Dale Jamieson > Quotes

“The challenge we face is not (only) to reduce or stabilize concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, but to live in productive relationship with the dynamic systems that govern a changing planet. This is a new challenge because humanity is young and now constitutes an important planetary force in a way that is unprecedented. Anthropogenic climate change is the harbinger of a new world in which humans have become a dominant force on Earth’s natural systems.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Climate change is occurring and is effectively irreversible on timescales that are meaningful to us. Our failure to prevent or even to respond significantly reflects the impoverishment of our systems of practical reason, the paralysis of our politics, and the limits of our cognitive and affective capacities.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“As the late climate scientist Jerry Mahlman used to say, “There is no need to exaggerate the problem of climate change; it is bad enough as it is.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Imagine that after reaching an atmospheric concentration of 450 ppm sometime in the next decade, we immediately stop all carbon dioxide emissions. By the year 3000, neither atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide nor global mean surface temperature would have returned to their pre-industrial baselines, and sea levels would still be rising.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Climate change poses threats that are probabilistic, multiple, indirect, often invisible, and unbounded in space and time. Fully grasping these threats requires scientific understanding and technical skills that are often in short supply. Moreover, climate change can be seen as presenting us with the largest collective action problem that humanity has ever faced, one that has both intra- and inter-generational dimensions. Evolution did not design us to deal with such problems, and we have not designed political institutions that are conducive to solving them.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Eighty percent of global carbon emissions come from only 10 countries. Their leaders, along with the executives of the world’s most powerful corporations, have disproportionate influence on the decisions that affect emissions”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, an achievement that much of the Republican Party has been trying to undo over the past several decades. Richard Nixon signed into law four landmark federal bills: the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Environmental Pesticide Control Act, and the Endangered Species Act. He established the Environmental Protection Agency, and made many strong environmental appointments in his administration. As we saw in Section 2.2, it was when the Reagan administration came to power in 1980 that environmental concern began to become a partisan issue.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“A 1956 New York Times article quoted Plass as “warning” that “the amount of carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere will be so large that it will have a profound effect on our climate.”33 The next year Revelle testified before congress that the rise of CO2 might turn Southern California and Texas into “real deserts,” and that the Soviet Union might become a maritime power in the twenty-first century as a result of the melting of Arctic ice.34 Climate change had arrived in Washington.35”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“The fires that medieval peasants huddled around in order to keep warm affect our climate today. Our CO2 emissions, caused by such apparently innocent actions as driving to the farmer’s market or the recycling center, will affect the lives of people in the next millennium.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Indeed, there is some evidence that abrupt change may already be underway. In recent years we have witnessed the greatest contraction of Arctic sea ice since modern measurements began, and perhaps much longer if anecdotal and anthropological reports are to be believed.42 The summer of 2012 saw an all-time low in Arctic sea ice cover.43 Already in the summer of 2000 a Canadian ship succeeded in transiting the legendary, once impassable Northwest Passage, the elusive goal of mariners since the sixteenth century.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“nearly 80% of the energy consumed in the United States comes from fossil fuels, compared to only 60% of the energy consumed in France. It is thus not surprising that France’s per capita GHG emissions are lower than those of the United States (though it may still surprise that France’s per capita emissions are less than half those of the United States). France’s different energy mix and lower emissions are not simply a matter of luck or circumstance, though they may be experienced that way by some people. Policy choices regarding energy and transport go a long way toward explaining the differences between the United States and France.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“We also face psychological obstacles in responding to climate change. Evolution built us to respond to rapid movements of middle-sized objects, not to the slow buildup of insensible gases in the atmosphere. Most of us respond dramatically to what we sense, not to what we think. As a result, even those of us who are concerned about climate change find it difficult to feel its urgency and to act decisively.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“In a memo dated September 17, 1969, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then Counselor to President Nixon for Urban Affairs, later Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) and US Senator from New York, explained the science of change to Nixon’s Chief Domestic Advisor, John Ehrlichman, and warned that sea levels could rise “by 10 feet. Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington. . .” Moynihan then went on to say that “it is possible to conceive fairly mammoth man-made efforts to countervail the CO2 rise (e.g., stop burning fossil fuels),” but that “in any event. . ., this is a subject that the Administration ought to get involved with.”48 The first report of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), published in 1970, devoted an entire chapter to climate change, including a section entitled “Energy output—A disappearing icecap?”49”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“The use of coal should be discouraged, limited, and phased out as soon as possible.109 Coal production and consumption causes enormous damages. Coal contains mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, manganese, beryllium, chromium, and other toxic and carcinogenic substances. Coal crushing, processing, and washing releases tons of particulate matter and chemicals that contaminate water, harm public health, and damage ecological systems. Burning coal results in emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulates and mercury, all of which affect air quality and damage public health.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“about 7% of the global population is responsible for about 50% of emissions, while 50% of the global population is responsible for about 7% of emissions.91 It is the descendants of the latter group, poor people who emit little, who will suffer most of the damages of climate change.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“For the first time in human history we are now able to remove large amounts of carbon that are sequestered deep inside the earth and transfer it to the atmosphere, thus affecting global climate. This is part of what Revelle and Suess meant when they wrote in their landmark 1957 paper that “[h]uman beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future.”65”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Tyndall measured the absorption of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide and water vapor, and showed that slight changes in atmospheric composition would significantly raise the earth’s surface temperature. He also suggested that methane could affect earth’s temperature, but methane is so rare that it was not discovered in the atmosphere until 1948.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Over the past 10,000 years, when almost everything we value about humanity and its creations came into existence, the Earth has been remarkably stable on a broad range of indicators. Until the last 250 years, when concentrations began to grow as a result of the industrial revolution, concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide have varied between 240 and 280 ppm. We have reached nearly 400 ppm as a result of human action,”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“Some of the world’s largest corporations and richest people have organized and supported front groups whose role is to slag climate science and resist regulation, just as they did in response to the science that laid the foundation for regulating lead, asbestos, smoking, and other toxic substances and behaviors. They pursue this strategy because it works. Delayed regulation translates into greater profits, and no one goes to jail for lying to the American public about the risks of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, smoking, or toxic chemicals.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“there is no question that there is an enormous range of technologies that are on the shelf. The problem is the gap between technological development, and diffusion and adoption. It is sobering to be reminded that the first hybrid was invented in 1901.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“in the run-up to the 2002 elections, Republican pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz identified the issues for his clients in a memo that was leaked to the press. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. . . . The scientific debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. . . . You need to be even more active in recruiting”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“In 1997 a distinguished group of scientists published an influential article in which they assessed the human impact on the Earth.2 They calculated that between one-third and one-half of Earth’s land surface had been transformed by human action; that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had increased by more than 30% since the beginning of the industrial revolution; that more nitrogen had been fixed by humanity than all other terrestrial organisms combined; that more than half of all accessible surface freshwater was being appropriated by humanity; and that about one-quarter of Earth’s bird species had been driven to extinction.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“In 2003 a memo from political consultant Frank Luntz outlining a Republican strategy for dealing with climate change was leaked to the press. According to Luntz, The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. . . . Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.160”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“as early as the 1960s. V. E. Suomi, the father of satellite meteorology, made the point very clearly in his preface to the 1979 Charney report, when he wrote that “A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”66 Since these words were written, the evidence for anthropogenic climate change has continued to mount. We now know that while we have been debating the uncertainties and fretting about precipitous action, our ever-increasing emissions have committed future generations to living with climate change for at least the next millennium.67”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“In 1955 John Von Neumann predicted: Intervention in atmospheric and climatic matters. . . . will unfold on a scale difficult to imagine at present. . . [T]his will merge each nation’s affairs with those of every other, more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war would have done.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“We are constantly told that we stand at a unique moment in human history and that this is the last chance to make a difference, but every point in human history is unique, and it is always the last chance to make some particular difference.”
― Dale Jamieson

“the President’s Science Advisory Committee, Panel on Environmental Pollution, published a report entitled “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment.”44 This report included a section on “climatic effects of pollution” that is notable for treating CO2 as a pollutant. It also includes an appendix on “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” written by a committee chaired by Roger Revelle that also included Wallace Broecker, Joseph Smagorinsky, Harmon Craig, and Charles Keeling. This appendix discusses consequences of increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide such as the melting of the Antarctic ice cap, sea level rise, ocean warming, increasing acidity of fresh waters, and increased photosynthesis. The appendix notes that “[t]he climatic changes that may be produced by the increased CO2 content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“By the 1960s scientists had expressed concerns about the possibility of an anthropogenic climate change to presidents of both parties. At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 the industrialized countries seemed to agree that by 2000 they would stabilize their GHG emissions at 1990 levels. Yet global emissions are still increasing, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is now almost 10% greater than it was in 1992, we have already experienced a warming of .8°C,”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“the late 1940s and early 1950s the perception of a warming became more widespread both in the scientific community and in the popular mind. Articles speculating about a warming appeared in such magazines as The Saturday Evening Post, Time Magazine, and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.22 Research on infrared spectroscopy was advancing as a result of cold war research on heat-seeking missiles and other advanced weaponry. As more of the structure of Tyndall’s blanket was revealed, it became clear that the absorption spectrum of CO2 and water vapor do not entirely overlap, and that water vapor occurs mostly in the lower layers of the troposphere while CO2 is more evenly distributed even high into the stratosphere. Thus, radiant heat that is not absorbed by water vapor in the lower troposphere can still be absorbed by the CO2 above it.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future

“One reason that the United States has not taken significant action on climate change is the success of the denial industry. Influential opinion leaders, backed by large sums of money, have successfully worked to cast doubt on mainstream climate science.”
― Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed -- and What It Means for Our Future