Fifty years ago, on this day, May 4, 1973, the Australian Mining Industry Council advertised for an environmental policy officer.
1973 AMIC advert for an environmental policy officer in Canberra Times
Canberra Times 5 May p 23
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the relatively new Australian Mining Industry Council is advertising for an environmental policy officer because this hippie bollocks about pollution was clearly not going to go away. I have had the unalloyed pleasure of reading the environmental information bulletins of the Australian Mining Industry Council. They’re available at the National Library of Australia in Tasmania in Canberra. And they are silent as far as I could tell, on the question of greenhouse gases.
What I think we can learn from this
Not entirely surprising, because trade associations are there to help companies fight today’s battles. And greenhouse was not today’s battle in 1973 74 75.
What happened next
AMIC threw its weight around in the 80s and 90s, to the point it became so toxic it had to be rebranded as the Minerals Council of Australia(see Geoff Allen’s consultancy work on this in 1994).
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