Science can at times be exceedingly complex. At others
somewhat simple. Take lung cancer as an example. It took decades to have people
know that smoking caused lung cancer. Why? Well in my opinion having lived
through the period and never having smoked, it was twofold. The media promoted
the habit as something that made one "cool". Second, medical
scientists used complex statistical analyses which no one could understand. One
could scare people but that did not work. Frankly it required a ready
acceptance of DNA and the impact of genetic mutations that allowed many, not
all obviously, to see that they got it. Not that they really got it but the
paradigm had shifted and once you knew about DNA you had a new paradigm,
independent of statistics, to grab hold of.
Needless to say, this also applied to various cancers,
almost to an extreme. Patients come in armed with their DNA demanding pre-emptive
care. You then have to tell them that germ line DNA and the DNA in a tumor are
different but if you have a BRCA mutation your risk is indeed higher. However
there may be no reason to look for a BRAF V600 in the excised mole after the
pathologist deemed it benign. Yet this current state of affairs demonstrates
the taking hold of a real paradigm shift, the double helix, even if the patient
understands nothing more than its existence.
The same holds with X rays and excessive use. Likewise, for
HIV and its transmission. However if one were to take measles, and other
communicable disease preventable by vaccines, one can see a dual paradigm,
namely believe they work or believe they are harmful. In this case I suggest
the paradigm of immunology and the antibodies is lacking. Most individuals have
no clue. Yet perhaps as we see immunotherapy in cancers, we may expect a shift
there also.
Now to climate change or whatever the current term is. Carbon
dioxide and methane can be shown to retain solar heat as it strikes the earth.
That may be a fact but the paradigm for it is lacking. The promulgators tried
to use the term "greenhouse gasses" but as a paradigm it has not
caught fire.
Let us consider some early work on this topic[1].
The authors note:
Methane (CH4) is the most abundant organic gas in Earth’s
atmosphere. .. Since the early 1970s a variety of roles of methane in
atmospheric chemistry and climate have been identified. For example, methane
affects tropospheric ozone, hydroxyl radicals and carbon monoxide
concentrations, stratospheric chlorine and ozone chemistry and, through its
infrared properties, Earth’s energy balance…
They continue:
Atmospheric methane exerts influence over Earth’s climate
in several different ways, both direct and indirect. The more direct roles
involve interaction with planetary infrared radiation, warming Earth’s
surface and near-surface atmosphere and cooling the stratosphere, i.e., the
roles of an effective greenhouse gas. The most important infrared spectral
feature of methane molecules is their 7.66-μm absorption band; quantitative models of the
impact of methane’s role in Earth’s energy budget focus on this band. …calculated
that the presence of 1.5 ppm of CH4 in the atmosphere causes the globally
averaged surface temperature to be about 1.3 K higher than it would be with
zero methane and that larger effects would apply to polar latitudes.…have computed the global heating due to an increase of
CH4 concentrations from various deduced preindustrial levels to contemporary
values and the future heating effects of several methane scenarios. For
example, the infrared radiative heating effect of a methane increase from 0.7
ppm (preindustrial revolution) to 1.7 ppm (1988 concentration) is about half as
large as the comparable effect of simultaneously increasing C02 from 275 ppm to
345 ppm. Future growth in atmospheric methane concentrations, while not clearly
predictable, is likely to contribute more to future climatic change than any
other gas except C02. …In the paleoatmosphere of 4.25 billion years ago when the
Sun was perhaps 30% less luminous, relatively high concentrations of
atmospheric gases such as C02 and CH4 could have served to maintain Earth
temperatures above freezing (evidence suggests that Earth was not frozen over) ….
Methane concentrations of about 100 ppm could have decreased the amount of C02
required for maintenance of a warm Earth by about a factor of 2 … The direct
radiative effect of atmospheric methane also extends into the stratosphere; at
altitudes above about 20 km, CH4 molecules act to cool the atmosphere through
radiative losses to space. There are also several interesting and potentially
important indirect ways that methane can affect climate. One that has not
received much attention is that the atmospheric oxidation of CH4 produces CO
which is converted further to C02. Methane oxidation produces about 8 x 1014 g CO/yr …. CO molecules survive two to three months
on average before conversion to C02 by (R16). In this way, about 0.34 x 1015 g
C/yr as C02 is produced globally. By comparison, total human release of C02 due
to combustion and cement use is about 5.3 x1015 g C/yr. Thus, we calculate that the atmospheric
production of C02 from atmospheric CH4 is about 6% as much as the direct annual
release of C02 from anthropogenic sources. Other indirect effects of increasing atmospheric CH4 Eire
the chemical production of tropospheric O3 (a greenhouse gas) and increases in
tropospheric water vapor. The latter effect is not proven, but it is a common
and plausible assumption in climate model sensitivity and a result of some
general circulation models that as temperature rises, atmospheric relative
humidity will remain rather constant. Accordingly, absolute H20 amounts would
increase. In this way the effect of a greenhouse warming from CH4 or other
causes leads to an amplification of perhaps 50% due to increased H20 vapor
concentrations … Tropospheric O3 increases that can result from CH4 increases
in the presence of NO2 … are also able to affect climate, especially if ozone
concentrations should increase in the upper troposphere where O3 is a
particularly effective greenhouse gas.
Needless to say this is not a paradigm. Furthermore, this is
one of the better non-paradigms. The issue is simple. The sun sends radiation
to the earth, the CO2 and CH4 absorb it and the outer electron levels jump with
the increase in energy and they decay converting it to heat, most of which falls
down to the earth. Thus these gasses are energy converters, taking one level
and turning it into another thus increasing temperature. Secondly when the heat
is reradiated outward it is reduced again by these molecules which absorb and
reflect back in a somewhat endless process. There is a little quantum mechanics
here but at high school level.
Now along come the teenagers. As Nature notes[2]:
As each of the UN conventions faces continuing
challenges, the IPCC can at least be assured of support from the next
generation. It has garnered a following among the growing international youth
climate movement. Members keenly absorb every new report, including
participants in the school strike for climate, led by Swedish teenage activist
Greta Thunberg. Thunberg makes a point of namechecking the IPCC and quoting paragraph
and page numbers in speeches, as she did in an address to the French parliament
at the end of last month. As government delegates get ready for Delhi, Nairobi
and New York, they must prepare to answer why, if children can understand the
meaning of the IPCC assessments, adults cannot do the same? The youth climate
movement’s members are brave, and they are right. It has been almost three
decades since the three UN conventions — on biodiversity, climate and
desertification — were agreed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. And it has
been 31 years since the IPCC was created to advise decision makers. Yet
environmental promises have not been matched by meaningful action. Younger
generations know, perhaps better than the adults, that the world might not have
another three decades to prevent climate impacts that will be even more serious
than those we face now. Politicians must act now.
Politically, when one has a group of uneducated children
evoking politically pontificated pronouncements the masses will rebel. If,
however, you had a simple and understandable paradigm you can win. The
paradigm; why ae roses red? Simple, the white light is reflected off the leaf
and everything but red is absorbed so what we see reflected is red. Why is the
earth getting warmer? Simple, we have CO2 and CH4 absorbing light from the sun
and converting it to infrared for warming and then blocking it from leaving.
If one can get the simple paradigm across then most people
can understand and respond. The solution then is the reduction of these gasses
via technology not politics. Unlike Nature, younger generations really do not
"know" since it is most likely they have not been taught.
The challenge is for Scientists to explain simply and
correctly, give people paradigms to hold on to. People like good paradigms.
Scientists should not try to explain as if we must understand every detail. Furthermore,
Government reports all too often miss everything trying to be totally inclusive
of every "good" idea. To paraphrase Amadeus, "too many
words".
[1] BIO
GEO CHEMICAL ASPECTS OF ATMOSPHERIC METHANE, R. J. Cicerone, National Center
for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado and R. S. Oremland, U.S. Geological
Survey, Menlo Park, California. Global Biogeochemical Cycles, Vol. 2, No. 4,
Pages 299-327, December 1988
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