Forty five years ago, on this day, August 7th, 1979, a Cabinet Office wonk hopes that a vague research effort
“would provide an answer to the environmental and ecological lobby by showing that the Government was taking seriously the possibility of irreversible long-term changes in the climate, particularly those which might conceivably be brought about by man’s intervention,’’ as an internal letter explained;”
letter from N.B.W. Thompson to Mr. Mountfield, 7 Aug 1979, KEW, Ref. I.02375, CAB 184/56
Agar, 2015
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was now an Ecology party. And there were groups like Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, the Conservation Society. Other outfits campaigning about clean air and not building more airports and so forth. Green Alliance had started. There was an identifiable environment lobby, and the senior civil servants were thinking about how it could be placated perhaps with the release of this interdepartmental report on climatic change, which had been completed in early 1979.
What we learn is that civil servants think about the politics of it all and how to please their so-called masters. And that by the late 70s, environment was an issue.
What happened next, the “Climatic Change” report, was released in February 1980. received a small amount of desultory press because it was a desultory document by and large, partly because it just wasn’t taking on board what the Americans were saying. (I think you can pin it on the Met Office’s John Mason if you like.)
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.
Also on this day:
August 7, 1995 – decent Australian journo reports on utter bullshit #climate economic “modelling”
August 7, 2003 – John Howard meets with business buddies to kill climate action