Behind the Curve: Science and the Politics of Global Warming

5. The Politics of Dissent

118 5 The Politics of Dissent The annual oscillations of the Keeling Curve capture one of the more dramatic cycles of decay and renewal on earth. The curve is like a negative image of the earth’s plant life. At the annual peak of global atmospheric CO2 , typically in May, the deciduous plants of the Northern Hemisphere have only just begun to bud, stirred by warmth and sunlight from a long winter dormancy. And then, almost suddenly, they explode into summer growth. CO2 hovers at its peak until early June, and then it plummets steeply through the annual mean and into its late October or early November trough, when the Northern Hemisphere’s growing season finally ends, and the expunged leaves and stems begin to return their CO2 to the atmosphere. The cycles of history rarely unfold so regularly, but in 1980 the fortunes of scientists interested in CO2 nearly matched the cycles of CO2 itself. In May of 1980, atmospheric CO2 stood at around 341.5 ppm; and a year after the first DOE-AAAS conference, its concentration had become an important concern for the Department of Energy. By November, however, CO2 bottomed out at 335 ppm, and the American public had elected a president for whom neither CO2 nor other, more mainstream environmental causes held much appeal. While CO2 itself would rebound the following spring, the fortunes of those studying the substance would rebound much more slowly. When climate scientists’ situation did finally improve, they found that they had tied their fate to that of America’s environmentalists and to the Democratic Party like never before. The Politics of Dissent | 119 The partnership that developed between climate scientists and American environmentalists in the 1980s arose out of a familiar story unfolding in a new context. America’s environmental groups took on the issue of global warming slowly and haltingly in the early 1980s, but by 1985 most prominent environmental organizations had begun to recognize climate change as a potential priority for the future. Shared scientific and environmental interests continued to bring climate scientists and American environmentalists into conversation in the 1980s, as they had since the early 1960s when Keeling framed CO2 as a form of pollution.1 But in the new decade these two groups also came together to face a commonpoliticalenemy.HisnamewasRonaldReagan.Electedin1980,the new president harbored disdain for what he saw as an unnecessarily alarmist and antibusiness environmental movement. He had similar contempt for socialandenvironmentalscienceresearch.Uponinauguration,hesoughtto dismantleboththeCouncilonEnvironmentalQualityandtheDepartment of Energy, and he replaced capable administrators at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior with zealous acolytes hostile to environmental regulation.2 The administration aggressively downsized federal environmental research, especially targeting renewable energy.UnabletofullyexcisetheDOEfromtheexecutivebranch,Reagan’s Office of Management and Budget reallocated more than a billion dollars of the DOE’s money to the Department of Defense.3 The ham-fisted approach left the DOE with neither the funding nor the personnel to continue its research on CO2 .4 Like environmental scientists of every stripe, scientists involved in the joint DOE-AAAS climate study begun under Carter—​ the largest and most extensive program of climate research up to that point—​ saw their funding slashed and their reliable government contacts replaced by party-line political appointees. Having worked hard to incorporate climate change into the research and policy agendas of federal agencies since the 1950s, climate scientists suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves on the outs. As a result, in the 1980s the politics of global warming became, like environmental politics more broadly, a politics of dissent. The Transition Few individuals’ stories capture the rapid and traumatic change that accompanied the transition from Carter to Reagan more completely than 120 | Chapter 5 the experiences of Denis Hayes at the DOE’s Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI). A jack-of-all-trades within the environmental movement, Hayes had been a key organizer of Senator Gaylord Nelson’s 1970 Earth Day initiative. In 1977, a strange twist of circumstances brought Hayes into the orbit of the Carter administration. That year, Hayes published a book on renewable energy called Rays of Hope: The Transition to a Post-Petroleum World. It was well received, and while promoting the book Hayes met briefly with Saudi Arabia’s powerful oil minister, Zaki Yamani, to whom he gave a signed copy. Hayes did not give the gift a second thought. A short while later, however, Jimmy Carter’s Republican secretary...