Forty three years ago, on this day, July 27, 1979, Thatcher’s cabinet pondered climate change. Sort of.
“Within the Cabinet Office it was rather airily suggested that ‘Ministers should at least be aware of what is proposed’ in terms of publication and consequences.82 But when the ministers found out there was anger. The Postmaster-General, Angus Maude, an elder statesman figure who had played a crucial role in Thatcher succeeding Heath as leader of the Conservative Party, wrote to Keith Joseph, guardian of the Thatcherite ideology, that he saw ‘no reason why the report should be published: it says very little and has no presentational advantage’.83 CAB 184/567. Maude to Joseph, 27 July 1979.”
Agar (2015)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the previous Labour Government of Jim Callaghan had set up an interdepartmental committee to look at climate. Labour had lost the May 1979 election. And it was now a question of when or rather IF the report of this interdepartmental committee should even see the light of day. Various of Thatcherites apparatchiks thought no.
What I think we can learn from this is that any given report has to jump through many hoops to even see the light of day and not be watered down to nothing. So we need to remind ourselves always, of the politics of bureaucracy and what is and isn’t published, when, why, how, and usually only find out the gory details 30 years later, when the archives opened, and a version of the truth comes out. But of course, you have to remember that even the archives are only going to view clues at the scene of the crime. They’re not the truth, because things don’t get written down, things get “weeded”…
What happened next
On Feb 11th 1980 the report got published.
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.