Thirty eight years ago, on this day, March 16th, 1988, a coal industry apparatchik produces a strategy.
Ritchie, J. 1988. Development of a Strategy for the Australian Coal Industry. Australian Coal Association, paper to the Petroleum & Minerals Review Conference, Canberra, 16 March.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Australian coal industry had been experiencing boom times in the 1980s and became the world’s biggest coal exporter in 1984.
There were still, of course, major problems in terms of modernization of equipment, working practices, infrastructure, all the usual stuff.
The specific context was. What’s fascinating about this proposed coal strategy does not mention climate change at all, March of 1988. If it had been published a year later, even six months later, it would have had to so.
What I think we can learn from this is that this is like one of those nice little digs into the fossil record, where you can see when the asteroid hit fairly exactly.
What happened next By the end of 1988 climate change was everywhere thanks to the long, hot summer in the States, James Hansen’s testimony, the Changing Atmosphere conference, but also in Australia, there had been lots of activity. In September of 1987 the Greenhouse Project had been launched. This was a co-production of the CSIRO’s division of atmospheric physics and the “Commission for the Future.” They held an academic conference in 1987 and then connected public conferences in 1988 in November. So that’s really when you can date the coming of the greenhouse issue in Australia.
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.
References
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Also on this day:
March 16, 1973 – North Sea Oil for the people?! (Nope)
March 16, 1993 – VAT to be imposed on domestic energy, called a “climate measure”
March 16, 1994 – “We could bail from Rio” says former Environment Minister
March 16, 1995 – Victorian government plans brown coal exports