Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
3
mAking the
globAl environment
tWo images of the keeling curve Provide a visual understand-
ing of how putting the curve into a new context can change the meaning
of atmospheric CO
2
. One image is from the 1971
Study of Man's Impact on
Climate
and the other was published in the best-selling mainstay of 1970s
environmentalism,
The Limits to Growth.
The SMIC image treats the Keel-
ing Curve in isolation. By now, you know that behind this simple curve lie
several stories— stories about entrepreneurial scientists taking advantage
of the Cold War research system, stories about institutions that reflect
Cold War optimism and anxieties, and stories about “good science” and
the particular forms of environmental advocacy it permitted within the cli-
mate science community in the 1960s. The gaps in the curve— the first just
as Keeling began measurements on Mauna Loa in 1957- 58, the second when
he lost funding in the spring of 1964— link the stories behind the curve
with the curve itself. Each of these stories in one way or another involves a
reinterpretation of the rise in atmospheric CO
2
and what it means. But the
SMIC image on its own makes no claims about these stories. Insofar as this
is possible, the study provides the basic scientific information necessary to
let the curve speak for itself.
The Limits to Growth,
by contrast, self-consciously tells a specific story
about the Keeling Curve. The topic's image places the curve in an alarming
new context, projecting the observed data from Mauna Loa forward and
