The Faustian Bargain

The Faustian Bargain
WebDiary 13 Jan 09 Dr Andrew Glikson is an earth and paleo-climate research scientist at the Australian National University. This is his second article for Webdiary (the first was Dangerous climate change: Lessons from the recent history of the atmosphere). References for this article can be found here.THE FAUSTIAN BARGAINHow a carbon-emitting atom-splitting species threatens to turn a planet into a radioactive3 to 6 degrees c high sea level world The sensitivity of the Earth’s atmosphere to anthropogenic carbon gases has been underestimated. As the orgy of burning carbon products of 400 million of biological evolution continues unabated, pushed by business, advertisers and consumption-promoting governments, global warming proceeds at a pace faster than projected by the IPCC (Houghton et al., 2001; Rahmstorf, 2007), tracking toward likely climate tipping points. The science fiction-like specter of global warming precludes many from discriminating between the climate and the weather. A well financed denial syndrome frustrates 11th hour attempts at mitigation. Governments, caught between the climate and fossil fuel interests, debate woefully inadequate carbon emission targets (Garnaut, 2008) unlikely to stabilize the rise of temperature, migration of climate zones, sea level and storm intensities (Anderson and Bowes, 2008). Politicians don’t get it, failing to understand they cannot argue with the atmosphere and the oceans. Only a global strategy aimed at immediate deep cuts of carbon gas emissions, innovation of technology for CO2-sequestration and down-draw to levels below 350 ppm (Hansen et al., 2008), albedo enhancement over polar regions and fast tracked reforestation campaigns may be capable of mitigating the worst consequences of runaway global warming. As times goes on, in an increasingly stressed world, the possibility of a nuclear conflagration of hair-trigger missile fleets, by accident or design, becomes a probability. Hapeless populations are faced with a non-choice between a greenhouse summer and/or a nuclear winter. Will the powers to be, always willing to use $trillions to bomb peasants in remote corners of the globe (in the name of freedom and democracy), or rescue corrupt bankers, be willing to take all the measures needed to protect the young, future generations and nature?…………….
………The denial syndrome

For the last 20 years or so, through numerous public presentations, articles published in economic and social journals (but rarely in the peer-reviewed scientific literature), extensive media exposure and intense political lobbying, so-called climate change “skeptics”, many of whom affiliated with right-wing groups and fossil fuel corporations, have attempted, continue to deny the reality of climate change, or interpret global warming in terms of natural processes, or claim it is beneficial.

Climate “skeptics”, more suitably referred to as denialists, attempt to advance their cause in two principal ways: (1) present outdated or imaginary technical arguments; (2) claim conspiracy on the part of climate science research organizations and climate scientists, to whom the often refer in derogatory ad-hominem terms.

Using terms such as “alarmism”, denialists do not appear to recognize the professional and ethical responsibility of scientists to alert society to dangers, whether of natural or anthropogenic origin, such as looming epidemics, ultraviolet and cosmic radiation, smoking-related cancer, ozone depletion or the climate impasse.

The Faustian Bargain | Webdiary – Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston