DOCSLIB.ORG

Global Warming: National and International Policy Directions

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Global Warming: National and International Policy Directions University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Books, Reports, and Studies Resources, Energy, and the Environment 1990 Global Warming: National and International Policy Directions Martha M. Ezzard University of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/books_reports_studies Part of the Energy Policy Commons, and the Environmental Policy Commons Citation Information Martha M. Ezzard, Global Warming: National and International Policy Directions (Natural Res. Law Ctr., Univ. of Colo. Sch. of Law 1990). MARTHA M. EZZARD, GLOBAL WARMING: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIRECTIONS (Natural Res. Law Ctr., Univ. of Colo. Sch. of Law 1990). Reproduced with permission of the Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment (formerly the Natural Resources Law Center) at the University of Colorado Law School. GLOBAL WARMING: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIRECTIONS Martha M. Ezzard Berryhill, Cage & North Denver, Colorado and Research Fellow Natural Resources Law Center University of Colorado School of Law 1990 NRLC Occasional Paper Series Natural Resources Law Center GLOBAL WARMING: NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIRECTIONS By Martha M. Ezzard^ The East is looking to the West today, to market economies to solve problems. But unless (wg) deduct environmental costs from energy production revenues, the free market will have absentees - future generations, the rest of creation. Jose Lutzenberger Secretary of the Environment, Brazil 1990 Interparliamentary Conference on the Global Environment, Washington, D.C. A Threat of New Dimensions Global warming, especially the threat to solve environmental as well as economic of rapid climate change, poses an problems. environmental challenge of new dimensions. It is a global threat that hovers over the With the question of America's planet in war and peace, arising in the fires environmental leadership in mind, two tasks of the Persian Gulf oil terror as surely as in were undertaken in order to examine the ongoing debate about the need for national policy directions. First, personal sustainable development to curtail further interviews were conducted with seven reliance on fossil fuels. It is a challenge environmental leaders in Congress. Second, which stretches the limits of all of the an analysis was made of the relationship, if disciplines involved in defining the nature of any, between democratic institutions and the it and in posing solutions from mitigating its environmental ethic. The result of those potentially devasting effects: science, two inquiries is a specific and pragmatic economics, law and public policy. No one proposal for amending the U.S. Senate and nation and no one discipline will solve the House Rules to require an environmental global wanning problem alone. fiscal note on legislation which contains positive or negative environmental savings There are two reasons why America or costs. In an era in which budget drives has a special responsibility to take the lead policy and short term results are primary, on the global warming issue: Americans procedures which require accountability for consume more fossil fuel per capita than the expenditure of public resources, any other country in the world. And in the including long-term environmental costs, post Cold War world, more nations and must become a regular component of peoples than ever before are looking to the democratic policy making. free market, especially the American model, 1 Martha M. Ezzard, an attorney with Berryhill, Cage & North in Denver, was a Research Fellow at the Natural Resources Law Center spring semester 1990. She is a former Colorado State Senator and Representative. In examining international policy respiration or the thawing of Arctic directions, a study was undertaken of the permafrost, that could cause more rapid development of international legal principles warming. These and other uncertainties pertaining to the atmosphere — from the serve to confuse both the media and the 1941 Trail Smelter arbitration to the 1987 policymakers as to the need for preventive Montreal Protocol. International policy action now. directions point to proposal of a global warming framework convention at the 1992 Adding to the perceived scientific United Nations Conference on the Human uncertainty is the George C. Marshall Environment to be held in Brazil. Will the Institute Report issued in 1989. The United States play a lead role in creation of controversial report claimed that increased such a convention? Will the current solar activity rather than greenhouse gases Administration continue to oppose a carbon caused the earth's previous warming. dioxide (CO2) Protocol? These are key Although widely discredited by atmospheric questions in 1991. scientists and criticized for its lack of peer review, the report caught the attention of The Science of Global Warming key white House advisers and conservative leaders in Congress. Scientists attribute global warming primarily to the unprecedented build-up of While warming is currently predicted greenhouse or heat-trapping gases in the only on the basis of circumstantial evidence, earth's atmosphere. The earth's average according to National Center for temperature increased .5 degrees Celsius Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist, (C.) during the last century. Most of the Dr. Stephen Schneider, the GCMs should policy debate focuses on stabilizing or be able to produce valid evidence of global reducing the increasing rate at which CO2 wanning in the next ten years. As Dr. John — the chief culprit among the greenhouse Firor, head of NCAR's Advanced Studies gases - is being emitted into the earth's Program, points out, it is not global atmosphere as a result of the burning of wanning which is in doubt, but the exact fossil fuels. rate of warming which can't be ascertained today. There are five recognized climate change models, known as General Scientists have traditionally felt they Circulation Models (GCMs). They should stay out of the political fray for fear generally agree that a doubling of CO2 will of tarnishing their reputations as objective cause the earth's average temperature to seekers of truth. But the policymakers increase from 1.5 to 5 degrees C. in the interviewed for this study said sound policy next 50 years. None of the models is able on such a complex scientific issue as global to predict regional impacts very well wanning cannot be accomplished without because of their lack of spatial detail. But more involvement from the scientific the major weakness of the GCMs is their community. Following the heated public inability to consider the effects of clouds. debate over the Marshall Report, one of Clouds are a negative feedback in the the suggestions made by Colorado Senator warming process because they reflect Tim Wirth was for the creation of a panel sunlight back into space, decreasing the of scientific experts chosen by the National amount of heating. There are also positive Academy of Sciences (the one source to feedbacks, such as an increase in forest which legislators attributed the greatest credibility) as an ongoing resource for Congress in considering the global warming There are strong arguments and challenge. economic data on the other side, however, which indicate that an aggressive U.S. The Economics of Global Warming energy policy could not only counter global warming, but also result in greater domestic While leading scientists differ in productivity. their forecasts of the rate of global warming, few dispute the immediate need to Amory Lovins, who heads the Rocky respond to the global warming threat. By Mountain Institute in Snowmass, has argued contrast, several leading economists suggest since the mid-seventies for a U.S. energy that immediate action would not be cost policy based on energy efficiency. Lovins, efficient. Using various economic models, disputing Norhaus' conclusions at the same some economists claim adaptation rather scientific meeting last year, advocated his than prevention is the more economically belief that the technology exists to reduce prudent choice. by one-fourth the electrical demand for lighting, motors, and appliances. The Yale University Economics Professor problem, he noted, is that no national policy William Nordhaus, formerly a member of or agency exists to review or enforce the President Jimmy Carter's Council of redesign of electrical products. Economic Advisers, wrote in a recent article in The Economist. "For the bulk of the The American Council for an (U.S.) economy...climate change over the Energy-Efficient Economy, an economic next few decades is likely to have less effect think-tank, published a study in 1988 that than the reunification of Germany." also concludes that aggressive Nordhaus argues there are currently no energy-efficient policies can contain energy viable substitutes for fossil fuels, and, use at a constant level and still allow therefore, climate engineering or adaption economic growth. The authors, Chandler, would be less economically drastic. Geller and Ledbetter, point out that Speaking on the subject to the American reasonable reduction in energy intensity - Association for the Advancement of Science the rate of energy used per dollar of last February, he said, "The long-run economic output -- would make the U.S. marginal cost of reducing (greenhouse) economy more competitive with the emissions is estimated to be about $38 per
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Accommodating Climate Change Science: James Hansen and the Rhetorical/Political Emergence of Global Warming
    Science in Context 26(1), 137–152 (2013). Copyright ©C Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0269889712000312 Accommodating Climate Change Science: James Hansen and the Rhetorical/Political Emergence of Global War ming Richard D. Besel California Polytechnic State University E-mail: [email protected] Argument Dr. James Hansen’s 1988 testimony before the U.S. Senate was an important turning point in the history of global climate change. However, no studies have explained why Hansen’s scientific communication in this deliberative setting was more successful than his testimonies of 1986 and 1987. This article turns to Hansen as an important case study in the rhetoric of accommodated science, illustrating how Hansen successfully accommodated his rhetoric to his non-scientist audience given his historical conditions and rhetorical constraints. This article (1) provides a richer explanation for the rhetorical/political emergence of global warming as an important public policy issue in the United States during the late 1980s and (2) contributes to scholarly understanding of the rhetoric of accommodated science in deliberative settings, an often overlooked area of science communication research. Standing on the promontory of the rocky rims in Billings, Montana, there is usually a distinct horizontal line between the clear, blue sky and the white, snowcapped Beartooth Mountains. But the summer of 1988 was different. A fuzzy, reddish tint lingered across the once pristine skyline of “Big Sky Country.” The reason: More than one hundred miles to the south, Yellowstone National Park smoldered in one of the most devastating forest fires of the twentieth century (Anon. 1988, A18; Stevens 1999, 129–130).
    [Show full text]
  • The Dilemma of Reticence: Helmut Landsberg, Stephen Schneider, and Public Communication of Climate Risk, 1971-1976
    History of Meteorology 6 (2014) 53 The Dilemma of Reticence: Helmut Landsberg, Stephen Schneider, and public communication of climate risk, 1971-1976 Gabriel Henderson Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark “Most of the crucial issues of human survival that will confront humanity over the next few decades will call for ethical and political value judgments – decisions on how to act in the face of uncertainties. … Human value judgments are too important to be left exclusively to the experts.” – Stephen Schneider1 “Science is not as objective as some people think. Often human value judgments (or even prejudices) make things move as much as curiosity or the search for answers as to ‘why.’” – Helmut Landsberg2 During the tumultuous mid-1970s, when energy and food shortages, environmental pollution, and political instability induced suspicions that America was increasingly susceptible to increased climatic instability, American climatologists Helmut Landsberg and Stephen Schneider disagreed strongly on whether scientists should engage the public about the future risks and urgency of climate change. On the one hand, Schneider, a young climate modeler with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), expressed explicitly an unwillingness to embrace reticence as an appropriate response to the risks of climate change. To illustrate the gravity of the situation, he frequently resorted to vivid and frightening metaphors to convince the public and policy makers that I want to express my gratitude to Ruth Morgan and the anonymous reviewer who contributed thoughtful suggestions to improve and refine the scope of this article. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the Center for Science Studies at Aarhus University for their suggestions to strengthen my narrative and flow of argument: Dania Achermann, Matthias Heymann, and Janet Martin-Nielsen.
    [Show full text]
  • How We Got Here: the 70'S
    HOW WE GOT HERE: THE 70’S. Book review David Frum How We Got Here: The 70’s: The Decade that Brought You Modern Life—For Better or For Worse. (Toronto: Random House Canada; 2000) pp. xxiv + 419 pages, hardcover, ISBN 0-679-30966-7 James Allan Evans h, the seventies! According to tion in faculty hiring, produced a well- t was a period when experts created my calculations, David Frum footnoted report which concluded I problems for the best reasons, and A was only ten years old when that they did. There followed a brief then established programs to repair they started, but he is a qualified post- bout of academic breast-beating, but them. For instance: dyslexia, which NAFTA observer, having spent his boy- the Canadians are not a recognized baffled educationists. “Dyslexia” does hood in Toronto and his university victim group and in any case, the not refer to tiresome rhetoric, as its years at Yale and Harvard. The war in attention span in the Groves of Greek roots imply, but rather the Vietnam ended in the 1970s with an Academe is short. The Symons Report inability to read. Parents noticed that undignified American exit. While it generated no “rights” and was soon some of their offspring, who had been lasted, it brought Canada a string of forgotten. The péquiste government of taught reading according to the most Vietnam refugees, and refugee partners René Lévesque was elected, and up-to-date methods, could not read at or mothers, including Diane Francis Quebec’s first referendum closed the all.
    [Show full text]
  • What Is the Economic Cost of Climate Change?*
    August 2008 WHAT IS THE ECONOMIC COST OF CLIMATE CHANGE?* Michael Hanemann 1. INTRODUCTION Much of the economic analysis of climate change revolves around two big questions: What is the economic cost associated with the impacts of climate change under alternative GHG emissions scenarios? What is the economic cost of reducing GHG emissions? The economic aspect of the policy debate intensified with the publication in the UK of the Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change (Stern, 2006). Stern concluded that, if no mitigative action is taken, “the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) each year, now and forever.” This conclusion has been criticized by many economists, particularly in the United States, where Professor William Nordhaus of Yale, the leading American expert on climate economics, concludes that the economically optimal policy involves only a modest rate of emission reduction in the near term, followed by larger reductions later (Nordhaus 2008). The disagreement between Stern and Nordhaus has aroused considerable interest. Much of the existing discussion focuses on the difference in the discount rate – Stern uses a consumption rate of discount average 1.4% per annum, while Nordhaus uses one averaging 4%. 1 However, I believe that another important factor is the difference in the raw assessment of undiscounted damages from climate change. Because of limited space, that difference is the focus of this chapter. 2 Compared to most other assessments, including those of the DICE model in Nordhaus and Boyer (2000), the Stern Review takes a more pessimistic view of the potential adverse impacts from climate change.
    [Show full text]
  • July 28-30, 2009 Hawai'i Convention Center
    July 28-30, 2009 Hawai‘i Convention Center Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance Foundation The Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance and Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance Foundation gratefully acknowledge the Major Sponsors of the 17th Annual Hawai‘i Conservation Conference Aloha and welcome to the 17th Annual Hawai‘i Conservation Conference (HCC), sponsored by the Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance (HCA) and the Hawai‘i Conservation Alliance Foundation (HCAF). The HCC is the largest gathering of people actively involved in the research and management of Hawaiian ecosystems, attracting on average 1,000 people. The HCC provides a unique opportunity for natural resource managers, the scientific community, ecosystem restoration specialists, and other interested persons to share information and ideas on a broad spectrum of conservation issues relevant to Hawai‘i. Climate change is a profoundly important topic for Hawai‘i, and indeed for all island systems in the Pacific. We are just beginning to understand the magnitude of changes that will impact our terrestrial and marine ecosystems, coastal zones, water resources, cultural heritage, agricultural areas, infrastructure, and residents. The combination of warming trends on land and in the sea, ocean acidification, rising sea level, changes is precipitation, and extreme weather events presents a formidable challenge to human and natural communities across the Hawaiian archipelago. The HCC will highlight the current state of knowledge on climate change impacts as well as provide the opportunity
    [Show full text]
  • The BG News October 21, 2010
    Bowling Green State University ScholarWorks@BGSU BG News (Student Newspaper) University Publications 10-21-2010 The BG News October 21, 2010 Bowling Green State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news Recommended Citation Bowling Green State University, "The BG News October 21, 2010" (2010). BG News (Student Newspaper). 8307. https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/bg-news/8307 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at ScholarWorks@BGSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in BG News (Student Newspaper) by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@BGSU. DO YOU BELIEVE IN BGSTD? CHECK OUT IN FOCUS I PAGES 8-9 ESTABLISHED 1920 A daily independent student press serving NEWS the campus and surrounding community Volume 90, Issue 42 Thursday, October 21,2010 www.bgviews.com Faculty vote yes' for unionization ByAlauWIdman gible full-time faculty members, who lackson said. Reporter then cast their votes to SERB. "We hope this victory inspires fac- Following the announcement, ulty on other campuses in Ohio to COLUMBUS — The votes are in, the FA celebration began and some pursue a similar count," he said. and faculty unionization passed members shed tears of joy. The vote followed a two-year cam- Wednesday, 391-to-293. "The victory is the culmination paign by the FA, a chapter of the The State Employment Relations of thousands of hours of hard work American Association of University Board announced the confidential by dozens of volunteers over a two- Professors, although this is the third mail-in ballot results Wednesday year period," said David lackson, FA time the University has voted on afternoon following a tally at its president.
    [Show full text]
  • Oregon Humanities Center | Winter 2008 Renowned Calligrapher and Buddhist TELLING: Veterans’ Voices Scholar to Visit Eugene Feb
    Newsletter : Winter 2008 OregonOregon HumanitiesHumanities CenterCenter 154 PLC | 541-346-3934 | www.uoregon.edu/~humanctr Steven Shankman Director Distinguished Professor, CAS 2007-08 O’Fallon Lecture English; Classics Julia J. Heydon MIT’s Henry Jenkins Talks About How Digital Associate Director Technologies Are Reshaping Popular Culture Melissa Gustafson Program Coordinator Welcome to convergence culture, where old and new Rebecca Force media collide, where audiences participate in the pro- TV Producer duction and circulation of media content, where social networks shape the fl ow of music, where stories extend Peg Gearhart Offi ce Specialist across multiple media platforms, where teens become media producers by sampling and remixing their favorite 2007–2008 Advisory Board bands, and where YouTube and Second Life become the James Crosswhite meeting grounds for diverse creative communities. English On Wednesday, January 16, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. in Amalia Gladhart 182 Lillis Hall, MIT Media Professor Henry Jenkins will Romance Languages speak on “Art and Storytelling in the Age of Media Con- Michael Hames-Garcia vergence.” He will explore how growing trends towards Ethnic Studies media convergence, collective intelligence, transmedia Lori Kruckenberg entertainment, pop cosmopolitanism, and participatory Music culture are reshaping the ways media gets produced, cir- C. Anne Laskaya culated, and consumed. Jenkins maintains that this isn’t English just fun and games—these shifts in our relations to popu- Jeffrey Librett lar culture are starting
    [Show full text]
  • The Public and Climate
    THIS IS THE TEXT OF AN ESSAY IN THE WEB SITE “THE DISCOVERY OF GLOBAL WARMING” BY SPENCER WEART, HTTP://WWW.AIP.ORG/HISTORY/CLIMATE. JULY 2007. HYPERLINKS WITHIN THAT SITE ARE NOT INCLUDED IN THIS FILE. FOR AN OVERVIEW SEE THE BOOK OF THE SAME TITLE (HARVARD UNIV. PRESS, 2003). COPYRIGHT © 2003-2007 SPENCER WEART & AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS. The Public and Climate Already in the 1930s, many people noticed that their weather was getting warmer. Few connected this with human activity, and still fewer feared any harm. Gradually scientists, aided by science journalists, informed the minority of educated people that modern civilization might cause global warming, sometime far in the future. In the early 1970s, the question began to concern a wider public. By then most people had come to fear planet-wide harm from technology in general. Now an onslaught of droughts suggested we were already damaging the climate. The issue was confused, however, when experts debated whether pollution would bring global warming or, instead, an appalling new ice age. By the end of the 1970s, scientific opinion had settled on warming as most likely, probably becoming evident around the year 2000—that is, in a remote and uncertain future. Some scientists nevertheless went directly to the public to demand action to avert the warming, and a few politicians took up the issue. During the hot summer of 1988, a few outspoken scientists, convinced by new evidence that rapid climate change might be imminent, made the public fully aware of the problem. Scientific discussions now became entangled with fierce political debates over scientific uncertainty and the costs of regulating greenhouse gases.
    [Show full text]
  • In Memoriam: Stephen Schneider, 1945-2010 the World of Climate
    In Memoriam: Stephen Schneider, 1945-2010 The world of climate science lost one of its greatest minds and strongest voices on July 19 with the death of Steve Schneider. Steve, who was 65, was a major contributor to the IPCC and one of its fiercest supporters. He was looking forward with enthusiasm to serving as a coordinating lead author for the Fifth Assessment Report. Steve was a leading member of the climate science community for over 40 years. As a post-doc at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the early 1970’s, he was one of the first researchers to use climate models to look carefully at the role of anthropogenic CO2 and aerosols in climate change. Steve’s scholarly approach, combining world-class research with deep commitment to broad communication, set a remarkable standard of excellence. In a career that took him from GISS to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (1972-1996), to Stanford University (1992-2010), Steve published more than 450 scientific papers and advised the administrations of 8 presidents (every president from Nixon to Obama). He was the founder and editor of the interdisciplinary journal Climatic Change, editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, and the author of many books, including Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Cannot Afford to Lose and, most recently, Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save the Earth’s Climate. Steve was one of the most stalwart contributors to the IPCC and, almost certainly, its most vociferous supporter. An intellectual leader and dedicated author on all four IPCC assessments, he was on every Working Group II Summary for Policy Makers writing team, and he was a key contributor to the Synthesis Reports for the Third and Fourth Assessment Reports.
    [Show full text]
  • What Happened to the Skeptical Environmentalist David Schoenbrod New York Law School, [email protected]
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE digitalcommons.nyls.edu Faculty Scholarship Articles & Chapters 2003 What Happened to the Skeptical Environmentalist David Schoenbrod New York Law School, [email protected] Christi Wilson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.nyls.edu/fac_articles_chapters Part of the Environmental Law Commons Recommended Citation New York Law School Law Review, Vol. 46, Issues 3 & 4 (2002-2003), pp. 581-614 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at DigitalCommons@NYLS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles & Chapters by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@NYLS. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST' 2 3 DAVID S. SCHOENBROD AND CHRISTI WILSON THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST Bjorn Lomborg was raised in a bastion of environmental protec- tion, Denmark, by parents who work in the earth and taught him to protect it. As a young man he was a Greenpeace activist. Now, at the age of thirty-six, his involvement with Greenpeace has ended, but his concern for living things remains. He is a vegetarian. His counter-cul- turalism also remains. He attires himself in jeans and a tee shirt to address groups of be-suited business leaders. Although nurtured as an environmentalist, Bjorn Lomborg was trained as a skeptic. At the University of Aarhus in Denmark, he is a professor of statistics, a discipline that scrutinizes assertions by system- atically comparing them to data. Lomborg's environmentalism and skepticism came into alignment in February of 1997. While leafing through Wired Magazine he hap- pened upon an interview with the American economist, Julian Simon.
    [Show full text]
  • Stephen Schneider 1945–2010
    Stephen Schneider 1945–2010 A Biographical Memoir by B. D. Santer and P. R. Ehrlich ©2014 National Academy of Sciences. Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. Stephen Henry SCHNEIDER February 11, 1945–July 19, 2010 Elected to the NAS, 2002 Steve Schneider made fundamental contributions to scien- tific understanding of human effects on Earth’s climate and ecosystems. His research helped to show that human beings are now active agents of changes in the climate system—not just innocent bystanders—and that we are already influencing the distributions and abundances of most plants and animals. In a number of different areas, from oceans to clouds and from modeling to impacts, “Steve was at the vanguard of climate science.”1 A man with infectious enthusiasm for science and for life, a key figure in the success of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an adviser to eight U.S. administrations, Steve was also a pre-eminent communicator of climate science to the public and policymakers, with “a truly exceptional By B. D. Santer and P. R. Ehrlich voice embodying both scientific excellence and extraordi- nary communications skills.”2 Early life Steve Schneider spent his formative years in Long Island. There are a number of apoc- ryphal stories about those early years—how he built his own telescope to study the rings of Saturn,3 and how he and his brother Peter souped up the engine of their father’s car (without their father’s knowledge).
    [Show full text]
  • The Myth of the 1970S Global Cooling Scientific Consensus
    THE MYTH of THE 1970s GLobaL CooLing Scientific Consensus BY THOMAS C. PETERSON , WILLIAM M. CONNOLLEY , AND JOHN FLE C K There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then. HE MYTH. When climate researcher Reid piece of the lumbering climate beast. Rigorous Bryson stood before the members of the measurements of increasing atmospheric carbon T American Association for the Advancement of dioxide were available for the first time, along with Science in December 1972, his description of the modeling results suggesting that global warming state of scientists’understanding of climate change would be a clear consequence. Meanwhile, newly sounded very much like the old story about the created global temperature series showed cooling group of blind men trying to describe an elephant. since the 1940s, and other scientists were looking The integrated enterprise of climate science as we to aerosols to explain the change. The mystery of know it today was in its infancy, with different waxing and waning ice ages had long entranced groups of scientists feeling blindly around their geologists, and a cohesive explanation in terms of orbital solar forcing was beginning to emerge. Underlying this discussion was a realization that AFFILIATIONS: PETERSON —NOAA/National Climatic Data climate could change on time scales with the poten- Center, Asheville, North Carolina; CONNOLLEY —British Antarctic tial for significant effects on human societies, and Survey, National Environment Research Council, Cambridge, that human activities could trigger such changes United Kingdom; FLE C K —Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New (Bryson 1974).
    [Show full text]