RPPI October 1998

A BAKER’S DOZEN:
13 QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF
CLIMATE CHANGE

Kenneth Green, D.Env.

Director of Environmental Program

Reason Public Policy Institute

Reason Public Policy Institute

3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-391-2245; 310-391-4395; www.reason.org
RPPI
About RPPI

T he Reason Foundation is a national research and edu-

cational organization that explores and promotes the
twin values of rationality and freedom as the basic under- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
pinnings of a good society. Since 1978, the Los Angeles-

D
based foundation has provided practical public policy re- r. Kenneth Green is Director of Environmental
search, analysis, and commentary based upon the principles Program at the Reason Public Policy Institute. Dr.
of individual liberty and responsibility and limited govern- Green has published seven previous peer-reviewed
ment. policy studies on air quality and environmental risk in-
Reason Public Policy Institute (RPPI), a division of the cluding: A Plain English Guide to the Science of Cli-
Reason Foundation, fuses theory and practice to influence mate Change, Evaluating the Kyoto Approach to Climate
public policies. The Institute's research draws upon eco- Change, Rethinking EPA’s Proposed Ozone and Particu-
nomics, science, and institutional analysis to critique public late Standards, Estimating Fatalities Induced by Eco-
policies and advance new policy ideas in a variety of policy nomic Impacts of EPA’s proposed Ozone and Particu-
areas, including education, infrastructure and transporta- late Standards (co-authored), Looking Beyond ECO,
tion, the environment, urban land use and local economic Defending Automobility, and Checking Up on Smog
development, social services, and privatization and govern- Check. Green, who received his doctorate in environ-
ment reform. To that analysis, the Institute brings a political mental science and engineering (D.Env.) from UCLA in
philosophy that supports rule of law, marketplace competi- 1994, joined RPPI soon after, and now works from his
tion, economic and civil liberty, personal responsibility in home-office in Central Texas.
social and economic interactions, and institutional arrange-
ments that foster dynamism and innovation.
The Reason Foundation is a tax-exempt educational or-
ganization as defined under IRS code 501(c)(3). The Reason
Foundation neither seeks nor accepts government fund-
ing, and is supported by individual, foundation and corpo-
rate contributions. Nothing appearing in this document is
to be construed as necessarily representing the views of
the Reason Foundation or its trustees, or as an attempt to
aid or hinder the passage of any bill before any legislative
body.

Photos used in this publication are Copyright © 1998.

Photodisc, Inc. Copyright © 1998. Reason Foundation. All
Rights Reserved.
BAKER’S DOZEN 21
 B. The Role of Solar Activity

At the front end of the climate cycle is the single largest source of energy
which is put into the system, namely, the sun. And while great attention has been
paid to most other aspects of climate, little attention has been paid to the sun’s 1. WHAT IS CLIMATE
role in the heating or cooling of the Earth. Several recent studies have highlighted
CHANGE?
this uncertainty, showing that solar variability may play a far larger role in the
Earth’s climate than it was previously given credit for by the IPCC. If the sun has
been heating up in recent times, researchers observe, the increased solar radia-
tion could be responsible for up to half of the observed climate warming of the T he Earth’s climate is a dynamic, constantly changing
system in which biological activity influences various
aspects of the climate: this has been the case since the
past century. Astrophysicist Sallie L. Baliunas attributes up to 71 percent of the
observed climate warming of the past century to increased solar irradiance. Other earliest days of life on Earth. But changes within the range
researchers such as climatologist T.M.L. Wigley, however, rank the influence of of historical norms or changes which are unrelated to hu-
solar activity on climate warming much lower, at “somewhere between 10 per- man activity are not what “climate change,” as the term is
cent and 30 percent of the past warming.” But as with satellite measurements of used in popular scientific and political discussion is about.
Earth’s temperature, the short time line of satellite measurements of solar irradi- Rather, that “climate change” refers to scientific studies of
ance introduces significant uncertainty into the picture. Most researchers believe abnormal climate changes and associated impacts that are
that at least another decade of solar radiation measurement will be needed to distinctly human in origin.
clearly define the influence of solar input on the global climate. At the center of our understanding of climate change
is the process known as global warming, which is basically
C. The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor the planet-wide application of a physical process called the
greenhouse effect, named for the way that a closed sys-
Between the emission of greenhouse gases and change in the climate are a
tem (like a greenhouse) retains heat.
range of climate and biological cycles that can influence the end result. Such
On uncovered ground, incoming solar energy is either
effects are called “feedbacks” in the climate change literature.
absorbed by the ground (which then heats up), or is re-
One such feedback is the influence of clouds and water vapor. As the climate
warms, more water vapor enters the atmosphere, but how much? And, which flected back into the atmosphere and, eventually, into space.
parts of the atmosphere, high or low? And how does the increased humidity The energy absorbed during the day is given back off at
affect cloud formation? We just don’t know. And while the relationship between night as heat, one reason why cold-blooded animals like
clouds, water vapor, and global climate is complicated in and of itself, the situation snakes tend to lie on roadways after dark. But in a green-
is further complicated by the fact that aerosols exert yet another poorly under- house, things are different. Solar energy passes in through
stood influence on clouds. Research suggests that aerosols alone may offset 20 the glass panes of a greenhouse and is absorbed or re-
percent of the expected impact of warming gases. In addition, though direct cool- flected by the ground and other objects as usual, but when
ing impacts of aerosols are now being taken into account by climate models, that energy is re-emitted immediately or later at night, the
aerosol impact on clouds remains a poorly defined effect with broad implications, glass, through direct and indirect effects, stops some of it
given a range of additional cooling potential of up to 61 percent of the expected from passing back out of the greenhouse. Even more of
warming impact from the warming greenhouse gases. the re-emitted energy is captured and prevented from pass-
As the IPCC report acknowledges: “the single largest uncertainty in deter- ing back out of the greenhouse by the water vapor that
mining the climate sensitivity to either natural or anthropogenic [or “manmade”] comes into the warmed-up air from the plants and soil in
changes are clouds and their effects on radiation and their role in the hydrological the greenhouse.
cycle…At the present time, weaknesses in the parameterization of cloud forma-
tion and dissipation are probably the main impediment to improvements in the
simulation of cloud effects on climate.”

20 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 1

 Global warming scales up the greenhouse effect to 13. WHERE DO WE NEED MORE
the entire atmosphere, with various gases, called green-
RESEARCH?
house gases, taking the role of the glass in the greenhouse.
At this global level, the greenhouse effect is well validated,
and is one of the forces that has shaped and will continue
to shape the Earth’s climate, causing warming above the
W hile recent studies of climate have contributed a great deal to our under-
standing of climate dynamics, there is still much to learn. The process of
searching for evidence of manmade climate change, in fact, is both a search for
level that would occur on a similar sized planet with similar new discoveries about how climate works, and continuing refinement of our
solar input, but without an atmosphere. This warming pro- understanding of the underlying theories we already have.
cess is a natural, and highly beneficial, phenomenon. In Many areas of uncertainty remain. Current climate change models have
fact, without the basic greenhouse effect of the Earth, it acknowledged weaknesses in their handling of changes in the sun’s output,
would almost certainly be too cold on this planet to sustain volcanic aerosols, oceanic processes, and land processes which can influence
life as we know it climate change.
In the study of manmade climate change, researchers Some of those uncertainties may be large enough to become the tail which
take the theory of global warming, change some of the wags the dog of climate change theory. Three of the major uncertainties which
assumptions about various gas levels, their heat-retention remain are discussed below.
ability, their persistence in the atmosphere, the impact of
other atmospheric forces, and a host of other variables, A. The Natural Variability of Climate
and make predictions about what kinds of climate change Despite the extensive discussion of climate modeling and knowledge of
might happen if human beings introduce certain atmo- past climate cycles, only the last 1000 years of climate variation are included in
spheric changes. Thus, questions such as “how will the two state-of-the-art climate models referred to by the IPCC. As discussed
mankind’s emissions of gas X to the atmosphere lead to earlier, however, the framework in which we view climate variability makes a
changes in sea level in San Francisco,” would be answered significant difference in the conclusions we draw regarding either the compara-
through experiments based on the theory of climate change. tive magnitude or rate of climate changes, or the interpretation of those changes
as being either inside or outside of the envelope of normal climate change
variations. The IPCC report summarizes the situation succinctly:
Large and rapid climatic changes occurred during the last ice age and dur-
ing the transition towards the present Holocene period. Some of these changes
may have occurred on time-scales of a few decades, at least in the North Atlan-
tic where they are best documented. They affected atmospheric and oceanic
circulation and temperature, and the hydrologic cycle. There are suggestions
that similar rapid changes may have also occurred during the last interglacial
period (the Eemian), but this requires confirmation. The recent (20th century)
warming needs to be considered in the light of evidence that rapid climatic
changes can occur naturally in the climate. However, temperatures have been
far less variable during the last 10,000 years (i.e., during the Holocene).
Until we know which perspective is more reflective of Earth’s climate as a
whole—the last 10,000 years, or a longer period of time—it will be difficult to
put recent warming trends in perspective, or to relate those trends to potential
impacts on the climate, and on the Earth’s flora and fauna.

2 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 19

 sus” process, it’s an individualistic one in which scientists
2. WHAT ARE “GREENHOUSE
compete with theories that try to explain more about the
world around us. It’s both an evolutionary process and, GASES”?
sometimes a revolutionary one, where researchers com-

“G
pete to reveal more about how the world works. reenhouse gases” are those components of the atmosphere that
Science can contribute to our understanding of climate can, according to global warming theory, alter the way that the Earth’s
change, and science is (and should remain) an integral part atmosphere retains heat.
of the policymaking process. But the conflict-ridden climate The four major manmade greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane,
change policy process has taught us one good lesson: we nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. Not all greenhouse gases are
have a long way to go before we’ll figure out how to keep alike, either in terms of concentration, or of their “warming potential,” and some
what we value from science — its transparency and open- things called gases aren’t even gases at all, but are families of gases, such as
ness, its rigorous methodologies, its continuing process of nitrous oxides. Besides the four major manmade gases are other gases and
discovery, its reliability based on the process of peer-review gas families that can affect the climate, such as the “particulate aerosols,” fine
— when science becomes immersed in a political process dusts that stay suspended in the atmosphere
that has very different and frequently incompatible values. The actual potential of a given greenhouse gas to induce warming of the
Surprisingly enough, the best answer to this science atmosphere is still unclear in some cases and for some “gases,” such as aero-
question might have been answered in a pre-scientific age, sols. For such mixtures, in which some of the compounds can cause warming
by Gautama Buddha, who said: while others can cause cooling, the potential for them to cause warming is
Do not believe in anything simply because you have based on a sum of influences, some poorly understood. Particulate aerosols,
heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is for example, can have either warming or cooling effects, depending (partly) on
spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything whether they’re light colored, or dark colored.
simply because it is found written in your religious books. Relative concentrations also come into play, since the impact of smaller
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your quantities of a more powerful warming gas could overwhelm large quantities of
teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because a more modest warming gas. The length of time that a given gas stays in the
they have been handed down for many generations. But atmosphere is also an important factor in determining its overall “warming po-
after observation and analysis, when you find that anything tential,” since the process of trapping heat takes considerable time.
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and ben- Carbon dioxide, for example, is less powerful as a warming agent, mol-
efit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. ecule for molecule, than is methane, but is much more prevalent in the atmo-
sphere, and endures longer. Nitrous oxides have nearly 200 times the relative
warming strength of carbon dioxide, but are found in much lower concentra-
tions in the atmosphere. Some CFCs (most notably those banned as a way of
protecting the high-altitude ozone layer) can actually have negative “warming
potential,” and can cause “global cooling,” while their substitutes are more likely
to be “warming gases.” Ozone itself can be either a warming gas or a cooling
gas, depending on where in the atmosphere it is found.
Water vapor is another important greenhouse gas, perhaps the most im-
portant because of the huge mass of it in the atmosphere at any given time.
Changes in the atmospheric levels of water vapor, and the role of water vapor
in heating and cooling the atmosphere are still largely a mystery.

18 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 3

 12. WHAT IS THE CONSENSUS OF
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY?

A by-product of the climate change debate has been a

great deal of acrimony and recrimination between
groups advocating rapid anticipatory action, and others who
advocate alternative responses. Both sides have periodi-
cally gone beyond the bounds of reasonable argumenta-
tion and descended into name calling and rhetoric. This
politicization and other forms of political intervention in the
3. WHERE DO GREENHOUSE scientific process have largely deprived us of the ability to
use the “consensus of the scientific community” as a mean-
ingful indicator of certainty.

M ost greenhouse gases are produced by natural pro-

cesses such as animal metabolism, natural physical
processes such as lightning and volcanos, and human ac-
In this atmosphere of mutual distrust, some industry
and public policy groups have claimed that climate change
is just a big hoax. Other groups have claimed that climate
tivities, such as fuel use and manufacturing.
change is the biggest disaster man will ever face, justifying
Once released into the atmosphere, greenhouse gas
virtually any action, with small regard for consequences on
concentrations are affected by a variety of human-influenced
our livelihoods and lifestyles. Some have claimed that the
and non-human-influenced climate processes, some of
science is a “done deal,” that the evidence is beyond ques-
which increase certain gas concentrations, others of which
tion, and that our knowledge is well beyond what we need
reduce certain gas concentrations. Some fluctuations in
to know to act as strongly as we want to. Others have
greenhouse gas levels are still poorly understood. claimed that the science is “junk,” nothing more than
Modern, reliable measurements of greenhouse gases guesses, if not outright distortion and fabrication.
are very new and have produced very limited data, begin- Some groups proclaim that the “consensus of scien-
ning with carbon dioxide measurements at the South Pole tists” overwhelmingly supports anticipatory approaches to
in 1957, at Mauna Loa in 1958, and later for methane, ni- climate change, while others claim that the “consensus of
trous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). scientists” is insufficient to warrant anticipatory approaches
Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere by bio- to climate change. Each group has its own lists of scien-
logical processes, geological processes, combustion, and tists, with various celebrated Nobel prize winners among
energy use. Human sources of carbon dioxide make up them.
about 3.5 – 5.4 percent of the total carbon dioxide which Is there something in all this squabbling that really sheds
enters the atmosphere in any given year. The other 95 – 97 light on what we know, or what we should do? The simple
percent of carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere each answer is “No.” Science is a big tent, full of diverse opin-
year is the bulk of the planet’s “carbon cycle,” and comes ions based on differing interpretations of evidence. It’s a
from oceanic and terrestrial animals as a by-product of their competitive process in which outright hoaxes or falsehoods
metabolisms. tend to be discovered before the ink is dry on the first pub-
Methane is released into the atmosphere by biological lication. And science is never “done,” it’s a process with-
processes and geological processes, some subject to hu- out a fixed goal. It’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
man control, some not. Methane is released through en- 365 days a year. Finally, science is not a “consen-

4 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 17

 at Kyoto will be to get nations off a business-as-usual trajec-
tory, and onto a path that peaks, and then starts going down.”
And as Tom Wigley, a climate researcher at the Na-
tional Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, puts
it, “A short-term target and timetable, like that adopted at
Kyoto, avoids the issue of stabilizing concentrations [of
greenhouse gases] entirely.”
In other words, near-term benefits of the Kyoto Proto-
col are more tangible in political terms – as initiating a new
direction in policy – than in terms of tangible environmental
3. WHERE
or risk-reduction benefits. DO GREENHOUSE GASES COME FROM?
But there is also the long term to consider. Given that
significant climate change might have the potential to cause
ergy use, rice cultivation, crop waste incineration, and ani-
great increases in risks to human health, consideration of
mal husbandry. Human sources constitute about 70 per-
the long-term policy implications of the Kyoto Protocol’s “first
cent of the methane that enters the atmosphere each year,
step” is warranted.
the rest coming from natural sources like wetlands, ter-
Yet that’s precisely where things get the least certain,
mites, and aquatic life.
since the scaling up of the modest and validated green-
Nitrous oxides are released into the atmosphere
house effect to the level of global climate effects, including
effects on oceans, ecosystems, mountains, rivers, ground- through biological processes and through human activities
water, solar variation, greenhouse gas emissions, clouds, including fuel use, soil cultivation, acid production, and com-
aerosols, water vapor, and historical variation, then trying bustion of wastes. Nitrous oxides have about 200 times
to scale the impacts back down to the local and regional the warming potential of carbon dioxide, and human activ-
level blurs the situation terribly. ity contributes about one-third of the annual release to the
Based on our research, and that of other analysts, the atmosphere. The balance is released through the natural
most one can reliably say about the Kyoto Protocol approach biological processes that take place in the oceans, soils,
to climate change, the selection of somewhat arbitrary forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems.
greenhouse gas reductions as the first step in a long pro- Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all man-made chemi-
cess of stabilizing greenhouse gas reductions, is that the cals used largely as refrigerants and cleaning agents. Some
short-term benefits are scant, and the long-term benefits CFCs have positive warming potentials, while others have
are highly uncertain. negative potentials.
Ozone can be produced directly by electrical discharges
but is mainly produced by the action of sunlight, oxygen,
and a variety of other airborne chemicals in the atmosphere.
Water vapor, of course, comes from evaporation and
from plant transpiration, but the forces that maintain the lev-
els of humidity throughout the atmosphere, and the points
at which water vapor is removed from the atmosphere by
precipitation and cloud formation are poorly understood.

16 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 5

 4. ARE GREENHOUSE GAS
CONCENTRATIONS INCREASING?

T his is a more complicated question than it seems be-

cause there are so many processes that put green-
house gases into the atmosphere, and just as many “sink”
11. WHAT WILL THE KYOTO
processes that pull greenhouse gases back out of the atmo- PROTOCOL DO?
sphere. Not all of those sources or sinks are well under-
stood, and some are not even known. A time-scale factor
complicates matters, since some sinks absorb and hold vari-
ous greenhouse gases at different speeds, and for different
A gain, science, by itself, can’t determine whether we
should or should not adopt the Kyoto Protocol on Cli-
mate Change, (an international agreement accepted by the
lengths of time. The bottom line is that, as best as we can Clinton Administration in December of 1997, but as yet
determine it with our limited information, some greenhouse unratified by the United States Senate), but scientific meth-
gas concentrations have increased within the past century, ods can characterize the probable outcomes of doing so
as compared to estimates of historic gas levels. and facilitate fact-based decisionmaking.
Carbon dioxide, a gas which is present as a natural com- The belief that the Kyoto Protocol by itself is unlikely to
ponent of the Earth’s “carbon cycle,” constitutes about 0.034 provide meaningful risk reduction benefits is widespread
percent of the atmosphere by volume. Though we must among those people cited as experts by proponents of the
always keep in mind that our direct measurement history is protocol at the 1997 Kyoto conference on climate change.
sharply limited, the body of evidence indicates that the con- Jerry Mahlman, Director of the Geophysical Fluid Dy-
centration of this gas has increased by about 30 percent namics Laboratory at Princeton University, told the Wash-
since the late 18th century. ington Post that “The best Kyoto can do is to produce a
Methane, a gas which is present as a natural byproduct small decrease in the rate of increase” In a post-Kyoto Sci-
of animal metabolism, constitutes about 0.00016 percent ence news brief, Mahlman says that “it might take another
of the atmosphere by volume. Methane levels in the atmo- 30 Kyotos over the next century to cut global warming down
sphere seem to have increased about 150 percent since to size.”
the beginning of the 19th century, with current levels being Bert Bolin, the outgoing chairman of the United Na-
the highest ever recorded, though the pattern of methane tions Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assessed
emissions is highly irregular and has actually shown a down- the impact of Kyoto as a 0.4 percent reduction in green-
turn in recent years, for reasons that are not clear. house gas emissions compared to a no-protocol alterna-
CFC concentrations are difficult to measure, vary geo- tive, and concluded: “The Kyoto conference did not achieve
graphically, and because of recent changes in the law re- much with regard to limiting the buildup of greenhouse
garding their production and use, are changing not only in gases in the atmosphere.”
concentration, but in composition. One can assume, bar- Robert Repetto at World Resources Institute acknowl-
ring activities of the black market in banned CFCs, that those edges that the Kyoto accord is little more than a tiny step
CFCs which replaced the ozone-depleting CFCs banned by toward a distant end, rather than a significant step in itself:
the Montreal Protocol are probably increasing, while those “Nobody thought in their wildest dreams that Kyoto would
banned by the protocol are probably decreasing. solve the climate problem…If implemented, the achievement

6 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 15

 observable problems as they become manifest — to pick- 5. HOW MIGHT INCREASED
ing specific climate interventions now, even in the face of LEVELS OF GREENHOUSE GASES
uncertainty.
But do the quantity and nature of the evidence indi-
CHANGE THE CLIMATE?
cate whether it’s time to act, or time to nurture the natu-
rally risk-reducing, resilient growth that is a hallmark of our
social system while we study the problem, and engage in
T he relationship between climate dynamics and the con-
centrations of greenhouse gases is described by com-
plex computer models, the details of which would easily fill
other “no regrets” actions to improve energy efficiency?
several volumes. Changes in the Earth’s average tempera-
A framework developed by risk-policy authority Aaron
ture—the primary element modeled in climate change stud-
Wildavsky helps us answer that question. Wildavsky ob-
ies—could lead to different impacts in different locations,
served that the limiting factor in determining whether or
such as increased crop growth and moderate winters in
not a potential anticipatory risk-reduction action is likely to
some places, and rising sea levels in others.
be more beneficial than a resilient one depends not on what
What frightens people about climate change is not the
we know, but on what we don’t know.
theory itself, nor the actual change in the global average
What becomes apparent in this type of “failure analy-
temperature, which has both positive and negative implica-
sis” framework is that it is not our knowledge, but our un-
tions. Rather, it’s the non-temperature related implications
certainties which most strongly indicate the choice of path-
of the theory that people focus on, and the fears aren’t
way because: 1) the conditions needed to assure a reason-
completely unfounded. The prospect of a warmer climate
able chance of success for anticipatory actions are quite strin-
does imply at least the possibility of negative secondhand
gent; 2) there are more ways to get things wrong than to
impacts along with whatever positive ones occur, includ-
get them right; and 3) costly experimentation leaves us less
ing: more volatile and extreme weather; worse droughts in
well prepared to deal with other current or future problems.
some areas; worse flooding in other areas; negative im-
pacts on agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, fresh water, and
so on; and shifting of the normal residency areas of various
insects that carry diseases detrimental to human health.

? ?
14 BAKER’S DOZEN 7
 10. IF HUMANS ARE CAUSING CLIMATE
6. HOW CERTAIN IS THE THEORY CHANGE, WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

C limate change theory is quite complex — orders of

magnitude more complex than the comparatively
E nvironmental policy-making is not an objective, value-free
activity, and science can’t “dictate” the selection of a
solution; but the various options can be identified, defined,
simple theories that underlie it. To understand the com-
and quantified using the organized, rationalist, and transpar-
plexities of climate change theory, consider this analogy.
ent modes of thought and analysis that we consider “scien-
If you have a small vacuum chamber, and you drop ten
tific.” Scientists can also weigh in on whether, in their analy-
different colored feathers, they fall straight down, and land
sis, a particular proposed solution is properly grounded in the
at the same time. Predicting the path, and intercepting
data, and can reasonably be expected to describe the real
say, the red feather is a simple task. That’s like the green-
world. While many values will come into play during the
house effect, a simple cause / effect relationship.
decisionmaking process, making maximal use of scientific
If you drop the same ten feathers out of an airplane,
thinking can only improve the chances of success.
they don’t fall straight down, and they don’t land at the
That’s because, for any risk we face, there are many avail-
same time. Some of them, in fact, won’t land at all, be-
able risk-reduction actions available to us that let us move
cause they’ll stay aloft for so long that they’ll get brittle and
toward the goal of decreased risk for ourselves and our chil-
disintegrate, or be sucked into jet engines and destroyed.
dren. Does the actual evidence tell us what to do in any
Still, one can assume that some of them do land eventu-
given case? No. But it does suggest what we can do with
ally, since gravity is still a force in play. Global warming and
any probability of success.
the various potential causal factors, like greenhouse gases,
At the most generic level of classification, our options range
embody a similarly complex set of interactions among many
from the resilient to the anticipatory — from doing more re-
variables over time.
search, fostering the natural tendency of developed society to
If you released ten different colored birds into the wild
use more-efficient and safer fuels, and addressing specific
with all the other birds in the world, then tried to figure out
where each of your birds would lose its feathers; where
and when a specific feather would land; estimate the dam-
APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES FOR DIFFERENT CONDITIONS
age that the feather might cause; and figure out how you
might avoid that damage by preventing the growth of the Amount of Knowledge About What to Do
food that fed the bird that produced the feather, you’d be
trying something nearly as complex and uncertain as we Small Large
do with climate change theory. More resilience,
High Anticipation
Between our incomplete understanding of the climate less anticipation
Predictability of
system, and the difficulty of scaling up what we do know Future Change
to the level of global climate effects, including effects on More resilience,
Low Resilience
less anticipation
oceans, ecosystems, mountains, rivers, groundwater, so-
lar variation, greenhouse gas emissions, clouds, aerosols,
Adapted from Aaron Wildavsky’s Searching For Safety, Transaction Press, 1991.

8 RPPI 13
 water vapor, and historical variation, then trying to scale
the impacts back down to the local and regional level, we
are left with a view best characterized as “through a glass,
9. ARE HUMANS CAUSING darkly.”
CLIMATE CHANGE? One need not look beyond the landmark 1995 Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports them-

W hile the greenhouse effect is a relatively

uncontroversial issue in the scientific sense, the
theory of global, manmade (or anthropogenic) climate
selves (the often-thumped but rarely read bible of climate
change) for expressions of that uncertainty. Even a cur-
sory review of the accepted uncertainties surrounding cli-
change is at a much younger stage of development. Al- mate change show that uncertainties loom large, especially
though there are very few articles appearing in science jour- at the regional levels where, theoretically, impacts of cli-
nals that contradict either the overall theory or details of mate change would be most significant:
the underlying greenhouse effect, the same can not be said Impacts are difficult to quantify, and existing studies
for the theory of manmade climate change. Indeed, stud- are limited in scope. While our knowledge has increased
ies jockey back and forth about key elements of manmade significantly during the last decade and qualitative estimates
climate change nearly every month on the pages of leading can be developed, quantitative projections of the impacts
science journals including America’s premier science jour- of climate change on any particular system at any particular
nal, Science. location are difficult because regional scale climate change
On the difficult issue of attribution of human causality projections are uncertain; our current understanding of many
to the observed changes in the climate, the IPCC says: critical processes is limited; and systems are subject to
Finally, we come to the difficult question of when the multiple climatic and non-climatic stresses, the interaction
detection and attribution of human-induced climate change of which are not always linear or additive. Most impact
is likely to occur. The answer to this question must be sub- studies have assessed how systems would respond to cli-
jective, particularly in the light of the large signal and noise mate changes resulting from an arbitrary doubling of equiva-
uncertainties discussed in this chapter. Some scientists lent atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Further-
maintain that these uncertainties currently preclude any more, very few studies have considered greenhouse gas
answer to the question posed above. Other scientists would concentrations; fewer still have examined the consequences
and have claimed, on the basis of the statistical results pre- of increases beyond a doubling of equivalent atmospheric
sented in Section 8.4, that confident detection of a signifi- carbon dioxide concentrations, or assessed the implications
cant anthropogenic climate change has already occurred. of multiple stress factors.
And, in explaining the changes shown in the figure — p. 346 of the 1995 IPCC Impacts volume
above, the IPCC sums up the question of attributing ob- Tides, waves, and storm surges could be affected by
served climate changes to human action, thus: regional climate changes, but future projections are, at
Although these global mean results suggest that there present, highly uncertain.
is some anthropogenic component in the observed tem- — p. 41 of the 1995 IPCC Science volume
perature record, they cannot be considered as compelling Confidence is higher in hemispheric to continental scale
evidence of a clear cause-and-effect link between anthro- projections of climate change than at regional scales where
pogenic forcing and changes in the Earth’s surface tem- confidence remains low.
perature. — p. 41 of the 1995 IPCC Science volume

12 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 9

 8. IS THE CLIMATE CHANGING
ABNORMALLY?

7. IS IT GETTING HOTTER? O utside of temperature, the climate changes in numerous ways,

with fluctuations in the level of glaciation, rainfall, cloud cover, humidity
levels, and so on. But our understanding of these changes is even less certain
than is our understanding of the Earth’s temperature record. As this chart from

A ssuming that we can trust the temperature data that we have available to
us, the answer seems to be “yes, in recent years, the average tempera-
ture of the Earth’s atmosphere seems to be increasing a bit.” But despite
the IPCC climate science report shows, the data are decidedly mixed:
While the IPCC report holds that there is a discernable human influence on
climate, this conclusion is not dependent on the evidence of actual changes in
recent misleading statements to the contrary, arbitrarily pointing to months
the Earth’s climate as shown in this figure. On that note, the IPCC says,
which are hotter than normal, compared to an equally arbitrary stretch of recent
Despite this consistency [in the pattern of change], it should be clear from
history is not “proof” of climate change. In fact, it’s not proof of anything at all.
the earlier parts of this chapter that current data and systems are inadequate
That’s because the question of whether it’s getting hotter is meaningless
for the complete description of climate change.
without a discussion of historical perspective and relevant measuring period.
Climate has fluctuated, often wildly, for more than four billion years. Given that
we have so little hard data about past climate conditions, the most honest
answer to this question is “maybe” and even that answer is meaningless with-
out some kind of qualifying time frame, and standard of comparison. We can

(Notes: NH=northern hemisphere, SH=southern hemisphere,

FSU=former Soviet Union; Source: IPCC, Figure 3.22, p. 180)
construct crude temperature maps of the past based on a variety of surrogate

Summary of Temperature and Hydrological Changes

measures such as evidence of glaciation, fossils, tree-rings, etc., but one must
keep in mind that such profiles are inexact at best.
Our hard temperature data is more limited yet, an imperfect data set span-
ning only about 150 years, less than 0.000004 percent of the entire time-span
of fluctuating temperatures. In fact, temperature records are spotty before about
40 years ago and only cover a tiny portion of the globe, mostly over land. In
addition to that 150-year conventional surface temperature record, tempera-
ture readings taken from weather balloons cover the last 30 years, and satellite
temperature readings cover only the last 18 years.
Though in recent times we seem to be seeing a minor warming in the
Earth’s average temperature, as best we can measure it, one has to keep in
mind that historical perspective is crucial in figuring out what that means. Con-
sider the stock market by analogy. If stocks fell for one day, would that be
meaningful evidence of a 100-year decline? What if they fell for even one week?
When one considers that the stock market is still largely unpredictable even
with all the detailed data available about its rise and fall, all of the records about
company performance, and all of the incentive that is implicit in developing a
good predictive theory, one should be twice-cautious about giving undue weight
to possibly short-term fluctuations in global temperatures.

10 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 11

 8. IS THE CLIMATE CHANGING
ABNORMALLY?

7. IS IT GETTING HOTTER? O utside of temperature, the climate changes in numerous ways,

with fluctuations in the level of glaciation, rainfall, cloud cover, humidity
levels, and so on. But our understanding of these changes is even less certain
than is our understanding of the Earth’s temperature record. As this chart from

A ssuming that we can trust the temperature data that we have available to
us, the answer seems to be “yes, in recent years, the average tempera-
ture of the Earth’s atmosphere seems to be increasing a bit.” But despite
the IPCC climate science report shows, the data are decidedly mixed:
While the IPCC report holds that there is a discernable human influence on
climate, this conclusion is not dependent on the evidence of actual changes in
recent misleading statements to the contrary, arbitrarily pointing to months
the Earth’s climate as shown in this figure. On that note, the IPCC says,
which are hotter than normal, compared to an equally arbitrary stretch of recent
Despite this consistency [in the pattern of change], it should be clear from
history is not “proof” of climate change. In fact, it’s not proof of anything at all.
the earlier parts of this chapter that current data and systems are inadequate
That’s because the question of whether it’s getting hotter is meaningless
for the complete description of climate change.
without a discussion of historical perspective and relevant measuring period.
Climate has fluctuated, often wildly, for more than four billion years. Given that
we have so little hard data about past climate conditions, the most honest
answer to this question is “maybe” and even that answer is meaningless with-
out some kind of qualifying time frame, and standard of comparison. We can

(Notes: NH=northern hemisphere, SH=southern hemisphere,

FSU=former Soviet Union; Source: IPCC, Figure 3.22, p. 180)
construct crude temperature maps of the past based on a variety of surrogate

Summary of Temperature and Hydrological Changes

measures such as evidence of glaciation, fossils, tree-rings, etc., but one must
keep in mind that such profiles are inexact at best.
Our hard temperature data is more limited yet, an imperfect data set span-
ning only about 150 years, less than 0.000004 percent of the entire time-span
of fluctuating temperatures. In fact, temperature records are spotty before about
40 years ago and only cover a tiny portion of the globe, mostly over land. In
addition to that 150-year conventional surface temperature record, tempera-
ture readings taken from weather balloons cover the last 30 years, and satellite
temperature readings cover only the last 18 years.
Though in recent times we seem to be seeing a minor warming in the
Earth’s average temperature, as best we can measure it, one has to keep in
mind that historical perspective is crucial in figuring out what that means. Con-
sider the stock market by analogy. If stocks fell for one day, would that be
meaningful evidence of a 100-year decline? What if they fell for even one week?
When one considers that the stock market is still largely unpredictable even
with all the detailed data available about its rise and fall, all of the records about
company performance, and all of the incentive that is implicit in developing a
good predictive theory, one should be twice-cautious about giving undue weight
to possibly short-term fluctuations in global temperatures.

10 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 11

 water vapor, and historical variation, then trying to scale
the impacts back down to the local and regional level, we
are left with a view best characterized as “through a glass,
9. ARE HUMANS CAUSING darkly.”
CLIMATE CHANGE? One need not look beyond the landmark 1995 Inter-
governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports them-

W hile the greenhouse effect is a relatively

uncontroversial issue in the scientific sense, the
theory of global, manmade (or anthropogenic) climate
selves (the often-thumped but rarely read bible of climate
change) for expressions of that uncertainty. Even a cur-
sory review of the accepted uncertainties surrounding cli-
change is at a much younger stage of development. Al- mate change show that uncertainties loom large, especially
though there are very few articles appearing in science jour- at the regional levels where, theoretically, impacts of cli-
nals that contradict either the overall theory or details of mate change would be most significant:
the underlying greenhouse effect, the same can not be said Impacts are difficult to quantify, and existing studies
for the theory of manmade climate change. Indeed, stud- are limited in scope. While our knowledge has increased
ies jockey back and forth about key elements of manmade significantly during the last decade and qualitative estimates
climate change nearly every month on the pages of leading can be developed, quantitative projections of the impacts
science journals including America’s premier science jour- of climate change on any particular system at any particular
nal, Science. location are difficult because regional scale climate change
On the difficult issue of attribution of human causality projections are uncertain; our current understanding of many
to the observed changes in the climate, the IPCC says: critical processes is limited; and systems are subject to
Finally, we come to the difficult question of when the multiple climatic and non-climatic stresses, the interaction
detection and attribution of human-induced climate change of which are not always linear or additive. Most impact
is likely to occur. The answer to this question must be sub- studies have assessed how systems would respond to cli-
jective, particularly in the light of the large signal and noise mate changes resulting from an arbitrary doubling of equiva-
uncertainties discussed in this chapter. Some scientists lent atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. Further-
maintain that these uncertainties currently preclude any more, very few studies have considered greenhouse gas
answer to the question posed above. Other scientists would concentrations; fewer still have examined the consequences
and have claimed, on the basis of the statistical results pre- of increases beyond a doubling of equivalent atmospheric
sented in Section 8.4, that confident detection of a signifi- carbon dioxide concentrations, or assessed the implications
cant anthropogenic climate change has already occurred. of multiple stress factors.
And, in explaining the changes shown in the figure — p. 346 of the 1995 IPCC Impacts volume
above, the IPCC sums up the question of attributing ob- Tides, waves, and storm surges could be affected by
served climate changes to human action, thus: regional climate changes, but future projections are, at
Although these global mean results suggest that there present, highly uncertain.
is some anthropogenic component in the observed tem- — p. 41 of the 1995 IPCC Science volume
perature record, they cannot be considered as compelling Confidence is higher in hemispheric to continental scale
evidence of a clear cause-and-effect link between anthro- projections of climate change than at regional scales where
pogenic forcing and changes in the Earth’s surface tem- confidence remains low.
perature. — p. 41 of the 1995 IPCC Science volume

12 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 9

 10. IF HUMANS ARE CAUSING CLIMATE
6. HOW CERTAIN IS THE THEORY CHANGE, WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
OF CLIMATE CHANGE?

C limate change theory is quite complex — orders of

magnitude more complex than the comparatively
E nvironmental policy-making is not an objective, value-free
activity, and science can’t “dictate” the selection of a
solution; but the various options can be identified, defined,
simple theories that underlie it. To understand the com-
and quantified using the organized, rationalist, and transpar-
plexities of climate change theory, consider this analogy.
ent modes of thought and analysis that we consider “scien-
If you have a small vacuum chamber, and you drop ten
tific.” Scientists can also weigh in on whether, in their analy-
different colored feathers, they fall straight down, and land
sis, a particular proposed solution is properly grounded in the
at the same time. Predicting the path, and intercepting
data, and can reasonably be expected to describe the real
say, the red feather is a simple task. That’s like the green-
world. While many values will come into play during the
house effect, a simple cause / effect relationship.
decisionmaking process, making maximal use of scientific
If you drop the same ten feathers out of an airplane,
thinking can only improve the chances of success.
they don’t fall straight down, and they don’t land at the
That’s because, for any risk we face, there are many avail-
same time. Some of them, in fact, won’t land at all, be-
able risk-reduction actions available to us that let us move
cause they’ll stay aloft for so long that they’ll get brittle and
toward the goal of decreased risk for ourselves and our chil-
disintegrate, or be sucked into jet engines and destroyed.
dren. Does the actual evidence tell us what to do in any
Still, one can assume that some of them do land eventu-
given case? No. But it does suggest what we can do with
ally, since gravity is still a force in play. Global warming and
any probability of success.
the various potential causal factors, like greenhouse gases,
At the most generic level of classification, our options range
embody a similarly complex set of interactions among many
from the resilient to the anticipatory — from doing more re-
variables over time.
search, fostering the natural tendency of developed society to
If you released ten different colored birds into the wild
use more-efficient and safer fuels, and addressing specific
with all the other birds in the world, then tried to figure out
where each of your birds would lose its feathers; where
and when a specific feather would land; estimate the dam-
APPROPRIATE STRATEGIES FOR DIFFERENT CONDITIONS
age that the feather might cause; and figure out how you
might avoid that damage by preventing the growth of the Amount of Knowledge About What to Do
food that fed the bird that produced the feather, you’d be
trying something nearly as complex and uncertain as we Small Large
do with climate change theory. More resilience,
High Anticipation
Between our incomplete understanding of the climate less anticipation
Predictability of
system, and the difficulty of scaling up what we do know Future Change
to the level of global climate effects, including effects on More resilience,
Low Resilience
less anticipation
oceans, ecosystems, mountains, rivers, groundwater, so-
lar variation, greenhouse gas emissions, clouds, aerosols,
Adapted from Aaron Wildavsky’s Searching For Safety, Transaction Press, 1991.

8 RPPI 13
 observable problems as they become manifest — to pick- 5. HOW MIGHT INCREASED
ing specific climate interventions now, even in the face of LEVELS OF GREENHOUSE GASES
uncertainty.
But do the quantity and nature of the evidence indi-
CHANGE THE CLIMATE?
cate whether it’s time to act, or time to nurture the natu-
rally risk-reducing, resilient growth that is a hallmark of our
social system while we study the problem, and engage in
T he relationship between climate dynamics and the con-
centrations of greenhouse gases is described by com-
plex computer models, the details of which would easily fill
other “no regrets” actions to improve energy efficiency?
several volumes. Changes in the Earth’s average tempera-
A framework developed by risk-policy authority Aaron
ture—the primary element modeled in climate change stud-
Wildavsky helps us answer that question. Wildavsky ob-
ies—could lead to different impacts in different locations,
served that the limiting factor in determining whether or
such as increased crop growth and moderate winters in
not a potential anticipatory risk-reduction action is likely to
some places, and rising sea levels in others.
be more beneficial than a resilient one depends not on what
What frightens people about climate change is not the
we know, but on what we don’t know.
theory itself, nor the actual change in the global average
What becomes apparent in this type of “failure analy-
temperature, which has both positive and negative implica-
sis” framework is that it is not our knowledge, but our un-
tions. Rather, it’s the non-temperature related implications
certainties which most strongly indicate the choice of path-
of the theory that people focus on, and the fears aren’t
way because: 1) the conditions needed to assure a reason-
completely unfounded. The prospect of a warmer climate
able chance of success for anticipatory actions are quite strin-
does imply at least the possibility of negative secondhand
gent; 2) there are more ways to get things wrong than to
impacts along with whatever positive ones occur, includ-
get them right; and 3) costly experimentation leaves us less
ing: more volatile and extreme weather; worse droughts in
well prepared to deal with other current or future problems.
some areas; worse flooding in other areas; negative im-
pacts on agriculture, aquaculture, livestock, fresh water, and
so on; and shifting of the normal residency areas of various
insects that carry diseases detrimental to human health.

? ?
14 BAKER’S DOZEN 7
 4. ARE GREENHOUSE GAS
CONCENTRATIONS INCREASING?

T his is a more complicated question than it seems be-

cause there are so many processes that put green-
house gases into the atmosphere, and just as many “sink”
11. WHAT WILL THE KYOTO
processes that pull greenhouse gases back out of the atmo- PROTOCOL DO?
sphere. Not all of those sources or sinks are well under-
stood, and some are not even known. A time-scale factor
complicates matters, since some sinks absorb and hold vari-
ous greenhouse gases at different speeds, and for different
A gain, science, by itself, can’t determine whether we
should or should not adopt the Kyoto Protocol on Cli-
mate Change, (an international agreement accepted by the
lengths of time. The bottom line is that, as best as we can Clinton Administration in December of 1997, but as yet
determine it with our limited information, some greenhouse unratified by the United States Senate), but scientific meth-
gas concentrations have increased within the past century, ods can characterize the probable outcomes of doing so
as compared to estimates of historic gas levels. and facilitate fact-based decisionmaking.
Carbon dioxide, a gas which is present as a natural com- The belief that the Kyoto Protocol by itself is unlikely to
ponent of the Earth’s “carbon cycle,” constitutes about 0.034 provide meaningful risk reduction benefits is widespread
percent of the atmosphere by volume. Though we must among those people cited as experts by proponents of the
always keep in mind that our direct measurement history is protocol at the 1997 Kyoto conference on climate change.
sharply limited, the body of evidence indicates that the con- Jerry Mahlman, Director of the Geophysical Fluid Dy-
centration of this gas has increased by about 30 percent namics Laboratory at Princeton University, told the Wash-
since the late 18th century. ington Post that “The best Kyoto can do is to produce a
Methane, a gas which is present as a natural byproduct small decrease in the rate of increase” In a post-Kyoto Sci-
of animal metabolism, constitutes about 0.00016 percent ence news brief, Mahlman says that “it might take another
of the atmosphere by volume. Methane levels in the atmo- 30 Kyotos over the next century to cut global warming down
sphere seem to have increased about 150 percent since to size.”
the beginning of the 19th century, with current levels being Bert Bolin, the outgoing chairman of the United Na-
the highest ever recorded, though the pattern of methane tions Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assessed
emissions is highly irregular and has actually shown a down- the impact of Kyoto as a 0.4 percent reduction in green-
turn in recent years, for reasons that are not clear. house gas emissions compared to a no-protocol alterna-
CFC concentrations are difficult to measure, vary geo- tive, and concluded: “The Kyoto conference did not achieve
graphically, and because of recent changes in the law re- much with regard to limiting the buildup of greenhouse
garding their production and use, are changing not only in gases in the atmosphere.”
concentration, but in composition. One can assume, bar- Robert Repetto at World Resources Institute acknowl-
ring activities of the black market in banned CFCs, that those edges that the Kyoto accord is little more than a tiny step
CFCs which replaced the ozone-depleting CFCs banned by toward a distant end, rather than a significant step in itself:
the Montreal Protocol are probably increasing, while those “Nobody thought in their wildest dreams that Kyoto would
banned by the protocol are probably decreasing. solve the climate problem…If implemented, the achievement

6 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 15

 at Kyoto will be to get nations off a business-as-usual trajec-
tory, and onto a path that peaks, and then starts going down.”
And as Tom Wigley, a climate researcher at the Na-
tional Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, puts
it, “A short-term target and timetable, like that adopted at
Kyoto, avoids the issue of stabilizing concentrations [of
greenhouse gases] entirely.”
In other words, near-term benefits of the Kyoto Proto-
col are more tangible in political terms – as initiating a new
direction in policy – than in terms of tangible environmental
3. WHERE
or risk-reduction benefits. DO GREENHOUSE GASES COME FROM?
But there is also the long term to consider. Given that
significant climate change might have the potential to cause
ergy use, rice cultivation, crop waste incineration, and ani-
great increases in risks to human health, consideration of
mal husbandry. Human sources constitute about 70 per-
the long-term policy implications of the Kyoto Protocol’s “first
cent of the methane that enters the atmosphere each year,
step” is warranted.
the rest coming from natural sources like wetlands, ter-
Yet that’s precisely where things get the least certain,
mites, and aquatic life.
since the scaling up of the modest and validated green-
Nitrous oxides are released into the atmosphere
house effect to the level of global climate effects, including
effects on oceans, ecosystems, mountains, rivers, ground- through biological processes and through human activities
water, solar variation, greenhouse gas emissions, clouds, including fuel use, soil cultivation, acid production, and com-
aerosols, water vapor, and historical variation, then trying bustion of wastes. Nitrous oxides have about 200 times
to scale the impacts back down to the local and regional the warming potential of carbon dioxide, and human activ-
level blurs the situation terribly. ity contributes about one-third of the annual release to the
Based on our research, and that of other analysts, the atmosphere. The balance is released through the natural
most one can reliably say about the Kyoto Protocol approach biological processes that take place in the oceans, soils,
to climate change, the selection of somewhat arbitrary forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems.
greenhouse gas reductions as the first step in a long pro- Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are all man-made chemi-
cess of stabilizing greenhouse gas reductions, is that the cals used largely as refrigerants and cleaning agents. Some
short-term benefits are scant, and the long-term benefits CFCs have positive warming potentials, while others have
are highly uncertain. negative potentials.
Ozone can be produced directly by electrical discharges
but is mainly produced by the action of sunlight, oxygen,
and a variety of other airborne chemicals in the atmosphere.
Water vapor, of course, comes from evaporation and
from plant transpiration, but the forces that maintain the lev-
els of humidity throughout the atmosphere, and the points
at which water vapor is removed from the atmosphere by
precipitation and cloud formation are poorly understood.

16 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 5

 12. WHAT IS THE CONSENSUS OF
THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY?

A by-product of the climate change debate has been a

great deal of acrimony and recrimination between
groups advocating rapid anticipatory action, and others who
advocate alternative responses. Both sides have periodi-
cally gone beyond the bounds of reasonable argumenta-
tion and descended into name calling and rhetoric. This
politicization and other forms of political intervention in the
3. WHERE DO GREENHOUSE scientific process have largely deprived us of the ability to
use the “consensus of the scientific community” as a mean-
ingful indicator of certainty.

M ost greenhouse gases are produced by natural pro-

cesses such as animal metabolism, natural physical
processes such as lightning and volcanos, and human ac-
In this atmosphere of mutual distrust, some industry
and public policy groups have claimed that climate change
is just a big hoax. Other groups have claimed that climate
tivities, such as fuel use and manufacturing.
change is the biggest disaster man will ever face, justifying
Once released into the atmosphere, greenhouse gas
virtually any action, with small regard for consequences on
concentrations are affected by a variety of human-influenced
our livelihoods and lifestyles. Some have claimed that the
and non-human-influenced climate processes, some of
science is a “done deal,” that the evidence is beyond ques-
which increase certain gas concentrations, others of which
tion, and that our knowledge is well beyond what we need
reduce certain gas concentrations. Some fluctuations in
to know to act as strongly as we want to. Others have
greenhouse gas levels are still poorly understood. claimed that the science is “junk,” nothing more than
Modern, reliable measurements of greenhouse gases guesses, if not outright distortion and fabrication.
are very new and have produced very limited data, begin- Some groups proclaim that the “consensus of scien-
ning with carbon dioxide measurements at the South Pole tists” overwhelmingly supports anticipatory approaches to
in 1957, at Mauna Loa in 1958, and later for methane, ni- climate change, while others claim that the “consensus of
trous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). scientists” is insufficient to warrant anticipatory approaches
Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere by bio- to climate change. Each group has its own lists of scien-
logical processes, geological processes, combustion, and tists, with various celebrated Nobel prize winners among
energy use. Human sources of carbon dioxide make up them.
about 3.5 – 5.4 percent of the total carbon dioxide which Is there something in all this squabbling that really sheds
enters the atmosphere in any given year. The other 95 – 97 light on what we know, or what we should do? The simple
percent of carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere each answer is “No.” Science is a big tent, full of diverse opin-
year is the bulk of the planet’s “carbon cycle,” and comes ions based on differing interpretations of evidence. It’s a
from oceanic and terrestrial animals as a by-product of their competitive process in which outright hoaxes or falsehoods
metabolisms. tend to be discovered before the ink is dry on the first pub-
Methane is released into the atmosphere by biological lication. And science is never “done,” it’s a process with-
processes and geological processes, some subject to hu- out a fixed goal. It’s open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,
man control, some not. Methane is released through en- 365 days a year. Finally, science is not a “consen-

4 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 17

 sus” process, it’s an individualistic one in which scientists
2. WHAT ARE “GREENHOUSE
compete with theories that try to explain more about the
world around us. It’s both an evolutionary process and, GASES”?
sometimes a revolutionary one, where researchers com-

“G
pete to reveal more about how the world works. reenhouse gases” are those components of the atmosphere that
Science can contribute to our understanding of climate can, according to global warming theory, alter the way that the Earth’s
change, and science is (and should remain) an integral part atmosphere retains heat.
of the policymaking process. But the conflict-ridden climate The four major manmade greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane,
change policy process has taught us one good lesson: we nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. Not all greenhouse gases are
have a long way to go before we’ll figure out how to keep alike, either in terms of concentration, or of their “warming potential,” and some
what we value from science — its transparency and open- things called gases aren’t even gases at all, but are families of gases, such as
ness, its rigorous methodologies, its continuing process of nitrous oxides. Besides the four major manmade gases are other gases and
discovery, its reliability based on the process of peer-review gas families that can affect the climate, such as the “particulate aerosols,” fine
— when science becomes immersed in a political process dusts that stay suspended in the atmosphere
that has very different and frequently incompatible values. The actual potential of a given greenhouse gas to induce warming of the
Surprisingly enough, the best answer to this science atmosphere is still unclear in some cases and for some “gases,” such as aero-
question might have been answered in a pre-scientific age, sols. For such mixtures, in which some of the compounds can cause warming
by Gautama Buddha, who said: while others can cause cooling, the potential for them to cause warming is
Do not believe in anything simply because you have based on a sum of influences, some poorly understood. Particulate aerosols,
heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is for example, can have either warming or cooling effects, depending (partly) on
spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything whether they’re light colored, or dark colored.
simply because it is found written in your religious books. Relative concentrations also come into play, since the impact of smaller
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your quantities of a more powerful warming gas could overwhelm large quantities of
teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because a more modest warming gas. The length of time that a given gas stays in the
they have been handed down for many generations. But atmosphere is also an important factor in determining its overall “warming po-
after observation and analysis, when you find that anything tential,” since the process of trapping heat takes considerable time.
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and ben- Carbon dioxide, for example, is less powerful as a warming agent, mol-
efit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. ecule for molecule, than is methane, but is much more prevalent in the atmo-
sphere, and endures longer. Nitrous oxides have nearly 200 times the relative
warming strength of carbon dioxide, but are found in much lower concentra-
tions in the atmosphere. Some CFCs (most notably those banned as a way of
protecting the high-altitude ozone layer) can actually have negative “warming
potential,” and can cause “global cooling,” while their substitutes are more likely
to be “warming gases.” Ozone itself can be either a warming gas or a cooling
gas, depending on where in the atmosphere it is found.
Water vapor is another important greenhouse gas, perhaps the most im-
portant because of the huge mass of it in the atmosphere at any given time.
Changes in the atmospheric levels of water vapor, and the role of water vapor
in heating and cooling the atmosphere are still largely a mystery.

18 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 3

 Global warming scales up the greenhouse effect to 13. WHERE DO WE NEED MORE
the entire atmosphere, with various gases, called green-
RESEARCH?
house gases, taking the role of the glass in the greenhouse.
At this global level, the greenhouse effect is well validated,
and is one of the forces that has shaped and will continue
to shape the Earth’s climate, causing warming above the
W hile recent studies of climate have contributed a great deal to our under-
standing of climate dynamics, there is still much to learn. The process of
searching for evidence of manmade climate change, in fact, is both a search for
level that would occur on a similar sized planet with similar new discoveries about how climate works, and continuing refinement of our
solar input, but without an atmosphere. This warming pro- understanding of the underlying theories we already have.
cess is a natural, and highly beneficial, phenomenon. In Many areas of uncertainty remain. Current climate change models have
fact, without the basic greenhouse effect of the Earth, it acknowledged weaknesses in their handling of changes in the sun’s output,
would almost certainly be too cold on this planet to sustain volcanic aerosols, oceanic processes, and land processes which can influence
life as we know it climate change.
In the study of manmade climate change, researchers Some of those uncertainties may be large enough to become the tail which
take the theory of global warming, change some of the wags the dog of climate change theory. Three of the major uncertainties which
assumptions about various gas levels, their heat-retention remain are discussed below.
ability, their persistence in the atmosphere, the impact of
other atmospheric forces, and a host of other variables, A. The Natural Variability of Climate
and make predictions about what kinds of climate change Despite the extensive discussion of climate modeling and knowledge of
might happen if human beings introduce certain atmo- past climate cycles, only the last 1000 years of climate variation are included in
spheric changes. Thus, questions such as “how will the two state-of-the-art climate models referred to by the IPCC. As discussed
mankind’s emissions of gas X to the atmosphere lead to earlier, however, the framework in which we view climate variability makes a
changes in sea level in San Francisco,” would be answered significant difference in the conclusions we draw regarding either the compara-
through experiments based on the theory of climate change. tive magnitude or rate of climate changes, or the interpretation of those changes
as being either inside or outside of the envelope of normal climate change
variations. The IPCC report summarizes the situation succinctly:
Large and rapid climatic changes occurred during the last ice age and dur-
ing the transition towards the present Holocene period. Some of these changes
may have occurred on time-scales of a few decades, at least in the North Atlan-
tic where they are best documented. They affected atmospheric and oceanic
circulation and temperature, and the hydrologic cycle. There are suggestions
that similar rapid changes may have also occurred during the last interglacial
period (the Eemian), but this requires confirmation. The recent (20th century)
warming needs to be considered in the light of evidence that rapid climatic
changes can occur naturally in the climate. However, temperatures have been
far less variable during the last 10,000 years (i.e., during the Holocene).
Until we know which perspective is more reflective of Earth’s climate as a
whole—the last 10,000 years, or a longer period of time—it will be difficult to
put recent warming trends in perspective, or to relate those trends to potential
impacts on the climate, and on the Earth’s flora and fauna.

2 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 19

 B. The Role of Solar Activity

At the front end of the climate cycle is the single largest source of energy
which is put into the system, namely, the sun. And while great attention has been
paid to most other aspects of climate, little attention has been paid to the sun’s 1. WHAT IS CLIMATE
role in the heating or cooling of the Earth. Several recent studies have highlighted
CHANGE?
this uncertainty, showing that solar variability may play a far larger role in the
Earth’s climate than it was previously given credit for by the IPCC. If the sun has
been heating up in recent times, researchers observe, the increased solar radia-
tion could be responsible for up to half of the observed climate warming of the T he Earth’s climate is a dynamic, constantly changing
system in which biological activity influences various
aspects of the climate: this has been the case since the
past century. Astrophysicist Sallie L. Baliunas attributes up to 71 percent of the
observed climate warming of the past century to increased solar irradiance. Other earliest days of life on Earth. But changes within the range
researchers such as climatologist T.M.L. Wigley, however, rank the influence of of historical norms or changes which are unrelated to hu-
solar activity on climate warming much lower, at “somewhere between 10 per- man activity are not what “climate change,” as the term is
cent and 30 percent of the past warming.” But as with satellite measurements of used in popular scientific and political discussion is about.
Earth’s temperature, the short time line of satellite measurements of solar irradi- Rather, that “climate change” refers to scientific studies of
ance introduces significant uncertainty into the picture. Most researchers believe abnormal climate changes and associated impacts that are
that at least another decade of solar radiation measurement will be needed to distinctly human in origin.
clearly define the influence of solar input on the global climate. At the center of our understanding of climate change
is the process known as global warming, which is basically
C. The Role of Clouds and Water Vapor the planet-wide application of a physical process called the
greenhouse effect, named for the way that a closed sys-
Between the emission of greenhouse gases and change in the climate are a
tem (like a greenhouse) retains heat.
range of climate and biological cycles that can influence the end result. Such
On uncovered ground, incoming solar energy is either
effects are called “feedbacks” in the climate change literature.
absorbed by the ground (which then heats up), or is re-
One such feedback is the influence of clouds and water vapor. As the climate
warms, more water vapor enters the atmosphere, but how much? And, which flected back into the atmosphere and, eventually, into space.
parts of the atmosphere, high or low? And how does the increased humidity The energy absorbed during the day is given back off at
affect cloud formation? We just don’t know. And while the relationship between night as heat, one reason why cold-blooded animals like
clouds, water vapor, and global climate is complicated in and of itself, the situation snakes tend to lie on roadways after dark. But in a green-
is further complicated by the fact that aerosols exert yet another poorly under- house, things are different. Solar energy passes in through
stood influence on clouds. Research suggests that aerosols alone may offset 20 the glass panes of a greenhouse and is absorbed or re-
percent of the expected impact of warming gases. In addition, though direct cool- flected by the ground and other objects as usual, but when
ing impacts of aerosols are now being taken into account by climate models, that energy is re-emitted immediately or later at night, the
aerosol impact on clouds remains a poorly defined effect with broad implications, glass, through direct and indirect effects, stops some of it
given a range of additional cooling potential of up to 61 percent of the expected from passing back out of the greenhouse. Even more of
warming impact from the warming greenhouse gases. the re-emitted energy is captured and prevented from pass-
As the IPCC report acknowledges: “the single largest uncertainty in deter- ing back out of the greenhouse by the water vapor that
mining the climate sensitivity to either natural or anthropogenic [or “manmade”] comes into the warmed-up air from the plants and soil in
changes are clouds and their effects on radiation and their role in the hydrological the greenhouse.
cycle…At the present time, weaknesses in the parameterization of cloud forma-
tion and dissipation are probably the main impediment to improvements in the
simulation of cloud effects on climate.”

20 RPPI BAKER’S DOZEN 1

RPPI
About RPPI

T he Reason Foundation is a national research and edu-

cational organization that explores and promotes the
twin values of rationality and freedom as the basic under- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
pinnings of a good society. Since 1978, the Los Angeles-

D
based foundation has provided practical public policy re- r. Kenneth Green is Director of Environmental
search, analysis, and commentary based upon the principles Program at the Reason Public Policy Institute. Dr.
of individual liberty and responsibility and limited govern- Green has published seven previous peer-reviewed
ment. policy studies on air quality and environmental risk in-
Reason Public Policy Institute (RPPI), a division of the cluding: A Plain English Guide to the Science of Cli-
Reason Foundation, fuses theory and practice to influence mate Change, Evaluating the Kyoto Approach to Climate
public policies. The Institute's research draws upon eco- Change, Rethinking EPA’s Proposed Ozone and Particu-
nomics, science, and institutional analysis to critique public late Standards, Estimating Fatalities Induced by Eco-
policies and advance new policy ideas in a variety of policy nomic Impacts of EPA’s proposed Ozone and Particu-
areas, including education, infrastructure and transporta- late Standards (co-authored), Looking Beyond ECO,
tion, the environment, urban land use and local economic Defending Automobility, and Checking Up on Smog
development, social services, and privatization and govern- Check. Green, who received his doctorate in environ-
ment reform. To that analysis, the Institute brings a political mental science and engineering (D.Env.) from UCLA in
philosophy that supports rule of law, marketplace competi- 1994, joined RPPI soon after, and now works from his
tion, economic and civil liberty, personal responsibility in home-office in Central Texas.
social and economic interactions, and institutional arrange-
ments that foster dynamism and innovation.
The Reason Foundation is a tax-exempt educational or-
ganization as defined under IRS code 501(c)(3). The Reason
Foundation neither seeks nor accepts government fund-
ing, and is supported by individual, foundation and corpo-
rate contributions. Nothing appearing in this document is
to be construed as necessarily representing the views of
the Reason Foundation or its trustees, or as an attempt to
aid or hinder the passage of any bill before any legislative
body.

Photos used in this publication are Copyright © 1998.

Photodisc, Inc. Copyright © 1998. Reason Foundation. All
Rights Reserved.
BAKER’S DOZEN 21
 RPPI October 1998

A BAKER’S DOZEN:
13 QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK
ABOUT THE SCIENCE OF
CLIMATE CHANGE

Kenneth Green, D.Env.

Director of Environmental Program

Reason Public Policy Institute

Reason Public Policy Institute

3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
310-391-2245; 310-391-4395; www.reason.org