Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
public.
57
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the AAAS had taken a turn to
the left, passing resolutions opposing the Vietnam War and supporting
environmental protection, civil and human rights, and gender equality in
the sciences. For the most part, however, the organization focused on less
volatile practical programs for enhancing international scientific coopera-
tion, improving domestic science education, and increasing the public's
overall engagement with science and technology. As the AAAS rebounded
from the tumultuous 1960s, it established a Committee on Future Direc-
tions in order to refocus on these core scientific, political, and educational
activities.
58
After relatively successful but ad hoc AAAS participation in
U.N. meetings on population, human settlements, and desertification fol-
lowing the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment, the committee
agreed to make CO
2
-induced climate change a programmatic focus.
The committee's reasoning inverted that of the Sierra Club. The multi-
disciplinary subject of climate represented the sort of “long-range scientific
effort of international consequence” that could “command the interest of
a wide segment of the association's membership.” As a result, the AAAS
established a Committee on Climate as its premier international initiative,
naming former AAAS president Roger Revelle as chairman.
59
If there was an institutional embodiment of science-first climate change
advocacy, it was the AAAS of the 1970s. Revelle and his colleagues at the
AAAS envisioned the organization as a nexus for American scientific,
political, and practical interest in the climate and climatic change, with
more and better research at its core.
60
In 1978, the group identified no fewer
than ten federal agencies involved in climatic research: the Departments
of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Transportation, the Interior,
and State; the Environmental Protection Agency; NASA; and the National
Science Foundation. Under the auspices of the National Climate Program,
these agencies had begun to coordinate their research with each other and
with state agencies and scientific institutions, but they had yet to develop
a mechanism for dealing with the various international groups— mostly
U.N. agencies— interested in climate change. These groups included the
World Meteorological Organization, the World Health Organization, the
U.N. Environment Programme, and the Food and Agriculture Organiza-
tion. The AAAS saw gaps between earlier mission-oriented government
projects like the Climate Impacts Assessment Program, a limited and
often overly academic NAS initiative, and the complex bureaucracy of the
