As I type this column, several recent storms are weighing on my mind. Winter snowfalls around the country have sparked questions about climate change yet again. Skeptics ask, How can warming be happening if we’re getting big snows? As if we could determine the world’s condition during a single season. In fact, one symptom of a changing climate could be more varied or more extreme weather—but a couple of heavy snows wouldn’t prove that either. January was slightly warmer in the U.S. than average, in any case.

Another storm surrounds “Climategate.” More than 1,000 private e-mails were stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and publicly released last November. Climate doubters have asserted that the e-mails prove that science surrounding global climate change is not settled and that the data in favor of it were misrepresented.

Disturbingly, a few mistakes were also recently uncovered in the second of the climate research reports produced in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; the second report examines the current effects of climate change and forecasts future effects. (No errors have been found in the first, and most often quoted, report, which says that the evidence is incontrovertible that human activity is causing the atmosphere to warm and the seas to rise.)

Last, in December, the much anticipated climate summit in Copenhagen failed to produce a significant agreement to curb greenhouse emissions; at the same time, U.S. legislation on those fronts has stalled.

As we mark the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this April, what are we to make of these events? It is true that atmospheric science is complex and climate models are imperfect. Clearly, scientists, who are only human after all, are also imperfect. But the advancement of science involves a preponderance of evidence. Thousands of studies, conducted over decades, indicate that humanity’s thumbprints are molding the planet. Readers of Scientific American first learned that excess carbon dioxide could detrimentally affect climate in a feature article that ran back in 1959— that’s right, 50 years ago. Today science is still grappling with uncertainties over the degree of human influence, but the work of thousands of researchers before and since that 1959 article shows that it does exist.

In this issue, a special report reveals how we have fundamentally altered Earth—its climate, its resources, its ecosystems—and offers ideas for what we can do about it. “Boundaries for a Healthy Planet,” by atmospheric scientist Jonathan Foley, explains the safe thresholds for environmental processes that profoundly affect sustainability. Then, “Solutions to Environmental Threats” provides a set of experts’ takes on approaches we could employ to keep those processes within limits. Next, in “Breaking the Growth Habit,” Middlebury College scholar in residence Bill McKibben contends that, to survive, society must end its addiction to economic growth in favor of smart maintenance of wealth and resources. Skeptical? Staff editor Mark Fischetti questions such assertions in “Bill McKibben, Challenged.” Whether you agree with the notions or not, we hope you will find the exchange, and the special section as a whole, informative and thought-provoking.

This article was originally published with the title Small World.

4 Comments

1. 1. Montgomery Cole JD 02:40 PM 3/24/10

   Dear Editor in Chief, Two points re; your 'Small World ' piece. In these tempestuous times, I think you did a good job on the whole mine field topic of climate change, I mean more or less. But two points stand out to me,
   
   1) You do courageously touch on the climate-gate emails, but in doing so you cover up the cover up. As the reading world now knows, the lead scientists were writing each other warning to cover up and/or alter data that was inconsistent with their own climate theories.
   
   Yet you seem to put a negative spin on the finding of such evidence, i.e. "stolen from the university", and then,
   
   2) A negative spin is placed on conclusions drawn from the discovery that top scientists were in collusion to alter important data for political and financial reasons,
   
   i.e. " Climate doubters have asserted that the emails prove the science... is not settled.. and the data in favor of it was misrepresented."
   
   That's not really the case. We doubters assert that when lead government scientists conspire to hide and alter evidence that does not support their theories, it looks like a hoax. Period, a hoax. So, very touchy ground indeed.
   
   I do also wish to point out and commend the small but fascinating article on (page 24) about the sea caves on the island of Mallorca, Spain.
   
   Evidence found therein seems to directly conflict with all other theories of ice age and 'climate change' sea levels. I'm sure you read the article. It clearly shows there are other conflicting possibilities against the onslaught of a grand unified, humans are bad theory about climate change.
   
   One last little point, you may not know that Scientific American refused to acknowledge the Wright Brothers powered flight for five years, claiming it was, "an impossibility."
   So as you said yourself in 'Small World', "Clearly scientists, who are only human after all, are also imperfect." We can certainly agree on that.
   The best of all days to you and your fine efforts at Scientific American.
   
   Sincerely Monty Cole JD

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2. 2. jtdwyer 02:28 PM 4/14/10

   While commemorating the 1959 article identifying CO2 as a potential greenhouse gas, did you happen to run across an article that mentioned that global warming would release greenhouse gasses sequestered in soil, minerals and oceans at an increasing rate? Or, perhaps, one that disputes that assertion? Thanks in advance.

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3. 3. tharriss 02:36 PM 4/14/10

   Monty, sigh. I hate it when people try to sound reasonable while twisting the truth and misapplying reason.
   
   You can take 1,000,000 points of data, 999,999 that point one way, and one the other way (sea caves in Mallorca?), and claim... "see that one is not only worth as much as the other 999,999 when making my case, it is worth more! "
   
   Or "Gee if a few climate scientists did something fishy (even if subsequent inquiries have proven their end results were still valid) I'm going to use that to dimiss all the hundreds of other scientists too."
   
   And "gee, because many decades ago in a totally different situation this publication didn't acknowledge the Wright brothers, it is supposed to say something about the entirely different group of people currently working for this publication now." In very different times and circumstances?
   
   Your point seems to be that because historically it is possible for one person to be mistaken or misguided, you are safe to argue, in face of the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, that anyone not agreeing with your point is likely to be doing the same.
   
   It isn't as if scientist reach consensus on these issues by swapping stories in a bar, or voting for the ideas of the scientist with the coolest pocket protector.
   
   There is a whole process in place to assure the validity of the data, peer review it, repeat studies in different ways by different people and to weigh conclusions for accuracy.
   
   While it may be possible to fool this process in the short term, or for the massed conclusions to simply be wrong, there is no better approach for finding the answer MOST LIKELY to be true. Sure you can pick apart a study here, or a scientist there, but on balance, the system weeds out the baseless or invalid and tends towards finding the truth of the matter.
   
   Given a choice between following the results produced by this excellent process, or one pulled out of your ear because you don't want to believe in climate change and want to nit pick exceptions while ignoring the rule, sorry but I'm going to go with science.
   
   

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4. 4. Georgy 04:32 AM 4/17/10

   We see these marks on the ground fissures and plates at a large angle to the horizontal. This is to confirm that the Earth has decreased in diameter by 3-5 kilometers. Therefore, increased angular rotation of the ball of the planet, like a figure skater in the rotation. This provides better heating of the Earth by the Sun, which leads to potepleniyu.GZ
   
   5<;O 2 @0728B88 ?>AB>O==> C<5=LH05BAO 2 480<5B@5. K 2848< MB8 A;54K =0 87;><0E 75<;8 8 ?;8B ?>4 1>;LH8< C3;>< : 3>@87>=BC. -B> ?>4B25@645=85, GB> 5<;O C<5=LH8;0AL 2 480<5B@5 =0 3-5 :8;><5B@>2. >MB><C C25;8G8;>AL C3;>2>5 2@0I5=85 H0@0 ?;0=5BK, :0: C D83C@8AB0 ?@8 2@0I5=88. -B> >15A?5G8205B ;CGH55 ?@>3@520=85 5<;8 !>;=F5<, GB> ?@82>48B : .GZ
   Land development is continuously decreasing in diameter. We see these marks on the ground fissures and plates at a large angle to the horizontal. This is to confirm that the Earth has decreased in diameter by 3-5 kilometers. Therefore, increased angular rotation of the ball of the planet, like a figure skater in the rotation. This provides better heating of the Earth by the Sun, which leads to potepleniyu.GZ
   

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