Chapter 1 Introduction

“Scientists observe nature, then develop theories that describe their observations. Science is driven by nature itself, and nature gives us no choice. It is what it is.”

— Meg Urry     

A million years after the birth of our sun, the violent explosion of a nearby supernova nearly ended life on Earth before it began.¹ Over the next four and a half billion years, forces of nature shaped our planet and the life it harbored. Barely surviving the traumatic birth of the Moon, buffeted by supernovae, and bombarded by asteroids, the resilient Earth endured. And despite planet-freezing ice ages, devastating mass extinctions, and ever changing climate, life not only survived, it thrived.

Illustration 1: Gamma rays from a nearby supernova pummel Earth. Source NASA.

Today, we are told all life on Earth is threatened by a new peril. Some say people are the cause of this impending crisis: human activity creates an increase in the amount of certain gases in the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide (CO₂), which cause the Earth's temperature to rise.² The catch-phrase for this is human-caused global warming and we are warned, if something is not done immediately to stop it, our planet is doomed.

Earth is doomed, and science tells us how our world will end. In a billion years, the Sun's output will have increased by ten percent above today's levels, causing runaway greenhouse heating and the end of life on Earth.³ In 5 billion years, the Sun will start to run out of hydrogen and begin to swell. In 6 billion years, the Sun will become a red giant, engulfing Mercury, Venus and Earth. Finally, in 7 billion years, the Sun will eject its outer layers and slide into retirement as a white dwarf. The Sun will spend its final days quietly cooling—a dimming ember in space. Earth, and its vibrant ecology, will have long vanished.⁴ This happens to stars and their planets all the time, it is the fate decreed by the laws of nature.

The prophets of ecological doom are not warning of truly apocalyptic events, such as those outlined above. They say humans are destroying Earth's ecosystem on a much more immediate and personal scale. Their tale of impending destruction goes something like this:

The average temperature of the Earth has been rising in recent decades and will keep rising in the future. Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likey due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations. Anticipated effects include rising sea levels, repercussions to agriculture, slowing of ocean circulation, reductions in the ozone layer, increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes and extreme weather events, lowering of ocean pH, and the spread of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever.

The statement above summarizes the main points being made by those backing human-caused global warming. Some of the terms used sound technical and scientific, particularly the phrase “anthro­pogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” What the statement means is: people are adding so much carbon dioxide to the air that Earth's climate is affected. Is this the truth? How can a non-scientist winnow fact from fiction, truth from exaggeration?

Science Obscured

The debate over global warming and its possible human causes has become the defining scientific controversy of our time. Opinions vary regarding the severity of the problem among both scientists and lay people, though there are some who claim the threat is so immense and so immediate that all doubters should be silenced. The arguments presented to the public are mostly simplistic and cursory, usually accompanied by images of calving glaciers, melting icebergs and smokestacks belching clouds of pollution. The public debate has become vicious and nasty, filled with personal attacks and insults. As disturbing as this shift from reasoned scientific discourse to acrimony is, it is not the most troubling aspect of the global warming debate.

Illustration 2: An iceberg in Gerlache Strait. Photo H. Nygren,
NOAA Corps.

The most troubling aspect of the global warming controversy is what it reveals about the level of scientific understanding among the general populace. There is a growing disconnect between the scientific community and the general population. This is a consequence of the ever-widening knowledge gap between scientists and non-scientists. Even the separation between engineers and the public has grown to the point where the workings of everyday devices has become incomprehensible. For comparison, consider the state of technology fifty years ago.

In the United States, during the late 1950s, the shift from the war time economy of the 1940s was complete—a new, consumer driven economy was in full bloom. Every American family worked to own a house, a new car, modern appliances and a television set. But the inner workings of all these shiny, modern marvels were still understood by the average consumer.

Illustration 3: Engine compartment, 1956 Chevy Belair. Photo Jims59.com

Most people performed simple maintenance on their own automobiles. Changing the motor's oil and filter, replacing the spark plugs, and rotating the tires were part of car ownership. Many owners tackled more complicated maintenance and repair work; rebuilding the brakes, changing a water pump, or cleaning a carburetor. Today, most people never open the hoods of their autos. If they do, they are greeted by a featureless engine cover that effectively prevents any owner maintenance more complicated than checking the fluid levels.

Illustration 4: Engine compartment, 2007 BMW M5. Photo Automobile Magazine.

Illustration 5: A Stark 9-55 tube tester.

A new wonder of the modern age was the television set. In the 1950s, these were large pieces of furniture filled with wires and softly glowing vacuum tubes. Since tubes had a rather short life expectancy they were installed in sockets for easy replacement. When a TV set malfunctioned, a thrifty and enterprising TV owner could remove any suspicious looking tubes and take them to the local supermarket where there was a testing unit available. Any tubes that didn't pass the tester were replaced with new ones. Today, no one works on their own TV set when it breaks. More than likely, if it is out of warranty, the unit is discarded and a new one is bought.

Illustration 6: Western Electric Model 302 ca. 1950.

Even a 1950s era telephone could be disassembled and its parts examined. There was a recognizable speaker and microphone in the handset, and simple circuitry in the body. Today, a modern cellphone contains a color display screen, a camera and an elec­tronic memory for storing addresses, ring tones, and mp3s. It is no longer connected to the phone system by wires, and the consumer can talk, send images, text message and even browse the Internet. Opening up a cellphone would gain the owner nothing, other than a voided warranty.

The point is that all of these “high tech” devices—cars, televisions and telephones—were accessible and understandable by their owners. Most people could describe how an internal combustion engine,a telephone, or television set worked. Perhaps not all of the details, but the general principles involved. Can the same be said today? In an age of high tech miniaturization, tubes are replaced by integrated circuits and flat-screen displays, carburetors by electronic fuel injectors and engine management computers, and everyone owns a multi-function cellphone. We all use these devices, but do we understand how they work? Modern life is filled with increasingly sophisticated devices that are increasingly incomprehensible. Even scientists don't work on their own cars and hardly any engineers try to fix their own television sets. As Arthur C. Clarke^† said, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Illustration 7: Apple iPhone ca 2007. Photo Apple Inc.

If we are befuddled by everyday technology, imagine the confusion surrounding modern science. Five hundred years ago, Earth was still believed to be the unmoving center of the Universe. Two hundred years ago it was accepted that Earth circled the Sun, but the Sun was surely the center of all things. In short order, it was discovered that the Sun was just a star, and not a particularly remarkable one. Just an average star among the hundreds of billions in the Milky Way galaxy, which itself was one of billions of galaxies in the Universe. Also during this time, the Earth's estimated age changed from a few thousand years to a few million, and then to over four and a half billion years. And we now know that mankind has existed on Earth for such a short time that we can scarcely claim residency.

In chemistry, amazing new materials are now invented, not discovered. Advances are being made in organic synthesis, computationally aided molecular design, nanotechnology and space chemistry. In biology, scientists thought they had life figured out when they discovered DNA in the 1950s, and mapped the human genome at the end of the twentieth century. Now, they have discovered that RNA may play a role in biology as important as DNA. Hybrid plants and transgenic animals abound. Physics has moved from the certainty of Newton and Descartes to the warped space-time of Einstein and the quantum uncertainty of Heisenberg and Bohr. Instead of atoms, physicists talk about quarks, gluons, quantum gravity and string theory. Astronomers ponder black holes and quasars, the life and death of stars, and the ultimate fate of the Universe.

Most people struggle with science during their basic schooling and gladly abandon it to others upon graduating. For a while, this approach seemed to work: what did accountants, businessmen and lawyers need to know about science? But science has infiltrated every aspect of human existence. More and more, business means science and technology. As a result, judges and lawyers are faced with increasingly complex cases rooted in technology. Major criminal cases are decided by DNA evidence, and fingerprints seem so old-fashioned. Governments struggle to keep pace with scientific development, wrestling with the rights of frozen embryos, human cloning, genetically engineered crops, network neutrality and email spam. Science and technology cannot be avoided or ignored—our world is built on them.

This technological bewilderment is an indication of fundamental problems in modern education. Even in technologically advanced countries, the knowledge gap is growing, leaving average citizens adrift in a world that is becoming harder and harder to understand. Closing this knowledge gap was one of the main motivations for writing The Resilient Earth. Without knowledge, citizens cannot make intelligent decisions about technological problems; without knowledgeable citizens democracy cannot function. A case in point is the global warming debate.

Climate science is one of the most complicated fields of study in the history of science. Comparing Earth's climate to the workings of a star like the Sun is like comparing the workings of a formula one racer with a forest fire. A forest fire is large, dangerous and impressive but the processes involved are fairly simple and well understood. A race car engine is also based on fire, but it contains many individual parts, all interacting to turn expanding gas into linear motion and then rotational motion. Some of the rotational movement is transferred to the cam shafts, which translate that motion back to linear motion of the valves. The rest is passed through the transmission to the wheels to be translated into movement of the vehicle. A complicated and improbable machine where the relationships among the various parts are not straightforward or obvious.

Similarly, Earth's climate is made up of thousands of mechanisms and processes, all interacting in ways neither obvious nor fully understood. A modern internal combustion engine is highly refined—smooth, efficient and powerful. This is because engineers have been improving such engines for 120 years. Nature has been refining Earth's ecosystem for more than 4,000,000,000 years. It is not surprising that Earth's climate, which is intimately tied to and regulated by life, should be complicated in ways that escape current human understanding.

All disciplines from the natural sciences are involved in climate study, to the point where gaining a detailed overall understanding of climate is impossible. Most scientists lack a clear understanding of our imperfect knowledge of Earth's climate. Yet the public is asked to make decisions about climate policy based on televised shouting matches between pundits and politicians.

Global Warming Confusion

With classic Russian bluntness, Fedor Dostoevsky once said, “A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else.” We're not saying that people are intentionally lying about the global warming issue, but there is a great deal of misinformation and numerous skewed conclusions in circulation around the planet. Call it human-caused global confusion.

In April, 1975, Newsweek reported, “there are ominous signs the earth's weather is changing dramatically and these changes portend a drastic decline in food production with serious political implications for every nation on earth.” The article further reported delayed growing seasons, drought, devastation and warnings about increased severe weather activity, and “the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded.” The catastrophic scenario described was blamed on climate cooling. Scientists suggested melting the Arctic ice caps by covering them with soot—thus blunting the oncoming ice age.

Three decades later, our world faces similar ominous predictions that it will suffer floods, pestilence and starvation. Only now, the planet will experience catastrophic climate warming. Just as the cooling crisis spawned a number of far-fetched technological fixes, IEEE Spectrum reported in May 2007, that “Space Shields” have been proposed to cool the planet: “Steerable micrometers-thick refractive screens could divert a portion of the sun’s energy away from Earth, thus cooling the atmosphere. The screens would orbit between the sun and the Earth.” But salvation comes at a high price. Spectrum states: “Even using futuristic launching technology, the 20 million metric tons of mesh would cost US $4 trillion to deploy.”⁵

Scientists are not the only ones making outlandish suggestions. A pop-music star stated we could help stop the warming if the whole world used just “one sheet of toilet paper per restroom visit.”⁶ Time Magazine, guilty of sensationalist reporting of a cooling climate in the 1970s, published in April, 2007—The Global Warming Survival Guide/51 Things You Can Do to Make a Difference. One web site proposed “going vegetarian” as a way to avert disaster.⁷

The main proponent of the human-caused global warming scenario is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an agency of the United Nations. Established in 1988, the panel has many experts on climatology and ecology. This panel, consisting of thousands of scientists and bureaucrats, was formed to evaluate “the risk of climate change brought on by humans.”

Not surprisingly, the IPCC concluded the entire world is at risk and humans are to blame. This has been stated repeatedly in the IPCC reports over the last decade. The latest report, the fourth in the series, states that the world's scientists are “90% sure” that humans are the cause for the “unprecedented” rise in Earth's temperature.⁸ Scientists dealing with climate change always use percentages because they know they cannot be certain of their predictions. Unfortunately, uncertain numbers from scientists quickly become firm predictions in the media.

The IPCC reports rallied many eco-conscious people and brought global warming to the attention of politicians worldwide. In 1997, the international community came together to draft the Kyoto Protocol⁹ an international treaty, which describes the actions needed to defeat the global warming menace. The treaty signing was announced with great fanfare, but its terms were far from universally accepted.

The United States and Australia refused to be bound by its restrictions. This was for a number of reasons—a reduced GDP and lower standard of living for both countries among them. The United States experienced unprecedented economic growth in the 1990s. Interestingly, the Kyoto emission goals for developed nations are set back to 1990 levels. But the Kyoto treaty gives developing countries, such as China and India, a free pass. This ignores claims by numerous sources that China has passed the US in annual emissions of CO₂.¹⁰ At least one UN source states that India has also surpassed North America in CO₂ emissions and that emissions from the region are growing 5-6 times faster than in the developed countries.¹¹ The “brown clouds” of Asia have become a permanent fixture (Illustration 8), ozone levels in Mexico City exceed air-quality standards 284 days per year, and airborne pollutants from Moscow can be found more than 600 miles away.¹²

Some countries that did sign the Kyoto Protocol are now reneging. Canada, for example, after a change in government, decided to abandon the emissions reduction targets of the Kyoto Treaty.¹³

And Canada is not alone. Austria, Belgium, Japan, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand have failed to meet their Kyoto goals for CO₂ emissions reduction. Acting in concert, the countries of the European Union found loopholes, which gave them a huge advantage relative to other countries.

The reunification of Germany led to the elimination of much dirty, polluting industry in what was formerly East Germany—though this was done for economic, not environmental reasons. Similarly, in the United Kingdom, the discovery of natural gas in the North Sea facilitated the phase-out of the coal industry. Coal, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, had been a major source of fuel in both Britain and Germany. Reduced coal use meant the EU could reapportion emissions allotments no longer needed by Britain and Germany to other big polluters—awarding large net increases in some cases—thereby obtaining flexibility that no individual country had.¹⁴ Even so, overall greenhouse emissions in Europe have increased since 1990.¹⁵

In January, 2007, the European Union nations announced a new agreement to limit their emissions to 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and support for dropping global emissions to 50% below 1990 levels by 2050. The EU communique stated: “The European Union's objective is to limit global average temperature increase to less than 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels.” But, according to a study from Canada's University of Victoria, stopping Earth's rising temperature will require going well beyond the reduction of industrial emissions discussed in international negotiations. “There is a disconnect between the European Union arguing for a 2°C threshold and calling for 50% cuts at 2050 - you can't have it both ways,” says Andrew Weaver, leader of the Canadian study, adding: “If you're going to talk about 2°C you have got to be talking 90% emissions cuts.” According to the study, only the total elimination of industrial emissions will succeed in limiting climate change to a 2°C rise in temperatures.¹⁶

The Kyoto Treaty is due to expire in 2012, having resulted in much hand wringing and shouting, but no noticeable impact on greenhouse gas emissionsor global warming.

In light of the Kyoto Treaty loopholes, the manipulation of emissions allotments by treaty signatories, and failure in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the question arises: was Kyoto an effective way to respond to global warming, or were there hidden agendas? According to independent analysis by scientis the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

“The 1990 level of emissions that is used in the Protocol, as the base from which the reductions would be made, and the reductions targets themselves, are quite arbitrary and not based on a specific target for the future world climate. In addition, the particular allocations of greenhouse gas emissions restrictions among countries do not have a principled logic. This arbitrariness has led to allocations that impose sharply different costs on the participating countries that have no consistent relation to their income or wealth.”¹⁷

Are people, particularly those in the United States and other developed nations, responsible for worldwide climate change, or is this all a geopolitical smokescreen? A rational person might ask a few questions before rushing headlong into crash programs to de-industrialize the world. Questions such as:

• Is global warming a real crisis?

• How do we know mankind is responsible?

• Has Earth had higher temperatures before?

• If it has, what caused the temperatures to cool?

• What can we actually do about a warming Earth?

These questions are reasonable from a scientific point of view, but the global warming debate is hardly about science anymore. Global warming has become a cause célèbre, championed by numerous politicians, activists and celebrities. To veer from the alarmists' view of human-caused global warming—that man's CO₂ emissions are causing global warming with catastrophic effect—is to invoke the wrath of those who blindly believe in the cause. As Louis Brandeis^† wrote, “The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

The Three Pillars of Science

Global warming, therefore, is the central theme of our book, but not the only theme. Global warming is what is called the driving problem in this scientific investigation. By studying the science behind climate change, all manner of useful and interesting information will be revealed. This book will not inundate the reader with pages of equations, though there will be some of the Greek characters so beloved by scientists—they will not appear without plain language explanations. Along with the theories, facts and figures, each chapter also presents some of the history of scientific discovery. But the central character is nature itself.

The natural processes that create and regulate Earth's climate form a gigantic, extraordinarily complex heat engine powered by energy from the Sun. Earth's climate is perhaps the most complicated natural system science has ever tried to understand. The fundamental sciences—chemistry, physics and biology—are all intimately involved, along with a host of more specialized scientific disciplines. To gain an understanding of climate change requires knowledge of geology, archeology, anthropology, oceanography, meteorology, astro­physics, paleontology, glaciology and computer science. Practically every natural science has a role to play.

This is a tremendous amount of science to try and understand, even for trained scientists. But, in order to understand the claims and counterclaims bandied about regarding human-caused global warming, these topics must be explored and their connection to Earth's climate system understood. To provide a logical framework for understanding this most complex subject, we turn to the fundamental tenets of science.

When discussing the essential aspects of science, scholars often mention the three pillars of science. Many different formulations of the three pillars can be found and they have changed over the decades. One well accepted statement defines the three pillars as theory, experimentation, and computation.¹⁸ For climate science these pillars translate to the following:

1. Theoretical understanding of Earth's climate.

2. Methods of collecting climate data both past and present.

3. Use of computer climate models.

In the next several chapters we will use these definitions to examine the theory of human-caused global warming. We will address each pillar in turn, analyzing the strength and weaknesses of the IPCC's case.

The Path Ahead

Our investigation begins with a brief history of global warming and an examination of the claims in the IPCC reports. In the rest of Chapter 2, Global Warming–The Crisis Defined, the IPCC's own confidence levels in their predictions of a warming world, and the impact that warming could have on nature, are examined. We will show that their case rests on the output of global climate models (GCM), complex computer programs that attempt to model Earth's environment and predict the future.

From there we will look to Earth's past for proof that the current warming trend is “unprecedented” in Chapters 3, We are in an Ice Age?, and 4, Unprecedented Climate Change? We will investigate the causes of ice ages, the most dramatic of climate changes, in Chapter 5. The causes of mass extinctions will be examined in Chapter 6, since widespread extinctions are a predicted consequence of global warming.

After placing climate change into historical perspective we will then examine the various scientific theories that offer explanations for climate change. There are a number of different factors involved and no simple, single explanation will suffice. In order to keep the volume of scientific facts and figures from becoming overwhelming, we have structured the chapters for each topic to start with historical background behind the science. The scientists behind the important theories are introduced, along with the circumstances that led to their discoveries and their theories' paths to acceptance.

Since the IPCC models are driven primarily by carbon dioxide, we begin the review of the science behind climate change with carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. In Chapter 7, Changing Atmospheric Gases, we investigate the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, the terrestrial sources of carbon, how the greenhouse effect works, and its impact on climate. Looking beyond the greenhouse effect, the other major scientific causes of climate change are examined in detail, starting with the changing face of our planet and the ever flowing ocean waters in Chapter 8, Moving Continents & Ocean Currents.

Earth's changing path around our local star is a major factor, as is the Sun itself. These influences are discussed in Chapter 9, Variations In Earth's Orbit, and Chapter 10, Varying Solar Radiation. Venturing farther out into the Universe, we present the recent theory of how supernovae and the solar system's path through the Milky Way influence Earth's climate in Chapter 11, Cosmic Rays.

After a discussion of how science and the scientific method of investigation developed in Chapter 12, How Science Works, we will pull all the evidence together and evaluate each of the three pillars of climate science. Chapter 12 ends with a summary of the first pillar, theory. The remaining two pillars, experimentation and computation, are examined in Chapter 13, Experimental Data and Error, and Chapter 14, The Limits of Climate Science, respectively.

We also examine something unscientific—the media, who are often wrong, but never in doubt. Media coverage and the public pronouncements of politicians, special interest groups, and celebrities will be scrutinized in Chapter 15, Prophets of Doom. After reviewing the role of non-scientists in the global warming controversy, the predicted consequences of global warming will be studied in Chapter 16, The Worst That Could Happen.

We finish with an examination of the IPCC's proposed solutions to the global warming threat in Chapter 17, Mitigation Strategies. We will identify the strategies that will work, help a bit, and not help at all. Then we will offer several rational proposals of our own to help defuse the crisis in Chapter 18, A Plan for the Future. We close on a hopeful note in the final chapter, The Fate of Planet Earth.

Our investigation will report if human-caused global warming is myth, or founded in fact. Don't misunderstand, we want people to stop polluting, stop wasteful consumption, recycle garbage, plant more trees, save energy—that's plain common sense. We wish to show that you can question the details of global warming as reported in the media and not be anti-nature or a tool of the oil industry. More importantly, we wish to provide non-scientists with enough background knowledge to enable them to question global warming, because all scientific theories must be questioned—that is how science works.

Anatomically modern humans have been on Earth about 130,000 years.¹⁹ A mere blink of an eye on nature's time scale. Only in recent years have we moved from ignorance and superstition to a rudimentary, scientific understanding of nature. As you read about our resilient Earth, think of humanity's place in the grand scheme of life. Always keep in mind the wise words of Meg Urry, head of the Physics Department at Yale University—nature is what it is.