Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
about popular advocacy more clearly than the response to Stephen Schnei-
der's 1976
Genesis Strategy.
Convinced that the risks of waiting to mitigate
potential catastrophe far outweighed the rewards of “ill-founded cer-
tainty,” Schneider challenged what he called “scientific conservatism,”
criticizing the scientific community's commitment to “consensus” on
poorly understood issues with high stakes, as with climatic change. “Con-
sensus,” he contended, “is a poor way to do science.”
17
The topic's central
metaphorical conceit— a comparison of climate scientists' warnings to
Joseph's Old Testament plea to Pharaoh to prepare for a potential famine
by storing food— reflected a conscious abandonment of the “traditional
role of the scientist to advance knowledge quietly” in favor of a bolder
activism that mixed science and policy.
18
Schneider called on “our global
society to build into our means of survival sufficient flexibility and reserve
capacity to hedge against the repeated climatic variations that have been
so well documented in history.”
19
Following the example of environmental scientists and biologists like
Barry Commoner and Schneider's friend Paul Ehrlich, Schneider used
the platform of climate science to expound more generally upon the same
monde problèmatique
at the heart of more comprehensive studies like
The
Limits to Growth.
Schneider consciously ventured “beyond the confines of
[his] academic training.”
20
“The dangers associated with climatic change,”
they wrote, “are merely a part of the entire world
problèmatique,
and to
view them in isolation from the rest of the world predicament would be
to repeat the mistakes of many narrowly specialized observers who have
examined the prospects for the future
only through the tunnel of their exper-
tise
.”
21
Schneider used his position as a climate scientist to lend credibil-
ity to his analysis of the interactions between climate, food, energy, and
politics. He then laced this analysis with pointed commentary and policy
proscriptions that went far beyond the call for more funding that was tra-
ditionally acceptable within the scientific community.
With book jacket endorsements by Ehrlich, Margaret Mead, and Carl
Sagan,
The Genesis Strategy
reached a remarkably wide audience. The topic
earned reviews in the
New York Times
and the
Washington Post
and landed
Schneider, like Ehrlich and Sagan before him, in a seat across from Johnny
Carson on
The Tonight Show.
22
But the topic also raised the ire of many
atmospheric scientists, who were already up in arms about the proper rela-
tionship of scientists to society after the SST debate. Helmut Landsberg,
