Fifty years ago, on this day, June 14, 1973, the UK based “Conservation Society” tried to lay out what would be needed for, you know, a future…
It begins with the prescient words – “We are in the presence of another climacteric more dramatic than any the human race has yet experienced.”
Yep.
June 14 1973 The Conservation Society launches “Education for our Future” Fairhall, J. (1973) Preparing young for crisis. The Guardian, June 14, p.6.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Everyone was running around talking about survival and education. And what that would look like. There had been a seminar in 1972 in London, and this Conservation Society effort probably drew on that.
What I think we can learn from this
We’ve been talking about the skills that we would need to educate the young for 50 years that’s included lots of nice words like holistic and environmental and ecological and we have not done it for the most part.
What happened next
Obviously we did not educate ourselves for a new society. If we had, projects like this would not even exist.
The Conservation Society wound up in 1987, ironically just before the next big wave
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.