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Why Global Warming Is Controversial

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Why Global Warming Is Controversial S CIENCE’ S C OMPASS 65 of the conversations Brenner and his pects of environmental problems is sharp in are marred by misconceptions concerning 64 friends had about what they knew, what this allegory, but the distinction can easily be- models of weather and climate. 63 they didn’t know, and what was the next come blurred when the scientific results pos- The discussions of models, except for 62 important question to tackle. It also offers sess uncertainties. Controversies are common Stephen Norton and Frederick Suppe’s 61 readers a broad sample of Sydney’s pun- when it is unclear whether disagreements consideration from the perspective of 60 gent opinions on scientists and science: about the distance to the waterfall reflect sci- philosophers of science, are poor. A major 59 entific or political differences. reason is a failure to explore why, at pre- If you simply say, “Development is just a 58 Changing the Atmosphere demonstrates sent, climate models have far larger uncer- matter of turning the right genes on in the 57 convincingly that in the current debate about tainties than those that predict the weather. right place at the right time and that’s the an- 56 global warming the distinction between sci- Weather forecasts used to be regarded as swer,” that’s absolutely true. But it’s absolute- 55 ence and policy is almost absent. Edited by auguries, but now are accepted as sources ly useless because somewhere deep down 54 Clark Miller (a political scientist at the Univer- of reliable and important information. In what we’d really like to do is to actually go 53 sity of Wisconsin–Madison) and Paul Ed- early November 2001, for example, fore- and make a mouse…Of course no one will 52 wards (the director of the Science, Technology, casts for Hurricane Michelle prompted the build a real mouse, but we’d like to be able to 51 and Society program at the University of governor of Florida to order the evacuation make a gedanken (imaginary) mouse.” 50 Michigan), the book comprises ten essays on of the Florida Keys. (Even though the or- 49 I last saw Sydney a few months ago at a the interactions between the atmospheric sci- der proved unnecessary on that particular 48 dinner honoring the participants of a 1985 ences and public policy. In their introduction, occasion, it will be repeated under similar 47 conference that was the first to examine the Miller and Edwards state that, today, environ- conditions in the future.) The advances in 46 feasibility of a human genome project. As the mental “science’s place in global policymak- weather prediction that cause such predic- 45 speeches droned on and on, he sat at the next ing is increasingly formalized, boosting its au- tions to be widely accepted were possible 44 table, constructing something with his napkin thority in policymaking processes because the time scales of the 43 (perhaps it was a mouse). He winked when but also subjecting it to new phenomena of interest (a few Changing the 42 our eyes met, and I thought of Kokopelli— forms of political and legal over- days) are so short that the data 41 the mythic musician, trickster, and sower of sight and review. International Atmosphere collected over the past few 40 seeds of the American Southwest whose flute expert institutions such as the Expert Knowledge decades provide stringent tests 39 songs beguile the people and bring the rain. IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel and Environmental for the predictive models. Un- 38 Near the end of the book, Brenner com- on Climate Change) increasingly Governance fortunately, the instrumental 37 ments that he hates writing but is good at determine which knowledge Clark A. Miller and records are too short to provide 36 talking. This no doubt explains why My counts and which does not, help- Paul N. Edwards, Eds. similarly demanding tests for 35 Life in Science was compiled from video- ing to shape crucial policy out- MIT Press, Cambridge, models that predict climate 34 tapes. I was very disappointed that the “ac- comes.” In a later chapter, Ed- MA, 2001. 397 pp. $67, changes decades hence. Scien- 33 companying video” mentioned in the pref- wards and Stephen Schneider de- £47.95. ISBN 0-262- tists are therefore turning to the 32 ace was not available for review. I would scribe the IPCC as a “hybrid sci- 13387-3. Paper, $26.95, geological records (which are 31 love to see and hear Sydney once again ex- entific/political organization”; it £18.95. ISBN 0-262- not mentioned at all in this 63219-5. 30 pounding on some topic. Any topic. involves hundreds of scientists book) that describe dramatical- 29 and several nonscientists from all ly different climates in the past. 28 BOOKS: CLIMATE over the world in evaluating and synthesizing Of particular interest is Earth’s response to 27 the scientific understanding of global climate slight fluctuations in orbital (Milankovich) 26 change. That the IPCC is controversial is thus parameters such as the tilt and precession 25 Why Global no surprise. Dale Jamieson tells us that many of its axis. Over the past few million years, 24 people regard it as “the voice of reason and the amplitude of that response has in- 23 Warming Is dispassionate objectivity,” but that others who creased significantly, and it now includes 22 Controversial disagree with its findings consider it a recurrent Ice Ages. Why Earth’s climate is 21 “malevolent conspiracy.” currently far more sensitive to this modest 20 George Philander Several of the essays provide an excel- Milankovich forcing than in the past is, as 19 lent summary of how this state of affairs yet, unknown. But this sensitivity is ample 18 uppose we are in a raft, drifting toward a developed. After World War II, the creation reason to be concerned about the current 17 waterfall. To avoid a calamity, we must of an integrated, global, observational net- exponential rise in the concentration of 16 Saddress two questions: How far is the work to monitor the weather was intimately greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. (Most 15 waterfall? And when should we get out of the related to the efforts of politicians to recon- of the book’s authors seem to believe that 14 water? We deal with these questions in radi- struct a stable world order by promoting in- the basis for concern stems strictly from 13 cally different ways. The first can be answered ternational cooperation in science and tech- the results of climate models.) Confidence 12 with the methods of science. The second (a nology. An intriguing interplay between sci- in the theories and models for future global 11 matter of policy) is far more difficult. It has a ence and politics transformed weather and warming will be bolstered significantly 10 multitude of possible answers, none entirely climate from local into global phenomena, once we have explanations for and simula- 9 satisfactory to everyone, and it requires com- thus setting the stage for global climate tions of the Ice Ages. 8 promises among the different values of differ- change to become an international issue. In Coping with global warming will re- 7 ent people (some timid, some foolhardy). The dealing with this complex problem, a dis- quire the collaborative efforts of people 6 difference between the science and policy as- tinction between its science and policy as- with diverse backgrounds. In Changing 5 pects would be helpful. Several authors of the Atmosphere, experts in science studies 4 this book seem to believe that, in the case alert us to the current absence of a clear 3 The author is in the Department of Geosciences, of global warming, such a distinction is im- distinction between the science and policy Guyot Hall, Washington Road, Princeton Univer- 2 sity, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA. E-mail: gphlder@ possible. However, the arguments of these aspects of global warming. They apparent- 1 princeton.edu experts from the field of “science studies” ly believe that this will always be the case. www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 294 7 DECEMBER 2001 2105 S CIENCE’ S C OMPASS 65 Scientists need to respond. The develop- Nelly Oudshoorn’s Beyond the Natural 1940s because he had read about cabeza de 64 ment of climate models that estimate the Body (Routledge, London, 1994), Sexual negro in a botany book. This wild Mexican 63 distance to the waterfall with greater accu- Chemistry focuses on the contributions yam seemed a possible ample source of sa- 62 racy will contribute considerably to a more made by the European sex hormone indus- pogenins, which offered an alternative to 61 constructive debate about how and when try in the 1930s and by scientists who, flee- cholesterol as the raw material from which 60 we should get out of the water. ing fascism, found asylum in the Americas. progesterone could be synthesized. 59 Marks also wishes to draw attention away By starting her account in the early 20th 58 BOOKS: PHARMACOLOGY from the canonical “fathers” of the pill— century, Marks has also left out the rich his- 57 Gregory Pincus, Carl Djerassi, and John tory of fertility control practiced by women 56 The Pill in Context Rock. She highlights the contributions of throughout Latin America. Naturalists travel- 55 Margaret Sanger, feminist advocate of birth ing in the area from the 16th through the 54 Londa Schiebinger control, and Katherine McCormick, the 19th centuries—among them, Maria Sibylla 53 second woman to graduate from the Mas- Merian, Sir Hans Sloane, and Alexander von 52 ailed as a panacea for the world’s bur- sachusetts Institute of Technology.
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