Fifty-two years ago, on this day, February 17th, 1972, the first UK Environment Minister says “we can’t be complacent.”
In February 1972, Peter Walker, the Environment Secretary, wrote to Edward Heath ‘about the problems said to be in store on a world scale as a result of conflicts between present trends in population and economic growth requiring greater and greater amounts of energy and natural resources’.31 ‘While much of the argument … is extreme, apocalyptic and naıve’, argued Walker, citing both the Limits to Growth and A Blueprint for Survival, the influential green manifesto written by Edward Goldsmith and which had been published in The Ecologist the month before, ‘I do not think we can be complacent about the issues it raises’. After summarizing a ‘creditable list’ of environmental policies, Walker nevertheless stressed that the dangers, if they occur, are sufficiently great that in my view a case has been established to justify the UK Government in taking part … in further work to broaden the existing analysis both in width and depth.
The immediate need would seem to be to decide on the most appropriate way, within Government, of handling the further work that is required … What seems necessary is a central capability, built round a Research Group, within Government … [to] work on the techniques on lines complementary to those being pursued by MIT and elsewhere. TNA CAB 164/1182. Walker to Heath, 16 February 1972. This important letter was copied to Alec Douglas-Home, Tony Barber, Willie Whitelaw, George Jellicoe, John Davies, Jim Prior, William Armstrong, Burke Trend and Lord Rothschild
Agar, 2015
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the environment conference in Stockholm, proposed by Sweden and then accepted by the UN General Assembly in 1968, was imminent.. Meanwhile, the Limits to Growth report was about to come out, and the Blueprint for Survival already had. There was the general aura of apocalypse.
What we learn is smart people, powerful people were paying serious attention to these issues. It’s easy to blame them for not having done more or not having succeeded. Can we curse people from 50 years ago? Of course, we will be cursed in 50 years or in, in fact, in five years.
What happened next
The Stockholm Conference happened. And that kind of gave everyone an invitation to stop thinking about environmental issues, which they gleefully took. It’s no fun staring into the abyss.
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.
Also on this day:
Feb 16, 2005- The Kyoto Protocol shambles into futile existence, despite Uncle Sam’s best efforts