A policy of inaction seems to be the reaction by the U.S. government since the warnings of global warming first started resounding in the late 1970's. Despite a long history of climatology and mounting scientific evidence of rising temperatures and levels of CO₂, the interests of corporations influenced the White House instead of the American people. As our glaciers melt and the hottest years on record occur, U.S. auto manufacturers continue to produce cars with lower MPG requirements than 30 years ago! Other growing, industrialized nations such as China and India look at this lack of action and see no reason to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions. Fortunately, U.S. municipalities and states continue to show that change is possible, as well as economically beneficial. Ultimately, the U.S. must find the political and moral resolve to lead the world in solving the climate crisis.
The warning that global warming could raise the average temperature of the earth and possibly pose a serious threat to human existence first surfaced in the 1970's, but the science behind the warning dates back much further. In the late 1850's, a British scientist named John Tyndall decided to study the absorptive properties of different atmospheric gases (Kolbert, 36). To do this, he built a device called a ratio spectrophotometer, the first of its kind, which allowed him to compare the ways that various gases transmitted and absorbed heat. Essentially, Tyndall's findings showed that some gases in the atmosphere, such as methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide, absorbed infrared radiation and then re-emitted the heat energy, while other gases, like oxygen and nitrogen did not. The discovery made by Tyndall became known as the “natural greenhouse effect”. When Tyndall died in 1893, a Swedish chemist named Svante Arrhenius picked up where he left off and climatology found its next student.
Although many before him contributed to the study of climate science, Svante Arrhenius decided to actually calculate how the earth's temperatures relate to the levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere (Kolbert, 40). In December of 1895, Arrhenius presented his findings to the Swedish Academy. He concluded that if the CO₂ levels on earth doubled, average temperatures would rise between nine and eleven degrees, a result quite comparative to the estimates of today's most modern computer models (Kolbert,41). Arrhenius also noticed a relationship between industry and climate change, inferring that the use of fossil fuels must, over time, lead to a warming of the planet. However, Arrhenius pictured this buildup of CO₂ occurring slowly, possibly as much as 3,000 years to double, since he believed the earth's oceans would act as a giant sponge and soak up extra CO₂ (Kolbert, 41). Arrhenius died in 1927, and with him, an interest in the study of climate change. Almost thirty years later, a college professor named Roger Revelle and a chemist named Charles David Keeling decided to figure out a way to more precisely measure atmospheric CO₂, little did they know that their findings would change the landscape of climatology forever.
In the 1950's, Revelle formed a hypothesis that the growth of population, fueled by coal and oil, might increase levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, possibly to dangerous levels (Gore, 38). To test his theory, Revelle decided to sample atmospheric concentrations of CO₂. In 1957, he put together funding to hire a researcher and soon found Keeling. In 1958, Keeling convinced the U.S. Weather Bureau to allow them to take their measurements at its new observatory in Mauna Loa, Hawaii (Kolbert, 42). The spot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seemed ideal because of its great distance from any industrial pollution and the two set about launching weather balloons and recording the results of their measurements. In 1959, after the first full year of recording CO₂ levels, Keeling discovered an average of 316 parts per million (ppm) in the earth's atmosphere (Kolbert, 43). The following year found the figure up to 317 ppm, leading Keeling to believe Arrhenius' theory on the absorptive power of the oceans might be incorrect, or at least much less. By 1970, the figure reached 325 ppm, and by 2005, the CO₂ level reached 378 ppm, continuing an alarming, upward trend of CO₂ levels, now known as the “Keeling Curve” (Kolbert, 44).
The work of Arrhenius, Tyndall, Revelle, and Keeling, showed the earth's average temperature might be rising, since increasing carbon dioxide levels meant more heat being held in the atmosphere. However, little evidence existed in terms of the earth's recent and not so recent temperatures, from which the new findings could be compared to, hence showing how dire or negligible the rising CO₂ levels might really be. Scientists found their answer in the rapidly melting ice sheets and glaciers of the world. These structures contain tiny bubbles of air which become trapped in the snow that falls each year. Much like the rings on a tree, each year's snowfall shows up as a compressed layer. More important to scientists though, the captured air bubbles contain the data needed to measure both the CO₂ levels from years past, as well as the temperature from that same year. Scientists extract long cylinders of ice by drilling deep into these structures with core drills. Then they simply count backwards, observing and testing each ring and recording their results. Ice cores drilled in the Greenland Ice Sheets provide accurate data to about 100,000 years ago while samples taken from Antarctica go back as far as 650,000 years ago. In this manner, scientists calculated that pre-industrial concentration of CO₂ measured around 280 ppm meaning in about 150 years the level of CO₂ in the atmosphere rose by 100 ppm (Gore, 37). Additionally and even more alarming, scientists found that the CO₂ levels never broke the 300 ppm barrier at any point in the last 650,000 years (Gore, 66). Given Tyndall's findings on the heat-absorbing qualities of carbon dioxide, it seemed logical that a natural correlation between the rising CO₂ levels and rising temperatures might exist.
A study completed in 1998 by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley, and Malcolm Hughes published in the peer-reviewed journal, Geophysical Research Letters, confirmed temperatures on earth to be rising, and fast (Gelbspan, 28). The group basically recreated the history of global climate over the last 1,000 years through observing and recording measurements of ice cores, tree rings, and various sediment deposits (Gelbspan, 28). Their findings became known as the “hockey stick” graph and show that since the year 1000 A.D., the earth's average temperature actually cooled until about 150 years ago, at the start of the Industrial Age (Gelbspan, 28)). Since then, temperatures rose at a rate unseen in the last 10,000 years, with the 1990's being the hottest decade in the 1,000 year period, and 1998 being the hottest year in the millennium (Gelbspan, 28). Other researchers, such as Dr. Lonnie Thompson and his team of scientists, found similar results from ice cores drilled in other parts of the world (Gore, 63). In fact, since temperature measurements first started being recorded, 20 of the 21 hottest years occurred from 1980 to 2005 (Gore, 72).
Despite the rising CO₂ levels, mounting scientific evidence on the existence of global warming, and record-high temperatures, U.S. policy on climate change remains largely unchanged since President Jimmy Carter appointed a panel to investigate the issue in 1979. Although President George H.W. Bush signed the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and later passed it through Congress with unanimous consent, the language of the treaty only calls for industrialized nations, like the U.S and Japan, to “aim” to return their CO₂ emission levels to 1990 levels (Kolbert, 152). On Earth Day 1993, President Bill Clinton reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying, “Unless we act now, we face a future in which the sun may scorch us, not warm us” (Kolbert, 152). Meanwhile, the U.S. and most other countries' emissions continued to rise and more discussions on climate change occurred in Berlin in 1995, Geneva in 1996, and in Kyoto, Japan in 1997. Although the agreement resulting from the discussions in Kyoto, known as the Kyoto Protocol, only adds to the ideas of the U.N. Framework convention, it replaces the vagaries like “aim” with mandatory commitments towards reducing emissions. For example, the Protocol calls for the U.S. to reduce emissions to 7% below 1990 levels by the year 2012 (Kolbert, 153). From the onset of the Kyoto negotiations, the U.S. Senate expressed strong, bilateral dissent towards the new language, as shown in a 95-0 vote for a resolution stating the U.S. should reject any legislation mandating reduced emissions, unless other developing countries faced the same restrictions (Kolbert, 154). The vote reflected the Senate's economic concerns of competing with countries without emission restrictions, but also showed the influence of lobbying by the auto and oil industry. A group called the Global Climate Coalition received funding from the likes of Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Exxon, Shell, Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco and spent an estimated $13 million on an anti-Kyoto Protocol ad campaign (Kolbert, 154). The Clinton administration continued to support the Kyoto Protocol in theory, sending the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to sign the treaty in November of 1998, but not in practice, as U.S. CO₂ emissions rose 15% from 1990 to 2001,when Clinton left the presidential office (Kolbert, 157).
America seemed poised to finally tackle the issue of climate change and lead the world in finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when Clinton's vice-president, Al Gore, announced his intention to run for the presidency. Perhaps no other politician in America, and possibly the world, gets associated with global warming more than Gore. However, climate change failed to be a major issue in the 2000 election, in part because Gore's opponent, George W. Bush, also claimed interest in climate change, and went so far as to promise federal regulations limiting CO₂ emissions. After a dubious and highly disputed election, America ushered in Bush as the new U.S. President, as well as a new era of inaction in regards to global warming. Shortly after his inauguration, Bush repealed his promise of regulating emissions, saying he “changed his mind”, and also announced a complete withdrawal from the ongoing Kyoto negotiations (Kolbert, 158). In response to criticism over these and other, successive decisions regarding climate change policy, the Bush administration usually attacks the scientific uncertainties of global warming, while ignoring the broad consensus among scientists and the public that climate change represents a clear and present danger. In a study of more than 900, peer-reviewed articles on climate change conducted by Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history and science at UC-San Diego, not a single article disputed that anthropogenic, or human-caused, global warming presently exists (Kolbert, 162).
During a speech in 2002, announcing a “new approach” to global warming, the president said, “When we make decisions, we want to make sure we do so on sound science” (Kolbert, 163). Ironically and only months later, Bush dismissed a 266 page report from the Environmental Protection Agency that concluded a rise in U.S. temperature of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit (from greenhouse gas emissions) is likely in the 21st century, and called the years of work by the federal researchers as something “put out by the bureaucracy” (Kolbert, 164). In another EPA report on the state of the environment in 2003, the Bush administration insisted on inserting excerpts from a study partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute into the global warming chapter, changing the section so much that an internal memo within the EPA complained it “no longer accurately represents scientific consensus” (Kolbert, 164). The alterations by the White House on the report included editing out any and all references to the dangerous impacts of climate change to the U.S. In total, only one paragraph on global warming made it into the 600 page report, while at least four others were deleted by the White House (Gelbspan, 42). In June of 2005, the New York Times announced that Philip Cooney, an official in the Bush administration, repeatedly edited government reports on climate change to make the findings less alarming. Cooney resigned shortly thereafter and conveniently took a job with Exxon-Mobil (Kolbert, 165).
The “new approach” to global warming offered by Bush in 2002 centered on a voluntary effort by industries to reduce their “greenhouse gas intensity” 18% by 2012 (Kolbert, 159). Rather than a measurable quantity, greenhouse gas intensity relates emissions to economic output and comes in the form of a ratio. This misleading method of monitoring emissions allows industries to continue releasing increased levels of greenhouse gases, as long as the dollar value on the output of their goods or services increases by a higher percentage than the percent of their emissions output. In fact, groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the National Mining Association, among others, helped to draft the plan (Gelbspan, 103). Given the voluntary nature of the program, involvement by companies focused on the bottom line seems doubtful. The use of greenhouse gas intensity, as a method of reducing greenhouse gases, results in the continued rise of emissions, even with 100% commitment by all American industries. Furthermore, prior to Bush's new plan, projections of the intensity of carbon, based on economic output, estimated a drop of 14% by the year 2012 anyways, due to expected increases in energy efficiency (Gelbspan, 39). A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office summed up the ineffectiveness of Bush's proposed “greenhouse gas intensity” program, saying, “It is therefore unclear to what extent the plan will contribute to the goal of reducing emissions and thus lowering emissions intensity by 2012.” (Gelbspan, 39)
By denying the existence of global warming and backing out of the Kyoto negotiations, the Bush Administration effectively isolated the U.S. from the rest of the world, and angered leaders from countries already awash in anti-American sentiment. There exists virtually no debate in any other country in the world, with the possible exception of Russia, on whether or not global warming represents a serious moral and economic issue (Gelbspan, 11, 102). While the U.S. remains stagnant on the issue of climate change, virtually every other government on the planet pursues strategies to shift to a renewable energy future while maintaining economic growth. The United Kingdom's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, pledged to reduce the countries carbon emissions by 60% in fifty years. Similarly, Germany committed to cuts of 50% and Holland recently completed a plan to cut its emissions by 80% in forty years. Even with its economy growing by 36% from 1995 to 2000, the Chinese cut their emissions by 19% during this tremendous period of growth (Gelbspan, 38).
Despite the increasing evidence of global warming and an overwhelming consensus amongst the scientific community and the rest of the world of the existence of climate change, the American public seemed rather unconcerned about the issue in the late nineties and early parts of 2000. In fact, the oil and coal industries launched an extremely effective campaign of misinformation and deceit in the early 90's that persuaded the public, the nation's policy-makers, and even the press to believe the science behind global warming possessed many uncertainties. Subsequent efforts of the campaign involved misrepresenting the economic figures of a transition to a clean-energy future, and more recently, influenced the disintegration of the global talks on climate change. A poll in 1991 administered by Newsweek magazine showed that 35% of people surveyed viewed global warming as a very serious problem. In striking contrast, a poll by Newsweek in 1996 asking the same question found only 22% of those surveyed felt the same way about global warming, despite increasing scientific evidence and a warning from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declaring a link between humans and rising temperatures (Gelbspan, 53).
While the current Bush administration dismissed extensive, scientific studies and even changed the language in some reports to frame climate change as a less alarming issue, municipal and state governments took the reports on global warming much more seriously. In February 2005, the mayor of Seattle, Greg Nickels, began circulating a draft of emission-reducing principles meeting or exceeding the targets of the Kyoto Protocol. Within four months, over a hundred and seventy mayors including Manuel Diaz of Miami, John Hickenhooper of Denver, and Michael Bloomberg of New York, signed on to the agreement known as the “U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement”, representing some thirty-six million American voices (Kolbert, 175). The strong support of the document showed the interest to respond to the issue of climate change by citizens and local policy-makers alike, despite the lack on any federal support or involvement. Around the same time, several northeastern states including Rhode Island, New Jersey, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont reached an agreement to keep power plant emissions at their current levels and then work together to begin reducing them. In response to the uncertainty of global warming, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger exclaimed, “I say the debate is over”, before signing an order calling for California to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (Kolbert, 175).
On a more local level, cities and towns across America echoed the sentiments of the U.S. mayors and began doing their part to reduce emissions. Voters in Burlington, Vermont decided to use less power rather than authorize the local utility company to buy more (Kolbert, 171). While electricity usage in the state on Vermont increased by nearly 15%, Burlington's usage declined during the same time period, mostly through voluntary action (Kolbert, 175). The local electric utility might be the only such power company in the country that includes mountain bikes in their fleet of vehicles. Even the local McDonald's restaurants feature tray liners depicting a climate-conscious dinosaur called, aptly enough, Climo Dino. “While our climate was changed by a giant asteroid, you humans are changing your own climate by emitting six billion tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year”, exclaims Climo Dino. According to Burlington's Mayor, Peter Clavelle, “You can either bemoan federal policies or you can take control of your own destiny” (Kolbert, 172).
Despite the conservation efforts and adoption of energy-efficient technology by cities and states in the U.S., the global issue of climate change requires discussing the future energy paths of some potentially bigger players, most notably China. By the year 2020, most projections show the economy of the world's most populated country to double from its current level. A more alarming aspect stems from how China plans to fuel this projected growth: coal, by far the most polluting source of energy on the planet. China's future energy plans call for the construction of 150 new, 1,000 megawatt coal plants by 2010, and an additional 168 new plants expected by 2020 (Kolbert, 177). Although current technology provides options of coal gasification and carbon sequestration, both providing substantially lower emissions, the plants currently built in China lean towards more conventional models, which pollute heavily. According to David Hawkins, the Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate program, China's current industrialization follows models from the U.S., but from forty to fifty years ago. On a positive note he says, “China is in the takeoff stage, so there's an opportunity to build things there using modern technology rather than to build them using pickup technology” (Kolbert, 178).
Unfortunately, China's rapid growth often gives pessimists and climate change skeptics some justification for inaction in America. A real possibility exists that no matter what changes are made in America, the energy demands of China's large and rapidly growing population may negate any reductions in emissions made in the U.S. In response to this, Hawkins postures that China historically follows the U.S. lead, pointing to pollution controls adopted in the states, such as those for automobile industry and power plants, now used by the Chinese. By showcasing emission control technologies in the U.S., the demand increases and the price goes down, ultimately showing other countries the possibility of such changes, as well as the benefits. Hawkins elaborates on this issue saying, “If we can get policies adopted that prevent the U.S. from building new coal plants that don't capture their emissions, and create incentives for the Chinese to build new coal plants that will capture their emissions, then it doesn't matter if there is an international treaty or not...we've bought time.” (Kolbert, 180) By bringing China's factories up to date and encouraging just a modest amount of investment in renewable energy, estimates for the amount of new coal-fired plants drops by a third (Kolbert, 179). As the number one contributor to greenhouse gases worldwide, it seems the U.S. should take the lead in dealing with the climate crisis, “And that's the challenge for us: to do things that convince the Chinese that that's (using modern technology) the better strategy for them,” Hawkins concludes (Kolbert, 178).
The issue of climate change often overwhelms people since its scope is so vast and no one, single solution exists to solve the problem. Other issues such as national security and the economy often take precedent over global warming, but the rising temperatures of the earth pose the greatest threat of all to human civilization. However, within the actions needed to reduce the effects of global warming, lie solutions to many other domestic and global issues. In the case of protecting our country against terrorism, a shift to renewable energy would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and eliminate the connection between the U.S. and politically unstable countries in the Middle East (Gelbspan, 176). Since poorer, developing countries feel the effects of global warming sooner and with greater force, reducing our emissions would show an interest in resolution and avoid potential conflicts from countries angered by U.S. indifference to the problem. In terms of the U.S. and global economies, a shift to renewable energy would provide millions of jobs and stimulate markets on a level never seen before. Although solutions abound to the problem of climate change, a unified plan must take shape and reach a global scope. One such plan involves three interacting strategies, as shown in Ross Gelbspan's book, Boiling Point. Under this plan, the first step involves a shift of energy subsidies in industrialized countries from oil and coal to renewable energies, such as wind and solar. The second step would create a large fund to facilitate the transfer of renewable energy technology to developing countries. The third step, which brings unity to the whole plan, calls for countries to reduce their emissions by 5% a year until attaining a global reduction of 70% (Gelbspan, 191). A program of this magnitude would require the cooperation of every country on the planet, but the positive communication involved in such a plan could lead to great improvements in social and economic justice, as well as improving the standards of life across the globe.
Despite its lack of action on the subject of climate change, the U.S. can still lead the way on finding solutions to global warming. In an era of anti-American sentiment and growing frustration with the current Bush administration, the U.S. could regain its position of world-wide leadership by coordinating a global effort to curb emissions and transition to a renewable energy future. Simultaneously, the U.S. could improve national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil and improve the economy by creating jobs from a switch to clean power.
There really exist only two paths to travel when considering the imminent dangers of global warming. One involves a rapidly disintegrating environment, in which rising sea levels and increasingly powerful storms wreak havoc on the planet and political chaos results in unimaginable world wars. The other involves a path of immediate action, in which leaders from around the world unite their people in finding solutions to the issue of climate change. A cooperative effort of this scale, although never seen in the modern age, could bring about an age of peace and prosperity never before imagined. Which path will you choose?
Bibliography
1.Gelbspan, Ross. Boiling Point. New York: Basic Books, 2004.
2.Gore, Albert. An Inconvenient Truth. New York: Rodale, 2006.
3.Kolbert, Elizabeth. Field Notes from a Catastrophe. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006.
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