ABSTRACT
The summer of 1989 was unusually hot in Norway. And the sweltering heat provided ammunition for a parliamentary discussion about global warming. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister and the former Chair for the World Commission on Environment and Development, pushed hard for an ambitious program aimed at stabilizing carbon emissions by the 1990s. Her goal was to prove to the world that Norway took Our Common Future (1987) and its quest for sustainable development seriously. But why global warming? History may untangle political intentions hidden
behind a mountain of climate change facts. As this article will illustrate, a historical approach may uncover motives, personal ambitions, and the use (or abuse) of science for political interests. Scientific research and discoveries change over time. What is right today may be proved wrong tomorrow. Teaching students about the history of climatology will give them some insight into climate research. This can be particularly helpful to students who feel they are ill-disposed to understanding science. In the late 1980s there were still valid scientific questions being raised with respect to the evidence from climatologists (Weart 2003). This is a good starting point for discussing with students how and why sciences develop and knowledge ‘hardens’ over time. Norway’s Prime Minister would support climatological research financially and politically. Why so? What did she try to achieve? Untangling her motivations may open up classroom discussions about climate politics, going beyond simplistic questions of whether or not politicians believe in global warming or not. Norwegian environmentalists were somewhat concerned about global warming in the mid-1980s, though they were pushing politicians to address ecological depletion and not climate change. To Brundtland, the ecological approach meant having to deal with unruly and highly vocal Deep Ecologists. Better then to start afresh with climatologists that appealed to the technocratic tradition within the Labor Party. Instead of changing the ethical and social ways of dealing with environmental problems as the Deep Ecologists were advocating, she was looking for technological and economic solutions supported by climate researchers. This move towards technocracy and cost-benefit economics reflects a post-Cold War turn towards utilitarian capitalism, but also, as I will argue, an attempt to reconcile the nation’s booming petroleum industry with reduction in climate gas emissions.
