Fifty years ago, on this day, June 8, 1973, the Australian Treasury, in a paper about the environment, even mentioned climate change.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was this – Australia and the climate issue – it goes back to 1969, MacFarlane Burnett, Nugget Coombs and so forth. By 1970 the issue was popping up in newspapers and in books. Coombs was looking at Steady state economy.
What I think we can learn from this.
The. Problem. Is. Not. Information. The. Problem. Is. Power.
What happened next
Treasury kept pretty schtum, as best I can tell. By the late 1980s they were muttering about potential carbon pricing. This morphed into emissions trading in the mid-late 1990s. And we all know how THAT ended…
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.