Naomi Oreskes is a historian of science, an analyst of climate change literature, a mining geologist (who worked for four years in South Australia), she has a PhD from Stanford University, is professor of history science at University of San Diego, and has written a number of books, including: 'Merchants of Doubt'.
2005 Gov California Arnold Schwarzenegger announces intention to commit State of California to Kyoto level emissions controls of greenhouse gases:
"I say the debate is over. We know the science. We see the threat, and we know the time for action is now."
Mid 2000s, it seemed the American people had finally got the scientific message that global warming real and under-way.
Yale Project on Climate Change - working with Gallup Poll Org - in 2007 showed 72% of Americans were completely or mostly convinced that global warming was happening. Sixty-two percent believed life on Earth would continue undisrupted only if society takes immediate & drastic action to reduce global warming.
Mid-2000s many former contrarians & skeptics had come around, incl. Republican strategist, Frank Luntz:
" ... there is global warming taking place ... behavior of humans ... [is] affecting the climate."
Public accepted climate change as a problem and wanted the government to take action, but Republicans were perceived as weaker on that issue than Democrats.
Luntz gave advice on how to address this Republican weakness:
- Use the phrase 'climate change' rather than 'global warming', as 'climate change' is a lot less frightening than 'global warming'.
- Emphasise scientific uncertainty.
- Insist that there is no consensus.
ie make 'lack' of scientific certainty a primary issue of the debate.
NOTE: use 'lack' of scientific certainty as a political strategy.
Luntz's position about the scientific consensus was not factually correct. The scientific debate was *not* still open.
Two years before Luntz's memo/advice:
Third Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2001)("IPCC") - climate scientists had concluded:
"human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy"
and had put 50 years of observed global warming down to:
"the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations".
However, scientific evidence had coalesced even earlier than 2001. In the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC (1995), scientists concluded:
"The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human impact on global climate."
Oreskes' own study of history of climate science (where she analysed public literature related to anthropogenic global change (ie change in environment as result of human activity), showed that scientists had a consensus on the human cause of climate change by the early 1990s.
Scientific consensus which was already in place by 1992-1993 was reflected in the IPCC Second Assessment Report (1995).
The 1995 IPCC report was reflecting a scientific consensus that was part of the reason why world leaders had gathered in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to sign the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
USA is a signatory to the UNFCCC, which pledges to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system. Signed by US President HW Bush 1992. Bush called on world leaders to translate the written document into "concrete action to protect the planet."
Gus Speth, who served on the Council on Environmental Quality in the Carter White House, was asked what happened 2007. Response was he thought they were on track to make real changes.
So what happened to the scientific consensus that emerged in the 1990s & what happened to the political response to that science that was encapsulated in the Framework Convention on Climate Change?
Emergence of a political challenge to that science. A story of selling uncertainty. Using uncertainty as a political tool in order to stave off government action on climate change & to protect the free market (as some people understood it).
History of Climate
Began with John Tyndall (1820-1893) - established concept of 'greenhouse gas' in 1850s
Realised that when you burn fossil fuels you release CO2 into the atmosphere & that if you increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere then you may expect the climate to warm up. Arrhenius did the calculations on warming the Earth, which he thought positive (as he was from cold climate).
First person to suggest global warming may be a bad thing & that it might also be under way is Guy Stewart Callendar, an English steam engineer and inventor.
Callendar argued in the 1930s that available data indicated CO2 levels were already increasing and that temperature may be increasing as well.
1938 article in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Callendar suggested that these effects were perhaps already beginning and that scientists should study this in further detail.
The following year war broke out in Europe and scientists became diverted by other issues.
1950s scientists returned to the subject of global warming, incl. Roger Revelle and Hans Seuss, professors University of California.
Tellus Oceanography Journal (1957), Revelle & Seuss publish article in which they argue that mankind was performing a 'great geophysical experiment' by burning carbon (fossil fuels) stored in rocks for 100s of millions of years of geological time, rapidly returning an enormous amount of CO2 to the atmosphere, and that this could be expected to have an impact on the atmosphere and that scientists should begin to monitor the potential effect.
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Revelle obtained funding for systemic measurement of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere.
Measurements undertaken by CLARLES DAVID KEELING (professor at University of California) - see KEELING CURVE - commencing 2958, as part of International Geophysical Year (IGY). Keeling was later awarded National Medal of Science by GW Bush.
Seasonal variation of CO2 associated with photo synthesis in northern hemisphere where most of the world's land masses are.
By 1965 concluded that there is detectable, slow but sure, increase in CO2.
1965 - President's Science Advisory Committee Board on Environmental Pollution led by Revelle & Keeling.
Reported: by 2000 there will be 25% more CO2 in atmosphere, modifying the balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate could occur.
1965 - Lyndon B Johnson declared:
This generation has altered the composition of atmosphere on a global scale through steady increase in CO2 from burning fossil fuels.
Computer Modelling
With the rise of computer modelling arose consensus between scientific experts that: given the rise of CO2 that Keeling had demonstrated, sooner or latter, global warming would occur.
Conclusion drawn from basics of physics and chemistry of general circulation of atmosphere.
1979 - US National Academy of Science
Plethora of studies indicates consensus that climate change will result from:
1) Man's combustion of fossil fuels.
2) Changes in land use.
[ SUMMARY IN PROGRESS .... Watch the Video ... lol]
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