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i'm sure they thought they were right at the time I'm sure they were scared that they might be right, hence the creation of the EPA. It's hard to judge predic

by mbreese 16y ago

i'm sure they thought they were right at the time I'm sure they were scared that they might be right, hence the creation of the EPA. It's hard to judge predictions from so long ago because they were used to influence policy. That policy then influenced what actually happened, so it's not like two independent time points. I doubt that the seas would have risen 10 feet, but if there was no EPA, not environmental movement, not push to curb CO2 emissions, etc... we would probably be in a lot worse shape.

celoyd 16y ago
I could be totally wrong, but my impression is that at the time of the EPA’s creation, the model of pollution that it was designed to prevent was based on more or less directly harmful contamination: litter, mercury, smog, that kind of thing. I don’t think (and again, this is only an impression) that they saw the EPA as addressing global CO2 emissions.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  Your impression is certainly consistent with the major environmental legislation that gave the EPA its teeth: we have a Clean Air Act and we have a Clear Water Act. We do not have a Carbon-free Act from the same time period empowering the EPA to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
jacoblyles 16y ago
Your argument is usually correct, but I am not aware of any successful large-scale effort at limiting CO2 emission to date.
arohner 16y ago
> It's hard to judge predictions from so long ago because they were used to influence policy. That policy then influenced what actually happened No. The author's point is that the model used to predict climate change was terribly broken. Scientists told Nixon "if CO2 goes up by X in the next 30 years, average temperatures will go up by Y". That hypothesis is now testable, because we can look at CO2 and temperatures over the predicted time span. Anything else the EPA may or may not have done has no bearing.
- jonhendry 16y ago
  "Scientists told Nixon "if CO2 goes up by X in the next 30 years, average temperatures will go up by Y"." CO2 didn't go up as much as was predicted. It's only increased by about half as much. If the relationship is non-linear, much of the temperature increases could be loaded into the second half of CO2 rise. Anyway, it was 1960s science. They had far less data, primitive tools, etc.

by mbreese 16y ago

celoyd 16y ago

I could be totally wrong, but my impression is that at the time of the EPA’s creation, the model of pollution that it was designed to prevent was based on more or less directly harmful contamination: litter, mercury, smog, that kind of thing. I don’t think (and again, this is only an impression) that they saw the EPA as addressing global CO2 emissions.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
Your impression is certainly consistent with the major environmental legislation that gave the EPA its teeth: we have a Clean Air Act and we have a Clear Water Act. We do not have a Carbon-free Act from the same time period empowering the EPA to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

jacoblyles 16y ago

Your argument is usually correct, but I am not aware of any successful large-scale effort at limiting CO2 emission to date.

arohner 16y ago

> It's hard to judge predictions from so long ago because they were used to influence policy. That policy then influenced what actually happened No. The author's point is that the model used to predict climate change was terribly broken. Scientists told Nixon "if CO2 goes up by X in the next 30 years, average temperatures will go up by Y". That hypothesis is now testable, because we can look at CO2 and temperatures over the predicted time span. Anything else the EPA may or may not have done has no bearing.

jonhendry 16y ago
"Scientists told Nixon "if CO2 goes up by X in the next 30 years, average temperatures will go up by Y"." CO2 didn't go up as much as was predicted. It's only increased by about half as much. If the relationship is non-linear, much of the temperature increases could be loaded into the second half of CO2 rise. Anyway, it was 1960s science. They had far less data, primitive tools, etc.