Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The partnership that developed between climate scientists and Ameri-
can environmentalists in the 1980s arose out of a familiar story unfolding
in a new context. America's environmental groups took on the issue of
global warming slowly and haltingly in the early 1980s, but by 1985 most
prominent environmental organizations had begun to recognize climate
change as a potential priority for the future. Shared scientific and envi-
ronmental interests continued to bring climate scientists and American
environmentalists into conversation in the 1980s, as they had since the
early 1960s when Keeling framed CO
2
as a form of pollution.
1
But in the new decade these two groups also came together to face a
common political enemy. His name was Ronald Reagan. Elected in 1980, the
new president harbored disdain for what he saw as an unnecessarily alarm-
ist and antibusiness environmental movement. He had similar contempt for
social and environmental science research. Upon inauguration, he sought to
dismantle both the Council on Environmental Quality and the Department
of Energy, and he replaced capable administrators at the Environmental
Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior with zealous aco-
lytes hostile to environmental regulation.
2
The administration aggressively
downsized federal environmental research, especially targeting renewable
energy. Unable to fully excise the DOE from the executive branch, Reagan's
Office of Management and Budget reallocated more than a billion dollars of
the DOE's money to the Department of Defense.
3
The ham-fisted approach
left the DOE with neither the funding nor the personnel to continue its
research on CO
2
.
4
Like environmental scientists of every stripe, scientists
involved in the joint DOE-AAAS climate study begun under Carter— the
largest and most extensive program of climate research up to that point—
saw their funding slashed and their reliable government contacts replaced
by party-line political appointees. Having worked hard to incorporate cli-
mate change into the research and policy agendas of federal agencies since
the 1950s, climate scientists suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves
on the outs. As a result, in the 1980s the politics of global warming became,
like environmental politics more broadly, a politics of dissent.
the transition
Few individuals' stories capture the rapid and traumatic change that
accompanied the transition from Carter to Reagan more completely than
