Forty years ago, on this day, October 21, 1983, another climate change report was released, just a couple of days after the Environmental Protection Agency one. It took a much more “yeah, nothing to worry about really” line.
and – https://www.nytimes.com/1983/10/21/us/haste-of-global-warming-trend-opposed.html
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 342.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was –
The report had been commissioned in 1979, thanks to the efforts of a Democratic Senator, the lead author William Nirenberg. It is now seen as a direct rebuttal if you will, of the EPA report though, obviously, it wasn’t written as such. For the lowdown, see two articles, one by Naomi Oreskses and the other by Nirenberg’s daughter.
The point of the Changing Climate report is that it gave aid and comfort to those who were saying “oh still nothing to see here.” The Reagan administration was still pretty deep in denial, having shat all over the Global 2000 report. And here we are.
What I think we can learn from this
A variation on the “horse race politics”
What happened next
“Despite their conflicting conclusions, both reports actually confirmed the inevitability of greenhouse warming, but George Keyworth and Whitehouse counsel Ed Meese played up the disparities between Nierenberg’s “sober” NAS report and the “unnecessarily alarmist” EPA study, imbuing press coverage of the climate issue with a sense of confusion rather than concern. The press, not surprisingly, took more interest in the “debate” between the EPA and NAS scientists than in the broader implications of the science itself. Both studies were soon forgotten.“
(Howe, 2014:134)
See Merchants of Doubt chapter about this – argues it is two different reports, the physical scientists agreeing with other reports, and two chapters by economists…
MOD page 180
Has also led to two articles – From Chicken Little to Dr Pangloss
It would be another four years or five years before climate was able to properly take off again. And Nirenberg was still in the thick of nonsense like the George Marshall Institute.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
Nicholas Nierenberg rebuttal of Oreskes
https://www.nicolasnierenberg.com/uploads/1/1/6/6/1166378/oreskescritique.pdf
And William Connelly
https://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2008/11/10/nierneberg-concluded-oreskes-i