Sifting through the vast library here at the American Institute of Physics Publishing Center, I often come across pristine copies of amazing little books that nobody, it seems, has read. My favorite example, is "Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction," by Paul J. Nahin. Nahin comes across with a kid-in-a-candy store enthusiasm that reminds me (in an endearing way) of Doc Brown, the genius yet obviously insane time travel inventor in Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future films.
So, there are some little treasures to be dug up in the libraries around the office. Another more relevant find is "Climate Change & Energy Policy," by Louis Rosen and Robert Glasser. The most intriguing part about reading this book—which is a collection of presentations from the International Conference on Global Climate Change held at Los Alamos in October 1991—is the kind of time travel effect (and you thought that intro was all fluff... I was setting you up the whole time!) you experience by reading the views the world's leading climate scientists had 18 years ago.
Here are a few quotes I think are especially notable:
From "Assessing Global Climate Change: When Will We Have Better Evidence?" by J.D. Mahlman, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, NOAA:
...scientifically, much was known about this problem 15 years ago, while much will remain uncertain 15 years from now.
I find this especially poignant since we're basically 15 years in the future and here we are... indeed there are still uncertainties.
"When Will We Have Better Evidence for Climate Change Due to Anthropogenic Emissions?" by G.S. Golitsyn, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences, concludes with:
So if you are in government, business, or education, do not ask, when will we have better evidence? The evidence is enough to start moving in the right direction of conserving natural resources and using them in a more efficient way.
From "National Energy Strategies and the Greenhouse Problem" by Irving M. Mintzer, Stockholm Environment Institute:
If current policies and strategies continue unchanged, and if the resulting trends in the emissions of these gases continues, there is a significant risk of rapid and disruptive climate change in the decades ahead. To reduce the risks of rapid climate change while preserving the prospects for economic development, national energy strategies must be modified to increase the efficiency of energy use and to develop cleaner, safer, and less carbon-intensive supplies of energy.
From "Global Trends in Energy Use: Indications for Research" by Robert N. Schock, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Even conservative world-energy scenarios show the need for more energy from clean sources beyond what coal and nuclear are likely to provide. We must invest financial resources now in a broad range of technologies to ensure that these sources are available.
From "The Greenhouse Effect: Political Decision Making and the Application of Upwelling/Diffusion Models" by Peter Laut, Engineering Academy of Denmark:
...grave difficulties are likely to arise for the political decision maker, especially because of the long time delay between the investment now of national resources in order to counter climatic change, and the resulting benefits, which may first materialize in the distant future in the form of a somewhat more moderate rise of global temperatures.
From "Energy Policy in the Light of Global Climate-Change Uncertainty" by Alan T. Crane, Office of Technology Assessment, U.S. Congress:
Some want to increase energy supply, in particular by allowing drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge or by expediting nuclear reactor licensing... Most consider it a low-priority issue as long as energy supplies are adequate and prices low.
From "Session Two of the Panel Discussions and Conclusions on Integrating Climate-Change and Energy Policy" by Virginia Oversby, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
I get a feeling that we're putting emphasis on changing from coal to renewable energy technologies or non-carbon energy production technologies and using global warming as an excuse for doing this... This should be a first-principles argument. We should separate the climatic effects, which are important to discuss, from this more fundamental issue.
From the "Concluding Observations: Integrating Climate-Change and Energy Policy from Charles Keller and Robert Glasser"
The task before us is to determine how we can improve the dialogue between the climate scientists and the people responsible for contributing to the science of energy production and transportation and the energy-policy makers.
And finally, from Louis Rosen's (Los Alamos National Laboratory) "Summary Talk and Concluding Remarks:
Serguei Kapitsa coauthored, some years ago, an innovative book that dealt with the insanity and futility and danger of the arms race. In it was argued the thesis that we must learn to think differently and behave differently. This, I gather from our conference, must now be done with respect to environment and energy. Old habits, old assumptions, and old value systems must be reexamined. Some must be abandoned, others altered. This is terribly difficult. But the peoples of the USSR and Eastern Europe are showing us that it is not impossible to recast one's vision of the world, and in a relatively short time.
There are a couple of striking things about this quote. The first: Rosen's speech was given on October 24, 1991. On December 8, 1991, the Belavezha Accords were signed, declaring the Soviet Union dissolved and replacing it with the Commonwealth of Independent States. Of course, Rosen and the rest of the world had already seen independent states form within the Soviet Union, so the signs were already there, but I think that the bigger point is clear: there are more important things than power struggles between nations—the world will need to work together to solve our real problems.
And finally, it's notable that Louis Rosen passed away on August 15 of this year. There's not much I can say about Rosen that the New York Times hasn't already said, so I'll leave it at that.
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