The Role of Science in Climate Change - Coursework Example

The Role of Science in Climate Change Introduction Humanity as a species has advanced a great deal in the past 200 years, but one thing that has not changed is that people will not change their minds or their approaches simply based on the word of another. Generally speaking, social change occurs only when information available has reached and convinced a critical mass of the population who then force change upon the remainder. The question thus becomes how much and what type of information is required to bring about change? In most cases, the information must be backed by evidentiary proof. This suggests that scientific knowledge would be the most effective means of addressing issues such as climate change, which require a critical mass of believers to force the kinds of drastic changes necessary to save our present way of life. However, the scientific knowledge has been available for decades and very little has been accomplished. Only now that major upsets in the environment are actually starting to cause the types of massive flooding and storms scientists had predicted are people starting to listen and demand changes. In trying to determine the role of scientific knowledge claims in shaping understandings of and approaches to addressing climate change, it is necessary to understand what the scientific knowledge has told us regarding the change and what needs to be done about it. This can then be compared to what approaches have been taken. Thus, the best approach to determine science’s role in how we, as a species, behave in the face of climate change is to first understand what science is claiming, then examine the public’s understanding of these claims and how these are explained or shaped by sociological theory and finally to determine how this translates into overall approach. In the end, it should be possible to determine just how large a role science plays in determining this final approach as compared to its role in shaping the public understanding of the issues. Climate Change Defined Climate change refers to the overall phenomena of the generalized warming of the global system, causing changes in weather patterns and potentially threatening all life on the planet. Through the years, this process has acquired different labels depending on the politically accepted terminology. The cause of this warming is still debated in political circles, but scientists pin it on the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a term that describes an increase of the average global temperature as a result of accumulated elements in the earth’s atmosphere. Essentially, the greenhouse effect is the result of trapped sunlight. Under natural, ‘native’ conditions, approximately a third of the sun’s rays are reflected back into space without causing any damage to the planet. However, there are many atmospheric gasses that can accumulate in the upper levels that function similarly to the glass in a greenhouse. These gases allow sunlight in, but trap some of the energy attempting to go out. This trapped energy then functions to heat the earth (Breuer, 1980). Although the gasses are naturally occurring, scientists have demonstrated that the artificial augmentation provided through man-made sources has contributed significantly to climate change. The most prevalent form of greenhouse gas is Carbon Dioxide (CO2). According to Breuer (1980), CO2 supplies about half of the total gases that create the greenhouse effect. The planet has several means of regulating this element such as trees, which absorb CO2. However, when a tree dies, it releases CO2 back into the atmosphere. Thus, the clearing of forests by mass burning must be understood as both a reduction in the planet’s natural CO2 filters and an increase in the amount of CO2 released into the air. Should the rainforests, which have been clear cut, burned and otherwise destroyed at incredible rates since the 1970s, disappear, ecologists and scientists warn that the ecological system that sustains the planet’s weather patterns will start to disintegrate. The rising temperature of the Earth will cause droughts leading to massive wildfires releasing even more carbon dioxide into the air. As dire as these predictions based on scientific modeling may be, a larger portion of the problem is caused by burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Although CO2 is generated through both man-made and natural sources, it is estimated that man-made influences represents about half of the CO2 output (Breuer, 1980). Several elements of our society, such as factories, many types of vehicles and electricity-producing power plants are dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. “The concentrations of CO2 in the air around 1860 before the effects of industrialization were felt, is assumed to have been about 290 parts per million (ppm). In the hundred years and more since then, the concentration has increased by about 10 percent” (Breuer, 1980, p. 67). Eighty percent of the world’s population accounts for just 35 percent of CO2 emissions. Worldwide, “carbon dioxide emissions are increasing by four percent a year” (Miller, 1990, p. 450). This is both the result of human consumption and release of these gasses as well as human destruction of natural resources. Simply stated, the earth’s natural abilities to filter out damaging elements such as CO2 and the less prevalent harmful gasses such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are being overwhelmed. The collective rainforests of the world act as a climatic sponge to store a great deal of the world’s rainwater. Trees in the rainforest recycle water drawn from the forest ground. This filtered water, combined with the moisture that evaporates from the leaves, is released back into the atmosphere to fall as rain elsewhere. If not for this enormous system, rivers, lakes and land masses would dry-up, thus loss of rainforest equals increasing droughts of increasing proportions. Disease, starvation and famine on a worldwide scale will be deforestation’s direct result. Some scientists believe the transformation from forest to desert has already begun. Studies have determined that the Amazon rainforest, even in its current state, could not withstand three years of drought conditions without making the irreversible turn to desert. “Scientists say that this would spread drought into the northern hemisphere, including Britain, and could massively accelerate global warming with incalculable consequences, spinning out of control, a process that might end in the world becoming uninhabitable” (Lean, Pearce, 2006). The ocean is another natural sponge for CO2 that is quickly being overwhelmed. If the balance between CO2 levels in the ocean and levels in the atmosphere is significantly disturbed, the oceans must absorb higher concentrations, warming the water temperatures. Yet warm water is less effective in absorbing CO2. When the oceans can no longer keep pace, the gas stays in the air. Social Understanding of Climate Change While there remain a few political holdouts, the scientific community generally agrees global temperatures are rising as a direct result of burning fossil fuels. They have struggled to get the message out to the rest of society that human pollution is changing the climate of our earth, making it less hospitable and potentially leading to very dangerous conditions for billions of humans. Because human activity has led to planetary changes, there is a clear need for sociological study of the issue. Some sociologists, such as Brechin (2008), suggest this would be merely an “exercise in speculation” (468), the need for a more effective means of addressing climate change may very well lie in the hands of the sociologists capable of understanding the true forces at work. Because public understanding of environmental problems begin with the scientific measures and descriptions outlined in the previous section, a great deal of public knowledge about the issue is based upon scientific knowledge claims. These claims come in essentially two different forms – cognitive claims and interpretive claims. According to Hannigan (2007), cognitive claims “aim to convert experimental observations, hypotheses and theories into publicly accredited factual knowledge” while interpretive claims “are designed to establish the broader implications of the research findings for a non-specialist audience” (94-95). The cognitive claims are those that have evidence to support them such as the fact that greenhouse gasses are increasing, that they are increasing because of human activity and that they are having an effect on the temperatures of the ocean. From these conclusions, scientists are then able to make the interpretive claims that this warming trend could be life-threatening planet wide not just to humans, but to all life on earth. It is clear that scientific knowledge claims take a center seat in the public’s awareness and definition of the climate change issue. Socially speaking, it is scientific knowledge claims that has led to the development of the UN subsidiary body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which works to “provide the world with a clear scientific view of the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences” (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2010). Because many of their claims are based on scientific, evidentiary data and mathematically-generated interpretive data with tremendous potential consequences if nothing is achieved, scientists have been successful in getting some their knowledge claims accepted as “publicly accredited factual knowledge” (Hannigan, 2007, 94). However, the record becomes murky with the addition of the interpretive models. Depending on the data fed into the system, the models demonstrate differing levels of consequences. Different models can also produce different results as no perfect and universally-accepted modeling system has yet been devised. As a result, scientists have had to curb their enthusiasm somewhat as they work to get the most important messages regarding ecological, social and economic consequences of inaction out to the international community. According to Lever-Tracy (2008), scientists everywhere have reached a general consensus that we will experience “serious” social and ecological impacts if we allow the planet to heat an additional 2 degrees centigrade above current norms. Anderson and Bows (2008) claim both environmental scientists and civic social groups now “conclude that it is increasingly unlikely any global agreement will deliver the radical reversal in emission trends required for stabilization at 450 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent” even though they agree that “to provide a 93 percent mid-value probability of not exceeding 2 degrees centigrade, the concentration would need to be stabilized at, or below, 350 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent, that is, below current levels” (3863). This demonstrates that there is a general social consensus that climate change is occurring and humans can have an impact on it, but no consensus as to what should be done. Sociological Theories Attempts to understand the difficulty in achieving the same level of scientific knowledge claims success in approach to climate change as has been reached in the definition can be shaped by the social constructivism theory. Hannigan (2007) says social constructivism is based on the concept that meaning and knowledge are created through the process of social dialogue, or a “claims making process.” Rather than being a concept or set of concepts that exists and can exist outside of human interaction, social constructivism holds that “the social world is a world of human consciousness: of thoughts and beliefs, of ideas and concepts, of languages and discourses, of signs, signals and understandings among human beings, especially groups of human beings, such as states and nations. The social world is an intersubjective domain: it is meaningful to people who made it and live in it, and who understand it precisely because they made it and they are at home in it” (Jackson, 2006, 165). This approach recognizes the fact that our understanding of environmental issues is a social understanding that does “not rise and fall according to some fixed, asocial, self-evident set of criteria” (Hannigan, 2007, 63). This concept that the issue of approaches to climate change is a social issue is reflected in the fluctuating attention environmental concerns have received since their relatively widespread recognition in the 1970s. Since the 1970s, various groups have offered different solutions or approaches to the environmental issues as they had been defined by social claims-making processes. Interest was expressed or repressed according to the mood of the day and the claims-makers with the loudest voices. Actions “vary in direct response to successful claims-making by a cast of social actors that includes scientists, industrialists, politicians, civil servants, journalists and environmental activists” (Hannigan, 2007, 63). Confusion grows depending on the number of claims-makers on the scene. Although scientific claims receive the greatest weight in helping to define the issues, the approaches needed to address the issues remain in the hands of the politicians and the business community, both of which control the majority of the resources needed for development of new technologies, the resources causing the problems and the need to protect national and personal economic interests. Although science helps to shape the definitions and is certainly instrumental in bringing forward approaches for addressing these issues, taking action on the issue enters a much broader social context in which scientists are simply one among many considerations to factor. Social Approaches to Climate Change Social approaches to climate change, unlike social definitions of climate change, are shaped primarily by those not within the scientific community. According to a study conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (2006), society in developed countries depends upon television and daily news programs for information about what is happening outside of the individual world sphere. It is common for those in developed countries to expect mass media to be the medium that helps them shape their understandings of science and policy regarding environmental issues, technologies and risks associated with various approaches or lack of approach (Weingart et al, 2000). Thus, the national approach is defined not by the scientific community, but by the approaches adopted and endorsed by the various media agencies offering the information. This makes it easier to ignore or refute scientific claims whenever they interfere with political or economic interests regardless of the degree to which science claims indicate mass harm. This same conflict of interests is reflected in the international environment. Paiva-Duarte (2001) points to the international dynamics involved as being an example of instrumental globality. This refers to the idea that environmental issues should be considered in terms of “positivistic calculations of the economic value of the planet’s resources” (Paiva-Duarte, 2001, 97) with development being the primary driver of decisions made. This type of approach is founded upon the Baconian concept that nature is intended by God to be dominated and exploited by man through the use of technological advancement (Bellamy-Foster, 2000). This is a dangerous concept because it implies that humans do not need the planet or its resources to survive. This idea extends even further when one considers primarily the industrialized nations as the physical environment becomes redefined to “the inalienable property of modern industrial society, to be used to insure the reproduction and globalization of consumer culture” (Paiva-Duarte, 2001, 105). Thus, any intent to take action on climate change issues must be considered from this perspective, rather than that offered by science, if it is to achieve the kind of attention required to put the action in motion. Conclusion As the climate change debate takes place, it is necessary for sociologists to take part in the scientific knowledge claims of the issues involved as a means of bringing about more effective action. While science is well-recognized as the authority on the physical changes taking place, it does not currently have a strong voice in helping to shape appropriate responses to the cognitive data available. The public accepts scientific knowledge as the basis for forming opinions on the climate change question, but global and national social structures require a different approach in addressing the issue. Social constructivism explains why this is the case as numerous other entities – including governments, politicians and businesses – engage in the claims-making process, all advocating for their own interests and viewpoints to varying degrees. Greater study and involvement on the sociological level is required to give science a greater voice in the claims-making battle. However, it seems clear that scientific knowledge claims play a central role in shaping understandings of climate change and only a peripheral role in shaping social approaches to the issue. References Anderson, Kevin, & Bows, Alice. (2008). “Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. Vol. 366, pp. 3863-3882. Bellamy-Foster, John. (2000). “Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature.” Monthly Review Press: New York. Brechin, Steven. (2008). “Ostriches and Change: A Response to ‘Global Warming and Sociology’.” Current Sociology, Vol. 56(3), pp. 467-474. Breuer, Georg. (1980). Air in Danger: Ecological Perspectives of the Atmosphere. Cambridge University Press: New York. Hannigan, John. (2007). Environmental Sociology: 2nd Edition. Routledge: London & New York. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2010). “Organization.” Accessed: 12 Oct 2010. Available: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.htm. Jackson, Robert. (2006). “Social Constructivism.” Introduction to International Relations. Oxford University Press: New York; pp. 161-177. Lean, Geoffrey & Pearce, Fred. (July 23, 2006). “Amazon rainforest could become a desert.” The Independent. Accessed: 12 Oct 2010. Available: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/amazon-rainforest-could-become-a-desert-408977.html Lever-Tracy, Constance. 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