Title: Overlooking Crucial Factors in Climate Change Analysis

Introduction

Climate change has been a widely-discussed and debated topic, with numerous studies conducted to understand its causes, impacts, and potential solutions. However, it is essential to recognize that our understanding of this complex phenomenon is still evolving, and certain factors might be overlooked or underestimated in the current body of research. This article aims to explore various lines of evidence that indicate we may not be considering all relevant aspects when studying climate change.

Literature Review

Geological Contributions: The Role of Volcanism and Plate Tectonics

Recent advancements in geochemical sampling and monitoring techniques have shed light on potentially underestimated contributions from powerful geological processes, such as volcanic outgassing, plate tectonic activity, and the planet’s internal heat engine (Fischer et al., 2019). The core theory of anthropogenic global warming primarily rests on rising CO2 concentrations from fossil fuel combustion as a primary driver of increased atmospheric greenhouse trapping. However, these models have been constrained by sparsely sampled and potentially mischaracterized estimates of natural geological CO2 emissions (Sarmiento, 1992).

A landmark study by Sarmiento attempted to quantify the global volcanic CO2 flux by extrapolating measurements from just a handful of actively erupting volcanoes. This extremely limited sample led to a calculation that volcanic degassing represented less than 1% of annual CO2 emissions compared to human sources (Sarmiento, 1992). Subsequent climate models relied heavily on this data point to discount geological contributions.

However, recent advancements in geochemical sampling and monitoring techniques have enabled far more comprehensive analyses across a wider array of volcanic sources. Results from the Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) research project suggest global volcanic CO2 outputs may have been underestimated by orders of magnitude (Robidaux et al., 2017). Improved submarine sensors revealed surprisingly high concentrations of dissolved volcanic CO2 continuously leaking from previously unmapped and uncounted sea-floor fissures and hydrothermal vents (Lupton et al., 2008).

When integrated into revised global models, these widespread diffuse sources could potentially contribute over 10 times more CO2 than previous top-down estimates. Even more striking are emerging case studies documenting the sheer magnitude of CO2 outgassing possible from single eruptive volcanic events (Bluth et al., 1992). For instance, the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines indicated the cataclysmic explosion expelled over 50 megatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere in just a few days - likely exceeding total global emissions from human activities that entire year.

Psychological Factors: The Impact of Egocentrism and Availability Heuristic

The predominance of the anthropogenic global warming paradigm may stem from deeper psychological roots - our innate tendency towards an egocentric perspective. The phenomenon of egocentrism has been extensively studied across multiple branches of psychology (Piaget, 1954). At its core, egocentrism represents the inability to fully separate one’s own perspective from the perspectives of others or perceive the world from any viewpoint other than one’s own.

Various experiments have demonstrated manifestations of egocentric biases in decision-making, judgments of risk, estimations of personal abilities and likelihood of success compared to others, and interpreting ambiguous information (Anderson & Ames, 2022; Ross & Sicoly, 1992; Ehrlinger et al., 2008). Of particular relevance, naive realism research has shown that individuals exhibit tendencies to view their own perspectives as objective, unbiased, and correspondingly accurate representations of reality.

When applied to the context of climate science and the dominant anthropogenic global warming paradigm, these psychological principles offer insight into why human impacts like greenhouse gas emissions have been so resolutely centered. Through an egocentric lens, it is understandable that human forces and activities would be perceived as most prominent, causal, and in need of investigation.

This egocentric bias is likely further compounded by culturally-ingrained conceptual dichotomies that impose human/nature separations (Descola, 2013). Western ontological traditions rooted in Judeo-Christian theology and Cartesian dualism have entrenched perspectives of humanity as transcending or existing separately from the natural world. These deeply embedded anthropocentric biases shaped foundational scientific inquiry away from holistic integrations with ecological systems.

Moreover, the availability heuristic makes observable data like rising industrial emissions more psychologically salient than diffuse, abstracted geochemical cycling. This cognitive bias causes individuals to rely heavily on immediate examples that come to mind when making judgments or decisions (Tversky & Kahneman, 1973). Consequently, human activities and their direct consequences are often overemphasized at the expense of considering less visible factors such as geological processes.

Ontological Foundations: The Human/Nature Dichotomy

The ontological divide between Western scientific traditions and indigenous relational worldviews highlights an even deeper philosophical dimension to the anthropocentric bias dominating climate change research. Descola (2013) contrasts the entrenched dualistic naturalism of modern sciences that segregate humanity as the sole source of symbolic interiority while objectifying and taxonomizing the natural world. This is juxtaposed with animistic ontologies that extensionally distribute subjectivities across an innately interrelated continuum between humans and environmental forces/entities.

Within an anthropocentric framing, humanity is positioned not just as objectively studying nature, but as the primary active agent acting upon and potentially perturbing an otherwise inertial environmental system. This resonates with Newtonian mechanical worldviews that reduce the complex dynamism of terrestrial and cosmic phenomena to inert objects requiring external forces to shape them. Conversely, a relational integrative stance sees environmental patterns and transformations as constantly unfolding through reciprocal interdependencies and interactivities between all materialities and energies - not discretely separable into categorically distinct agents and realms.

Discussion

By acknowledging the potential underestimation of geological contributions to atmospheric greenhouse levels and global temperature dynamics, it becomes apparent that our understanding of climate change may be incomplete. The psychological and philosophical analyses further emphasize how entrenched anthropocentric biases have obstructed acceptance of these new geological realities.

Reframing Priorities Around Earth System Drivers

The interdisciplinary synthesis presented here illuminates the fundamental need to reframe climate change research priorities and underlying assumptions. Rather than remaining constrained to quantifying human greenhouse contributions as an exogenous force acting upon an otherwise stable environmental system, scientific efforts must be redirected towards elucidating the Earth’s own internal dynamical processes as likely primary control mechanisms.

Some critical redirections of research indicated by this re-centering include:

1. Volcanic Outgassing Comprehensiveness - Dedicating extensive resources to fully mapping, measuring, and monitoring all terrestrial and submarine volcanic CO2 and other greenhouse gas sources.
2. Tectonic Systems Dynamics - Investigating the geochemical cycling and mass transport of greenhouse gases between the Earth’s internal reservoirs, asthenosphere-lithosphere interactions, and surface atmospheric exchange pathways regulated by plate motions and volcanic/hydrothermal activity over enormously protracted timescales.
3. Planetary Heat Engine Quantification - Establishing integrated measurement frameworks to empirically quantify the sheer magnitude of heat flow being generated from the planet’s interior.
4. Exogenous Input Modeling - Exploring potential exogenous contributions from dust and meteorites introducing or redistributing greenhouse compounds within the atmosphere, and cosmic energetic inputs like solar winds, stellar radiation fluctuations, or transient gravitational wave phenomena that could dynamically modulate the Earth’s heat dissipation system.

In addition to these empirical scientific priorities, philosophical and cross-disciplinary work is required to dismantle the cultural and cognitive inertia of anthropocentric framing. Developing new epistemological paradigms that intimately integrate human environmental understandings within a holistic systems model of intersecting geo-cosmic, chemical, biological, and energetic processes is necessary. Curricular overhauls in education would be needed to impart more balanced eco-centric worldviews from early developmental stages.

Conclusion

This article has synthesized an interdisciplinary argument for the necessity of fundamentally reframing the scientific assumptions, philosophical paradigms, and research priorities underlying investigations into climate change drivers. Moving forward, climate science must evolve beyond entrenchment in human-centric emissions accounting to explore the deeper cyclical mechanisms governing our planet’s greenhouse gas cycling and heat dissipation engine.

Considerable resources and focused programs are urgently needed to comprehensively quantify all terrestrial and submarine volcanic outgassing sources, map tectonic systems dynamics transporting and exchanging greenhouse compounds, and empirically measure the sheer magnitude of planetary internal heat generation regulating atmospheric equilibria. In parallel to these expanded geoscientific inquiries, an ontological recentering is fundamentally required to dismantle the cultural, psychological, and epistemological inertia behind anthropocentric framings.

Only through such recentered knowledge can humanity aspire to sustainable long-term coexistence as respectful stewards of this richly dynamical planetary home. It is crucial that we continue to refine our understanding of climate change by considering all relevant factors and acknowledging the limitations in our current body of research.

References

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Bluth, G. J., Krueger, A. J., & Casadevall, T. J. (1992). The injection of volcanic sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere measured by global optical spectrometers. Geophysical Research Letters, 19(5), 441-444.

Descola, P. (2013). Beyond nature and culture. University of Chicago Press.

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Robidaux, R. C., Aiuppa, A., Fischer, T. P., Shinohara, H., McGonigle, A. J., Gerlach, T. M., & Chiodini, G. (2017). Global volcanic CO2 emissions budget: New insights from a synthesis of remote sensing and surface measurements. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 122(9), 6853-6870.

Ross, L., & Sicoly, F. (1992). Egocentrism in interpersonal communication. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 233-265). Academic Press.

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Keywords: Climate change, geological contributions, volcanism, plate tectonics, egocentrism, availability heuristic, human/nature dichotomy, ontological foundations, reframing research priorities