"You Can See the Whole Hemisphere Breathing"
"You Can See the Whole Hemisphere Breathing". An Interview with Dr. Ralph Keeling. IPS. 2/08/2008.
Dr. Ralph Keeling is a climate change expert who explores how rises in carbon dioxide influence global oxygen levels.
Dr. Ralph Keeling is a climate change expert who explores how rises in carbon dioxide influence global oxygen levels.
He is a professor at Scripps Institute of
Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and the son of
Charles David Keeling, the pioneering climate scientist who began to
measure carbon dioxide levels at Mauna Loa in Hawaii in 1957. The data
collection started by Dr. Charles Keeling and continued at Mauna Loa is
the longest continuous record of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the
world.
Ralph Keeling spoke with IPS correspondent Am Johal from his lab at Scripps.
IPS: There still seems to be this gap between the science of climate change and the public policy debate. Do you have a sense of the barriers to knowledge translation, so that these scientific realities can make it out to the broader public so there is a cultural impact and a demonstrable affect on public policy?
RK: We are treading new ground in this from a global warming perspective as a civilisation in new ways. The nature of the threat -- which is that we will see negative consequences, mostly decades or more in the future -- is the kind of threat which has historically been ignored by human civilisations historically.
Human nature tends to focus on the immediate and assume that something 10 years down the road can be dealt with later. What people are being asked to do and reduce the impact and make some sacrifices now that might pay off decades in the future, I think it takes a really deep understanding of the problem in a way to even consider that. We're not quite there yet, quite honestly, as a civilisation.
We're going to need graphic images of damage where people see suffering and feel it in their own experiences. We are being called upon to reinvent our game -- civilisation as a whole, I mean, and it is a troubling thing for people to contemplate doing.
IPS: People or cultures need to be traumatised or experience a negative consequence before they are driven for massive changes, it seems. Sheila Watt-Clouter, as head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, put forward a human rights complaint against the U.S. based on linking its consumption levels with climate change and how it was, in turn, affecting the traditional Inuit way of life for many people in the Arctic. It was thrown out, but they were invited as a delegation to present their arguments to international bodies. What, then, do you make of the recent talks in Bali?
RK: They set up a process that there was agreement among a broad group of countries. They didn't actually take steps for taking action. It was more like a framework or that an agreement would go ahead. It's disappointing that the principle players aren't engaged in this, like the U.S. One needs a big role for China as well which is probably the biggest emitter in the world in 2007. The U.S. almost emits the same and much more on a per capita basis. There needs to be a drastic step to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Without countries like China and India, this won't go very far.
The pace is pathetically slow. It takes really aggressive government action like the Manhattan Project or the Marshall Plan at a global scale, a really international one, to make this happen in a comprehensive way. It's a better way to make big changes sooner.
IPS: Recently Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" became this major cultural moment about climate change. I'm wondering if you can place or contextualise this film, as someone who has been studying this for most of your adult life from your unique vantage point?
RK: I would say that as a scientist, my job is to learn about a problem I am studying. I followed in my father's footsteps and followed up on the measurements my father was taking and also in understanding the impact on oxygen levels. And so, I'm self-propelled by scientific interests that I recognise will have relevance later on.
Decades ago, things were worked out and we didn't know why things didn't happen at the policy level or have more impact. By the 1980s, the community had moved on from those issues in reality. The core science was settled even before that. Al Gore's role was basically taking a power point presentation of content that many of us scientists had presented a while ago, and some new information about shrinking Arctic sea ice, and get it out to the public in a way they could understand. To his credit, the talk he gave in the film was reasonably current. It has helped to move the debate forward.
IPS: Since there is a clear connection between human beings and emissions and climate change, it seems the question of global population and increases in population is certainly a factor. I'm wondering if you can speak to that element in the climate change debate?
RK: Definitely. It's important to recognise that reducing the global warming threat is going to be almost impossible without continued efforts to hold down world population growth. If the world's population continues towards growth, it expands the problems of keeping down emissions and other challenges to land use.
IPS: I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about following in your father's footsteps, in to the so-called Keeling family business of measuring the link between human beings and climate change?
RK: I'm holding down the fort so to speak. My father's programme is in my hands now. I'm interested in seeing it sustained. It continues to have relevance for policy and science. I've been looking at oxygen decreases with CO2 increases. The changes are too small to be environmentally significant. We get the role of natural sinks to buffer CO2 rises. It's less because CO2 is being absorbed by oceans and plants.
Levels of emission reductions will show how it will affect CO2 emissions so it has policy relevance.
The beauty of working on an atmospheric instrument such as that of the Mauna Loa record, you can kind of see the whole hemisphere breathing. You are tracking the whole atmosphere of the world. It's like taking a body temperature and getting a sense of the system.
IPS: Anything else?
I guess I'll reflect on one point. One part that my father worked on, that has become a community of scientists, is still a very small community. Things that should be important tend to be overlooked. We're under threat from a kind of apathy and, in my view, an inappropriate apathy. We feel the continuing challenge of having to justify what we do. It was my father's challenge when he was alive and it continues today. I hope that government and private funding should be brought to bear on this to put it in to more stable footing.
Ralph Keeling spoke with IPS correspondent Am Johal from his lab at Scripps.
IPS: There still seems to be this gap between the science of climate change and the public policy debate. Do you have a sense of the barriers to knowledge translation, so that these scientific realities can make it out to the broader public so there is a cultural impact and a demonstrable affect on public policy?
RK: We are treading new ground in this from a global warming perspective as a civilisation in new ways. The nature of the threat -- which is that we will see negative consequences, mostly decades or more in the future -- is the kind of threat which has historically been ignored by human civilisations historically.
Human nature tends to focus on the immediate and assume that something 10 years down the road can be dealt with later. What people are being asked to do and reduce the impact and make some sacrifices now that might pay off decades in the future, I think it takes a really deep understanding of the problem in a way to even consider that. We're not quite there yet, quite honestly, as a civilisation.
We're going to need graphic images of damage where people see suffering and feel it in their own experiences. We are being called upon to reinvent our game -- civilisation as a whole, I mean, and it is a troubling thing for people to contemplate doing.
IPS: People or cultures need to be traumatised or experience a negative consequence before they are driven for massive changes, it seems. Sheila Watt-Clouter, as head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, put forward a human rights complaint against the U.S. based on linking its consumption levels with climate change and how it was, in turn, affecting the traditional Inuit way of life for many people in the Arctic. It was thrown out, but they were invited as a delegation to present their arguments to international bodies. What, then, do you make of the recent talks in Bali?
RK: They set up a process that there was agreement among a broad group of countries. They didn't actually take steps for taking action. It was more like a framework or that an agreement would go ahead. It's disappointing that the principle players aren't engaged in this, like the U.S. One needs a big role for China as well which is probably the biggest emitter in the world in 2007. The U.S. almost emits the same and much more on a per capita basis. There needs to be a drastic step to reduce fossil fuel emissions. Without countries like China and India, this won't go very far.
The pace is pathetically slow. It takes really aggressive government action like the Manhattan Project or the Marshall Plan at a global scale, a really international one, to make this happen in a comprehensive way. It's a better way to make big changes sooner.
IPS: Recently Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" became this major cultural moment about climate change. I'm wondering if you can place or contextualise this film, as someone who has been studying this for most of your adult life from your unique vantage point?
RK: I would say that as a scientist, my job is to learn about a problem I am studying. I followed in my father's footsteps and followed up on the measurements my father was taking and also in understanding the impact on oxygen levels. And so, I'm self-propelled by scientific interests that I recognise will have relevance later on.
Decades ago, things were worked out and we didn't know why things didn't happen at the policy level or have more impact. By the 1980s, the community had moved on from those issues in reality. The core science was settled even before that. Al Gore's role was basically taking a power point presentation of content that many of us scientists had presented a while ago, and some new information about shrinking Arctic sea ice, and get it out to the public in a way they could understand. To his credit, the talk he gave in the film was reasonably current. It has helped to move the debate forward.
IPS: Since there is a clear connection between human beings and emissions and climate change, it seems the question of global population and increases in population is certainly a factor. I'm wondering if you can speak to that element in the climate change debate?
RK: Definitely. It's important to recognise that reducing the global warming threat is going to be almost impossible without continued efforts to hold down world population growth. If the world's population continues towards growth, it expands the problems of keeping down emissions and other challenges to land use.
IPS: I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about following in your father's footsteps, in to the so-called Keeling family business of measuring the link between human beings and climate change?
RK: I'm holding down the fort so to speak. My father's programme is in my hands now. I'm interested in seeing it sustained. It continues to have relevance for policy and science. I've been looking at oxygen decreases with CO2 increases. The changes are too small to be environmentally significant. We get the role of natural sinks to buffer CO2 rises. It's less because CO2 is being absorbed by oceans and plants.
Levels of emission reductions will show how it will affect CO2 emissions so it has policy relevance.
The beauty of working on an atmospheric instrument such as that of the Mauna Loa record, you can kind of see the whole hemisphere breathing. You are tracking the whole atmosphere of the world. It's like taking a body temperature and getting a sense of the system.
IPS: Anything else?
I guess I'll reflect on one point. One part that my father worked on, that has become a community of scientists, is still a very small community. Things that should be important tend to be overlooked. We're under threat from a kind of apathy and, in my view, an inappropriate apathy. We feel the continuing challenge of having to justify what we do. It was my father's challenge when he was alive and it continues today. I hope that government and private funding should be brought to bear on this to put it in to more stable footing.
