Global Warming a State of Denial Essay

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TRANSITION FROM MODERN WESTERN INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION TO a POSTMODERN GLOBAL ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION, AS DESCRIBED IN THE WRITINGS OF ORESKES & CONWAY, KLEIN, AND BERRY

Humanity has faced a number of crises throughout history, and some of these such as the Black Death in the early 1330s and the Great Plague of 1665-1666 were of sufficient magnitude to kill large percentages of humankind. Even these disasters, though, did not rise to the level of the current threat from global warming. Although the scientific community remains divided concerning the cause of recent climate changes, there is a growing consensus that anthropogenic activities dating to the Industry Revolution of the mid-19th century are the primary cause today. Indeed, some researchers believe that the climate change tipping point has already been reached and nothing can be done to reverse the process, meaning in sum the global climate will experience rapid changes that will threaten the existence of humankind in the foreseeable future. This paper provides a review of three works by prominent authorities in this area to determine the facts, followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning these issues in the conclusion.

REVIEW AND ANALYSIS

The historical transition from modern Western industrial civilization to a postmodern global ecological civilization has been unique in human history because the eventual collapse of the latter was not only foreseeable, it was in fact foreseen with loud alarms sounded by the scientific community.[footnoteRef:2] In this regard, Oreskes and Conway emphasize that although the precise causes for the collapse of the Roman, Byzantine, Incan and Mayan empires remains unclear, "The case of Western civilization is different because the consequences of its actions were not only predictable, but predicted."[footnoteRef:3] [2: Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway. THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: A VIEW FROM THE FUTURE. Columbia University Press, 2014, 1.] [3: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 1.]

Writing in an after-the-fact, post-apocalyptic manner, Oreskes and Conway describe the fall of Western civilization as the "Great Collapse" and suggest that future historians will have an abundance of information available to them concerning the ultimate fate of humanity despite the dire warnings provided by the scientific community concerning the deadly effects of anthropogenic activities on the environment. For instance, Oreskes and Conway point out that, "For more than one hundred years before its fall, the Western world knew that carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor absorbed heat in the planetary atmosphere."[footnoteRef:4] In addition, scientists also recognized that humankind was generating enormous amounts of carbon dioxide through its industry processes and other anthropogenic activities, and this research was founded on more than a century of scientific climate-related data. [4: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 2]

Despite the growing body of knowledge concerning the adverse impact of greenhouse gas emissions on the earth's atmosphere and growing concerns on the part of the scientific community that these processes would eventually doom Western civilization, policymakers failed to take the steps needed to avert the Great Collapse. Indeed, in the space of just a century and a half or so, humankind managed to generate enough greenhouse gases to fundamental alter the global environment. While the earth has experienced numerous changes in its climate over the millennia, the global warming that resulted from runaway greenhouse gas emissions accelerated any natural processes that were involved. Moreover, even the scientific community failed to recognize the potential effects of these processes on the global climate as recently as 50 years ago or so. As Oreskes and Conway emphasize, "Few were concerned, total emissions were still quite low, and in any case, most scientists viewed the atmosphere as an essentially unlimited sink. Through the 1960s, it was often said that 'the solution to pollution is dilution."[footnoteRef:5] This line of reasoning was largely consistent with the prevailing views about the earth in general during this period in history, with the same type of reasoning being applied to the world's oceans which were likewise regarded as limitless sources of food forever. [5: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 2.]

Moreover, the scientific community had good reason to believe that science could overcome anything the world could throw at it. After all, when whale oil became increasingly scarce during the late 19th century, technological innovations with the internal combustion engine and electrical generation made the transition to fossil fuels essentially seamless, and no one even noticed it when whale oil disappeared from the market. Similarly, despite gloom-and-doom warnings from population explosion theorists that the world could not support larger populations, the agricultural revolution had made it possible for even impoverished nations to become self-sufficient in food and famine was no longer the result of agricultural limitations but was rather the result of political machinations.

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Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that many scientists viewed global warming proponents as so many Chicken Littles trying to inculcate a self-serving culture of fear among the general public.

By the 1970s, though, the scientific community began to increasingly understand how human activities were having an adverse impact on the global climate but few if any realized the implications of these changes at the time.[footnoteRef:6] The growing body of research that was accumulated during the 1970s, though, did serve to generate increased interest among policymakers and some initiatives including major research programs and institutions were launched in response and by the late 1980s, discernible effects of anthropogenic activities on the global climate were identified.[footnoteRef:7] A concomitant of these findings was a growing concern on the part of the scientific community that greenhouse gases represented a fundament threat to the survival of humankind. [6: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 3.] [7: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 4-5.]

Describing the late 1980s as the "Penumbral Period," Oreskes and Conway cite the year 1998 as the watershed beginning of the end of modern Western industrial civilization. In this regard, Oreskes and Conway write: "Historians view 1998 as the start of the Penumbral Period. In that year, scientific and political leaders created a new, hybrid scientific-governmental organization, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to communicate relevant science and form the foundation for international governance to protect the planet and its denizens."[footnoteRef:8] Other transnational initiatives followed, but before these organizations could have any substantive positive effect on the doomsday global warming that would follow, these efforts resulted in growing criticism from various quarters but most especially in the United States.[footnoteRef:9] According to Oreskes and Conway, "Critics claimed that the scientific uncertainties were too great to justify the expense and the inconvenience of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, and that any attempt to solve the problem would cost more than it was worth." [footnoteRef:10] [8: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 5.] [9: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 5.] [10: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 5.]

As a result, by the fin de siecle, the camps were clearly divided between those who were absolutely certain the world was facing a disaster of biblical proportions and those who were in denial of the growing body of evidence that anthropogenic activities were generating greenhouse gas emissions and that the scales had already been tipped. Despite efforts by other countries, most notably China, Oreskes and Conway report that greenhouse gas emissions actually continued to increase. This process was largely the result of the state of denial that existed during the early 20th century concerning the growing warnings about the inevitability of the outcome on humankind.

Not only was this state of denial reinforced by the proven track record of success of the scientific method in solving humankinds myriad problems to date, it was also reinforced by the very culture that existed within the scientific community itself. In this regard, Oreskes and Conway point out that the rigorous processes by which findings were scrutinized by scientists and the arbitrary standards by which these findings were evaluated caused many scientists to disregard, ignore or otherwise refute any data that did not conform to their standards. For instance, Oreskes and Conway report that, "These practices led scientists to demand an excessively stringent standard for accepting claims of any kind, even those involving imminent threats." [footnoteRef:11] In some cases, these standards were based on convention rather than any specific justification that would have precluded the scientific community from taking the evidence about global warming more seriously. As an example, Oreskes and Conway note that, "We have come to understand the 95% confidence limit as a social convention rooted in scientists' desire to demonstrate their disciplinary severity."[footnoteRef:12] [11: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 17.] [12: Oreskes & Conway, THE COLLAPSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, 17.]

Characterizing these overzealous efforts by the scientific community to demonstrate their professionalism and thoroughness as "almost childlike," Oreskes and Conway argue that the scientific community in essence created a culture that prevented them from seeing the handwriting on the wall that was there for everyone to see. In this….....

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