Social research on climate change: where we have been, where we are, and where we might go

The greenhouse effect, global warming, global climate change: the environmental phenomenon so important that it needs three names. Whatever one calls it, climate change is undoubtedly one of the most important environmental issues for the new century; it has been the focus of one of the most impressively coordinated international scientific efforts in recent memory. Moreover, the communication and sociological literatures—not to mention the content of this special issue of Public Understanding of Science—feature a growing variety of by-lines devoted to social research on climate change. Why is this an important topic for social researchers; why does it merit attention in a special issue of this journal? Since the close of the nineteenth century, scientists have been concerned about the effect that humans might be having on the atmosphere through the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Accurate measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels began in 1957; they show that we are rapidly approaching a doubling relative to preIndustrial Revolution levels. During the 1980s, climatologists made significant advances in understanding planetary climate using computer analyses known as Global Circulation Models. Though the models are still relatively crude (compared to the actual climate), they began to bring climatology toward some understanding with respect to the question of human influence over climate. In the parlance of climatology, it was a search for a “human fingerprint,” the “smoking gun” of climate change research. Eventually, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced that its group of some 1,500 scientists representing 60 nations had come to a consensus that the fingerprint had been found, and that the planet’s average temperature would increase between about 1.5 ◦ and 6 ◦ Fahrenheit over the next 100 years. But even with that remarkable consensus, there was (and still is) considerable disagreement over what this could actually mean. A few foresee a warmer but wetter world, while others predict a wilder world as weather becomes more extreme, agricultural patterns shift, and sea levels rise. While the degree and speed of such change is uncertain, the consensus remains that climate will change in ways that influence both ecological and human social systems. 1 Recent research based on ice core samples has suggested that paleoclimate has shifted dramatically over very short periods of time—heightening the concern of many about our ability to adapt to what may lie in the future. 2 Other studies have shown that different, and conflicting, temperature trends exist at different levels of the atmosphere—adding some equivocal evidence to the argument. 3 And even important scientists such as James Hansen of NASA have added to the confusion by questioning the reliability and accuracy of the various models used to predict climate. 4