Fifty three years ago, on this day, October 19th, 1972,
The Heads of State or Government of the Member States met in Paris on October 19-20, 1972. They declared inter alia that “economic expansion is not an end in itself.” Economic expansion, they noted, “should result in an improvement in the quality of life as well as in standards of living.” Stressing the importance of a Community environmental policy, they called upon the Community institutions “to establish before 31 July 1973, a programme of action accompanied by a precise timetable.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 327ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the European Conservation Year had taken place in 1970, and “the environment” had been flavour of the month for a while now. The UN conference on the Human Environment had taken place in Stockholm in June and given us… er… checks notes… the United Nations Environment Program.
The specific context was – the European Community was trying to carve out some useful positions, amidst a possible thaw in the “Cold War” (detente and all that).
What I think we can learn from this – the bland technocrats have been bland technocratting (1) for a long time. The emissions don’t seem to have plateaued very much.
What happened next – lots more warm words and bland technocratting.
(NB I am not sure Maoist adventurism and Great Leaps Forward are preferable, tbh). “There’s gotta be another way” …
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:
October 19, 2002 – Doctors for the Environment Australia, becomes a thing.