Thirty seven years ago, on this day, July 3, 1986, there was a House of Lords debate on “the atmosphere and fuel use”
Lord Campbell of Croy was an interesting chap – “After being defeated by Winnie Ewing of the Scottish National Party at the February 1974 general election, Campbell was made a life peer as Baron Campbell of Croy, of Croy in the County of Nairn on 9 January 1975.[4] He became Chairman of the Scottish Board in 1976, and was Vice President of the Advisory Committee on Pollution at Sea from 1976 to 1984.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Villach conference in September 1985 had created a real sense of urgency among climate scientists, and in the US, a small number of senators were trying to get the issue higher up the agenda. In April 1986 the catastrophe at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine had put the question of transboundary pollution on the map, and put a question mark over nuclear….
What I think we can learn from this
Nuclear always causes a glow in a certain kind of heart…
What happened next
Two years later, everyone was talking about the greenhouse effect, even Thatcher.
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.