Forty four years ago, on this day, December 11, 1979, there was a conference at the Royal Geographical Society on what might happen if we kept burning more coal. And gosh, climate change even got a mention. How farsighted of them
- CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF UTILIZING MORE COAL, HELD AT THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, ON 11-12 DECEMBER 1979
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the First World Climate Conference had happened in February – the UK’s John Mason had helped reduce momentum for increased activity on carbon dioxide build-up. In October 1978 an interdepartmental committee on climate change had been set up (by now its report was done, but its release was not certain – languishing in limbo (it would see daylight on February 11 1980).
There had also been an IEA report…
What I think we can learn from this
We knew, but we went ahead anyway, because, you know, maybe 19th century physics isn’t real…
See also speech to uranium institute.
What happened next
Coal kept getting dug up.
Mason changed his tune in 1988.
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..