Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the contrary, I think we see some very clear problems with respect to rec-
onciliation, though I think we can express every hope that we can find a
way to have both a tolerable environment and sufficient human economic
security.”
80
Many of the scientists most vocal in debates about the impacts of cli-
mate change, meanwhile, shared a neoprogressive commitment to socially
and environmentally responsible resource management that, in their eyes,
could reconcile these tensions in the service of improving the quality of
human life.
81
Despite the dire warnings embedded in their conclusions,
studies by Roger Revelle, Mickey Glantz, Stephen Schneider, and others
rested on the optimistic premise that with good scientific research behind
them, policymakers could— and should— encourage new types of develop-
ment in order to protect the coupled human and natural systems poten-
tially affected by irresponsible— or “unscientific”— growth.
In retrospect, scientists' faith in the “forcing function of knowledge”
to inspire progressive climate policy seems at best misguided, at worst
hopelessly naïve. But at the time, it actually seemed to work. During the
1970s, climate scientists gained remarkable access to federal agencies and
policy elites, and by the end of the decade they had begun to build the
type of consensus that Revelle and his AAAS colleagues had hoped for.
In 1979, a National Academy of Sciences committee headed by meteorolo-
gist Jule Charney of MIT released a comprehensive review of CO
2
and cli-
mate research conducted over the previous decade. The study concluded
that a doubling of atmospheric CO
2
would lead to a 1.5- 4ºC warming of
the earth, and that if atmospheric CO
2
continued to increase, there was
“no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.”
82
The joint
DOE-AAAS venture convinced David Slade, also as early as 1979, that
the Department of Energy not only should continue to fund research on
CO
2
-induced climate change but also should develop a national plan for
ameliorating and adapting to the unintended climatic consequences of
fossil fuel energy consumption.
83
Slade laid out a potential research and
assessment program that would support a continuing dialogue between
climate scientists and policymakers through the end of Carter's theoreti-
cal second term. In 1979,
Nature
called climate change “the most important
environmental issue in the world today,” and Slade sought to establish a
prominent place for the issue in America's ongoing discussion about its
most pressing political and economic problem: energy.
84
Working within
