Forty six years ago, on this day, August 6th, 1980, a South Australian MP shows he knows.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 338ppm. As of 2026, 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 a large deposit of uranium had been discovered in South Australia, and there was debate about whether to start digging it up and exporting it. The Labor government of the day, under Don Dunstan, was somewhat split. The Liberal Party was all for it, and once they took power in 1979, they were banging on about the benefits of Roxby Downs economically, and so forth, and they were also using the argument that only nuclear power could deal with carbon dioxide build up, and that’s what you see here.
What I think we can learn from this is that awareness of ecological problems is not the preserve of hippies, but ecological problems have various possible solutions, and some of those solutions are extremely technocratic. But we should also be careful about this word “technocratic” as a slur and a swear word, because you have to ask yourself, are vaccines technocratic? Is solar power technocratic? Then, of course, you can slap adjectives on in front of technocratic, but I’m not sure that really always helps so much, but I digress.
What happened next. Roxby started exporting in 1987.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
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Also on this day:
August 5, 1971 – First “South Pacific Forum” happens
August 5, 1997 – “Climate Change Policies in Australia” briefing
August 5, 2010 – academics call for insurance industry to get involved in climate fight