Thirty four years ago, on this day, August 7th, 1991, the backlash against “greenhouse” and ecology action stepped up a gear.
The price of petrol would rise sharply under sweeping proposals for ecologically sustainable development revealed yesterday by a Government taskforce.
The ambitious plan to make industry sustainable by avoiding the overuse of resources was commissioned by the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke.
The ecologically sustainable development working groups, which are writing policies for nine industries, released draft reports yesterday and called for public comment.
1991 Peake, R. 1991. Draft Ecology Plans Released. The Age, 8 August, p.15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 353ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that there had been an upsurge in concern about environmental issues in the late 1960s, and the Federal Government had responded with the usual mix of new organisations (including a Minister for the Environment) and fine words. Everything had more or less died down/become predictable for a long time, until the late 1980s. In order to keep green groups onside for the Federal Election of March 1990 (it was going to be tight) the Hawke government had promised an “ecologically sustainable development policy process.”
The specific context was that the ESD had been a ‘success’ – in that the arguments for the status quo/no action had been exposed as lazy and half-baked. The problem was, the bureaucrats were in the wings, waiting to water down proposals, and feed tame journalists scare stories…
What I think we can learn from this is that we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. The same mechanisms are in place now, with an extra 80ppm in the atmosphere since then.
What happened next – Hawke was toppled by Paul Keating, who killed off all the green crap the way a lion kills another lion’s cubs when he acquires a new lioness. And the emissions kept climbing.
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:
August 7, 1979 – Cabinet Office wonk hopes to pacify greenies
August 7, 1995 – decent Australian journo reports on utter bullshit #climate economic “modelling”
August 7, 2003 – John Howard meets with business buddies to kill climate action