There was a publication in Australia called Women’s Weekly. It came out, well, weekly (when it became a monthly publication in the 80s they, er, kept the name unchanged).
In the May 10 1978 issue they had one of those “what will the world be like in 2000” articles [people much younger than me probably don’t remember they hype and sense of excitement about the turn of the millennium?]
This particular article was by one David Howell, billed as “founder of the US journal “Energy Digest,” editor of “Community Planning Report” and “Energy Planning Report””
It’s worth a read. The bit I would draw your attention to is this-
“Coal will have become the major fuel source, especially for industrial uses and for heating office buildings and very large apartment houses. But society will by then have begun to accept the harsh reality, already posited by several leading scientists, that the carbon dioxide released to the air by the burning of fossil fuels threatens to alter our atmosphere beyond the ability of the human species to survive. By the year 2000 we will be frantically searching for substitutes for the coal which we will have substituted for oil and natural gas.”
“Gasified or liquefied coal – even if by that time it might have proven economic-ally feasible for some purposes – will not be the answer, because it would release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at the same rate….
What happened next
Australia became the world’s leading coal exporter in 1984. Some people got very very rich and didn’t like the idea of Australia shifting from coal exporting, or from getting its own electricity from other sources. They were supremely effective in defending their interests…