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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 4, NUMBER 6, JUNE 1991

PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS...
COMMENTARY

Item #d91jun10

"Does Climate Still Matter?" J.H. Ausubel (Rockefeller Univ., New York NY 10021), Nature, 350(6320), 649-652, Apr. 25, 1991.

Examines climatic impacts through the lens of technology and innovation, focusing, by means of several types of data, on the adaptability of human systems including agriculture. The general direction of change in technology and civilization toward systems that are less vulnerable to climate is heartening for those anxious about climatic change. The highest need is assuring the inventive genius, economic power, and administrative competence that make technologies available to most people.

Item #d91jun11

"Response to Skeptics of Global Warming," W.W. Kellogg (NCAR, POB 3000, Boulder CO 80307), Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 72(4), 499-511, Apr. 1991.

A minority of scientists are skeptical that humans are significantly influencing the world's climate. Shows that these views need to be critically analyzed and in some cases refuted. Those who are convinced of the reality of significant climate change must express themselves with conviction to the media and to national and international leaders.

Item #d91jun12

"From Limits to Growth to Global Change: Constraints and Contradictions in the Evolution of Environmental Science and Ideology," F.H. Buttel (Dept. Rural Sociol., Cornell Univ., Ithaca NY 14853), A.P. Hawkins, A.G. Power, Global Environ. Change, 1(1), 57-66, Dec. 1990.

Points out similarities and differences shared by the notion of "limits to growth" and "global change." However, the favorable political reception accorded "global change" is markedly different from the hostile reception of the "limits of growth" theme of the early 1970s. The relatively high degree of consensus on global change that currently prevails may mask contradictions that will lead to major conflicts over environmental policy.