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According to Oreskes (2004), what is the scientific consensus on climate change
Please answer the following questions using the assigned readings for Weeks 7, 8, and 9 listed in the course syllabus. Be sure to cite course reading. The minimum word count for the response is 1500 words and must not exceed 2000 words (approximately 6-8 pages – excluding cover page and references section). Provide a cover page with your name, course information, and a title, and include a references section on a separate page. The document must be double spaced with 12 point font, one inch margins, and use proper grammar/spelling. Also, please label each question being answered (e.g., Q-1A). Please do not copy questions. Copied questions will not count towards the word count, but will count towards exceeding the maximum length.
Please include at least three sources from the assigned readings among your references and make sure you incorporate these into your answers through the use of citations and concrete examples. Also, please include at least two additional sources of information from outside the course, and make sure that a least one of these is a peer reviewed journal article.
You are encouraged to use additional sources of information among your references and incorporate these into your answers. These can be from the assigned course materials or from outside sources.
Q- 1A. According to Oreskes (2004), what is the scientific consensus on climate change? Do you agree with the method employed by the author to come to the conclusion? Elaborate on the role of mass media in climate science debate.
Attachment below
Q- 1B. Based on Week 7 readings, how can social and technological innovation combat climate change? Make sure you highlight and elaborate on political will (especially in the US), and short-term economic costs to these changes.
Can be use outside sources
Q- 2A. “Under conditions found in much of the developing world, vulnerability to extreme events is actually growing because reasonably successful traditional adjustments are no longer implemented and societal-organized adjustments are not yet available” (Kates, 2000). How do developing countries compare to developed nations in regards to their ability to adapt to climate extremes (e.g., socially, economically, politically, goegraphically)?
Kates, R. W. (2000). Climatic Change 45: 5- 17. “Cautionary Tales: Adaptation and the Global Poor.”
Q- 2B. When it comes to climate change, should we worry about energy security, or human life? If the vulnerable groups became the forefront of the debate, do you think it would increase the urgency to act?
Please read all questions carefully and answer all of them completely. Be sure to provide an adequate explanation and supporting arguments for all of your answers. Don’t forget to back up your arguments with concrete examples from the assigned readings or other sources you may have consulted, and please remember to provide adequate citations for any references used. Your answers must demonstrate that you have read and understood the assigned readings.
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P olicy-makers and the media, particular- ly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain.
Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce green- house gas emissions. For example, while dis- cussing a major U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then–EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, “As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclu- sions on climate change” (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such state- ments suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
The scientific consensus is clearly ex- pressed in the reports of the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC’s purpose is to evaluate the state of climate sci- ence as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocal- ly that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth’s climate is being affected by hu- man activities: “Human activities … are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents … that absorb or scatter radiant energy. … [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas con- centrations” [p. 21 in (4)].
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members’ expertise bears directly on the matter have issued sim- ilar statements. For example, the National
Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a re- sult of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temper- atures to rise” [p. 1 in (5)]. The report ex- plicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: “The IPCC’s
conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the in- crease in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately
reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue” [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteoro- logical Society (6), the American Geo- physical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and state- ments involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies’ mem- bers. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hy- pothesis was tested by analyzing 928 ab- stracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and list- ed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six cat- egories: explicit endorsement of the consen- sus position, evaluation of impacts, mitiga- tion proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus po- sition. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or im- plicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic cli- mate change. Remarkably, none of the pa- pers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleocli- matic change might believe that current
climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.
This analysis shows that scientists publish- ing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional so- cieties. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confu- sion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we under- stood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are am- ple grounds for continued research to pro- vide a better basis for understanding cli- mate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
References and Notes 1. A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June
2003, A1. 2. S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies,
Climate Policy 2 (1), 3 (2003). 3. See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm. 4. J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001:
Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).
5. National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001).
6. American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).
7. American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003). 8. See www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html. 9. The first year for which the database consistently
published abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although the au- thors had put “climate change” in their key words, the paper was not about climate change.
10. This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture, “Consensus in science: How do we know we’re not wrong,” presented at the AAAS meet- ing on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming, M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.
10.1126/science.1103618
B E YO N D T H E I V O RY T O W E R
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes
ESSAY
The author is in the Department of History and Science Studies Program, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. E-mail: noreskes@ucsd.edu
Without substantial disagreement, scientists find human activities are heating the Earth’s surface.
This year’s essay series highlights the benefits that scientists, science, and technology have brought to society throughout history.
3 DECEMBER 2004 VOL 306 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org Published by AAAS
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1www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE Erratum post date 21 JANUARY 2005
Post date 21 January 2005
ERRATUM C O R R E C T I O N S A N D C L A R I F I C A T I O N S
EEssssaayyss:: “The scientific consensus on climate change” by N. Oreskes (3 Dec. 2004, p. 1686). The final sentence of the fifth paragraph should read “That hy- pothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientif- ic journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords ‘global climate change’ (9).” The keywords used were “global climate change,” not “climate change.”
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The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change Naomi Oreskes
DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618 (5702), 1686.306Science
ARTICLE TOOLS http://science.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686
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