Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 24th, 1971, the aims of the then new United Kingdom “Department of the Environment” were laid out.
The aims of the Department included the renewal, improvement and protection of the environment. Its first priority, as defined in a speech by Walker on 24 February 1971, was to ensure the environment could be enjoyed by the population as a whole, especially those who lived in or experienced a bad environment at that time.772
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Department of Energy had been a Harold Wilson idea mooted in I think, late ‘69, early ‘70. There’d been a change of government thanks to the Tories unexpectedly winning the June 1970 election,, but the political and institutional momentum was behind the creation of a department for environment.
What we can learn is that it was in this period in the very early 1970s, that Western governments started to change the state apparatus to accommodate public and scientific concern about pollution. . So you’d get Departments of Environment in Australia and the UK and the same sort of thing in the United States. This is not to say that some of these issues hadn’t been tackled before.
What happened next?
Well, the Department of Environment kept on keeping on. It has changed name and shape over time – is currently called Defra.
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 24 1994 – the death of Abbey Pond
February 24, 2003 – UK Energy White Paper kinda changes the game (a bit).