The Wizard and the Prophet2

by Charles C. Mann

  Foote (footnote): Sorenson 2011; Reed 1992:65–66; Foote 1856.

  CO2 measurements: Mudge 1997: Fig. 1; Crawford (1997:9) lists some prominent examples.

  Careers of Högbom and Arrhenius: Christianson 1999:105–09; Fleming 1998:74–75; Crawford 1997; Hawkes 1940.

  Högbom’s CO2 research: Crawford 1997:7–8; Berner 1995; Arrhenius 1896:269–73 (“very great,” 271).

  Arrhenius’s year of calculation: Weart 2008:5–6; Christianson 1999:113–15; Crawford 1997 (“full year,” 8); Arrhenius 1896 (“tedious calculations,” 267). The U.S. scientist was Samuel P. Langley, who first described the CO2 spectral lines (Langley 1888). Arrhenius’s wife, Sophie Rudbeck, was a theosophist, an anti-smoking activist, and linguistic reformer who wrote only with a special phonetic alphabet; intent on her own work, she refused to be Arrhenius’s assistant. Arrhenius, a man of his time, did not take this well.

  Arrhenius’s estimate: Arrhenius 1896 (he also published a Swedish version). I have slightly simplified his assessment. His values were not far from present estimates, mainly by luck.

  “were granted”: Crawford 1997:11.

  Critiques of Arrhenius theory: Fleming 1998:111–12; Mudge 1997:14–15; F.W.V. and C.A. 1901; Ångström 1900 (“Arrhenius did,” 731 [quotation from translation by Peter L. Ward]). Ångstrom was backed by Charles Greeley Abbot, director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, who improved his measurements (Abbot and Fowle 1908, esp. 172–73).

  Ice-age theories (and footnote): Weart 2008: 10–18, 44–48, 72–75, 126–28; Fleming 2007:68–69 (“on the climate”). For a brief biography of Simpson, see Gold 1965. In 1941 the prominent climatologist William Jackson Humphreys was equally scornful: “No possible increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide could materially affect either the amount of insolation reaching the surface or the amount of terrestrial radiation lost to space” (quoted in Fleming 1998:112).

  Warmer winters: Fleming 1998:118-21. The trend was remarked upon in the popular press, but received little academic study. Among the few efforts was Kincer 1933.

  Callendar’s life: Hulme 2009b:48–53; Fleming 2007, esp. 1–32; Callendar 1939:16 (“such a change”).

  Arrhenius’s approximations: Arrhenius 1896 (“as if,” “is introduced,” 241; “to assume,” 252; “not differ,” 256).

  CO2 and H2O absorption: I skip some nuances for the sake of readability, hoping that doing so will not mislead the reader. For example, the image depicts the absorption of radiation in the upper atmosphere, where the gaps in the water-vapor spectrum are clearest. Closer to the surface, the spectral bands smear out, something not understood until the early 1950s (Weart 1997:333–34). The best simple explanation I have encountered is Richter 2014 (2010): chap. 2.

  Callendar’s views, criticisms: Fleming 2007: chap. 5, 1998:114–18; Weart 1997:324–32; Callendar 1938 (“deadly glaciers,” 236; critical quotes, 237-40). Ultimately, Callendar wrote 38 papers on climate change (Fleming 2007:99–108).

  Military boosts atmospheric science: Doel 2009:151–58; Weart 2008:54–56, 1997:332–43; von Neumann 1955 (“climatological warfare”); Kluckhohn 1947 (“dominate the globe”). For the Pentagon’s special interest in polar climate change, see Sörlin 2016 (2013):40–47; Doel 2009:142–47.

  Revelle and Suess: Fleming 1998:122–28; Weart 1997:339–47; Revelle and Suess 1957 (“in the past,” 19). Similar work was performed at almost the same time by Harmon Craig and the team of James Arnold and Ernest Anderson, but Revelle and Suess, right or wrong, got most of the credit.

  Keeling’s life: Bowen 2005:110–24; Keeling 1998 (“distressed about,” 27; “had been enough,” 29; “backyard incinerators,” 33).

  Keeling measures CO2: Hulme 2009b:54–56; Keeling 1998:32–46, 1978, 1960; Weart 1997:350–53. As a check, Keeling set up a second station in equally remote Antarctica.

  CO2 data: R. F. Keeling et al., “Scripps CO2 Program” (available at scrippsco2.ucsd.edu).

  “atmospheric carbon dioxide”: Revelle and Suess 1957:26 (emphasis mine).

  “alarming or steep”: “A Warmer Earth Evident at Poles,” NYT, 15 Feb 1959. See also Fleming 1998:118-21; Weart 1997:319–20.

  DeConto and Pollard: DeConto and Pollard 2016. Previdi and Polvani (2016) later came to roughly similar conclusions.

  IPCC and Antarctic ice: Previdi and Polvani 2016 (little previous evidence of melting); Church et al. 2013 (IPCC), esp. Fig. 13.27, Table 13.3.

  Climate change as moral conundrum: Jamieson 2014 (“of morality,” 156); Gardiner 2011.

  17th-century Manhattan: Jamieson 2014:173; Sanderson 2009. Hans Jonas (1984) has argued that these paradoxes mean that we must construct an entirely new morality.

  Weitzman: Weitzman 2007 (“paternalistic,” “future utility,” 707; “of the world”, 712).

  Discount rate: The discount rate is a composite of several parameters: the relative importance of future benefits; attitudes toward risk; uncertainty about the future; and the potential inequality between members of different generations. For the sake of simplicity, I focus on the first.

  Chichilnisky: Chichilnisky 1996 (“an apartment,” 235; “of the present,” 240).

  Children of Men scenario: Scheffler 2013, 2013:38–42 (“our own deaths,” 75–76; “of altruism,” 79). One of my sentence rephrases a sentence in the introduction by Niko Kolodny.

  “even notice”: Jamieson 2014: 111.

  Feedback: Feedback loops were recognized by Arrhenius, but meaningful efforts to assay their impact did not occur until the 1950s and 1960s, e.g., Möller 1963.

  Butterfly effect: Lorenz 1972.

  Lorenz’s “glitch”: Gleick 1988:11–31; Lorenz 1963. See also Weart’s webpage “Chaos and the Atmosphere” at www.aip.org. In the 1970s, mathematicians came across Lorenz’s discovery, and it became a foundation stone for the new discipline of chaos theory.

  Colorado conference, challenge of instability: Weart 2008 (2003):8–11, 58–61 (“by definition,” 10; “statistical average,” 59); R. Revelle et al., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” in United States President’s Science Advisory Committee 1965:111–33 (Appendix Y4). In March 1963 the Conservation Foundation held a smaller conference, “Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere.”

  Climate science conflicts with rest of academia: Allan et al. 2016; Jamieson 2014:25–28; Guillemot 2014; Hulme 2011; P. N. Edwards 2011.

  Bryson: Peterson et al. 2008:1325–28; Weart 2008 (2003):63–79ff.; Wineke 2008; Hoopman 2007.

  Rasool and Schneider: Rasool and Schneider 1971 (“an ice age”, 138); Cohn 1971 (“five to ten”). See also Schneider 2009:17–21; 2001.

  Warnings on global cooling: Mathews 1976 (“Climate?”); Ponte 1976; Will 1975 (“of the century”); Gwynne 1975 (“Cooling World”); Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1974:28; Colligan 1973 (“Ice Age”). See also Boidt 1970. Wrap-ups are in Peterson et al. 2008; Bray 1991. Gwynne later retracted his story (Gwynne 2014). Two weeks after quoting Rasool, the Post reported that a second MIT expert panel had dismissed all climate fears, warming and cooling alike (Sterling 1971; Study of Critical Environmental Problems 1970). Remarkably, Bryson’s preface to Ponte (1976) says, “There is no agreement on whether the earth is cooling.” See also Morton 2015:274–79.

  CIA report: Central Intelligence Agency 1974:26–42. Annex II is labeled “Climate Theory” but devoted entirely to Bryson’s ideas; it cites British meteorologist H. H. Lamb’s mistaken claim that most scientists then favored cooling.

  Cooling/warming papers: Peterson et al. 2008. At the time, according to Norwine (1977:9), “most” climatologists believed that impacts were “in the direction of surface warming, not cooling” (see also Norwine:13, 25–27). Still, a National Academies of Science panel hedged its bets (United States Committee for Global Atmospheric Research Program 1975:186–90).

  Schneider redoes calculations: Schneider 2009:42–43; Kellogg and Schneider 1974 (“estimate,” 1167). See also Schneider 1975: 2060.

  Mount Agung: Pete
rson et al. 2008:1328–29; Hansen et al. 1978. Although some at the time were skeptical of Hansen et al.’s calculations, most regard them today as essentially correct (Self and Rampino 2012; Self et al. 1981).

  Hansen testimony and its impact: Pielke 2011 (2010):1–3; Hulme 2009b:63–66; Weart 2008:149–50; Fleming 1998:134–35; Usher 1989; McKibben 1989; Hare 1988 (“act now,” 282); Shabecoff 1988; Weisskopf 1988; United States Senate 1987–88: 2:39–80 (Hansen quotes; emphasis added, from watching video of the event). Numbers of climate-change articles from Web of Science, updating Goodall 2008: Fig. 1. Wirth’s schemes: Interview, Tim Wirth, PBS Frontline, available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/.

  Logical culmination: Environmental leaders agree. “In recent years, the environmental movement has morphed steadily into the climate-change movement” (McKibben 2007:42). See also Brand 2010 (2009):1.

  Environmental consensus: Allitt 2014:67–79; Sabin 2013:44–52 (“beyond factions,” 46); Sills 1975 (“radical left,” 4); Soden ed. 1999: Table 5.5 (major bills).

  New eco-threats: Oreskes and Conway 2010: chaps. 4–5 (ozone, acid rain); Robock and Toon 2010 (nuclear winter); Environmental Protection Agency 2004 (acid rain); Morrisette 1989 (ozone); Levenson 1989:214–18 (nuclear winter).

  Dysfunctional dance: Allitt 2014 (initial environmental claims often exaggerate, 49–61; “were manageable,” 12–13); Simpson 2014 (initial cost estimates often exaggerate). See also Sabin 2013; Harrington et al. 2000; Mann and Plummer 1998.

  NRC estimate: Wagner and Weitzman 2015:50; Nierenberg et al. 2010:320–25; Schmidt and Rahmsdorf 2005; Charney et al. 1979:16. A second report in 1979 from the defense program JASON concluded that doubling CO2 would lead to a 2–3°C increase (MacDonald et al. 1979).

  Climate sensitivity: Freeman et al. 2015; Wagner and Weitzman 2015:12–14, 35–36, 48–56, 176n, 179–81n; Roe and Baker 2007 (showing that large uncertainty is “an inevitable consequence of a system where the net feedbacks are substantially positive,” 631); Hulme 2009:46–48. To be fair, some of the uncertainty is due to our inability to predict human actions—how fast we will dump CO2 into the air, for instance, and how much deforestatioin we will cause.

  Bumpers and Domenici: United States Senate 1987–88:37 (Bumpers), 157–58 (Domenici).

  Hebei: Author’s visit, interviews.

  China coal pollution: Vogmask.cn (mask); “Chinese City of Harbin Blanketed in Heavy Pollution,” Agence France Presse, 21 Oct 2013; advertisement, Beijing Times, 24 Oct 2013 (“Taking Action!”).

  China coal use: IEA 2016; Best and Levina 2012:7; Wang and Watson 2010:3539.

  Health costs of coal to China: Cohen et al. 2017; Chen et al. 2013 (life expectancy); Shang et al. 2013 (Fig. 5b, city mortality); Anderson 1999: Table 22 (cancer impact).

  India pollution: Mann 2015; Lelieveld et al. 2015.

  U.S. coal deaths: Caiazzo et al. 2013; Schneider and Banks 2010.

  Coal and petroleum shares of emissions: IEA 2015a:xv (Figs. 6, II-2). See also Nordhaus 2013:158 (calculating a similar estimate with data from Oak Ridge Laboratory’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center).

  China and U.S. coal and petroleum use: China Statistical Yearbook 2016, available at www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2016/indexeh.htm; Energy Information Agency Annual Energy Outlook 2017, available at www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/. About 3% of Chinese coal consumption is at the household level.

  Vehicles and households: Vehicles: International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, available at www.oica.net. About a fifth of them are in the United States. Households: Author’s interviews, Population Reference Bureau.

  Coal-plant numbers: Pers. comm., Paul Baruya, IEA Clean Coal Centre (existing plants); pers. comm, Antigoni Koufi, World Coal Association (planned coal plants); Global Coal Plant Tracker (endcoal.org/tracker/). The U.S. has 491 big coal power plants (Energy Information Agency, www.eia.gov), 130 steel plants (American Iron and Steel Institute, www.steel.org), and 107 cement factories (the Portland Cement Association, www.cement.org).

  Not a new insight: See, e.g., Nordhaus 2013:160; Keith 2013:37.

  Black carbon: Bond et al. 2013; Streets et al. 2013; Menon et al. 2010.

  CCS: Overviews include Liang et al. 2016; Shakerian et al. 2015; MacDowell et al. 2010. This section is drawn from Mann 2014.

  Parasitic costs, efficiency: Cebrucean et al. 2014:21; Wald 2013; Cormos 2012:444; IEA 2012:9 (average coal efficiency is “under 30% to 45%”); Carter 2011:5; MacDowell et al. 2010:1647; Haszeldine 2009:1648; Ansolabehere et al. 2007:ix (3 million tons/yr).

  Indians without electricity: Mayer et al. 2015:9 (citing 2009–10 National Sample Survey); Kale 2014:178 (citing 2011 India census).

  India coal mortality: Brauer et al. 2016 (1.3 million); Chowdhury and Dey 2016 (~5-800,000). Another study argues that the yearly fatality tally is ~80,000 people a year in Mumbai and Delhi alone (Maji et al. 2017).

  Nuclear supporters: Brand 2010 (2009):85–89. Brand lists some Prophets who grudgingly endorse nuclear power, too.

  Capacity factors, cost per kilowatt-hour, death rates: Hirschberg et al. 2016, Figs. 2, 10A; Brook and Bradshaw 2015: Table 1; Energy Information Administration 1990 (Tables 6.7.A, B in 2016 ed.); Energy Information Administration 1970 (Table 8.4, 2016 ed.). Burgherr and Hirschberg’s mortality analysis (2014: Fig. 8A) shows new-model nukes with fewer deaths per gigawatt-year than any other power source; old-model nukes were second, behind wind-power installations (a few wind workers die by falling off the high towers). Fukushima: United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation 2016.

  Land use: Brook and Bradshaw 2015: Table 1; Hernandez et al. 2014; McDonald et al. 2009 (Nature Conservancy study).

  French nukes: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC (per-capita emissions); http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx (exports, electricity prices); http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figures/nuclear-generation-by-country.aspx#.UkrawYakrOM (nuclear share of electricity); Brand 2010:111.

  Wizards’ critique of renewables: A fine example is Frank 2014.

  CCS projects: Global CCS Institute (www.globalccsinstitute.com); Willberg 2017 (Saskatchewan); Joint Statement by G8 Energy Ministers, Aomori, Japan, 8 Jun 2008, http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/energy (quotes). Several CCS coal projects have failed, notably a Mississippi plant that in 2017 gave up CCS and switched to natural gas after spending $7.5 billion.

  Mountaintop removal: Epstein et al. 2011; Palmer et al. 2010.

  Coal-mine fires: Author’s visit, Jharia; Stracher et al. 2011–15.

  Georgia, South Carolina nukes: Plumer 2017. The Watts Bar Unit 2 plant in Tennessee, switched on in 2016, cost just $4.5 billion, but most of the plant was built in the 1970s and mothballed. Construction resumed in 2007.

  Amount of high-level waste: International Atomic Energy Agency 2008: Table 5. I have extrapolated from these 2005 figures, using their estimate of 12,000 tons/year (14). The number of operating reactors worldwide has not changed dramatically in the intervening years. For the number of nukes, see the World Nuclear Association (www.world-nuclear.org). In all cases I have converted metric to imperial units.

  Factor of a million: By far the most important components of high-level waste are strontium (90Sr) and cesium (137Cs), both with half-lives of about 30 years. A physicist’s rule of thumb is that every 20 half-lives corresponds roughly to a million-fold reduction in radioactivity. 90Sr and 137Cs would hit that level after 600 years. I thank Alan Schwartz for reminding me of this rule of thumb.

  Jacobson-Delucchi road maps: Jacobson et al. 2015a, b (list of projects, 2114–15); Jacobson and Delucchi 2011a, b, 2009. Criticisms are gathered in Clack et al. 2017.

  Smil’s critiques: Smil, pers. comm.; Smil 2011a; Smil 2008:380–88.

  Sweden: Pierrehumbert 2016.

  Mount Katrina: Author’s visits, interviews (especially Dane Summerville, Army Corps of Engineers); Mann 2006.


  Coastal city studies: Hallegatte et al. 2013 (population, supp. inf.); Joshi et al. 2015 ($2.9 trillion); Hinkel et al. 2014 (9.3%GDP); Jongman et al. 2012 (1 billion people). There are many other studies, almost all with results in this line.

  Big cultural losses: Nordhaus 2013:108–13; Coletta et al. 2007.

  Shanghai: Author’s visit; Fuchs 2010:3-4; Xu et al. 2009.

  Protecting Chicago: Adelmann 1998; Cain 1972.

  Venice protection, population: Ross 2015; Magistro 2015; details at www.mosevenezia.eu.

  Asian coastal flood risks: Fuchs 2010 (second report, 3).

  Pinatubo: Morton 2015, chap. 3 (“the Sahara,” 85); Hansen et al. 1992; Newhall and Punongbayan 1997. This was not the Philippines eruption used earlier by Hansen and his colleagues to study global cooling, but another one.

  Warming since 1880: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/); Clark 1982:467, updated at ESS-DIVE (lbl.gov).

  Droplet size: Morton, pers. comm.; Morton 2015:85 (“the Sahara”); Keith 2013:88–94.

  Regional airlines: www.ryanair.com (Facts and Figures); www.alaskaair.com (Company Facts); U.S. 76 FR 31451 (Special Conditions: Boeing Model 747-8 Airplanes).

  Cost and methods of geoengineering: Keith 2013:94–116 (“sea level rise,” 100); McClellan et al. 2012, 2011.

  Taking the edge off: Caldeira and Wood 2008; Wigley 2006.

  Coining of “geoengineering”: Marchetti 1977.

  Technical fix: Strictly speaking, geoengineering isn’t a technical fix, because it doesn’t fix the climate, just veils the symptoms (Pielke 2011 (2010):234–35). I use the term anyway, because it is seen as a cheap technological approach to a complex problem.

  Frauds: Goodell 2011 (2010):53–69; Fleming 2010, chap. 3 (Hatfield quotes, 90–91).

  Dyrenforth: Fleming 2010:53–74; Hoffman 1896; letter, Dyrenforth to Sec. of Ag., 19 Feb 1892, in U.S. Senate, Executive Documents, 1st Sess., 52nd Cong., v.5, Doc. No. 45. See also Le Maout 1902.

  Early climate geoengineering: Goodell 2011 (2010):75–87 (“suit us,” 77); Fleming 2010:194–200, 212–40; Keith 2000:250–51; Weart 1997; R. Revelle, “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” in United States President’s Science Advisory Committee 1965:111–33 (Appendix Y4); Teller 1960:280–81.