Rapid climate change: causes, consequences, and solutions (original) (raw)
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The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society
2011
It is hard for a new book on climate change to make a significant contribution to scholarly or policy debates. This is true for various reasons. Society's dependence on climate, and thus the potential impacts of both climate change and attempts to manage it, are broad, diffuse, uncertain, and potentially severe. There is thus scarcely any area of knowledge not potentially relevant, yet these wide-ranging areas of relevant knowledge are not well integrated or connected. Many proposals for overarching frameworks to integrate relevant knowledge have been advanced, none persuasively. Political conflict over action has spread into research and scholarship, so many research claims about climate or its effects-including even well-established points of scientific knowledge-are marked by sharp, ideologically polarized controversy. At the same time, the available books span widely varying levels (introductory to advanced), scopes (comprehensive to highly specialized), and stances (from scholarly objectivity through impassioned advocacy of a dozen flavours). Into this crowded and troubled landscape comes The Oxford Handbook of Climate Change and Society. The volume's scale and scope mirror those of its topic-at more than 700 pages, with 47 chapters clustered in twelve thematic areas, and a distinguished group of nearly 70 contributing authors from a wide range of disciplines. The editors' introduction gives the expected overview of topics to be addressed, and also hints at difficulties to come. Their statement of the volume's aims is rather vague and procedural: they stress gathering a strong diverse author group, not what the group will do. In listing what the volume is not-not a synthesis, not a "unified diagnosis of contemporary systems relative to climate change", not an integrated program of research, not a blueprint for collective action-they speak more clearly and specifically than in stating what it is. Even in this introduction it is clear that the editors tread lightly-in my view, too lightly-in organizing or integrating the diverse
A Fresh Look at Climate Change
The Cato Journal, 2014
Recently The Economist (2013a), a prominent journalistic advocate of strong policies to control CO 2 emissions, expressed their puzzlement on the absence of warming over the last 15 years. They observed that this flat period of global average temperature occurred despite that CO 2 emissions from human sources continued at an increased rate. The total human-produced CO 2 emissions in that period of flat temperatures represent a quarter of all such emissions ever produced. The standard climate models, such as those used by the United Nation's International Panel on Climate Change (UN IPCC), anticipated that such massive CO 2 increases should have caused continuing increases in average global temperatures. The Economist noted that observed global average temperature is now at the lowest end of the predicted range, and that if the present trend continues, the actual temperatures will soon be below even the lowest forecasts. Most recently, Fyfe, Gillett, and Zwiers (2013) demonstrated that the current climate models have experienced a systematic failure-a finding very similar to Knappenberger and Michaels (2013). Given the large difference of observed data from the forecasts that underlie much current policy, it is timely to ask if the climate debates are addressing the right questions. Comparison of forecasts to observations is the right way to start asking. If the forecasts used to set policy are not accurate, then policies based on those forecasts warrant
WHAT LIES BENEATH: THE SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTATEMENT OF CLIMATE RISKS
Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that would either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential. Special precautions that go well beyond conventional risk management practice are required if the “fat tails” — the increased likelihood of very large impacts — are to be adequately dealt with. The potential consequences of these lower-probability, but higher-impact events would be devastating for human societies. The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence, albeit increasing numbers of scientists have spoken out in recent years on the dangers of such an approach. Climate policymaking and the public narrative are significantly informed by the important work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, IPCC reports also tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama”, and downplaying more extreme and more damaging outcomes. Whilst this has been understandable historically, given the pressure exerted upon the IPCC by political and vested interests, it is now becoming dangerously misleading, given the acceleration of climate impacts globally. What were lower-probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely. This is a particular concern with potential climatic “tipping points” — passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the system — such as the polar ice sheets (and hence sea levels), and permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are non-linear and difficult to model at present. Under-reporting on these issues contributes to the “failure of imagination” that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change. If climate policymaking is to be soundly based, a reframing of scientific research within an existential risk-management framework is now urgently required. This must be taken up not just in the work of the IPCC, but also in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations if we are to address the real climate challenge. Current processes will not deliver either the speed or the extent of change required.
What Lies Beneath: The understatement of existential climate risk
Human-induced climate change is an existential risk to human civilisation: an adverse outcome that will either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential, unless carbon emissions are rapidly reduced. Special precautions that go well beyond conventional risk management practice are required if the increased likelihood of very large climate impacts — known as “fat tails” — are to be adequately dealt with. The potential consequences of these lower-probability, but higher-impact, events would be devastating for human societies. The bulk of climate research has tended to underplay these risks, and exhibited a preference for conservative projections and scholarly reticence, although increasing numbers of scientists have spoken out in recent years on the dangers of such an approach. Climate policymaking and the public narrative are significantly informed by the important work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, IPCC reports also tend toward reticence and caution, erring on the side of “least drama”, and downplaying the more extreme and more damaging outcomes. Whilst this has been understandable historically, given the pressure exerted upon the IPCC by political and vested interests, it is now becoming dangerously misleading with the acceleration of climate impacts globally. What were lower-probability, higher-impact events are now becoming more likely. This is a particular concern with potential climatic tipping points — passing critical thresholds which result in step changes in the climate system — such as the polar ice sheets (and hence sea levels), and permafrost and other carbon stores, where the impacts of global warming are non-linear and difficult to model with current scientific knowledge. However the extreme risks to humanity which the tipping points represent, justify strong precautionary management. Under-reporting on these issues is irresponsible, contributing to the failure of imagination that is occurring today in our understanding of, and response to, climate change. If climate policymaking is to be soundly based, a reframing of scientific research within an existential risk-management framework is now urgently required. This must be taken up not just in the work of the IPCC, but also in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations if we are to address the real climate challenge. Current processes will not deliver either the speed or the scale of change required.
GLOBAL WARMING, CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE SKEPTICS
In recent times, there have been numerous attacks on the global warming thesis and its effects on the climate advocated by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) questioning its reports produced with the participation of 2,500 scientists from 131 countries, gathering observations, conclusions, forecasts and recommendations from several thousand climate scientists from around the world. What we are witnessing today is a veritable war of the media and the US government against the issue of climate change and its relationship to predatory human activities such as the emission of greenhouse gases. The paradigm that attributes to man the greatest cause of climate change is being confronted by the skeptics who consider the paradigm that attributes their greater responsibility to natural causes.
Climate Change: In Context (2009 RUSA Book and Media Award)
Brenda Wilmoth Lerner and K. Lee Lerner, eds. Climate Change: In Context. Cengage Gale, 2008. | 2009 RUSA Book and Media Award ”Timely… Clear… Concise.. Stunning…” An “excellent guide to a vitally important issue” Ref Rev. October 2008.
Introductions to books usually attempt to offer words of motivation designed to inspire readers toward their studies. For Climate Change: In Context, however, the editors wish to stand aside a bit and ask readers, especially students just beginning their serious studies of science, to carefully read the special introductions by Dr. Wallace S. Broecker (Newberry Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, recipient of the National Science Medal (1996), and member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the British Royal Society).and Thomas Hayden that immediately follow. Together, these introductions serve as exemplary primary sources (personal narratives from experts in the field of climate change) and as both elegant motivation to readers to carefully consider the issues and impacts of climate change, and eloquent calls to actively engage in the challenge of finding solutions. In the wake of the stunning 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, Climate Change: In Context is one of the first reference books designed to attempt to explain the complexities of those reports..." "Science sometimes speaks truths we might not wish to hear, and at this time in human history science is speaking clearly, with a chorus of voices, that with regard to the human activities that drive climate change, it is now time to fuse our science and technology with our noblest qualities of caring, commitment, and sacrifice so that our children enjoy the pleasures of the good Earth." (continued) -- K. Lee Lerner & Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, editors. Paris, France. December 2007
Climate change prediction: Erring on the side of least drama?
Global Environmental Change, 2013
ABSTRACT Over the past two decades, skeptics of the reality and significance of anthropogenic climate change have frequently accused climate scientists of “alarmism”: of over-interpreting or overreacting to evidence of human impacts on the climate system. However, the available evidence suggests that scientists have in fact been conservative in their projections of the impacts of climate change. In particular, we discuss recent studies showing that at least some of the key attributes of global warming from increased atmospheric greenhouse gases have been under-predicted, particularly in IPCC assessments of the physical science, by Working Group I. We also note the less frequent manifestation of over-prediction of key characteristics of climate in such assessments. We suggest, therefore, that scientists are biased not toward alarmism but rather the reverse: toward cautious estimates, where we define caution as erring on the side of less rather than more alarming predictions. We call this tendency “erring on the side of least drama (ESLD).” We explore some cases of ESLD at work, including predictions of Arctic ozone depletion and the possible disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet, and suggest some possible causes of this directional bias, including adherence to the scientific norms of restraint, objectivity, skepticism, rationality, dispassion, and moderation. We conclude with suggestions for further work to identify and explore ESLD.
symplokē, 2013
The environment today is replete with invisible, elusive, fearful, yet wholly "real" entities revealed to us by science: acid rain, ozone depletion, pesticide tolerance, carrying capacity, overpopulation, species loss and, most recently, climate change.