Thirty five years ago, on this day, November 23, 1988, Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke gives a speech to open the “National Science and Technology Centre
The Government has also shown it is prepared to coordinate research in new and emerging areas of inquiry, such as our recently announced studies into the Greenhouse effect. Just two weeks ago Australia was elected to vice Chairmanship of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change set up by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organisation. This gives Australia a leading position in the panel activities which are seen as a prime focus for world activity on the Greenhouse effect.
(Compare Thatcher at Hadley in 1990)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that if there hadn’t been all the concern about greenhouse and Greenhouse 88, and all the rest of it, it wouldn’t really have been something that Hawke would have bothered with perhaps so much, or certainly wouldn’t have been covered. But we were at peak global warming interest in 88, 89 and into 1990.
What I think we can learn from this is politicians will turn up to the opening of an envelope. If everything is going to be easy for them and they’re not likely to get heckled. See also, Thatcher opening the Hadley Centre in May 1990.
What happened next
Hawke needed small g-green votes to win the March 1990 election. The Liberals felt betrayed and have maintained their suspicion/loathing of “greenies” pretty much ever since.
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.