HONORS 220B/INTSCI 403A
Science In Context

T-TH 1:30-3:20, Mary Gates 248

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READINGS
Introduction
Climate 1
Climate 2
Evolution 1
Evolution 2
Conclusion

PAPER

Schedule and Readings for the Climate Section

Tuesday, 22 October: 21st Century Climate

Before class, please read the following from the WG1 Report of IPCC AR5:
1) read about the projections of greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions here:
  • a) In chapter 1, read Box 1.1, page 1-22 to 1-23
  • b) In the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), read the Box SPM.1 on page SPM-22
  • c) In the Technical Summary (TS), read section TS 5.2, including Box TS.6 on TS-44 and TS-45.
2 ) read about the projected climate changes here:
  • a) In the SPM, read the final section (E) on pages SPM-14 to SPM-22.
  • b) In the technical summary, read TS.5 (pages TS-43 to TS-53) and TS.6 (pages TS-53 to just before Box TFE.7 on page TS-58).
    • Note that when they refer to "near-term" changes in section TS 5.4, they mean over the next two decades or so. "Long term" (section TS 5.5) generally refers to 2050 - 2100.
For the writing assignment, please read this document and write 400 words that address the following:
  • What do you expect the atmospheric CO2 concentration to be in 2100AD?
  • What is your scenario for world population growth, development, energy and policy choices that led you to your projection?
  • In your view, are any of the RCP scenarios highly unlikely?
Please post your thoughts before 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct 22.

Thursday, 24 October: Who Decides What is Dangerous?

In 2005, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (in the US, the Secretary of the Treasury) Gordon Brown asked Sir Nicholas Stern to lead a major review of the economics associated with global warming. Sir Nicholas is highly respected in economics, having been the Chief Economist of the World Bank, professor in the prestigious London School of Economics, etc. Sir Nicholas and his colleagues produced a 666 page report summarizing their findings in 2006, called The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. Although the Review appeared before the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC (AR4, 2007), it is clear that in their cost-benefit analysis they assumed scenarios for the projected climate change that are consistent with those in the AR4 report.

The Stern Review concluded that the costs of aggressive, early action to mitigate against climate change are far outweighed by the costs of not acting. The Review has been highly influential (especially in the UK) and highly scrutinized by economists; most support the central conclusions, but some question some of the choices made in the Review for estimating the cost of mitigation and the cost of future damages.

Read the Executive Summary of the Stern Review. Then read the four commentaries: Mendelsohn (2008), Sterner and Persson (2008), Weyant (2008) and Arrow (2007).

Please write 400 words that address the following questions and post your thoughts here by 7am on Thursday 24 October:
  • What were the major conclusions of the Review?
  • What were the major criticisms of the Review and its recommendations? Were these criticisms based on disagreements on how the economic models were constructed, on empirical data used, or did they reflect differences in world-views?
  • Do you think that a conventional cost-benefit analysis is the best approach to answering the question: "What action, if any, should we take to mitigate against the projected climate changes and impacts due to human activities?" If not, how would you answer this question?


Tuesday, 29 October: Merchants of Doubt

Readings: Please read the following excerpts from Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to Global Warming, by Oreskes and Conway: chap 1&2, (p 1-65); chap 6 (p169-215); conclusion (p240-265); and epilog (p266-274).

Please write 400 words that address the following questions and post your thoughts before 7 a.m. on Tuesday, Oct 29.
  • Oreskes and Conway present evidence that a handful of physicists purposely distorted the state of the science -- and scientific findings -- on a wide range of environmental issues. Along the way, they created a basket of disinformation think tanks that remain highly influential for the public and politicians. What were the mix of ingredients that gave rise to these people and to these enterprises and why are they so influential?
  • Germany, Japan and the US are democracies and have rather highly educated populations. For the most part, the private sector and politicians in Japan and Germany solicited reliable information on all the major environmental issues from the mainstream sources of scientific authority; these issues included acid rain, the ozone hole and global warming. In comparison to Japan and Germany, in the US the discussion of these environmental issues has been deeply polluted by "scientific" disinformation (which no doubt partially explains why the US was so slow to deal with each of these problems compared to Japan and Germany). Why is it that, compared to the other great democracies, disinformation can compete with and even drown out the voice of scientific authority? How could this be changed?


Thursday, 31 October: Geoengineering

The science of how climate will change due to human emissions of greenhouse gases has been well established for at least 30 years. In the last two decades, the impact of the projected climate changes on humans and on natural and managed ecosystems has become clearer. And in the past decade, more and more mainstream economists are arguing that without immediate and aggressive mitigation, we will see "dangerous climate changes" with "catastrophic consequences for humans." Yet, emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise.

In response, Paul Crutzen wrote a highly influential essay calling for the development and deployment of a technology to slow the warming in the face of increasing greenhouse gases. His proposal is a purposeful action to modify the climate - geoengineering the climate - by injecting aerosol particles into the stratosphere to block enough sunlight to partially cancel the warming due to increasing CO2. Crutzen's essay is highly influential because the cost is trivial, we know it would cool the planet, and he is no slouch of a scientist - having won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the Ozone Hole.

There are enormous technical, political, and ethical problems that arise in the discussion of geoengineering. What is at stake is no less than the future of the planet for the next many hundred years, and perhaps for millennia.

Read the following articles, in the order that we have listed them below:
  • 1. Crutzen, P., 2006: Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: a contribuiton to resolve a policy dilemma? An Editorial Essay. Climatic Change, 77, 211-219. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-006-9101-y
  • 2. Robock, A. et al. 2009: Benefits, risks, and costs of stratospheric geoengineering. Geophysical Research Letters, 36.
  • 3. Robock, A., 2008: 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, p 14-20.
  • 4. Schellnhuber, H., 2011: Geoengineering: The good, the MAD, and the sensible. Proc. National Academy of Sciences, 108, 20277-8.
  • 5. Robock, A., 2008: Whither Geoengineering? Science, 320, 1166-67
  • 6. Victor, D. et al 2009: The Geoengineering Option: A Last Resort Against Global Warming? Foreign Affairs, 88, 64-76.
  • 7. Listen to David Keith's TED talk on Geoengineering
  • 8. Listen to the following short story by Stephen Millhauser, called "The Dome"
  • 9. Watch the 3-minute UW-student class project video on Geoengineering, which was picked up in the infamous New York Times


Please write 400 words that address the following questions and post your thoughts before 7 a.m. on Thursday, Oct 31.
  • What are the most unsettling issues concerning a geoengineering "solution" to global warming?
  • Do you believe a geoengineering scheme is likely to be deployed in your lifetime? Why or why not?