Tag: Margaret Thatcher

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Ignored Warnings United Kingdom

April 16, 1980 – “a risk averse society might prefer nuclear power generation to fossil fuel burning”

On April 16 1980, John Ashworth, then the Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK,, wrote to another senior figure, Robert Armstrong (Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary) on the question of preparing people to accept nuclear in order to drive down fossil fuel emissions. A few days later, Robert Armstrong wrote back saying this needed some further thinking. 

Where do I get this info? From a wonderful article by Jon Agar, from 2015 ‘Future Forecast—Changeable and Probably Getting Worse’: The UK Government’s Early Response to Anthropogenic Climate Change

As John Ashworth wrote, his personal view was” that the nuclear waste problem is manageable whilst the CO2 problem is not and therefore that a risk averse society might prefer nuclear power generation to fossil fuel burning if it were offered the choice. A rational risk averse society, of course, might prefer energy conservation to either….”

86  86 TNA CAB 184/567. Ashworth to Robert Armstrong, 16 April 1980. Armstrong replied that the idea of inducing the public to go along with nuclear energy by frightening it with global warming ‘would need much thought’. Armstrong to Ashworth, 21 April 1980 

Why this matters

We need to know that the UK Government was, well, portions of the bureaucracy of the UK Government, were well aware of the issue. It became impossible, however, for this policy discussion to proceed, because Thatcher wasn’t interested (when Ashworth briefed Thatcher on the issue in 1980, she replied incredulously “you want me to worry about the weather?”

What happened next?

Well, the nuclear lobby in 1988/89, would try to use climate change as a spur to more nukes. And failed. And tried again from 2006. And failed. And, as we have seen in the recent “Energy Security Strategy”, it continues to do so down unto this day.

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Science United Kingdom

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

Okay, fourth of April 1978, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government Sir John Ashworth writes a letter in which he says – well, here is Janet Martin-Nielsen (2018) Computing the Climate: When Models Became Political  Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2018) 48 (2): 223–245.

“The Meteorological Office’s ‘‘important and very helpful’’ work on Concorde, Ashworth wrote in a secret letter to Berrill, proved the value of climate modeling to U.K. interests—and since ‘‘the real worry is now the CO2 level in the atmosphere’’ he continued, the Meteorological Office needed to focus its energy in that direction   . J. M. Ashworth to K. Berrill, re: ‘‘Meteorological Research,’’ 4 Apr 1978, secret KEW, CAB 184/567W01211, 

The context for this is that the UK Government had started looking via its World Trends Study Group at the climate issue, also paying attention to what was happening in the United States. Also you have to factor in the the aftermath of the very hot summer of 1976, and the very cold winter in the US and Canada of 1977. 

And it’s clear that they were trying to get their head around the problem. But not everyone in the UK scientific establishment was at all sold on this. And it would require other entrepreneurs as well, like Solly Zuckerman and Herman Bondi to push further. Unfortunately, all of this culminated in 1980 with Ashworth trying to brief the new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and her response was an incredulous “you want me to worry about the weather?”

And it would be another eight years before that she would do one of her turns because it turns out the lady was frequently for turning 

Why this matters. 

We need to puncture the myth that Thatcher deserves any credit whatsoever. She was warned a decade earlier,did nowt.

What happened next?

The problem stream entrepreneurs tried to get the issue paid attention to, but everything was against them.  And it had to wait until 1988 for attention to be paid….