Fifty five years ago, on this day, September 19th, 1971, a review of Angus Martin’s book “Pollution and Conservation in Australia”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 326ppm. As of 2026, 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 concern about Australian environmental degradation had been building through the 1960s and had properly taken off in 1969-70 and so books were starting to appear. Here is a review of Angus Martin’s book. The book mentions carbon dioxide build-up, but the review does not. What’s interesting in the review is it says that there is “still time”.
What I think we can learn from this is that it’s now well over half a century since the great civil society of the democratic societies began to be informed about the trouble ahead, and yet civil society was never capable of getting off its ass and challenging the power of the state and the corporates, and here we are.
What happened next Angus Martin was still around as of 2023. Our hopes for a habitable planet died really in 1992.
In 1975 Angus Martin had a follow-up book – the Last Generation. In it he referenced Conservation and Pollution.
“I am myself guilty of contributing to the flow of verbiage, in a book published in Australia in 1971. In it I said things like: ‘the use of DDT has had unexpected and far-reaching consequences’, and ‘our great hopes of food from the sea are largely wishful thinking’, and ‘coercion will have to be applied to limit the number of children a couple can have’. The reviewers said ‘alarming picture of global genocide’, and ‘this frightening book’, and ‘the terrible fate ahead’, and ‘see the danger and heed the warning’. (They also said ‘this is a pleasant-looking book’ and ‘some of the illustrations are excellent’.) I suppose that for one infinitesimal moment a minute fraction of the population of Australia paused in its tracks. And then it went on and drank more beer, and kicked more footballs, and watched more television, and shot more kangaroos, and had more babies.”
Martin, 1975. The Last Generation. p15-6
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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Also on this day:
September 19 1969 – ABC Radio warns listeners about carbon dioxide
September 19, 1991 – Ötzi the Iceman is discovered by German tourists
September 19, 1997 – John Howard condemns the South Pacific to hell. Again.
September 19, 1998 – Public Health Association calls for “life-saving green taxes”