When you were hearing about "the greenhouse effect" back in 1989, did you imagine it would take world governments at least fifteen years to do anything about it?

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FFS.

Partly prompted by this of course, and partly by a weird nostalgia. I was 10 in 1989 when the whole "environmental disaster" story blew up in the news; Blue Peter, school assemblies all suddenly became obsessed w/ the topic. Suddenly this was a new thing to be terrified and depressed about to a particularly morbid and melancholy boy, and Nuclear War fell down the list. The angle then was more about damaging the planet/environment, rather where the emphasis is now (mostly) ie making the planet more inhospitable to life, changing the climate. To me in that year we seemed Doomed even then.
Then we all sleepwalked through the nineties, I naturally became more worried about acne and erections than anything else (it's calle "maturing"), and of course we know what consumed our attention from 2001 onwards.

I remember the televised special of "Earth Day" in 1990, which was made a big fuss of even in Britain. I remember the focus on the Ozone Layer. This thread is about sharing all these memories.

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Friday, 2 February 2007 13:53 (eighteen years ago)

Forgot the link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6321351.stm

Oh, and just look at the talent in this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255132/

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Friday, 2 February 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

yea it seemed to be a huge huge deal right around 1990!!!

― UART variations (ex machina), Friday, 2 February 2007 13:58 (eighteen years ago)

i recall neil tennant pet shop boy saying that the support of the green cause in 1990-91 by pop stars etc would lead to green issues seeming 'unfashionable' not long after.

― pisces (piscesx), Friday, 2 February 2007 14:03 (eighteen years ago)

I did imagine, yes. These things take time.

― vita susicivus (blueski), Friday, 2 February 2007 14:05 (eighteen years ago)

You know, I'm not buying this whole "oh no, NOW it's too late, we HAVE to act" shtick. IT WAS TOO LATE IN 1990 AS WELL, but then the west didn't have the looming threat of a couple of explosively expanding cheap asian economies.

Now, when China and India and other economies look like they're going to overtake the west, now it's suddenly time for action and cleaner industry and less pollution.

How IS the west going to sell that? ("yeah, we know, it's all our fault, but now YOU have to clean up your factories!")

― StanM (StanM), Friday, 2 February 2007 14:08 (eighteen years ago)

I just assumed nothing would/will be done about it. As everyone I was at school with at the time seemed to like summer and hot weather :(

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:02 (eighteen years ago)

I did imagine, yes. These things take time.

You almost sound like you're condoning the do-nothingness.

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

My moment of ecoparanoia was the first two months of 1992. Since then I've grown rather fatalistic.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

The Greenhouse effect/the environment was certainly a big issue in thrash metal at the time:

Pretending not to notice
How history had forebode us
With the green house in effect
Our environment was wrecked

Now I can only laugh
As I read our epitaph
We end our lives as moles
In the dark of the dawn patrol

Megadeth - Dawn Patrol

Qualities soon to exhaust as man's greed poisons the land
Streams, once fresh, were centers of life for so many a creature
Beauty without a defence, polluted, never to replenish

Collage, blue and green, seen as golden industrial sites
Smudge as toxic pollutants destroy her remaining rights
The power of corporations, spewing chemicals into the air
Fines are imposed to discourage, but what's a dime to a millionaire

Stonewall - Annihilator

Unfortunately, dudes with long hair and loud guitars don't often change the world :(

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:17 (eighteen years ago)

frogm@n henry, what effects did the explosion in thunderpants.jpg have on global warming?

― and what (ooo), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:19 (eighteen years ago)

Unfortunately, dudes with long hair and loud guitars don't often change the world

ahem

http://selfproclaimedsupermom.typepad.com/my_weblog/images/bill_and_ted_1.jpg

― It's Tough to Beat Illious (noodle vague), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

Dude, it was a film :(

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

If it only it were true!

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:26 (eighteen years ago)

It's not a documentary?

― It's Tough to Beat Illious (noodle vague), Friday, 2 February 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)

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