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Climate Change - Coggle Diagram

- - - - L1 Clack and York
        
        Argue that global climate change in the current era is a form of capitalistic metabolic rift, and the only way we can overcome this is to radically transform the economic system --> Capitalism has created an irreparable rift between nature and humans
        
        Capitalistic metabolic rift: When we promote scientific developments, we increase the exploitation of nature only (and so it seems like we are trapped in this vicious cycle)
        
        This rift/rupture is caused by our upsetting of the carbon cycle due to our capitalist economies
        
        Capitalist systems are driven by an accumulation of capital (so has a productive cycle). Hence, when we advance our capitalistic economy, we have a tendency to consume more energy, produce more (Jevons Paradox)
        
        In such a system, we also get a problem of global inequalities and ecological imperialism, as the goods and power are concentrated among a select few countries
      - L2 Malm
        
        Argues that the fossil economy is the main driver of global warming, and that 'Anthropocene' is too broad and homogeneous a term, such that it cannot show how colonialism and capital accumulation are the main culprits --> so proposes Capitalocene
        
        Explores the history of coal burning in the British economy, showing that the fossil economy was a system designed by the British empire, and used by the British empire as a marker for modernity!
        
        The authors argue that the Industrial Revolution-centred 'Anthropocene' produces a simple linear history which neglects the responsibility of various social groups, and how the fossil economy, at its core, promotes inequality (social, economic)
        
        I am not very convinced that 'Capitalocene' is a term that should be adopted, mainly because it suggests to geologists that they should focus on the IR thesis of the Anthropocene...
      - NOTE: In making these arguments about how capitalism is a strong driver of the Anthropocene, we are not saying that the Soviets were the model of environmental consciousness.
        But because the global economy is dominated by capitalism, it is necessary to focus on understanding how capitalism drives anthropogenic global warming
    - - Links to Colonialism
        
        Introduction of steamboats to India in the 1830s, and the exploitation of local labour for coal mining (to produce energy to drive the steamboats)
        
        The role of steam in the Victorian era: Showing how modern technology drove colonialism!
  - - - In Lewis and Maslin's paper too, one notes that
        
        Carbon serves as an appropriate GSSP for the Orbis Spike hypothesis
        
        But that carbon alone is not a convincing argument FOR the IR/Great Acceleration cases!
    - - (1) Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis (William Ruddiman)
        
        Development of farming cultures resulted in deviation of greenhouse gas emission
        --> Typically rejected, because the changes/developments seem very modest, and if we follow this logic, then it means the changes we see today should be more drastic than observed
        --> Also, that the variations observed could be easily explained by the carbon cycle!
        
        L1 Ruddiman et al.
        
        Argue that the Anthropocene began 7000 years ago when humans began agricultural activities
        
        Attempts to use data of CO2/CH4 to show that starting from 7000 years ago, the trend deviated from the natural development levels
        
        Use of models and simulations to show that the CO2/CH4 rise can be accounted for by clearing of forests and rice agricultural activities
      - (2) The Orbis Spike (1610)
        
        A sudden dip in CO2 levels that was MEASURABLE, because of the discovery of the New World/Columbian Exchange
        
        These developments brought diseases to and fro the new world, and series of wars produced a sizeable reduction in the size of the population (genocide-generated drop in CO2 levels)
        
        L1 (Lewis and Maslin)
        
        Argue that only the Orbis Spike and Great Acceleration have reliable or accurate GSSPs to use as markers (this is how geologists typically mark out the start of a new geological era)
        
        Orbis Spike: Dip in CO2 levels in the ice core, Great Acceleration: The presence of 14C peaks due to the nuclear testing
        
        They also argue that depending on what we use (Orbis Spike/Great Accleration), we will draw various conclusions about responsibilities for the Anthropocene, and this affects our mitigation strategies
      - (3) Industrial Revolution (1800)
        
        Steam engines, fossil fuels, the rise of the carbon economy
        
        Note the close relationship between FOSSIL and CARBON economy --> How carbon economy relates to climate change
        
        This raises questions about how capitalism and capital are related to climate change, and are they fundamentally responsible for anthropogenic climate change?
        
        L1 Clack and York, L2 Malm
      - (4) The Great Acceleration (1945 onwards)
        
        Massive growth in population, and the economic boom of OECD countries
        
        Also can be easily marked by the nuclear spike (onset of nuclear age provides a specific SPIKE and a permanent geological record)
        
        L1 Steffen et al. (2)
        
        Focus on the Great Acceleration, arguing that this is the best case for the start of the Anthropocene
        
        Uses 12 graphs to describe the dramatic changes in human socio-economic activities since 1945
        
        Compares these to 12 other graphs on Earth's system to show the complexities of understanding climate change
        
        Crucially, the authors also take care to separate their graphs based on country TYPES (OECD, BRICs..) to recognise that there are fundamental INEQUALITIES involved in the Great Acceleration too
        
        The concerns of environmental colonialism
        
        The various ways in which colonial practices have impacted the natural environments of local practics
        
        Capitalism exacerbated this : Wealthier countries today are compelled to extract/withdraw resources from these poorer peripheral countries, destabilising the sustainable native cultures
        https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2020/01/21/environmental-colonialism/
        
        The Orbis Spike, and the events in the C16, for instance, can be viewed as a manifestation of environmental colonialism
      - L1 Steffen et al. (1)
        
        Gives an overview of the various theories/proposals, and they emphasise that the Anthropoecene is a recognition that humankind has become a global geological force itself --> This creates resistance because it challenges normative beliefs, and also our faith in the power of technology!
        
        Reject the pre-industrial theory (discovery of fire) (C13)
        
        Strong contender: Industrial revolution & the meeting of an energy bottleneck (though note that CO2 is a poor indicator of this, because it is delayed as a marker)
        
        Strong contender: Great acceleration, a world marked by dramatic transformations in economic and human acitivity, free market liberalisation, globalisation!
      - L1 Chakrabarty
        
        Argues that the Anthropocene is a controversial topic to define because of the various human and social factors at play in its conceptualisation
        
        It is much harder to define than the other geological time boundaries simply because it is not the concern of geologists alone! --> Need to consider issues of environmental colonialism, equity, distribution etc.
        
        Also notes the use of the term 'capitalocene' which may suggest that industrialisation and the capitalist economy is responsible for Anthropogenic climate change
        
        Mainly, the key takeaway from Chakrabarty's paper is this notion of the Anthropocene as combining Earth and human history
    - - Depending on where we set the start, we are recognising different narratives of the inequalities in responsibility for climate change
        
        This changes the way we approach the problem! Or the strategies we try to adopt
        
        See essay for more explanations/detail;
        --> For eg, if we say its the industrial revolution, we are looking at the links between capitalism and climate change (what does this say about capital and capitalism?
        
        Or if we say its the Great Acceleration, we are blaming underdeveloped countries for anthropogenic climate change
        --> BUT: Environmental colonialism! Is it really fair, when for most of human history, it has been the Western countries contributing to this growth?
        Issues of climate justice, fairness, ethics and morality!
- - - - C19 Meterology in Britain
        
        Creation of new infrastructures for weather and climate monitoring services
        
        Noting that the sophistication of the instruments also increased over time
        
        EG: Stornoway Climate Station
      - Internationalisation of Meterological Services
        
        Napier Shaw argued for an international organisation and in 1919, there was a Conference of Meteorologists of the British Dominions
        
        WWI showed that meteorology needed to expand beyond the borders of the country alone --> National and imperial requirements were demonstrated by the onset of war
    - - Noting that Callendar's 1938 paper presents the first evidence of MODELLING, as he sought to use temperature records to show the relationship between T and CO2 emissions
        
        His data was very uneven and mostly collected from the metropoles/the North (because that's where the infrastructure was!)
        
        One of the first efforts to model climate over time with multiple datasets
      - The Impact of Cold War Funding: Creation of new data collection infrastructures
        
        (1) Data Gathering
        
        The Earth was placed under intense surveillance regimes with the launch of satellites into space
        
        Sophistication of image-capturing capabilities in the Cold War allowed the production of more complex models (with more complex datasets)
        
        (2) Making the Models (Computational Meteorology)
        
        General Circulation Models (which are basically very complex models that use many different parameters to model Earth's physical conditions)
        
        These models also started including considerations of socio-economic impacts --> Suggesting epistemological changes in climate change!
        
        L3 Heymann
        
        Argues that scholars need to better understand the history of computer simulations in climate science
        
        Recognising the epistemic changes induced by computer models in climate science (more data)
        
        The one area that is lacking is understanding HOW these models are politically-motivated, or their political entanglements --> Especially since scientists use the data from these models to inform policymakers!
        
        L3 Winsberg
        
        Argues that in climate modelling, it is impossible to separate epistemic from normative values (value-judgements by scientists is a necessity and cannot be eradicated!) --> Efforts of Uncertainty Quantification (i.e. using hedged hypotheses) do not avoid the inductive risk problem
        
        Winsberg notes that there are various sources of uncertainty in these models, and the ensemble approach (using a SET of models) does not overcome these uncertainties
        
        Hence, inherent in climate modelling is the need to take inductive risks, because the process requires the scientists to introduce their own non-epistemic values at various stages
        --> Climate modelling cannot be done in a value vacuum
        
        This article is more pertinent for P6 PEM L8-12 on objectivity, particularly the essay about whether climate scientists can avoid inductive risks (and whether this compromises on their 'objectivity'
        --> The main contention is that if climate scientists make explicit the uncertainty, they don't actually need to make non-epistemic judgements about risk-levels of false conclusions, because they aren't producing these conclusions anyway
        
        (3) Forecasting and Simulations of Past Weather
        
        To sort of assess the reliability of the models, we can produce estimates of past climates/weathers, and then compare them with the actual data
        
        BUT: Data is a reflection of the time period in which it was collected, and so it spans across various observing regimes, and its complexity changes!
        
        So, remember that the key issue with data is they MUST be read in the context of their origins
        
        i.e. Data cannot be divorced from their context, and we cannot expect/assume that historical datasets are compatible/aligned with existing practices/standards
        
        See L3 Edwards
      - L3 Edwards
        
        Discusses how computer models are able to help climatologists produce and convey knowledge about climate change
        
        Edwards' analysis is focussed on the concept of 'infrastructure' and how knowledge is a sociotechnical system that helps climatologists convince people of the legitimacy/validity of their knowledge
        
        Edwards also notes the concept of INVERSION; this is to understand how models work to identify the different noise/non-climate parameters that are affecting the accuracy of the data (in a way, it's to CLEAN the data)
        --> And here Edwards notes how data is situated within the contexts of its origins; past data didn't produce the same types of data we have today, so we have many different data images of the planet!
        
        This reading is helpful in terms of understanding the concerns and issues of using models in climate science. Sure, it is reliable and powerful, but what are the concerns that climate scientists need to deal with/be cognisant of when using models? (issues of old/past data, infrastructure inversion etc.)
    - - Palaeoclimatologists and Ice Cores
        
        The discovery of ice cores as suitable data storage (they store historical information about CO2 levels)
        
        Cold War influence: the 'race for Antarctica' during the Cold War provided great $$ to study the ice sheets of the continent
        
        Ice cores have given us more data (the temporal scale has expanded), and informed climate models!
        
        New, Revealing Graphs and Data:
        
        Keeling Curve (which also used data from Manua Loa)
        
        Michael Mann's 'Hockey Stick' graph
        
        L3 Carey
        
        Explores how/why glaciers became characterised as tools and evidence for climate change, noting that the narrative of them being 'endangered' go back longer in history as a result of social and scientific processes
        
        Glaciers and climate change: (1) they store records and (2) their actual disappearance is a physical sign of a warming Earth!
        
        Cold War: $$ and race for Antarctica allowed scientists to use glaciers to show the relationship between CO2 and T
        -Glaciers have become compelling evidence to the public for global warming
        
        And is also a way in which unequal power relations (neo- colonialism) can manifest
        
        Carey notes that one can think of 'saving' glaciers in the underdeveloped countries as like efforts to conserve national parks (and the manifestation of neocolonialism is evident in these efforts)
      - The Role of Historians
        
        Social scientists are not irrelevant to the process of making knowledge
        
        They have the ability to consider societal contexts, and data is often impacted/reflective of the social context in which it is produced!
        
        L3 Carey (A Critical Climate History)
        
        Argues using case studies that historians must be more involved and critical of climate change conversations as they can bring together science/knowledge and the societal forces creating this knowledge
        
        In the case studies that Carey considers, he shows how scientists, based simply off the data they get, produce over-stated/dire pictures of climate change without consider political, social and economic infrastructure
        
        Avoid climate determinism! And also, historians are best-poised to ask the question: WHO is producing the data, what sort of power inequalities are they likely to perpetuate?
  - - - 1820s: Fourier and Aggasiz asked questions about the ice ages' existence
        
        1862: Tyndall proposed that gases could radiation/trap heat --> Greenhouse effect
        
        1896: Arrhenius suggested that burning fossil fuels would raise the Earth's T
        
        1897: Chamberlin suggested that carbon cycles could explain the occurrence of ice ages
        
        *IMPORTANT: Recognising that for these early climate scientists, they were not trying to examine climate histories, but rather, explain observations about the Earth's atmosphere (so they were not trying to show/prove climate change)!
        
        L2 Howe
        
        Argues that we cannot impose C21 anthropogenic climate change concerns on the work of the C19 scientists, but must take them in their own terms
        
        Fourier's work about the ice ages and terrestrial temperatures were conducted under a desire to incorporate physics, thermodynamics and chemistry into earth sciences
        
        Tyndall's work on greenhouse gases was focussed on THERMAL physics more than anything
        
        So, we cannot simply use a simple linear history of scientists to describes the history of making climate knowledge (presentism is a trap)!
      - L2 Locher and Fressoz
        
        Argues against the notion that the current generation shows unprecedented reflexivity with regards to environmental consequences, because the European societies in C19 had been actively thinking about the climate
        
        That climate became heavily tied to state's exercise of bio politics, and was used to govern populations (in colonialism, in particular)
        
        During the industrial revolution, the factory became its own microclimate that people needed to 'acclimatise' to
        
        The authors also note why climatic paradigms shifted in the C19, as people started recognising that climate, rather than social conditions, were key determinants of health!
        
        C20/C21: Climate re-emerged as a political goal
      - L4 Parker
        
        In this chapter, Parker argues that in the C17, concerns about climate were fundamentally about food supplies/food shortages, because food shortage threatened social and political stability
        
        An exodus of people into towns occurred in the C17, as the little Ice Age in 1640 obliterated farmlands
        
        Growing cities meant growing energy needs, so more burning of fossil fuels
        
        But, more significantly, weather patterns and climate crippled the food supplies/networks into these cities! And also devastating fires...
        
        Parker's account thus seeks to explain why, in the C17, the world's population reduced by 1/3
    - - 1938: Calendar produced the first argument for anthropogenic global warming by using long-range weather records to demonstrate the correlation between T and CO2 emissions
        --> BUT, as a steam engineer, his work was discredited because climate was not his specialisation!
      - The Great Acceleration
        
        Increased funding for the earth sciences!
        
        In the 1950s, Roger Revelle and Hans Suess conducted research on the climatic effects of increased CO2 emissions
        
        Revelle showed that the oceans did not act as an effective sink for CO2
        
        Keeling (1957) measures CO2 concentrations at a weather station in Antarctica --> Eventually produces the Keeling Curve (historical record of CO2 emissions over time using ice cores)
        
        Creation of the IPCC
        
        1987 Villach Conference called on governments to restrict emissions
        
        1988: WMO and UNEP collaborated to form the IPCC, with American backing, as a consensus-making and neutral body
        
        Production of a number of reports over the years
        
        Challenges/scepticism regarding the IPCC's agency/ambiguity in being political/apolitical!
        
        Adopts a policy of SCIENCE first, POLICY later
        
        L2 Truet et al (IPCC 2007 AR4)
        
        Authors are trying to explain the process of making scientific knowledge, noting that it is a cumulative process (constructivist), and the role of the climate COMMUNITY
        
        However, the history of making climate knowledge that this IPCC report produces is very linear and gives a feel-good narrative of scientists just building on the work of other scientists
        
        The simple linear narrative that the IPCC report gives about the history of climate knowledge... is problematic and representative of the IPCC's issues --> Thinking that climate science alone will reach a stage where it can actually force the implementation of good climate policy (IPCC's pitfalls)
- - - - Attack individual scientists (attack on Ben Santer in 1995 - 96, Michael Mann in 2009 ClimateGate)
        
        Gathering a group (Mob mentality; Oregon Petition)
        
        Attacking a group (ClimateGate 2009)
        --> A diverse range of strategies to undermine consensus and the credibility of climate scientists
    - - Sci and Activism L4 Oreskes
        
        Her argument that science is NO GAME is meant to undermine the sort of media space that climate sceptics get --> Basically science doesn't have to always be this free, open-market for the exchange of ideas!
- - - - Work on ozone depletion and acid rain the 1970s/80s provided a model and framework for dealing with environmental issues of a transnational nature
        
        The model is something like: scientists publish papers/reports --> Research to produce a workable commitment from nations --> Ratifying these conventions --> Implementation of monitoring
      - US Role
        
        Jimmy Carter, the Green President: Commissioned reports to understand the links between carbon economy and climate change
        --> These commissions are sort of an 'inspiration' for the future IPCC's work/objectives
        
        The US recommended the formation of an inter-governmental body after the Villach Conference (1985), and the IPCC was formed in 1988
    - - A consensus-making body, NOT a knowledge-producing organisation
        
        It would seek to combine e scientific, national and international concerns
        
        Requires input from BOTH scientists and governments
        
        Pledges to be apolitical
    - - The IPCC cannot be divorced from politics/geopolitics, because it was designed precisely to take into account national interests. Does such a design doom the organisation?