Thirty-six/thirty-three years ago, on this day, December 7th, 1989/1992, ESD went from hero to zero.
CANBERRA: The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, won approval yesterday from industry, union, farm and green groups in aiming to achieve the “ecological sustainability” of all Australia’s major resource industries within a year.
Seccombe, M. 1989. Hawke backed in bid to gain ecology-industry harmony. Sydney Morning Herald, December 8, p.4.
and
ESD and greenhouse agreement COAG, Perth Council of Australian Governments (COAG), Communique, ‘Environment – ESD and greenhouse’, COAG Meeting, Perth, 7 December 1992,
(By this time Keating and his gang had obliterated all concern for environment, and especially greenhouse gas reduction hopes).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 353-356ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. 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 there had been a previous wave of eco-concern from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. It had run into the buffers, thanks to industry lobbying, state resistance and civil society exhaustion. From 1987 or so, first with the ozone layer and then the “greenhouse effect”, demands for actual action had grown.
The specific context was that these two events mark the beginning of hope and the triumph of experience.
What I think we can learn from this – the defeat then shaped the battlespace forever after.
What happened next – failure and defeat piled upon failure and defeat, as the scale of the problems grew beyond wicked to, well, existential and impossible. And yet we breed…
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:
December 7, 1928 – Noam Chomsky born
December 7, 1967: Towards Tomorrow “Assault on Life”
December 7, 1967 – Swedish “Monitor” program talks environmental crisis