
So, led by the at-that-time newish and dominant “Business Council of Australia”, industry said all the right platitudes about ecologically sustainable development etc.
What I think we can learn from this
Business is often slow off the mark when facing a new threat, because so many new threats evaporate on their own, (or rather, the problem is real but isn’t turned into an issue.) Combatting advocates of an issue at an early stage may only help turn it into an issue. Better to watch greenies exhaust themselves even getting an issue onto the agenda, and then rely on structural “luck” to contain/constrain/corral it, no?
What happened next
The Hawke Government tried to keep everyone happy, through the promised “Ecologically Sustainable Development” process, with its working groups etc. But in the end, push coming to shove, the ESD was watered down and watered down to the point of nothingness (see here and here and here).
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.