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June 02 2019
Review of Losing Earth: A Recent History
by Nathaniel Rich (c) 2019
This was another book I happened across at the public library. I
think I was drawn to it in part by how it looks, which is very much
like a 1970s book, complete with two-color cover design and vertically
stretched fonts. Essentially this book is an expansion on Rich's
2018 New York Times magazine article [0] which actually took up
the entire edition and got quite a lot of coverage. Still, my
initial thought was "why bother; this doesn't change anything".
But, it does: it will likely change how you interpret current events
as well as how you may evaluate proposed mitigation to address our
rapidly changing climate.
Losing Earth chronicles some of the early efforts in the US to
understand and address what was then referred to as the Greenhouse
Effect, specifically the period spanning 1979-1989. But the author
points out that the understanding of this greenhouse effect and
the anthropogenic contributions via the burning of fossil fuels
creating a positive feedback was already understood by scientists
by the 1950s. In fact an early popular TV science show, The Bell
Telephone Science Hour featuring a Dr. Baxter, mentioned the
possibility of CO2 from automobiles and industry causing the Arctic
icecaps to melt and sea levels to rise dramatically in an 1958
episode [1], seemingly inspiring the ever-eclectic Tiny Tim to
write a creepy song [2] about it.
Back to the book. The short Introduction drops several depressing
factoids, like that everything we know about climate change was
already known by 1979, that our inaction has us at a 1:20 chance
of staying below 2 degrees C, that above 2C we face a long-term
disaster; above 3C that disaster comes in the short-term, triggering
coastal flooding, mass starvation and a greening arctic. Already
the Red Cross reports that the number of climate refugees exceeds
those fleeing conflict.
Chapter 1 introduces the Jasons, which was apparently a secret
association of scientists which provided ad hoc research and advice
to various 3 letter government agencies. These were the best in
their respective fields and they had the ear of those at the highest
levels of government. In 1979 the Department of Energy (DoE) had
become concerned enough about the Greenhouse Effect to commission
the Jasons to study the issue. The DoE had actually created an
Office of CO2 Effects a few years prior; clearly they thought this
might be a big deal.
Key findings of the Jasons report: a warming of 2-3C would cause
- widespread dust-bowl conditions in the Southwest US,
Asia and Africa
- agricultural outputs to plummet, particularly grain crops
- mass reduction in available potable water
- melt the West Antarctic ice sheet enough to raise sea
levels 16 feet
Pretty alarming findings, enough so that Gordon MacDonald, the
report's main author, made several presentations to various government
agencies to highlight the need for action, namely ceasing coal use.
It also spawned a National Academy of Science (NAS) study group to
further access risks.
The NAS group included James Hansen, then working for NASA studying
the climate on other planets, namely Venus. Hansen was tasked with
modeling atmospheric CO2 and developed one of the first climate
computer models called Mirror Worlds, the results which found their
way into a what is known as the NAS Charney report [3] titled
"Carbon Dioxide and Climate: a Scientific Assessment". The Charney
report contrasted Hansen's Mirror Worlds results with the earlier
Jasons report to establish the ratio of atmospheric CO2 levels to
expected global warming. They concluded that a doubling of the
atmospheric CO2 level would produce 3C of warming, the short-term
disaster previously outlined.
The private sector was also conducting research. As early as 1955
the American Petroleum Institute (API) was aware of the connection
between CO2 and global warming and was researching how much of it
might be due to oil and gas use. By the end of the 1970s Exxon
was anticipating government regulations restricting CO2 emissions
and thus it's core business, to the extent that they began investing
in nuclear and solar power, a venture that would turn out to be
short lived.
To make a long review a bit shorter, it's suffice to say that the
more government and industry looked into the matter the more it
became obvious that getting serious about cutting CO2 and other
greenhouse gases meant pulling the plug on the rapid economic growth
that was propelling the American empire (the US was cranking out
30% of all CO2 emissions at the time). Several more studies would
be done, all confirming the causes of global warming and risks of
failing to take action. The election of Ronald Reagan was the
beginning of the stall out on action. Reagan slashed staff at the
EPA, boosted coal production, and eliminated renewable energy
programs. His vice president George HW Bush seceded him and, while
making promises to address the Greenhouse Effect during his campaign,
promptly dropped the issue once elected. His chief of Staff, John
Sununu, was convinced that the push for CO2 emission restrictions
was a socialist takeover of the sciences to stop economic growth
and successfully nixed the first international effort to create a
binding treaty limiting CO2 emissions. Probably it wasn't all that
hard as other countries likely had come to similar conclusions
regarding the restrictions on economic growth if oil and gas use
were curtailed.
Once it became apparent that no government regulations were on the
horizon, the API, who's members make up the bulk of GDP in the US,
crafted a strategy of fostering doubt about the science of
anthropogenic climate change and cautioning against taking any
actions that might hurt the economy, a strategy that has culminated
in the seemingly complete co-option of the Republican party and
convincing a significant percent of citizens that human caused
climate change isn't happening.
Nathaniel Rich concludes his book with some succinct observations
in the Afterword section:
- more CO2 has been released since 1989 than the entire
period preceding it
- Earth is as warm now as before the last ice age when seas
were 20' higher
- coal is still being burned in huge amounts, mostly by China
Earlier in the book the author opines that around 1850 humans
appeared to have lost control of technology. 1850 is basically
when we started burning fossil fuels at industrial scales, literally
fueling the industrial revolution. A 1977 National Research Council
report made a similar observation:
"It has become apparent that human capacity to perturb
inadvertently the global environment has outstripped our
ability to anticipate the nature and extent of the impact."
In the case of anthropogenic global wierding it's clear that we
DID in fact anticipate it early enough to have taken actions to
avert much of the pain, we just didn't. Rich feels that the best
strategy is to make a moral argument for action, that we should
feel an obligation to future generations to not leave them wrecked
planet. I agree, assuming it's not already too late.
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References:
[0] Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change - NYT Magazine, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
[1] The Unchained Goddess / The Bell Telephone Science Hour - Dr Baxter, 1958
https://youtu.be/EbHYcNtcW7g?t=3000
[2] The Icecaps are Melting - Tiny Tim performs 'The Other Side', 1967
https://youtu.be/uAZgTKsdJsc
[3] https://www.bnl.gov/envsci/schwartz/charney_report1979.pdf