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August 10, 1980 – “Energy, Climate and the Future” seminar in Melbourne

On this day, August 10, 1980, the Australian And New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science held a seminar with the ominous title “Energy, Climate and the Future.”

The wonderful Alan Pears takes up the story (from an interview conducted in 2015)

 I was on the Victorian organising committee for a scientific seminar on climate research, which included presenters like Graeme Pearman, Barrie Pittock and a range of those people. And at it my question to them was ‘why aren’t you out on the streets telling everyone about this?’ 

And what did they say?

And Graeme Pearman’s response, which was a very measured one was ‘Well, look, we’ll know for certain by the turn of the century. And at the moment we can’t say for certain. ‘ But certainly the laws of physics did apply in [then], just as they apply now

On this day, atmospheric carbon dioxide was 3367.67 ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

People have been studying this for a very long time.

What happened next?

There was a symposium in Canberra, a monograph published. Once Barry Jones became Science Minister and was able to create the “Commission for the Future” – which created “The Greenhouse Project”, it started to move forward. But that wasn’t till 1987…