“Climate Change and the Integrity of Science”

The following letter, signed by 255 members of the National Academy of Science, appears in the current issue of the journal Science. I wholeheartedly concur with the content of this letter, and republish it here in the interest of getting its message out to the world. Please take the next four minutes of your life to read it. As a responsible citizen of the planet Earth, I encourage you to share this message widely. -CB

We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular. All citizens should understand some basic scientific facts. There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action. For a problem as potentially catastrophic as climate change, taking no action poses a dangerous risk for our planet.

Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarial—scientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. That’s what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of “well-established theories” and are often spoken of as “facts.”

For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that today’s organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.

CREDIT: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM [Larger version of this image]

Many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientific assessments of climate change, which involve thousands of scientists producing massive and comprehensive reports, have, quite expectedly and normally, made some mistakes. When errors are pointed out, they are corrected. But there is nothing remotely identified in the recent events that changes the fundamental conclusions about climate change:

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.

(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.

(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth’s climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.

(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.

(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

Much more can be, and has been, said by the world’s scientific societies, national academies, and individuals, but these conclusions should be enough to indicate why scientists are concerned about what future generations will face from business-as-usual practices. We urge our policy-makers and the public to move forward immediately to address the causes of climate change, including the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels.

We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: We can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively. The good news is that smart and effective actions are possible. But delay must not be an option.

P. H. Gleick,^* R. M. Adams, R. M. Amasino, E. Anders, D. J. Anderson, W. W. Anderson, L. E. Anselin, M. K. Arroyo, B. Asfaw, F. J. Ayala, A. Bax, A. J. Bebbington, G. Bell, M. V. L. Bennett, J. L. Bennetzen, M. R. Berenbaum, O. B. Berlin, P. J. Bjorkman, E. Blackburn, J. E. Blamont, M. R. Botchan, J. S. Boyer, E. A. Boyle, D. Branton, S. P. Briggs, W. R. Briggs, W. J. Brill, R. J. Britten, W. S. Broecker, J. H. Brown, P. O. Brown, A. T. Brunger, J. Cairns, Jr., D. E. Canfield, S. R. Carpenter, J. C. Carrington, A. R. Cashmore, J. C. Castilla, A. Cazenave, F. S. Chapin, III, A. J. Ciechanover, D. E. Clapham, W. C. Clark, R. N. Clayton, M. D. Coe, E. M. Conwell, E. B. Cowling, R. M Cowling, C. S. Cox, R. B. Croteau, D. M. Crothers, P. J. Crutzen, G. C. Daily, G. B. Dalrymple, J. L. Dangl, S. A. Darst, D. R. Davies, M. B. Davis, P. V. de Camilli, C. Dean, R. S. Defries, J. Deisenhofer, D. P. Delmer, E. F. Delong, D. J. Derosier, T. O. Diener, R. Dirzo, J. E. Dixon, M. J. Donoghue, R. F. Doolittle, T. Dunne, P. R. Ehrlich, S. N. Eisenstadt, T. Eisner, K. A. Emanuel, S. W. Englander, W. G. Ernst, P. G. Falkowski, G. Feher, J. A. Ferejohn, A. Fersht, E. H. Fischer, R. Fischer, K. V. Flannery, J. Frank, P. A. Frey, I. Fridovich, C. Frieden, D. J. Futuyma, W. R. Gardner, C. J. R. Garrett, W. Gilbert, R. B. Goldberg, W. H. Goodenough, C. S. Goodman, M. Goodman, P. Greengard, S. Hake, G. Hammel, S. Hanson, S. C. Harrison, S. R. Hart, D. L. Hartl, R. Haselkorn, K. Hawkes, J. M. Hayes, B. Hille, T. Hökfelt, J. S. House, M. Hout, D. M. Hunten, I. A. Izquierdo, A. T. Jagendorf, D. H. Janzen, R. Jeanloz, C. S. Jencks, W. A. Jury, H. R. Kaback, T. Kailath, P. Kay, S. A. Kay, D. Kennedy, A. Kerr, R. C. Kessler, G. S. Khush, S. W. Kieffer, P. V. Kirch, K. Kirk, M. G. Kivelson, J. P. Klinman, A. Klug, L. Knopoff, H. Kornberg, J. E. Kutzbach, J. C. Lagarias, K. Lambeck, A. Landy, C. H. Langmuir, B. A. Larkins, X. T. Le Pichon, R. E. Lenski, E. B. Leopold, S. A. Levin, M. Levitt, G. E. Likens, J. Lippincott-Schwartz, L. Lorand, C. O. Lovejoy, M. Lynch, A. L. Mabogunje, T. F. Malone, S. Manabe, J. Marcus, D. S. Massey, J. C. McWilliams, E. Medina, H. J. Melosh, D. J. Meltzer, C. D. Michener, E. L. Miles, H. A. Mooney, P. B. Moore, F. M. M. Morel, E. S. Mosley-Thompson, B. Moss, W. H. Munk, N. Myers, G. B. Nair, J. Nathans, E. W. Nester, R. A. Nicoll, R. P. Novick, J. F. O’Connell, P. E. Olsen, N. D. Opdyke, G. F. Oster, E. Ostrom, N. R. Pace, R. T. Paine, R. D. Palmiter, J. Pedlosky, G. A. Petsko, G. H. Pettengill, S. G. Philander, D. R. Piperno, T. D. Pollard, P. B. Price, Jr., P. A. Reichard, B. F. Reskin, R. E. Ricklefs, R. L. Rivest, J. D. Roberts, A. K. Romney, M. G. Rossmann, D. W. Russell, W. J. Rutter, J. A. Sabloff, R. Z. Sagdeev, M. D. Sahlins, A. Salmond, J. R. Sanes, R. Schekman, J. Schellnhuber, D. W. Schindler, J. Schmitt, S. H. Schneider, V. L. Schramm, R. R. Sederoff, C. J. Shatz, F. Sherman, R. L. Sidman, K. Sieh, E. L. Simons, B. H. Singer, M. F. Singer, B. Skyrms, N. H. Sleep, B. D. Smith, S. H. Snyder, R. R. Sokal, C. S. Spencer, T. A. Steitz, K. B. Strier, T. C. Südhof, S. S. Taylor, J. Terborgh, D. H. Thomas, L. G. Thompson, R. T. TJian, M. G. Turner, S. Uyeda, J. W. Valentine, J. S. Valentine, J. L. van Etten, K. E. van Holde, M. Vaughan, S. Verba, P. H. von Hippel, D. B. Wake, A. Walker, J. E. Walker, E. B. Watson, P. J. Watson, D. Weigel, S. R. Wessler, M. J. West-Eberhard, T. D. White, W. J. Wilson, R. V. Wolfenden, J. A. Wood, G. M. Woodwell, H. E. Wright, Jr., C. Wu, C. Wunsch, M. L. Zoback

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: petergleick@pacinst.org

A small gift

I have a student this semester, Diane, who is a flight attendant. Every weekend, she’s off to some cool European city with her husband, a pilot. Up until now, she’s been bringing me little gifts of beer from each trip. She drops 60 cents in Germany, and then that week I get to taste a new variety of ale or lager. Very, very cool!

This weekend, it was off to Rome, and she brought me back a piece of paper. This piece of paper had something written on it, though, something she thought I would appreciate because of my environmental concerns:

Pretty cool, eh? Despite his being a politician, I have a lot of respect for Gore for bringing the issue of climate change into the national consciousness. Unfortunately, because he’s a Democrat and a climate activist, the Republican response has been anti-Gore, and thus anti-climate science and anti-climate action. Hopefully Gore’s consciousness-raising outweighs the politicization of the issue he has wrought by advocating on its behalf.

Either way, the autograph is a great gift. Thanks, Diane!

(Did I mention she brought me a bottle of beer, too?)

Earth Day

… So, today is:

… and not only that, it’s the 40^th anniversary of the first “Earth Day.” Shall we reflect? Yes, let’s shall.

My career as a geoscientist was largely inspired by desire to spend time outside, and that in turn was inspired by a lot of positive outdoor experiences as a child and young man. I feel at peace and satisfied when I am spending time in natural landscapes, most particularly mountainous landscapes.

The more time I spend thinking about the Earth system, its dynamics and  history, the more chagrined I become at my own species’ destructive habits. On the whole, I think it’s fair to say that we trash the planet wherever we go. We clear out naturally-occurring biota, and replace it with shelters and infrastructure for ourselves. We hike trails in the woods for recreation, and Hansel-like, mark our way with candy wrappers, tissues, and cigarette butts. The more I have learned what a non-human-influenced Earth system looks like, the more disgusted I get at the human fingerprint. My environmentalism is strongly influenced by my geologic awareness.

Of course, there are the bigger issues than litter and housing developments, like our agriculture-facilitated denudation of the landscape, our chemically-facilitated erosion of the ultraviolet-screening layer of our atmosphere, and the CO₂-facilitated warming of the planet’s average temperature. All of which have profound consequences not only for our neighbor species, but for ourselves. Without soil, ozone, or our coastal settlements, we’re increasingly screwed. We humans excel at shooting ourselves in the feet.

That point is the one that’s mostly likely to touch home with people: knowing our own selfishness, we environmentalists often ask our neighbors to adopt our views because it is in their own self-interest. We couch our activism in the language of harm to people, but I’ll admit that’s besides the point for me. I rank other species as inherently of value, in and of themselves, regardless of their benefit to humanity. I’ll admit that I have no scientific evidence to support this claim — it’s one of the few genuine “beliefs” that I hold. I believe other species deserve to exist, unmolested by us.

The elephant in the savanna is threatened by the elephant in the room: overpopulation of Homo sapiens. This morning, the world has 6.8 billion people on it, and tomorrow there will be even more. The rate of population growth is increasing at the same time that the resource consumption per individual is also increasing. The impact on the planet is astonishing. Life finds a way to adapt to our presence only in a general sense. The specifics, the particulars are being rubbed out. For ever individual pigeon or rat we gain, we lose a golden toad or an ivory-billed woodpecker. If the current rate of species extinction is perpetuated, then we are living through the start of the sixth great mass extinction of the Phanerozoic.

This broad view I take, where humans are not the pinnacle of anything, but something more akin to a cancer on the planet, is a grim one. When new medical treatments are announced, to the fanfare that they will extend human life, and prevent more people from dying, I wince a little. Longer lives are (probably) good for the ones living them, but a longer legacy of consumption makes things rougher for everyone and everything else. It’s the tragedy of the commons, written in lives.

The planet Earth would be a better place if there were fewer people on it. In no way do I advocate action to remove people from the planet — my sense of environmental duty does not trump my sense of ethics — but I can’t deny that I would prefer to live on a planet with only 1 billion people than the current crowd. This is a conundrum: I value the coherent functioning of the Earth system, but I also value individual human lives. I suppose the best thing you could do for the planet would be to kill yourself. Yet I find the experience of being alive so sweet: I couldn’t possibly give up that experience just for the sake of making the planet’s problems 1/6800000000^th better. Where does this leave me? Confused, perhaps. Hypocritical, maybe. It’s a tough spot to be in.

One thing that I’ve decided is that I don’t want to bring any more humans into the system. I have made an ethical decision that I can prevent a small piece of that overpopulation by refusing to procreate myself. I’m surrounded by people spawning huge numbers of kids, and I find it distasteful. My brother, for instance, has four children. Though I love each and every one of them, I can’t deny that I’m taken aback by my brother’s profligacy every time my nieces and nephews swarm around me.

Another thing I’ve decided is to try and make my time here a net positive, rather than a net negative. Yes, I consume, but then I try to use that consumption as fuel for the education of my planetary peers. I teach, I blog, I discuss. I’m not sure that this is a success, but I don’t know what else to do.

The modern Earth Day encourages us to “be green,” one of the shallowest and least thoughtful phrases ever to be willingly adopted by the environmental movement. Along with this single ill-defined word (“green,” the color of envy and seasickness), comes a marketing campaign which is focused more on consumption than on sustainability. “Green” is a buzzword, a fad. It’s time in the spotlight is fading, as far as I can tell. A deeper sense of ecology is needed, something that can’t be summed up by a single phrase or a single color. We live on a finite object, a lone oasis in an incomprehensibly enormous inhospitable void. It astonishes me that we slap a coat of “green” on our unsustainable existence and think that makes a damn bit of difference. Because the Earth is larger than individual humans, we have a rough time conceding that it is finite. But “big” and “infinite” are not synonyms; we cannot long act as if they are.

I find my outlook for the Earth’s biosphere to be a grim one. A robust biosphere is incompatible with human society’s resource-consuming, habitat-altering, Earth-system-perturbing ways. I wish I could say I was hopeful that we would get it figured out, but I’m not. We are neck-deep in evidence that our lifestyles are unsustainable, but we persist regardless. Our selfishness takes priority over our moral duty, and that seems to be human nature. As long as humans are part of the system, I can’t see how the average human impulse for comfort, security, and reproduction won’t continue to put our neighbor species at a profound disadvantage.

So here’s what I plan to do this Earth Day: I’m going to learn a bit more about the Earth, and I’m going to teach a bit more about the Earth, and I’ll appreciate the day as one among an almost infinite number of rotations of this fine orb as it orbits our fine star. I’m not going to be “green,” I’m going to encourage a fuller understanding of our role in the terrestrial flow of matter and energy.

I’ll feel lucky to be here today, and hope that I still feel that way 40 years from now.

How will you spend your day? How will you spend your time on this planet?

AMS Climate briefing rundown

Yesterday I attended a climate change briefing hosted by the American Meteorological Society (in conjunction with NSF, AGU, AAAS, and the American Statistical Association). It was in the Hart Senate Office Building, but I didn’t see any senators at the briefing.

It was an interesting format: 3 talented speakers giving 3 “fifteen-minute” presentations (really more like 25 minutes apiece), each focusing on a different aspect of climate change: Mike Oppenheimer (Princeton) spoke about the science, Jon Krosnick (Stanford) spoke about public perception, and Norm Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute) spoke about the current political landscape.

Oppenheimer gave some of the basics about the greenhouse effect, etc., then showed the striking graph from Solomon, et al. (2009):

This is a sobering chart: the ~100 ppm increase in CO₂ in the past century has a radiative forcing of about ~1.5 Watts/m², and that’s yielded a bit less that 1°C of global warming. But when you project emissions into the future, you see that the CO₂ we’ve emitted has a really long residence time in the atmosphere. If emissions were to stop completely at different points in the next century, we would see peak emissions of 450, 550, 650, 750, 850, or 1200 ppm, after which the numbers would slowly decline, but then ~stabilize at levels well above the preindustrial background level of 285 ppm. In other words, we’re locked in to irreversible climate change to some extent; it’s only a question of degree (pun intended). With reinforcing feedbacks, the resulting temperature changes could be severe.

Oppenheimer then moved on to discuss ice melting. He talked about the precipitous 2007 decline in Arctic sea ice, and pointed out that in 2008 and 2009 the ice there had rebounded to the (negative) trend line. “This means it wasn’t terrible,” he said. “It was just really bad.”

Next, he used a good visualization to talk about potential melting in the future. He showed maps of Greenland and Antarctica, with the relevant ice masses overprinted with their potential contribution to sea level rise. He soberly reminded the audience that while melting of Greenland and West Antarctica were immediate concerns, East Antarctica was “likely not going anywhere soon.”

Jon Krosnick was next to speak. He is interested in the intersection of communication, psychology, and politics, and conducts a lot of survey research. He pointed out that there has been a lot of talk in the mainstream media lately about pronounced declines in public acceptance of climate change science. For instance, a Pew poll found a decrease from 71% to 57% of the public who accept anthropogenic climate change. In a critique of the questions pollsters used to arrive at that conclusion, Krosnick found significant methodological flaws, and showed how his team have countered those pitfalls with better question wording. Tenses were mixed up, questions asked only about the “last few decades,” questions were not about responders’ opinions but about what they “had read and heard,” or the questions were laughably complex, “which increases the cognitive burden for the responder,” Krosnick said. He also pointed out that the Pew survey compared a summer poll with a winter poll, and suggested that the time of year you ask people questions about global warming influences how they respond.

So his research group used better questions, and came up with a shift from 80% to 75% over the same time period. Yes, that’s a decline. Yes, that’s statistically significant. But it’s also 75% of those surveyed. Krosnick reminded the audience that 3/4 is a big number, a huge number of people who think anthropogenic climate change is real. There is not a huge decline, and “believers” are in a solid majority.

Still, what’s behind the decline? Krosnick postulated five potential explanations: (1) Trust in science was declining, (2) the economic situtation has made people reluct to shoulder the burden of dealing with climate change, (3) Republican political leaders (he didn’t say “Inhofe,” but that’s surely who he was referring to) are making headway with the public, (4) “skeptical” scientists are making headway with the public, or (5) 2008 broke the warming trend and had the lowest temperatures in the most recent decade. He then evaluated each of these using his survey research methods.

He found no significant change in the trust in scientists. It remains at ~70%. So much for explanation #1. He actually found a (small) increase in the willingness to pay for remedial policies, in spite of the bad economy, so #2 is out, too. In addressing the influence of the Inhofes, he found no real chance among Republicans as compared to Democrats (presumably Republicans would be more willing to be influenced by Inhofe’s statements). He also ruled out the skeptical scientists’ influence, as people who have a low trust in scientists have both a correct perception of scientific consensus and a correct perception of the overall temperature change. And that left #5, the 2008 break in temperature trends. He suggested that when it warms up again, they will shift back. As with a year’s cooler weather, the cooler perception is a temporary aberration which will vanish as soon as people “stick their finger out the window” and find it to be hot again.

The final speaker was Norm Ornstein. I was very impressed by Ornstein’s diction and mastery of the Washington political landscape. He’s a very smart guy, who assumed the podium and stuck his hands in his pockets and (sans PowerPoint) spoke extemporaneously and in great detail about why politicians do what they do. I was impressed with his erudition and competent demeanor. He noted that there is a deep dysfunction in the American political system, and that this dysfunction is systematic: that is, it doesn’t change with the election of new officials. In 40 years of observing Washington politics from the inside, Ornstein said that this is the most dysfunctional he has ever seen it. He said that it’s really unlikely to get meaningful climate legislation passed unless the health care bill passes first. Obama needs a record of success in order to push his other agenda items forward, and the obstinacy of the Republican caucus has made his first year ineffective, which puts Democratic Congresspeople in a tricky spot “going out on a limb” to support him in his second year (as they are up for re-election then).

I tend to think about policy rather than politics, so this “reality check” about how Congresspeople think was insightful to me. In spite of strong science (Oppenheimer) and strong public sentiment (Krosnick), the reality of the political landscape suggests we’re not going to see meaningful climate legislation any time soon.

And with that, I went to Union Station and got some lunch.

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Solomon, S., Plattner, G., Knutti, R., & Friedlingstein, P. (2009). Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (6), 1704-1709 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0812721106

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. (Oct. 11, 2009) Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming. Washington, DC.