Fifty five years ago, on this day, September 9th, 1971,
“Whereas Bray had been highly sceptical of the World model, [UK Chief Scientific Advisor Alan] Cottrell had been enthused by its demonstration. Returning to Britain, he proposed that the British government develop a similar model, stating his belief that ‘Forrester’s approach is the most important development of its kind since Keynes’ general theory’.(117)
Given the centrality of Keynesianism in post-war economic policy, this was a significant claim. Heath, as his early enthusiasm for management science had revealed, had some interest in forecasting and simulation, and gave his permission for a scoping study on the feasibility of a British world model. Cottrell held a meeting on the subject at the Cabinet Office in September 1971, in which he had told the assembled civil servants that developing a global model for British purposes would require £50,000 and four staff. In response, an unnamed civil servant argued that the Treasury had a more sophisticated econometric model that it used for forecasting. Despite this criticism, the general idea of a global environmental model was well received, and further work was proposed.118
Thomas Turnbull, 2018 – Project MUSE – Histories of Technology, the Environment and Modern Britain
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 326ppm. 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 it was obvious that there were significant environmental and economic challenges around not just energy provision, but well, everything.
The specific context was that the British state knew about the impending Limits to Growth report, and the chief scientist, Alan Cottrell, was interested. There had been a leak in the Observer already about the limits report, so this is in the context of mandarins and technocrats trying to figure out if these tools will be helpful to them.
What I think we can learn from this is that the Limits to Growth report was influential before it was even published, and then derided as Malthus with a computer, because apparently human ingenuity will conquer all.
What happened next The chief scientific adviser after Cottrell, or the one after the one after Cottrell, was John Ashton, and he did raise the climate issue, but unfortunately the political leaders were simply not interested, and it waited until 1988 before the climate problem became an issue.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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Also on this day:
September 9, 1947 – The Daily Worker talks about melting the ice-caps
September 9, 1971 – Stephen Schneider’s letter, and a World Model
September 9, 1971 – of Australian Prime Ministers and American scientists…