Lecture 6 Moving Forward: Confronting Denial and

the Truth About Uncertainty

http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/visualizations-data/ycom-us-2016/
Whitman Miller recorded CO2 level in the room during lecture 3

Lecture ends

Sensor put outside

Lecture begins

CO2 sensor “on”

Zero Calibration
 At 2,500 ppm CO2, compared with 600 ppm, performance was significantly
reduced in seven of nine metrics of decision making

Satisch et al. 2012 Environmental Health Perspectives vol 120, 1671-77

Cognitive function scores were 15% lower for the moderate CO2 day (~ 945
ppm) and 50% lower when ~1,400 ppm than on the two Green+ days

Allen et al. 2015 Environmental Health Perspectives

 Lecture ends

Sensor put outside

Lecture begins

CO2 sensor “on”

Zero Calibration
 Global Warming: How skepticism became denial.
Spencer Weart, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists January 2011

Discovery and skepticism

1896 Arrhenius published first calculation of global warming

from human emissions of CO2. Doubling CO2 will raise
temperature 5-6 C

1900, Angstrom: CO2 and H2O present in the atmosphere

absorbed all infrared: adding more CO2 would not warm the
planet further.

Doubt cast on Arrhenius’ conclusions accepted; oceans take up

CO2; climate self regulating…the balance of nature; global
warming ignored.
 Confirmation and acceptance

1956: Gilbert Plass showed that addition of more

CO2 into the upper atmosphere would capture more
infrared.

1957: Ravelle and Seuss: oceans cannot absorb CO2

as fast as we are adding it to atmosphere.

1960: Keeling shows that CO2 is rising.

Global Warming: How skepticism became denial.

Spencer Weart, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists January 2011
 1980s: ice cores show
Temperature and CO2 correlated

Credit: Jeremy Shakun/Harvard

https://www2.bc.edu/jeremy-shakun/FAQ.html
 1988 Confirmation and acceptance

Accumulation of evidence over decades confirmed that

global warming is real and happening.

James Hansen told Congress that 1988 would be the

warmest year on record. He was right.

Polling showed that most Americans had heard about the

greenhouse effect and that they would live to see it’s
effects.
 Denial
Richard Lindzen at MIT, one of the few climate change deniers who published
in respected peer reviewed journals. “Tropical clouds would increase and
cause cooling” Later shown not to happen.

1990s: Jastrow, Nierenberg, Seitz, Singer: cast doubt on main findings of

climate science by denying the data and raising Zombie theories…ones that
have been dead for a long time. Marshall Institute, Heartland

Ad hominem attacks on climate scientists. Watermellons!

Journalists try to be “balanced” by having a climate denier respond to

thoughts from a climate scientist.

Merchants of Doubt, Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, 2010

 Reason is not enough

Elizabeth Kolbert: Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds,

New Yorker, February 2017

New discoveries about the human mind show the

limitations of reason.

Group identity, confirmation bias are part of our

makeup.
 Sources of Carbon Dioxide

http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/clean_energy/ps-all.pdf
 The global carbon budget: how much CO2
can we add to the atmosphere before we reach 2°C?
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/world-flirts-with-1.5C-threshold-20260
 CO2 emissions level off by 2016

http://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/16/presentation.htm
Image: Victor Soares/Agência Brasil
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/br/
deed.en
https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/Revolutiona%CC%82%E2%82%ACNow%202016%20Report_2.pdf
 As solar prices fall, installations boom

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/Revolutiona%CC%82%E2%82%ACNow%202016%20Report_2.pdf
 Wind power surged in 2015… representing 41%
of all new capacity installed in the U.S.

https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/09/f33/Revolutiona%CC%82%E2%82%ACNow%202016%20Report_2.pdf
Bloomberg predictions for clean energy in 2017

1,000,000 new Electric Vehicles

1.5 GW of new battery capacity

59 GW of new wind installations

75 GW of new solar installations

7 of the largest corporations to go 100% renewable

Climate debate heats up…again!

https://about.bnef.com/blog/10-renewable-energy-predictions-2017/
 Can we control rising CO2 and
global warming?

You can always trust America to do the right thing…

…after having exhausted all other possibilities.

Winston Churchill