The Montreal Agreement is a Good Example of How to Deal With a Global Environmental Problem

Abstract

The tenor of scientific discourse about climate change in the decades from the second quarter of the nineteenth century to the present has changed considerably, and exhibits three major periods. Each of these periods is characterized by one of three phases of scientific effort and its relationship to society. Briefly put, they are a period of hypothesis (up to about 1945), a period of gathering evidence and testing hypotheses (roughly 1945–1975), and a period of controversy over the application of apparent scientific consensus (from perhaps 1975 to present). Of course, all three of these aspects of science continued throughout recent history: theories have been developed and tested all along, but these periods do seem to follow an emergent dialectic, and the public debate on the relationship between science and society has unmistakably intensified in the most recent decades.