Uncertain Science...Uncertain World
Meeting Minutes for November 9, 2005; #197
Presented by Henry Pollack, PhD, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan
Author of Uncertain Science...Uncertain World
Announcements
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MASKED FREETHINKERS: On October 29, we had our annual Halloween Party at the Seaver Farm in Allendale, MI. It was very well attended and fun for all ages, with a towering bonfire, hayride and costumed festivity revelers.
DID YOU CHECK UNDER THE COUCH? November 2 was the date for the last Freethought Movie Night at the Pittman's House, featuring the documentary film: The God Who Wasn't There, by filmmaker, Brian Flemming. His film explored what the Bible actually tells us about the life of Jesus and contrasted it to what the general Bible-believing public thinks it says, other popular portrayals, etc. as well as showing comparisons to the many very similar savior gods who came before the Jesus myth was pieced together from extensive extra-biblical borrowings. This was the largest attendance so far for a Movie Night.
WRONGDOING @ WALLYWORLD: The next Movie Night will feature the film: Wal-Mart; The High Cost of Low Price, on November 16 at 7PM. This expose' film on the mega corporation, Wal-Mart, was directed by Robert Greenwald, who was the director/producer of such documentaries as Outfoxed; Rupert Murdock's War on Journalism, Unprecedented; The 2000 Presidential Election (that he was the executive producer on); Uncovered; The Iraq War, that Greenwald directed; and Unconstitutional, dealing with the erosion of American civil liberties following the 9/11 attacks. The Wal-Mart film takes one behind the glitz of the mega-corporation's advertising and public persona and into the real lives of workers and their families, business owners and their communities, in an extraordinary journey that may well change the way you think and feel... and shop. For more information, directions, etc. contact Movie Night host, Jason Pittman at jpittman@backpacker.com or phone 634- 2471. BYOB and a snack to share. December 7 is the next Movie Night, featuring South Park's The Passion of the Jew.
A RE- QUEST FOR SUPPORT: Camp Quest of Michigan needs your help! This Michigan branch of the first ever summer camp for secular humanist youths requires financial assistance to get their advance deposit in on time to reserve their location; which the hosts kindly kept at the same cost that it was last year, but require the full money amount upfront and earlier. Those who enroll their children in C.Q. of MI by November 18 will also enjoy a fee reduction of 50 dollars. Donations may be sent to Camp Quest of Michigan; PO Box 656; Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 48303 but must be received by November 18th.
MINDFUL MEDITATION @ the MOSAIC: The first Freethought Meditation Group gathering was on November 6 at 6PM. This and future ones will be held at the Mosaic Collaborative at 13 17 E. Fulton; GR, MI. FA member Jeremy Beahan coordinates this and can be reached for further information at modern.dharma@gmail.com. Check the website listed above for further details as well. The focus of the Freethought Meditation Group is to approach meditation from a mindfulness and non-religious perspective, consistent with empirical evidence and a naturalistic worldview. At the FMG one can develop a meditative practice around one's needs and beliefs without surrendering one's reason to a guru or teacher. The next upcoming FMG meetings are on Nov. 13, 20 and December 4.
WHY CAN'T JOHNNY THINK? On November 10 at 8PM, Eugenie C. Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), will present: Creationism, Intelligent Design, Evolution; What Should Be Taught? at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, MI. For further information, visit: http://www.hillsdale.edu. The NCSE is the national clearinghouse for good solid scientific education in the life sciences, as opposed to ancient creation myths being promulgated in biology classrooms at the expense of our children's education and competitiveness in the world. Eugenie Scott's Evolution vs. Creationism is now available: http://www.ncseweb.org/evc.
A GROUP NOT ENDORSED BY PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY: The Freethought Women's Group will hold its next meeting on November 19 at 10AM- 736 Lockwood St., NE, GRMI. Highly involved FA member Jennifer Beahan coordinates and hosts this group. Contact her at musiqueforlife@yahoo.com or call 616-706-2029 for more information.
THANKFULLY; A FREETHINKER IN THE CHURCH: November 21, at 7PM, FA member Jeremy Beahan will represent the Freethought community at this year's Community Interfaith Thanksgiving Service at the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 47 Jefferson, SE, GRMI.
MEETLESS WEDNESDAYS: There will be no FA meetings on November 23 or December 28.
O COME ALL YE FAITH-FREE: Please remember to RSVP ASAP for this year's Winter Solstice Dinner and Award Presentation at the Women's City Club (254 E. Fulton Street; GRMI) on December 14, starting at 6:30PM. Chef of the Year award winner, Laurel, will prepare the scrumptious buffet. This year's Freethinker Award to be presented, and musical entertainment will be provided. RSVP with a check for $25/ person to: Freethought Association, PO Box 101, Allendale, MI 49401.
EIGHT IS ENOUGH: Don't forget about Dinners for Eight, beginning January 21, 2006. These are Saturday evenings for adults to get together for drinks, dinner and good conversation. If you are interested or want more information, contact FA Board member, Jan Van Oosterhout via email @ jabivo@aol.com.
Presentation
THE TOPIC for this meeting was Uncertain Science... Uncertain World, presented by Henry Pollack, PhD, Dept. of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan and author of the book by the same title as his presentation (Cambridge University Press). This book was on sale at our meeting. Scientific uncertainty puzzles many people. The confusion arises when scientists have more than one answer, and disagree among themselves. By acquainting readers with the ways that uncertainty arises in science, how scientists accommodate and make use of uncertainty, and how they reach conclusions in the face of uncertainty, Dr. Pollack's book enables them to confidently evaluate uncertainty from their own perspectives, in terms of their experiences. He has published extensively in the field of geophysics.
Paul Crutzen, 1995 Winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry had this to say about Dr. Pollack's book: [It] gives the layman an excellent inside look at how science works and flourishes even though it is immersed in uncertainty. Pollack analyzes the paradox that society is unable or unwilling to address environmental problems of global scale - often under the pretense that there's not enough scientific certainty to take action - while at the same time the insurance industry and other businesses routinely hedge the risks attendant to an uncertain future. It is my hope that this very clearly written book, devoid of both polemics and equations will be widely read by the general public and policy makers. End quote.
FA Board member, Dr. Gregory Forbes, introduced our speaker. Professor Forbes is the Education Director of the Evolution Education Institute; Chair of the MSTA Evolution Education Special Task Force Committee and Professor of Biological Sciences at GRCC. He gave updates on the Dover, PA and Kansas school board trials regarding the teaching of Intelligent Design Theory as a legitimate alternative theory to evolution in public school biology classes in those places. He also highlighted how House Bills have been written to deal with evolution and global warming as the two targeted areas of scientific inquiry in which to teach the controversy, as it is termed.
Cell, germ, heliocentric, atomic, relativity, and plate tectonic theories are not subject to this appraisal as are evolution and global warming by these House Bills Dr. Forbes spoke of. By singling these out, it is attempted to show them in a light intended to cast doubt upon the veracity of the science behind them, to make them appear to be approached less scientifically than other scientific concepts. This is a way to usher in other so- called alternative theories, since, if evolution is deemed a controversial, unproven theory, then other notions; ones that have no standing scientifically, are equally plausible for consumption, such as IDT. Since Michigan education standards already contain the language that requires a critical evaluation and scientific approach to all areas of scientific inquiry, there is no need for a House Bill to mandate such specifically and exclusively for evolution and global warming unless there is an agenda (political/religious) afoot.
Dr. Forbes' announcements provided a fine segue for introducing our presenter, since the geologist has studied global warming extensively and devoted a good deal of his talk to this issue. Additionally, the theme of his book pertains to the innate uncertainty in science and its pronouncements, which too often leads the general public to deem the results from various areas of scientific inquiry as controversial and wanting. As noted above, this makes it easier for those unversed in how science operates, to fall prey to considering other, non-scientific, ideas posited as having equal validity. People are often impatient for absolute answers. Science cannot offer such absolutes and certainly not on a specific schedule.
Dr. Pollack told us that the idea to write the book Uncertain Science, Uncertain World grew out of how dismayed he was by the lack of public understanding of how science works, when he was lecturing at clubs and organizations or even legislative panels regarding climate change issues. How science is regarded affects public policies, so a poor comprehension of how scientists generate and interpret data, create models, test hypotheses, make predictions and formulate theories, may lead to policies based on wrong-headed ideas about the nature of scientific research. Particularly, Pollack was taken aback by how misunderstood the role of uncertainty was in science. Sometimes the uncertainty that lies in genuine science is used maliciously against it by those who have policy agendas that conflict with the predictions from scientific models, paradigms and theories. It is thought that by showing the uncertainty as a weakness, this undermines the exactitude people commonly expect from science and then puts the science itself in question as to its veracity.
Science is not the only area where uncertainty is the normal condition. Non-scientists experience it in war, elections, the insurance industry, and many other areas of life. The insurance industry, he noted, is the largest in the world; some three times larger than even the energy industry. Uncertainty can never be eliminated from life; surprises are the rule, not the exception, no matter how much planning and consideration is involved in a decision. Besides the daily slings and arrows that affect the life of even the most careful and non-risk- taking individual, there are the headline grabbing events such as the Columbia shuttle disaster; the September 11, '01 terror attacks; the California utilities debacle; the vast power outages in the Northeast US and into Canada from power grid failures; the devastation from the last tsunami and the Gulf Coast region's massive flooding from hurricanes Katrina and Rita... uncertainty is something that we must realize is a fact of life, learn to live with, and not become paralyzed by it.
Decisions, Dr. Pollack exhorted us to consider, cannot wait for absolute certainty, which is elusive anyway. Policies must be made even with some intrinsic uncertainty in the outcome but should not be made, especially on critical issues, without having marshaled together all the best available information first. Fortune favors the prepared mind, but one is not guaranteed certain success; one is, however, more likely to meet with failure if nothing is done out of the trepidation arising from unavoidable uncertainty.
We must move on without all the answers but remain nimble enough to make mid-course corrections as better information is garnered. It is tremendously difficult to make long term future predictions, as the future is a moving target; it does not stay static to avail itself of the careful study and evaluation that would allow for all possible contingencies. This is why the present may be used as a suitable guide to start off down the path of understanding, but is not reliable enough to extrapolate to the future with any real precision. Fighting viruses with vaccines was one example Dr. Pollack gave of this concept. Viruses, like everything else, evolve (heaven forfend!) in unpredictable ways, to survive.
Uncertainty is too often seen as a barrier to progress. Dr. Pollack insists that it is actually the antithesis of a barrier; uncertainty breeds creativity, generates new questions and makes science all the more robust. Dogmatic certainty is actually a true roadblock to progress, intellectual thirst, the generation of creative solutions, devising explanatory models, etc. While Dr. Pollack only glancingly touched on this, one might take note of the fact that Intelligent Design, as with all other species of creationism, has been constrained by its underlying allegiance to a divine supernatural creator (which by definition cannot be subject to observation in the material world, be tested, yield explanations, generate plausible mechanisms from, etc.) &/or beliefs based on faith and absolute truths and certainty. Once ultimate just- because explanations are offered for how the world works, which explain nothing but are considered off limits to inquiry or formulations that could mesh with naturalistic processes, the door is then closed to anything fruitful coming from it. An authority source said so; that's the final answer. Case (and mind) closed.
Getting back more directly to Dr. Pollack's presentation, he said that the issue of global climate change is shrouded in uncertainty. There are both real and manufactured reasons for this abundant uncertainty. The real/natural reason, he said, is that humans have trouble with conceptualizing large scale, deep time, global, broad spatial changes. We evolved (there's that word again!) in small tribal groups, dealing with local phenomena in the here and now. The changes in lifestyle, information growth and spread, human migration, industry and technology, etc. between then and now have occurred at a lightning fast pace but our perceptual awareness is still only just beginning to make its initial steps out of that environment of evolutionary adaptedness (a phrase coined by John Bowlby) period in the Pleistocene. So we remain stymied by many of the conceptual ideas contained in scenarios, issues, and models regarding global climate change.
The two areas of controversy that Dr. Forbes discussed and Dr. Pollack referred to as well; global warming and biological evolution, are linked by the fact that both require the deep time thinking that a modern day geologist or evolutionary biologist must make use of, while seeing long term patterns and trends. None of this comes naturally or easily to Homo sapiens, so issues that require this thinking become especially vulnerable to attack from others who do not utilize this sort of thinking well.
It is also difficult for humans to appreciate that they are big players in global occurrences. We see ourselves as puny in the face of nature. This perception is reinforced when we are ravaged by natural disasters or take in the grand sweeping landscapes that dwarf us, etc. Indeed, individually, we are weak and minute in the face of global happenings, but collectively ( 6 billion of us on the planet), and with our extended phenotypes of technology and industry, we exert immense influence on the environment of the Earth.
Another challenge to our understanding of our impact on the planet is the generally abysmal level of science education, a fact not helped by those who tirelessly attempt to subsume modern science with Bronze Age notions. Dr. Pollack talked about how naturally curious young, pre-school children are... Then they go to school and much of this inquisitiveness is blunted. They are told what it is believed they need to know; and instructed for test results more than deep knowledge and true competence in the subjects. They grow up, after having regurgitated the answers that are expected of them, and end up not understanding the underlying aspects; the true nature of the subjects they were tested on, or how science actually works, and this is clearly seen to bear fruit with the lack of understanding of the general public regarding the sciences.
The media does not help in this. Reporters give inadequate presentations, without a sufficient expertise to make good judgments on claims made. The default mode becomes trying for a balance; a laudable approach, except that it is done more as a he said/ she said report with all the information presented as equally plausible and sound. The public is not well served by this sort of reporting. This sense of fairness also infiltrates the evolution/ creationism debate in that many Americans think it is perfectly fine, in the interest of balance, to give equal time to alternative notions to evolution, such as Intelligent Design creationism. These are all examples of real reasons for our blindness to global change and our influence on this. There are also manufactured reasons, and our presenter cited these next.
One of these factors is special interest groups that want to maintain the status quo. Such groups paint scientific research that gives results that they do not like with labels such as unsettled science, unsolved science and even junk science, in the attempt to make people skeptical of the findings of science in a given area. If a particular messenger for environmental science is able to get sufficient attention, this person's credibility is attacked. Dr. Pollack mentioned, as an example of this, Rachel Carson (Pennsylvania born zoologist and biologist and author of the pivotal book, Silent Spring, about humankind's negative impact on the environment) as having been labeled a hysterical woman that should not be paid any attention.
Action lagged far behind the results from scientific studies showing how eco- cycles were affected from pesticide use. Acid rain, coming primarily from the high sulfur content in coal industry pollutants in the air, coming down as a ravaging rain, was disputed by the coal industry as a real concern. However, the reality of acid rain and its origin, once eventually and grudgingly accepted, resulted in emissions being reduced. But not until after a great deal of damage had been done. Earlier corrective measures would have mitigated much of the environmental destruction, but this was hampered by those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo, who had been successful in portraying the scientific claims as unsettled and unsound.
The failure to make changes based on what science is showing is easier in the short run but ends up making course corrections all the more challenging, expensive and tardy when it must ultimately be done. As Dr. Pollack noted earlier in his presentation, this failure also shuts down creativity and support for the ways and means to affect necessary changes. An example of this was how, when scientists warned that the lead content in paint and gas could cause developmental problems, the response was that removing the lead from petroleum would effectively shut down the auto industry, which of course was erroneous. This resistance only delayed the creation of lead- free paints and gas, thus extending the deleterious effects from lead content in these products.
Next, Dr. Pollack talked about the hole in the ozone, especially over the south polar region of the Antarctic from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, due to human activity. When CFCs were developed in the late 20's they seemed great, but then long term destruction was found, starting a debate over the veracity of the findings; a debate that lasted far too long, even as the molecules accumulated in the stratosphere. The mechanism for ozone depletion by CFCs and the potential harm resulting from this was proposed decades before the debate heated up. A Nobel Prize in Chemistry was even earned from this research, but still the CFCs were released unabated as doubt was cast over the findings.
CFCs are a compounds of chlorine, fluorine, and carbon. Ozone is a particular form of oxygen in which three atoms of oxygen are bound together in a single molecule, whereas ordinary oxygen, composing about 20% of the Earth's atmosphere, contains only two oxygen atoms. Ozone is created and destroyed by natural process that maintain a steady equilibrium of concentrations of these molecules. While minute in the atmosphere, ozone plays a major role in filtering out much of the incoming ultraviolet radiation from the Sun, and the UV radiation's resulting deleterious effects. Since CFCs from spray cans and other sources were not soluble in water, rainfall did not wash it away. Once they made their way into the stratosphere where the ozone resides, they began upsetting the aforementioned equilibrium, by creating a process whereby chlorine atoms can attack ozone tens of thousands of times before finally being captured and purged from the stratosphere.
The Montreal Protocol put the brakes on most CFC production, but not until the late '80s. Alternatives were then, finally, sought for the damaging CFCs. This search and the acceptance of the findings was met with much resistance up until then, Dr. Pollack believes, partially as a result from the large conceptual distance between cause and effect. Again, our underestimating of how spray cans wielded by humans, so tiny on the planet surface, could effect the vast skies above and the planetary atmosphere was an alien concept. Once acknowledged, however, it served as a wake up call for how, collectively, humankind can and does alter the environment of the Earth, and to begin to get the concept of global climate change into human consciousness.
Now we are part of another inadvertent experiment in global climate change, from how the global system responds to ever increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Models based in solid science strongly indicate that carbon dioxide will grow to around 500-600 ppm (parts per million) early in the second half of the 21st century. This is about twice pre-industrial levels; greater than has been seen in the geological record for the past half-million years. Carbon dioxide plays a vitally important role in regulating Earth's surface temperature and climate, through its action as a greenhouse gas. The natural Greenhouse Effect serves to make an Earth with rivers, lakes and oceans, instead of a cover of icecaps, glaciers and sea ice. However, the introduction by human activity of current levels of carbon dioxide is resulting in global warming to an extent that is causing large scale problems that, left unchecked, will be disastrous for much of the planet.
According to Dr. Pollack, in his book, there is no longer much scientific debate about whether Earth is warming, or the role that carbon dioxide emissions is playing in this effect. Now, the discussion centers on what the outcome will be of this unintentional experiment; what consequences we should anticipate, and what we should be doing to counteract or accommodate to an altered environment. While we cannot repeat Nature's experiments, or alter the conditions of them, we can observe the results.
In the issue of climate change, where the evidence for it is often termed incomplete science, there is not an even spread of uncertainty over the questions that are asked. There is a strong degree of certainty, for instance, over the fact of global warming, another level regarding the various causes, less still over the results and what should be done about it and, ultimately, much of the uncertainty is manufactured due to political will and agendas in play.
As to the core question: is the Earth warming?, Dr. Pollack can speak quite authoritatively, since he has done a great deal of personal work in the field to gather data on this issue. Earth's warming penetrates the crust, and he essentially inserts geothermal detectors beneath the surface to measure the temperatures of these regions in various widely dispersed places. Information is gathered by his own research and that of others, and measured over time, as well as records made and compared with past ones over the effects of temperature increases measured. His findings overlap neatly with those of other weather stations using different means to gather data.
One fallacy he spoke of in this matter is the claim by those who cannot validly deny the data showing increased warming, who say that this is a result of increased urbanization, which raises the temperatures in those dense cityscapes. However, thermometer instruments are in place all over the globe; Earth is 70% covered in water, where there are no cities, and they show the same degree of increased global temperatures. Additionally, instruments placed in rural, western regions provide data consistent with the others. There are subsurface measurements taken beneath the oceans, too, collectively showing the warming phenomenon is not only real but... well... global.
Again, as with evolution, non-scientists can point to how slowly it occurs, or that only the scientific elite can find support for their conclusions, which casts doubts upon the issue's veracity, among these laypersons. They cannot see for themselves that it is real. However, also with regard to both issues (evolution and global climate change), there actually is a great deal that can be directly observed without special equipment in short spans of time to show these phenomena in action. The Grants and their assistants on the Galapagos Islands have recorded evolutionary adaptation in the beaks, most notably, of finches there within the span of a season. This is but one example of one easily observable change of physical structure in a short time frame. With global warming, we are now seeing glaciers recede at an alarming rate, The famed snows of Kilimanjaro are being erased at such a startling speed that it is estimated that within one or two decades 19,000 feet will be gone! Ice shelves the size of Delaware and Rhode Island are breaking off. Sea ice around Antarctica has melted by some 15-20 percent in the last fifty years and the landmass has thinned by half in addition to the shrinkage in that time. The Arctic Ocean, at this rate, may be ice free by mid- century.
While I did not find the actual term in his oral presentation or his book, he also referred to the albedo effect, which is where light is reflected back from a non-light producing body and is measured as a fraction of incident light that is reflected in all directions. Darker areas reflect back less light than lighter ones, and as surface areas change in their degree of incident light reflected back, by such reasons as deforestation, ice regions decreasing and so on, this accelerates global warming by more absorption of heat due to shrinking light areas.
Migration patterns, spawning periods, when young are produced, growing patterns, food source changes, and many , many other factors are all altered by the environmental changes brought on by global warming, which affects the entire web of life in one way or another. Here in Michigan, there are very noticeable changes in winter water evaporation that creates lower water levels. He gave these and many other examples of readily observed effects that are positively linked to global climate change; much of which is directly connected to human activity and choices made. He also talked about natural effects, including how solar radiation fluctuates, how the Earth is a dynamic system always in flux, how volcanic activity in one place can produce effects felt in far flung regions of the globe, from reduced sunshine reaching the Earth due to volcanic ash scattered by the winds, that partially block it. 1816, Dr. Pollack mentioned, was a miserable time around the world and was even called the year with no summer, with massive crop failures, etc. which came as a direct result of volcanic eruptions and the cooling that came in the wake of this. Long term trends differ from shorter term ones and while the long view shows cycles and trends occurring long before human- made factors, called anthropogenic, contributed to them, anthropogenic factors add to and accelerate naturally occurring ones and exacerbate what would occur via natural phenomena.
In an article in The Progressive magazine; From Baffin Island to New Orleans, by Bruce E. Johansen, that I read during the time I was writing this summary, the connection was made between effects from global climate change seen in areas as far apart as Baffin Island's Arctic Bay and the US Gulf Coast region. In the former, yellow jacket wasps were sighted at this 73 degree North latitude location, in '04. In the summer of '03, in Kaktovik, Alaska- a village on the Arctic Ocean, a robin nest was built. In both cases there was no word in the native languages (Inuit and Inupiat, respectively) for these beings (wasps and robins). Polar bears were found drowned in '04, 200 miles north of Barrow, on Alaska's northern coast. The swim to shore had expanded to 400 miles, four times what a polar bear is capable of swimming; this reduction of ice occurred at a rate too fast for the bears to adapt their lifestyles to, and they died as a consequence of the massive melting. The hurricane triplets of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, closer to home, are seen as harbingers of an ominous future.
The Arctic is seen by many as an early warning system — a barometer — for the planet. Scientists are now talking seriously about an ice-free Arctic coming one summer; how soon is up to debate, though. Already they are experiencing rains at Christmastime, which is unprecedented in that region. Veteran hunters there are having trouble navigating, as they try to dodge areas where the ice has thinned too much (that had historically been safe passages) to travel safely. The elders can no longer instruct the young as to how to negotiate the sea ice.
Hurricanes are heat engines which live and die according to water temperatures. The aforementioned triplet of hurricanes striking the Gulf Coast, which were three of the six most intense hurricanes in US history (a sobering thought itself) was a result, in part, of the waters being 2 to 4 degrees higher in temperature than recent averages. Coastline marshes that had afforded some protection have been receding for decades; oil companies have contributed to this by ravaging the coastline and weakening the land from oil extraction. Those who deny global climate change resulting from anthropogenic factors, can cite Hurricane Camille's winds as having been stronger, decades ago, but the effects were not as ravaging because water levels hadn't risen to their current point, from ice melting, which allows storm surges to reach more places than they had been able to before.
The article also makes the claim that many scientific studies have forecast that the sea level may rise between 8 and 20 inches during the twenty first century, which would make life on the East and Gulf coasts of the US precarious. It also talked about environmental refugees. We are used to thinking of refugees as those fleeing war torn lands, or political turmoil, etc. But as the environment for people in more and more places becomes devastated, it will set into motion human migration to less hard hit places, creating an influx that will not be easily accommodated.
The tipping point, where irreversible damage to the environment — due to the inertia of the Earth that Dr. Pollack spoke of and Sir John Houghton, one of the world's leading experts on global climate change, predicts as arriving soon, would come as a result of a global meltdown. Climate changes have even transcended, in speed of occurrence, what experts who study the phenomenon had predicted only a few years ago. It would seem that the uncertainty innate in science should, in the case of global warming and climate change, prompt us to err on the side of taking it very seriously and taking strong measures to do what we can to mitigate the worst of potential results. Some things that are startling even the experts are how soon they are witnessing the acceleration of migrations of species, the thawing of the Siberian and Canadian tundra, and the drying of the Amazon rainforest~that they did not expect to see until near the end of the 21st century. As to the unprecedented thawing of the Siberian permafrost, climate researchers believe that this could dramatically increase the rate of global warming by injecting additional carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. An area of permafrost the size of France and Germany combined has already started to melt and expanses of frozen peat have recently turned into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some of which are more than a kilometer across.
A point to consider is not just the direct effect from industrial pollution, for instance, but secondary effects, such as the darkening water (when there is a reduction in ice) which absorbs more heat, thawing permafrost, which then adds greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, along with increasing numbers of wildfires- especially those which burn underground stores of peat. Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the oceans render them more acidic, which cause calcium carbonate shells of marine animals to dissolve.
Solid methane in the oceans may become gaseous from rising temperatures, and in this clathrate state, be released in a mighty methane burp, which would create major reactions in the atmosphere that would feed on themselves, dramatically accelerating the atmospheric warming.
Dr. Pollack spoke of detailed measurements of methane levels that show them going up every year, to a point that is now 30% higher than in pre- industrial times. This enhances the Greenhouse effect. The naturally occurring effect of trapped heat from the Sun's radiation, as mentioned, is a positive thing for most life on Earth, but spells disaster once it increases beyond the point where natural balancing phenomena can restore equilibrium. The naturally occurring volcanic activity in the last half of the 20th century should actually have decreased global temperatures (by blocking some of the solar radiation) but human factors have overcome this and are playing, Dr. Pollack said, an increasing role in global climate change.
He called what we are witnessing an equal opportunity oppressor, since ultimately the rich and poor will both be affected as water levels rise where lavish coastal homes are developed, and where those too poor to relocate are devastated. Projections show that, with this water level rise that is to occur in this century, one- third of southern Florida would be gone, the everglades would vanish and New Orleans inundated. Globally, coastlines would change to have no gentle slopes and island homes would be erased. The refugees mentioned above would be in numbers, in the words of Pollack, like never seen before in all the wars throughout history. To visualize the devastation one might think of what recently occurred in our Gulf Coast and multiply this to a global magnitude.
Some people, among those who accept it is real, look at global warming in a positive light. They see the phenomenon bringing about a veritable Garden of Eden, with increased growth rates of vegetation, etc. What they do not countenance is the increased weed growth and massive relocation of different plant and animal species to survive in the changing planetary climate. Even the very human concern of tourism would be dramatically impacted from changing coastal beaches, diminished fall colors, lower lake levels and so on. Carbon dioxide is good for plants but also necessary for them is a proper balance of nitrogen and water, so even the rosy Garden of Eden- writ- large concepts are lacking when looked at realistically.
In his book, Dr. Pollack expanded on the importance of the Gulf Stream that he touched on in his presentation. He writes of how water warmed in tropical latitudes is carried by it to the far northern reaches of the Atlantic Ocean, thereby warming Iceland and the adjacent European countries. The Gulf Stream is best thought of as a conveyor belt with a loop that moves northward along the top and returns southward along the bottom. If the belt is halted at any point, the entire system is interrupted. It is this northward movement of warmer currents that keeps Western Europe fully habitable for large populations, even at their high latitudes. The engine that drives this conveyor belt has, as an essential component, the formation of cold and dense bottom water that runs southward from the far north. The two factors that influence this formation, Pollack writes, are its salinity and its temperature. He goes on to explain that warm water is less dense and therefore more buoyant than cold water, will travel the surface of a current, and absorb more of the Sun's heat. Conversely, colder water is more dense, and travels along the bottom. As to salinity; the more salty water becomes, the denser it grows — whereas decreased salinity increases water buoyancy. The action of rising and falling waters that move along on currents through the oceans that are put in place by salinity and temperature, is referred to as thermohaline circulation.
As the surface water becomes less dense, from warming, it loses its ability to sink, exposing a greater surface area (from less ice cover) to warming from the Sun. In this potential scenario, the water would become less salty as the permafrost of the high Arctic melted, which then would send increased volumes of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean through the great north flowing rivers. As the sea ice diminished, fewer brine plumes would form, reducing the water's density further, which would not allow it to sink or to replenish the bottom waters. As this engine shuts down, the belt begins to slow and would finally stop altogether, thus halting the transport of heat northward by the Gulf Stream. This makes for an ironic situation, as Dr. Pollack laid it out, in that this warming of the Arctic would lead to a severe chill unleashed upon Western Europe.
As the article drawn from in this summary had done, Dr. Pollack spoke of signs that are apparent showing that this process is already underway. The summer of 2000 witnessed large expanses of open water at the North Pole and an unimpeded transit of the Northwest Passage by a Canadian icebreaker, without encountering ice. In the following summer, a trawler made a record breaking run from Greenland to Alaska in 17 days without an ice- hardened hull. Furthermore, Pollack reported that submarine measurements of the Arctic Ocean ice pack show a thinning of some 40% over the last half of the 20th century. Satellite imagery corroborates this diminution of area covered by sea ice during the same period. The impact to the pattern of ocean circulation cannot be predicted with any real certainty, Dr. Pollack allowed, however already the ocean bottom measurements at a location between Iceland and Europe have shown that in 2001 the current was slower by half than it was just four decades earlier.
The bulk of the uncertainty that exists (on these issues) is in the social sciences, not climate sciences, Dr. Pollack declared, noting uncertain population growth as the world may swell to 9, 10, 11, or 12 billion people; all of whom will want to be warm in the winter, cool in the summer, use energy, produce waste, consume food, etc. As to energy, decisions as to what sorts will be harnessed, are political and economic ones that occur on extremely fast timeframes, relative to geophysical processes. While nations exist independently and humans propose strict boundaries, global climate changes know none of these human-made delineations. Human ingenuity is often mentioned as a path of salvation out of the coming perils but it is dependent on many things, such as how much attention is focused on the problems, conviction that there IS a problem and how dire it may be, how well innovations that are developed may be distributed, geopolitical issues, how much or little emphasis is placed on renewable energy sources, various agendas and the power of the influences behind them, and demographics all play a part. We can ill afford to be stymied by agendas put in place to cast doubt on the reality of global climate change or that thwart efforts to mitigate these changes, all for maintaining the status quo.
There is a great need to increase the awareness among the larger population of how science works, how the uncertainty that is intrinsic to it is a positive thing that drives creativity and research and how global environmental systems work and what influences them. While some perspectives, including religious ones that look to End Times (so environmental devastation is not a big concern since believers in this feel they will be Raptured anyway) are counterproductive to effective necessary changes, there is also the religious view of stewardship — tending God's creation and gift to us, His children. Dr. Pollack welcomes all perspectives that help to motivate people to make changes to offset negative global environmental outcomes. Monotheistic religions seem to have a strong basis on disconnection, however. Beings are separately created, even the sexes are differently formed, other groups are deemed to be less worthy and in the religious tales may be slaughtered without qualm, we are not part of the ecosystem of the rest of Earth's biota through an unbroken chain of natural descent from common ancestors, etc., etc. For those who espouse such views today, it is difficult to engender ideas that show how efforts they make can impact on the entirety of life. It is harder to get them to see the larger web of life and innate interconnectedness of every system and organism.
An ironic comment that our presenter made regarded how the US position of resisting participation in the Kyoto protocol was inspired, in part, because such participation was thought to eventually lead us to 2 dollar a gallon gasoline prices at the pump!
As to how human activity adds perturbations to the natural systems, Pollack has countered those who suggested, correctly, that there were forest fires before humans (for instance), suggesting that we make little difference to the equation, by asking if all forest fires now are also naturally occurring or do humans add to their worldwide occurrence. This can be asked of all environmental factors (CO2 in the atmosphere, temperature changes, and so on and on). We can also examine what is different about the present and how fast changes are occurring when compared to earlier times, and to what extend human factors are even reversing the expected natural trends.
Water level rise is not just from melting ice but also from increased evaporation and expansion of the seas, in fact these factors contribute two-thirds of the effect, Pollack claimed. But regarding meltwater, he spoke of how temperature changes create more fissures in the ice, channeling water to the seas in more abundance, as seen in Greenland especially. This creates a lubricating effect that causes chunks to slide into the sea. As larger pieces become vulnerable to breaking off and sliding into the sea, it conjures up the image Dr. Pollack wrote of in his book of ice cubes dropped into a glass of water. The level increase from sufficiently large masses falling into the waters would be dramatic and sudden.
Dr. Pollack, in addressing what could be done, spoke of what is often mentioned, but also about how the US, which uses twice as much energy as Europe and Japan, could make better use of what we already have. More efficient use of energy is a relatively simple and painless way to make a significant difference, while decreasing our dependence on foreign oil and having other positive economic, social and political benefits.
As others have noted, the plan to drill in the Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge (home to some of the most diverse and spectacular wildlife in the Arctic) would provide only 6 months of energy needs to us; and even that only if all that was ultimately available was accessible right away.
Dr. Pollack also discussed many other pros and cons of various energy sources and both real and manufactured concerns over employing each, taking into account the wide ranging perspectives on them (efficiency, limits, dangers, etc.). Henry N. Pollack ends his book, Uncertain Science... Uncertain World with an observation that the two symbols used by the Chinese to create the word crisis, are composed of characters meaning danger and opportunity. He writes: The changes being wrought by humans on Earth's climate can be thought of as a crisis, both in the English language sense of a predicament, and in the Chinese sense of risk and opportunity. End Quote. The perils (one of the symbols in the Chinese word for crisis) present opportunities (the second half of this word) to take bold, creative steps that will result in savings and increased efficiency as well as helping to stave off an environmental... crisis (the word that is derived from the other two concepts).
Secretary: Charles LaRue.
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