The Politics of Denial: From Reagan to Bush II
In 1981, a congressional representative from Tennessee, Albert Gore, Jr., helped organize a series of hearings in Congress to focus on climate change. Gore had been a student of Roger Revelle’s and had been deeply impressed with the Keeling curve Revelle had explained to his students. When President Reagan proposed drastic cuts in climate research funding, Representative Gore and others held hearings to highlight global warming and to pressure the administration to restore funding. The hearings garnered enough press coverage to achieve their goal, and some funding was restored. Gore and others in Congress continued to hold hearings on and off throughout the 1980s to keep global warming in the public eye.
Prior to the 1980s, most scientists frowned on involvement in politics and avoided explaining their research to the press, which they felt almost always misunderstood and misrepresented it. But the confluence of several key developments persuaded scientists to go public: the growing realization that global warming was a serious threat requiring urgent government action; the congressional hearings that provided a venue for informing the public directly; and the scorn with which the Reagan administration viewed science, and especially any science that touched upon the environment.
In 1980, the NAS had ordered a comprehensive study of CO2’s effects on the climate. The National Assessment, published in 1983, mentioned scientists’ “deep concern” about global warming. However, chief NASA climate scientist James Hansen testified before Congress that, overall, the report’s conclusions were “aimed at damping concern” about climate change; the report even advised that nothing be done to limit CO2 emissions. Three days later, the EPA released its own assessment of CO2 and the enhanced greenhouse effect. The EPA’s conclusions were more alarming. Its assessment forecast potential “catastrophic consequences” if CO2 emissions were not curbed and predicted global temperature increases of several degrees over the next century.
Reagan officials harshly criticized the EPA study. The Reagan White House rejected the report as a presentation of rigorous scientific research and instead recast it as an opposing “perspective” on reality. The Reagan response to the EPA report heralded a new approach to science that would reach its zenith in the Bush years after 2001—science as a matter of perspective, to be accepted or not based on the ideology of those in power. In response to the report, the Reagan administration further cut the climate research budget. Throughout the 1980s, funding for climate research stagnated at or below 1965 levels.
The Late Eighties
From the mid-1980s onward, Congress and some government agencies proceeded on the basis that global warming was real and must be addressed. Al Gore, now a senator, frequently convened committee meetings to provide a venue for top climate scientists to share their work with the public, on the record. Wallace Broecker testified before a congressional committee in 1987, warning that his research pointed to the likelihood of a very abrupt climate change in the near future. “I come here as a sort of prophet,” he said. “There are going to be harsh changes.”
He asked for greater coordination of research and funding, but the money was not forthcoming. In 1989, California’s representative George Brown, a longtime supporter of the science, called the U.S. climate research programs a “bureaucratic nightmare” and a “failure.” Still, Congress crafted and passed a number of bills that addressed carbon emissions and global warming. They even debated a carbon tax. There was no way Reagan would sign on to that, but in 1988, Reagan put his signature on the Global Climate Protection Act. Unfortunately, because of significant uncertainties in the science, the Act focused principally on proffering more money for research, with little attention paid to policy.
The summer of 1988 was a scorcher—the hottest summer on record in the hottest decade in more than a century. Sweaty Americans suddenly remembered what they’d heard about global warming, reminded by their discomfort and the numerous news stories focusing on the murderous heat. To take advantage of this confluence of events, Senator Tim Wirth (D-Colorado) of the Senate Energy Committee scheduled hearings on the greenhouse effect and climate change for late June. To set the stage and to make the hearing’s message both a sensory as well as an intellectual experience, Wirth turned down the air-conditioning in the hearing room. Outside, the city baked in record high temperatures. Inside, the hearing room was sweltering. In this “experientially appropriate” setting, James Hansen testified “with 99 percent confidence” that a long-term warming trend was underway, caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect.
Speaking with reporters afterward, Hansen told them flatly that it was time to “stop waffling, and say that the evidence is pretty strong that the greenhouse effect is here.”
The summer of ’88 woke many Americans to what a warming climate might bring. Hundreds of people died from the heat in the nation’s cities. Stores ran out of air conditioners; water was rationed in both urban and rural areas.
Drought cracked the bone-dry soil over much of the country, especially the agricultural Midwest. The level of the Mississippi River dropped so low, barge traffic ceased. Many Americans were truly shaken by the extreme weather. As one expert explained, “Whether regarded as a warning signal or a metaphor of a possible future, the weather unleashed a surge of fear that brought concentrated attention to the greenhouse effect.”
In 1989, George H. W. Bush became president. A former oil man, Bush was loath to propose or accept any policies that might put a crimp in oil company profits. Yet in 1992, President Bush got Congress to approve $50 million for research into alternative energy (funding that was slashed 80 percent in 1995 by Congress under Newt Gingrich’s leadership).
Though his statements occasionally acknowledged the potential reality of global warming, Bush played up the scientific uncertainties, constantly calling for “more study.” In 1990, a leaked White House memo revealed Bush’s notion that the way to deal with global warming was continually to “raise the many uncertainties about it.” However, Bush went to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and, along with everyone else, he endorsed the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The treaty was passed by unanimous consent of the Senate later that year.
Almost simultaneously with the adoption of the UNFCCC, several conservative think tanks jointly produced a report emphasizing the uncertainties in the science and making the case that a “variable Sun” was the cause of observed warming. Though climatologists had shown that increased solar radiation could not account for observed warming, these groups championed this notion. The think tanks’ study was presented to President Bush, with a note supporting the skeptics’ view. William Reilly, head of the EPA, argued forcefully against the study’s pseudoscience and promoted a policy of mandatory emissions reductions. Ultimately, Bush sided with the skeptics, and emissions cuts were taken off the table.
The “Sound Science” Backlash
Many conservative think tanks worked actively to undermine climate change science. The George C. Marshall Institute initiated its climate change program in 1989 to emphasize the uncertainties of climate science. The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) was also created in 1989. Despite its name, which made it sound “environmentally friendly,” the GCC was an organization of business associations and corporations whose objective was to delegitimize climate science.
The intent was to eliminate at the source any information that could be integrated into policies that might take a bite out of corporate profits. Among its members were ExxonMobil and other oil companies, the Big Three automakers, chemical industry groups and companies, the American Petroleum Institute (API), the Western Fuels Association (WFA), and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The GCC spent tens of millions of dollars in its attack on climate science: public relations campaigns; congressional lobbyists; and hiring its own “climate experts” to publicly debunk peer-reviewed scientific papers.
The GCC’s efforts were aimed at promoting “sound science” to instill serious doubt about global warming by stressing scientific uncertainties. “Sound science” is a rejection of the precautionary principle, which states that people should not wait until every shred of scientific evidence is established before taking action to prevent grave and irreversible environmental damage. “Sound science” supporters insist on a higher burden of proof—absolute certainty—before ideologically offensive scientific findings are integrated into policy.
As explained by Chris Mooney in The Republican War on Science, the name “sound science” seems to equate it with “good science.” “Sound science” did not originate in the scientific community; it is a public relations tool devised to promote business interests. Most people credit the tobacco industry with perfecting the “sound science” argument. To quote a 1969 tobacco company memo, “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public.
It is also the means of establishing controversy.” Then, as now, “sound science” meant exaggerating scientific uncertainty to discredit a targeted field of science in order to instill so much confusion and doubt among the public that government regulations are not implemented.
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