As a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research for more than 20 years and a lead author of one of the UN climate reports, Stephen Schneider was known for his ability to explain the intricacies and the meaning of important and complex issues, especially the climate crisis. As such, he was the go-to guy for a lot of journalists over the years, including me. His sudden death this past summer was a blow to both science and journalism, as well as to his students at Stanford. This book, written with another Stanford climate scientist, may be his last statement on the issue that he recognized as the most important of his time, and ours.
It is a short book — just 100 pages — but it is a substantial contribution. It moves from the most succinct explanation of “The Scientific Consensus” that I’ve read (covering the physics and chemistry, observations and modeling) to chapters on “Impacts,” “Understanding Risk,” and then to the new ground of “Preparing for Climate Change.”
It is in these last chapters that this book reflects realizations that are beginning to become the new scientific consensus: that climate change is not just likely in the future, it is happening now, and it will happen to some serious extent no matter what is done to stop it from becoming even worse.
The authors make a brief but sophisticated argument for acting on both fronts: to stop future heating by controlling emissions, but also (and equally) to prepare for inevitable consequences, including complex and multiple emergencies where readiness will be all important. The authors note that anticipating effects is particularly important in California, with vulnerable coastlines and shrinking snowpacks threatening water supplies.
This trenchant summary for policymakers and others derives much of its power from being so concise. But to have wider impact, it may require less of the envirospeak abstractions that have unfortunately muddied the meaning of the climate crisis in public perception. For example, the authors adopt the terms current in scientific and environmental bureaucracies of “mitigation” and “adaptation” — words so vague and at times misleading that they inspire only mental numbness.
What the authors mean is that we must deal actively with both the causes of the climate crisis (“mitigation”) and with the effects (“adaptation”). It seems simple, but it may well become the center of major political arguments in decades to come. If we’re to get a handle on it now, we need to be clearer in what we say and how we say it. But even this observation is in the spirit of Stephen Schneider, and this book also serves as fitting memorial to his brave and persistent work.
This article appears in Search and Suspend.
Climate change-the new buzzword since global warming was proved to be bad science.Any historical geologist will tell you about vast climate changes on this planet over time…New buzzword is all about politics and money.
The science on global warming is definitive–it is happening, and it is getting worse. Denying it hass gone beyond mere willful ignorance and political gamesmanship. It is profoundly immoral. It is geocidal.
Geocidal? It’s ridiculously arrogant to think that we can kill the planet. Ourselves, maybe. But the planet?
We’re well on the way to killing off a majority of species and endangering the life of the earth we know. To me that’s acting in a geocidal manner. I see the question of arrogance differently. To think we can do anything we want without consequences to the rest of nature–that’s arrogance.
No species have gone extinct from the current “climate change”.
Species have always developed and gone extinct since life on earth began. Welcome to earth!
We ARE nature.
The life of the earth will be fine. You are worried about life for humans, admit it.
I suppose you know that “no species have gone extinct from the current climate change” because you’ve been taking your daily walk in the Amazon rain forest, or maybe in the peat bogs of Big Lagoon, or even the canopy of old growth Redwoods. There is so much about the Earth neither you or myself know about; and relying on the corporate media for your information only leads to false claims and ridiculous statements.