Quotes from Dale Jamieson

Tyndall measured the absorption of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide and water vapor, and showed that slight changes in atmospheric composition would significantly raise the earth's surface temperature. He also suggested that methane could affect earth's temperature, but methane is so rare that it was not discovered in the atmosphere until 1948.

After 20 years of climate diplomacy, the undeniable fact is that the three main factors that have reduced GHG emissions are, in increasing importance: global recession, the collapse of communism, and China's one child policy. The Rio dream is over.

Using whatever data he could find, Callendar claimed that there had already been a 10% increase in atmospheric CO2 and that an observable, anthropogenic warming had already begun. What became known as the "Callendar Effect" was the claim that the combustion of fossil fuels would lead to increases in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, which would warm the earth.

President Johnson said, "[t]his generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

We are constantly told that we stand at a unique moment in human history and that this is the last chance to make a difference, but every point in human history is unique, and it is always the last chance to make some particular difference.

there is no question that there is an enormous range of technologies that are on the shelf. The problem is the gap between technological development, and diffusion and adoption. It is sobering to be reminded that the first hybrid was invented in 1901.

In 1975 Wally Broecker published an influential paper correctly predicting a twentieth-century warming of 0.8°C, and worrying about the consequences for agriculture and sea level.64

in the 15 European countries that comprised the European Union when the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in 1997, emissions were nearly 5% lower in 2010 than they were in 1990.149 Compare this to the United States, which is not a party to the Kyoto Protocol, where emissions in 2010 were 5% greater than in 1990.150

about 7% of the global population is responsible for about 50% of emissions, while 50% of the global population is responsible for about 7% of emissions.91 It is the descendants of the latter group, poor people who emit little, who will suffer most of the damages of climate change.

On July 28 Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado, along with 18 co-sponsors from both political parties, introduced the National Energy Policy Act of 1988, calling for a 20% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions from 1988 levels by the year 2000.

In a September speech to the Royal Society, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed concern about climate change, ozone depletion, and acid rain, echoing Roger Revelle's language about the global experiment that was now underway, noting that the five warmest years in a century had all been in the 1980s, and reminding her audience of the vulnerability of the Maldives to sea level rise.

Our CO2 emissions, caused by such apparently innocent actions as driving to the farmer's market or the recycling center, will affect the lives of people in the next millennium.

One reason that the United States has not taken significant action on climate change is the success of the denial industry. Influential opinion leaders, backed by large sums of money, have successfully worked to cast doubt on mainstream climate science.

In 1955 John Von Neumann predicted: Intervention in atmospheric and climatic matters. . . . will unfold on a scale difficult to imagine at present. . . [T]his will merge each nation's affairs with those of every other, more thoroughly than the threat of a nuclear or any other war would have done.

whether or not it is economically rational to aggressively respond to climate change depends on the discount rate, which in turn depends on answering questions that standard economic theory is not prepared to address.

In the 1950s climate change was discussed in newspapers and popular magazines. Many will be surprised to learn that in 1965 climate change was mentioned by the president of the United States in a message to Congress.

For the first time in human history we are now able to remove large amounts of carbon that are sequestered deep inside the earth and transfer it to the atmosphere, thus affecting global climate. This is part of what Revelle and Suess meant when they wrote in their landmark 1957 paper that "[h]uman beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment of a kind that could not have happened in the past nor be reproduced in the future."65

In the aftermath of events such as Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina, people want to know whether they were caused by climate change. These are bad questions and no answer can be given that is not misleading. It is like asking whether when a baseball player gets a base hit, it is caused by his .350 batting average. One cannot say "yes," but saying "no" falsely suggests that there is no relationship between his batting average and the base hit.

After the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, multinational corporations began to leave the GCC. They thought that in the wake of Kyoto they would have to accommodate themselves to a carbon-constrained world and they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the GCC's "slash and burn" tactics. In 2002 the GCC became dormant, but only after spending tens of millions of dollars attacking climate science and policy.

Over the past 10,000 years, when almost everything we value about humanity and its creations came into existence, the Earth has been remarkably stable on a broad range of indicators. Until the last 250 years, when concentrations began to grow as a result of the industrial revolution, concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide have varied between 240 and 280 ppm. We have reached nearly 400 ppm as a result of human action,