Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future by Jamieson Dale

Author:Jamieson, Dale [Jamieson, Dale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014-02-03T00:00:00+00:00

FIGURE 5.1 Decay of fossil fuel CO2 emission.

Source: IPCC 2007 Science Technical.

Consider a radically oversimplified story that begins with me emitting some molecules of carbon dioxide.73 As Figure 5.1 shows, these molecules may stay in the atmosphere for centuries or even longer, but what is most likely is that within several decades they will dissolve into the ocean or be taken up by the biosphere.

When carbon dioxide molecules dissolve in the ocean, they are usually replaced in the atmosphere by other molecules that radiate from the ocean. As the oceans warm, the velocity of these emissions increases, and it is likely that the original carbon will soon be returned to the atmosphere. However, a tiny fraction sinks to the ocean’s depths and is eventually stored in carbonate rocks, where it may remain for tens of millions of years or more. The fate of carbon molecules in the terrestrial biosphere is even more various, but they are usually returned to the atmosphere within a decade or two.74 The primary reason that carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere is that people are mining carbon that is sequestered in mineral deposits (e.g., fossil fuels) and the biosphere (e.g., old-growth forests), transforming it into carbon dioxide and releasing it into the atmosphere. This change in the state of the carbon cycle produces a generalized warming, which affects the global climate system, which in turn affects the distribution, frequency, and intensity of various meteorological events. These events occur in environments that can result in anything from a heat wave or storm in an uninhabited part of the world, to an insurance claim for a BMW damaged in a hailstorm, or to the collapse of a government.75 For my particular carbon emission to have a causal effect in producing these harms it must in some way be active at all of these levels, from increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, to producing untoward meteorological events that actually result in harms. The influence of my emission must travel upward through various global systems that affect climate, and then downwards, damaging something that we value. The sense of implausibility, ignorance, and downright confusion that such a scenario elicits can be illustrated by the following example.

I, along with many other people, toss an invisible smidgen of something into a blender. A man takes a drink of the resulting mixture. Am I responsible for the graininess of the texture, the chalkiness of the taste, the way it makes him feel after drinking it, his resulting desire for a Budweiser? You might think that I am a smidgen responsible, since a smidgen is the amount that I tossed into the blender. But I am tempted to say that I am not responsible even for a smidgen of the result because there are so many thresholds, non-linearities, and scalar differences that intervene between my action and the outcomes.

Even if I am wrong about this, it should still be clear that the problems with which climate change confronts us are importantly

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