Arctic Samples

ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 223 CHAPTER 8 Global Climate Change and Human Agency Inadvertent Influence and “Archimedean” Interventions J AMES R ODGER F LEMING Wallace Broecker has referred to the global climate sytem as a “massive staggering beast.” To emphasize rapid climate changes, Richard Alley added the adjective “drunken.” When I introduced Richard’s lecture at Colby last year (2005), I noted that it was not wise to anger such a beast, yet this is just what we were doing with anthropogenic emissions, which were, in effect, our sticks to prod the beast. Since then (2006), I have become interested in longer sticks, Archimedean levers to “tip” the climate system in supposedly favorable directions though geoengineering. But what would be the consequences of such intervention? TIPPING POINTS: PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL At the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December 2005, climate scientist James Hansen of NASA warned that the Earth’s climate was nearing an unprecedented “tipping point”—a point of no return 223 ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 224 INTIMATE UNIVERSALITY that could only be avoided if the “growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slowed” in the next two decades: The Earth’s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far- ranging undesirable consequences. These include not only the loss of the Arctic as we know it, with all that implies for wildlife and in- digenous peoples, but losses on a much vaster scale due to rising seas .... This grim scenario can be halted if the growth of greenhouse gas emissions is slowed in the first quarter of this century.1 Hansen’s brief statement, widely distributed by the press, clearly struck a cultural nerve. It acknowledged undesirable inadvertent human influence on the climate system and pointed to a possible remedy. In the interest of impact, however, it avoided complexities. For example, it is highly unlikely that merely slowing the growth of emissions would be very effective. Missing were the net positive results of a true behavioral “tipping point” beyond which humanity decided to live with only clean energy. Another “tipping point” also went unmentioned: the growing international agenda to intervene purposefully in the global climate through geoengineering. The April 3, 2006 cover of Time magazine captured the essence of the apocalyptic mood on climate change, advising its readers to “Be worried, be very worried,” since the “climate is crashing, and global warming is to blame.” Focusing on what can be done politically and economically to avoid dangerous climate change, the May issue of Vanity Fair reported that the first imperative is to “punch through the massive denial and resistance” that still exists in the United States.2 If indeed a “tipping point” in the global climate system is imminent, can changes in collective lifestyle avert an unprecedented and potentially cata- strophic disaster? Will mitigation of human influence do the job? Or must we settle for adaptation? What level of mitigation? Who is responsible? Who pays and how much? To what ultimate effect? There is another more ominous option. Should technical elites “fix” the climate and attempt to control nature through geoengineering? Are there other options? We may be witnessing the process by which we convince ourselves that the Earth’s climate needs to be “fixed,” thus passing a sociological “tipping point” that would favor purposeful intervention, through mitigation of human actions, adaption to adverse consequences, or far more drastic intervention in the climate system itself.3 224 ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 225 Global Climate Change and Human Agency F IGURE 1 Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth”—Archimedes. Engraving from Mechanics Magazine (London, 1824). In recent decades the rise of climate dynamics, in the form of computer climate models and global monitoring systems, have led some to conclude that future climate states can be predicted and that climate (or at least human impact on the climate) might even be managed or controlled. In other words, in an Archimedean sense (Figure 1), climate might have a physical “tipping point,” and humans may now have levers long enough to move it. But where will the Earth roll when you tip it (Figure 2)? A ROLE FOR HISTORY Global climate change is an international, intergenerational, and interdisci- plinary topic. Yet most scholarship focuses on the West, the present, and the science or economics of the issues. Historians of the topic are fewer than few, as are interesting ethicists and other humanistic scholars.4 In this essay, I hope to provide a partial corrective by bringing the history of human influence on the climate—both inadvertent and intentional—to bear on questions 225 ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 226 INTIMATE UNIVERSALITY F IGURE 2 But where will the Earth roll when you tip it? of ethics and public policy. In doing so I will be setting out a broad research agenda linking the three disciplines. What have people experienced, learned, feared about climate change in the past? How have they proposed to intervene? By what paths have we reached the current state of climate apprehension? Since we are literally im- mersed in the climate system, how are priviledged positions developed and maintained? How can a historical analysis of the modes of climate intervention, whether proposed or practiced, inadvertent or intentional, shed light on the pressing issues of our day and perhaps help us evaluate or at least envi- sion future possibilities.5 Anthropogenic climate change is not at all a new issue. In eras other than our own, the climate has been perceived as amenable to human impact or intervention. In fact, the question of human agency, the ways in which humanity had purposefully changed the Earth (including the climate) from its hypothetical pristine condition, was one of three perennial questions about 226 ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 227 Global Climate Change and Human Agency nature and culture posed by the intellectual ancestors of the Western tradi- tion.6 In the eighteenth century, Enlightenment thinkers argued that human settlement had caused a gradual warming of the European continent. Settlers in the New World engaged in self-conscious, if ultimately ineffective efforts to modify and “improve” the climate through clearing the forests and culti- vating the lands. Scientists in the nineteenth century, seeking a natural ex- planation for climate change, based their arguments on universal or terrestrial physics and largely ignored theories of human influence. At the turn of the twentieth century, the climatic effects of industrial emissions—especially the rising use of coal—came under scrutiny. Some speculated that anthropogenic warming could possibly have a long-term beneficial effect on climate by staving off the anticipated return of an ice age. Most scientists, however, thought that increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would have no effect at all. Again, most theories of climate change were rooted in the study of natural phenomena. In 1938 G.S. Callendar, using new data on global temperatures, fuel consumption, and infrared absorption, revived the theory that global climate change could be caused by anthropogenic increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since then, the so-called “Callendar effect” has become the dominant theory of human agency, and, some believe, the dominant forcing factor overall in global climate change. In recent decades the rise of climate dynamics, in the form of computer climate models and global monitoring systems, have led some to conclude that future climate states can be predicted and that climate (or at least human impact on the climate) might even be managed or controlled. With rising awareness of potential human damage to the climate system, the term “inadvertent climate change,” widely used before about 1970, has now become outdated. We are fully aware, so goes the argument, of our collective impact on the planet, since the Rio conference in 1992 or at least the IPCC third assessment report in 2001. Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen calls this the “Anthropocene era” of anthropogenic CO2 and methane, dating it to the 18th century. Environmentalists might label it the “anthro-obscene” era of human influence on climate. Hansen and, recently, British Prime Min- ister Tony Blair give us 7 years to get our act together before the next round of the post-Kyoto negotiations. But lest we neglect the past, this essay examines how people in different eras have understood the human influence on climate, how they have inter- vened, and the value of studying the history of climate modifications. In the space allotted, I cannot undertake a detailed analysis of world history and 227 ch08_4569.qxd 8/29/06 3:31 PM Page 228 INTIMATE UNIVERSALITY the ethical and public policy implications of climate engineering. That is my ongoing project.7 THE ENLIGHTENMENT NEXUS Ancient and medieval theories of climate largely centered on questions of di- rect influence on individuals and indirect influence on the character and nature of human culture. Climates were seen as largely static, a function of latitude and location, and determinism largely overshadowed any notions of human agency. Theophrastus, a student of Aristotle, wrote of local changes of climate caused by human agency, specifically agricultural activities. He observed that draining wetlands removed the moderating effects of water and led to greater extremes of cold, while clearing woodlands for agriculture exposed the land to the Sun and resulted in a warmer climate.8 The idea that climate influenced culture and human well-being is of course, an ancient one, dating from the Hippocratic corpus and Aristotle’s Politics through a long series of medieval and early modern climate determinists including Albertus Magnus, Jean Bodin, and John Arbuthnot.

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