Fifty two years ago, on this day, August 23, 1971, recently retired Australian civil servant Nugget Coombs delivered a lecture on “ecological and economic realities” at 12th Pacific Conference, Canberra.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone was running around talking about ecological damage and – as the phrase would come out next year – “the Limits to Growth.” So you have what sounds, even today, as quite radical perspectives.
The other context is Nugget Coombs had been a very important influential even famous civil servants in Australia. He was recently retired and was able therefore to talk more freely. This paper sets out clearly what was stake.
What I think we can learn from this
That the language around non growth economy meeting human needs ecological limits. all of this has been around forever well 50 years.
What happened next
Coombs kept active and was still alive 20 years later when the next big wave of “Environmental Concern” came around.
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.