Yes. There was quite a lot of talk about it during the drought of the early 80s, which culminated in the '83 bushfires. And a lot of news coverage. Source: was there at the time. Also mentioned as part of geography lessons during the 70s when discussing the climate of Australia. Climate change, however, was never mentioned. We were all too worried about nuclear war and 'the bomb'.
We did a hellacious amount of weather stuff, and how water cycles and land forms etc. worked. Granted the school's demographics were kids largely from rural farming and pastoral backgrounds, and all this was considered life-essential information. I think now that these classes were probably what got me hooked on figuring out as best I could how and why the universe works. Which led to an engineering degree, though not to any career evenly remotely resembling engineering.