Forty-two years ago, on this day, November 16th, 1982, people talking about development aid could foresee a world where climate change would matter…
Conference on 16 November 1982 on
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE OVERSEAS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Author(s): Ian Hunter, Dame Diana Reader Harris, Jose Furtado, Gordon Conway, Charles Elliott, Duncan Poore and Richard Sandbrook Source: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts , JULY 1983, Vol. 131, No. 5324 (JULY 1983), pp. 425-437 We have to see in the environment a rôle for resource management alongside sustained maintenance of future resource levels. It is not enough to say ‘inter-disciplinary’ out of a hat; it is necessary to produce a development methodology, a framework. Thus, in this concept of the resources of the future, we are not talking simply of the ozone or greenhouse effect and so on, vital as they are; we are talking of the food resources of the world, of raw materials, of growth, of the population of the future.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that intelligent people who were reading the New Scientist or the UNEP magazine Mazinga, or whatever, were, by this time, aware of global warming, the greenhouse effect and the impacts that it will eventually have, though they seemed to be maybe decades hence. And so it’s not totally surprising that within the debate about Development Aid dealing with the impacts of greenhouse would get at least a passing mention. The issue was on the radar. And it puts into context this three years later, in 1985, It was bubbling under as an issue.
What we learn, we knew 40 years ago, 40 plus years ago, this wasn’t a state secret.
What happened next, the Villach meeting, the Brundtland Report, lots of fine words about Our Common Future. And here we are.
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
Also on this day:
November 16, 1995 – another skirmish in the IPCC war
November 16, 2021 – Chancellor cuddles up to oil bosses, of course.
