The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann

Author:Charles C. Mann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-01-23T05:00:00+00:00

For many politicians, NASA researcher James Hansen’s 1988 Senate testimony that a minute additional percentage of carbon dioxide in the air was “changing our climate now” was their first, startling encounter with an issue that over the years would grow ever more contentious. Credit 71

Even as Schneider and others homed in on carbon dioxide, Hansen and two NASA colleagues were examining the other side: aerosols. Using a similar model, the three men tested its predictions against the results of an actual volcano: the 1963 eruption of Mount Agung in Bali, which killed more than a thousand people and shot enough junk into the air to have a measurable effect on the climate. The predictions of the model matched events closely enough that Hansen and his colleagues were able to sort out the relative contributions of aerosol cooling and carbon dioxide warming.

Comparing the impact of cooling (sharp, sudden bursts) to that of warming (slow and steady), Hansen and most other climate scientists became convinced that in standard Aesopian fashion tortoise would beat hare: warming would predominate in the long run. Not all climate scientists were persuaded—Reid Bryson, for one, went to his grave in 2008 awaiting the onset of glaciation—but the great majority were. Increasingly, research centers and government panels beat the drum for warming.

Despite their efforts, climate change attracted little public notice until June 23, 1988, when Hansen testified before the U.S. Senate. Worried about climate change, Colorado Democratic senator Tim Wirth had deliberately scheduled the hearing for what historically was the city summer’s hottest day. His scheme worked beyond his wildest dreams. Hansen sat down amid a wave of bad weather that covered the entire planet. Downpours inundated parts of Africa; unseasonable cold shriveled European harvests. Droughts scorched crops in the U.S. Midwest; forests were aflame across the West. That day Washington, D.C., experienced a record 101°F—an effect amplified when Wirth shut off the air-conditioning in the hearing room. Adding to the heat was the glare from television lights. Perspiration glistened on Hansen’s temples as he spoke. He said, “Earth is warmer in 1988 than in any time in the history of instrumental measurements.” He said, “With 99 percent confidence we can state that the warming during this time period is a real warming trend.” Carbon dioxide, he said, “is changing our climate now.”

Hansen’s stark words were headline news across the world. The New York Times put his charts on page one, and he appeared on a dozen television shows. “Changing our climate now” transformed parched fields, overflowing rivers, and sweltering cities from a random cluster of bad weather into a harbinger of a dystopian future. Adding to the furor, the journalist Bill McKibben published in 1989 the first popular account of climate change, The End of Nature, a worldwide best seller despite its ominous title. More important, scientific research took off. Before 1988 peer-reviewed journals had never published more than a score of articles in a given year that contained the terms “climate change” or “global warming.” After 1988 the figure climbed: 55 in 1989; 138 in 1990; 348 in 1991.

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