The Politics of Dissent - Behind the Curve - page 130

The 1983 NAS study headed by Nierenberg was a follow-up to the 1979
Charney Report, mandated by the National Energy Security Act of 1980
signed by Carter. Nierenberg used these unanswered scientific questions
about timing to cast doubt on the basic conclusions of climate science as
a whole. 66 The 1983 NAS committee noted that the potential impacts of
atmospheric CO 2 represented a “cause for concern,” but overall the report
downplayed the urgency of the issue and recommended a “wait, do more
research, and see” approach to the problem. 67 Thomas Schelling of Har-
vard and William Nordhaus of Yale, the committee's two economists (a
new element in the NAS approach to climate change), argued that in a
world of slow and gradual climatic change, humans would likely learn to
adapt as quickly as the CO 2 problem developed. 68 Tied to energy, pollu-
tion, and the global environment, the 1983 report said, CO 2 presented an
intractable problem. 69 But as Nierenberg told the New York Times , the com-
mittee thought that “we have 20 years to examine options before we make
drastic plans. In that 20 years we can close critical gaps in our knowledge.” 70
With good scientists on the case, CO 2 was no reason to upset the economy
through major changes in energy policy.
The 1983 Nierenberg Report backed off considerably from the urgency
of the 1979 Charney Report, and its conclusions clearly reflected the influ-
ence of conservatives within both the NAS and the Reagan administration.
The Energy Security Act mandated that the Office of Science and Tech-
nology Policy administer the NAS study, which gave George A. Keyworth
III, the president's science advisor, control of the Nierenberg committee's
funding through 1983. 71 Nierenberg himself, though selected as chair of
the committee (after some lobbying) before the 1980 election, was a politi-
cal conservative who later served on Reagan's 1981 transition team and
as an advisor to the president on atmospheric issues throughout his two
terms in office.72 72 To the extent that the administration directly pressured
NAS researchers to toe the line— which, with Keyworth and Nierenberg
in charge, was not really necessary— that pressure was relatively subtle,
in the form of a tacit budgetary threat from none other than Frederick
Koomanoff Koomanoff held the purse strings for what little DOE funding
remained available for CO 2 research in the early 1980s, and he quietly made
it known that he hoped the NAS recommendation would line up with the
administration's low-key position on the climate issue. 73 Ultimately, the
fragmented, 496-page, multiauthor Nierenberg Report expressed a variety