Thirty seven years ago, on this day, September 5, 1986, a big (it’s relative) rally took place in London, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, sponsored by Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 347ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in April 1986 the nuclear dream had suffered yet another setback with the partial meltdown of a dodgy Soviet reactor at Chernobyl. This had been big news globally, but especially in most of the countries downwind which included Sweden Scotland Wales England etc (the French had a different view).
In May 1986, following the Chernobyl disaster, an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people had marched in Rome to protest against the Italian nuclear program. Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace were engaged in trying to move the UK government from its pro-nuclear stance.
What I think we can learn from this
Energy is a political football as we are always rediscovering. It always comes with judgements about how much is enough, what risks are worth running, who should run those risks at cetera. The risk of unmitigated climate change had not yet properly broken through into the public consciousness at this point, but within two years it began to.
What happened next
In 1988 the greenhouse issue came along and it would be impossible to hold that kind of rally without mentioning climate change.
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.