Blinded by the Light? Ideology, Ignorance, and the Denial of Global Warming Naomi Oreskes Professor of History and Science Studies Adjunct Professor of Geosciences University of California, San Diego
June 2, 2005, SAN FRANCISCO "I say the debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now.” --Arnold Schwarzenegger San Francisco, June 2, 2005
In the mid 2000s, it seemed that the American people agreed.
Yale Project on Climate Change/ Gallup Poll, 2007 72 % of Americans completely or mostly convinced that global warming is happening
“Sixty-two percent … believe that life on earth will continue without major disruptions only if society takes immediate and drastic action to reduce global warming.”
Even many former contrarians had come around…
Frank Luntz, Republican Strategist "It's now 2006. I think most people would conclude that there is global warming taking place and that the behavior of humans are (sic) affecting the climate."
2003 Memo to Republican Candidates • Use phrase “climate change” rather than “global warming” • “Climate Change is a lot less frightening than global warming”
“Winning the global warming debate” Emphasize scientific uncertainty Insist there is no consensus “The scientific debate remains open. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate…
Was Luntz’s position was factually correct? “Human activities…are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents…that absorb or scatter radiant energy. [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.” --IPCC, Climate Change 2001, Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, p. 21 .
In fact, the science had coalesced even earlier IPCC 1995: Second Assessment Report “The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human impact on global climate.”
• My historical analysis of published scientific literature: Scientists had a expert consensus on reality of human ‐ caused climate change by early 1990s • This result surprised many people, but it shouldn’t have.
U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) President George H.W. Bush called on world leaders to translate the written document into "concrete action to protect the planet."
What happened? Why didn’t we take those concrete steps that President Bush promised?
• Super brief history of evolution of climate science • Story of the emergence of a political challenge to that science • Story of selling “uncertainty” –of emphasizing doubt • Motivated by a doctrinaire belief in free markets, born, and hardened, in the Cold War.
Carbon Dioxide as Greenhouse Gas • John Tyndall (1820- 1893) • Established “greenhouse” properties of carbon dioxide, water in 1850s
1900s: Svante Arrhenius suggested that increased atmospheric CO 2 from burning fossil fuels could warm Earth • Early calculations of effect of doubling CO 2 : 1.5 -4.5 o C. – • Swede.. Thought global warming would be a good thing… http://cwx.prenhall.com/petrucci/medialib/media_portfolio/text_images/FG14_19_05UN.JPG
First empirical evidence of both increased CO 2 and warming detected in 1930s by G.S. Callendar • Callendar argued that increase in CO 2 was already occurring (in the 1930s). • Quarterly J. Royal Meteorological Society 64: 223 (1938) suggested that temperature might be increasing, too. • Biography by J. R. Fleming
One important uncertainty, competing effect of water vapor. Some thought CO 2 would have little effect…
Resolved by Gilbert Plass, 1950s • Pioneer in upper atmosphere spectroscopy. • Resolved absorption bands to much greater specificity Showed they did not in fact overlap. • Warming from increased CO 2 was likely
Suess and Revelle, Tellus , 1957 Mankind is performing “a great geophysical experiment…” (Similar argument made in Europe by Bert Bolin, who would later work on acid rain and found the IPCC)
CO 2 inventory: Charles David Keeling Keeling curve began in 1958 as part of the IGY
1965: President’s Science Advisory Committee, Board on Environmental Pollution Committee led by Revelle and Keeling. “….by the year 2000 there will be about 25% more CO 2 in our atmosphere than at present [and] this will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate…could occur.” – Restoring the Quality of Our Environment, Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, Presidents Science Advisory Committee, The White House, December 1965, on p. 9
“This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through…a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.” --Lyndon Johnson Special Message to Congress, 1965
But, in 1965 President Johnson also had a few other things to worry about. Little serious interest was generated in policy circles
Rise of Climate Modeling (late 1960s- ‘70s) • Development of fast digital computers: First effective GCMs to study Earth climate as a system • Possible to model the dynamics of atmosphere is a quasi- realistic way, and to consider long-term trends • Possible to to re-visit the Callendar question • State-of-art models confirmed his earlier results
1970s: Serious discussion of policy implications “Energy and Climate”, National Research Council, chaired by Robert White, NOAA director (1977) “The long-term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate” (1979), JASON report for DOE “Charney Report” (1979), U.S. National Research Council Study Group on Carbon Dioxide, National Academy of Sciences
“A plethora of studies from diverse sources indicates a consensus that climate changes will result from man’s combustion of fossil fuels and changes in land use.” National Academy of Sciences Archives, An Evaluation of the Evidence for CO 2 -Induced Climate Change, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, Climate Research Board, Study Group on Carbon Dioxide, 1979, Film Label: CO 2 and Climate Change: Ad Hoc: General
There was a consensus in 1979 that warming would happen.
And that it was not a small concern “The close linkage between man’s welfare and the climatic regime within which his society has evolved suggests that such climatic changes would have profound impacts on human society.” --NRC Proposal for Support of Carbon Dioxide and Climate Change: A Scientific Assessment, 1979 NAS Archives, Climate Research Board
Big question was when. Most scientists thought changes would not be detectable until the 21 st century. Surprising result...
Six years later, NASA Climate modeler James Hansen and his team concluded that the signal had been detected.
1988 James Hansen declares 99% certain that climate change now detectable.
It was this emerging (and disturbing) evidence that had led to the creation of the IPCC in 1988…
It also led to the emerged of a politically-motivated campaign to cast challenge that consensus and cast doubt upon the science…
Campaign focused on claim that the science was unsettled, and therefore it was premature to act… …and the origins of that claim can be traced back to a small handful of people.
Today doubt about climate science promoted in many quarters • One of the most important for a long period of time, going back to the late 1980s, is the George C. Marshall Institute. • A think tank in Washington, D.C. • For many years, denied reality of global warming, or insisted that, if there were warming, it was not caused by human activities.
Where did the Marshall Institute come from? Why do they promote doubt about climate science?
Frederick Seitz, President of NAS, Rockefeller University, and Consultant to R J Reynolds Tobacco Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg, Astrophysicist, Head of Nuclear physicist and Goddard Institute for long-time Director of Space Studies. Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Early 1980s, working together on an advisory panel to the Reagan Administration on SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars”) 1984: Created the George C. Marshall Institute to defend SDI against scientists’ opposition… …and to promote continuing importance of science and technology in national defense, in part by insisting on reality of Soviet strength and U.S. weakness
1987, Jastrow published in National Review , insisting that if we did not act quickly to improve our nuclear capability, Soviets would overtake us, and be able dictate terms.
At time, Seitz was working as consultant to R.J. Reynolds Corporation • Principal strategy of tobacco industry to defend its product was “doubt ‐ mongering” • To insist that the science was unsettled • Premature to act to control tobacco use.
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