Dr Peter Gleick, who is president of the Pacific Institute has written a lovely piece for the San Francisco Chronicle available here.
He writes:-
“Those who deny that humans are causing unprecedented climate change have never, ever produced an alternative scientific argument that comes close to explaining the evidence we see around the world that the climate is changing.”
“Deniers don’t like the idea of climate change, they don’t believe it is possible for humans to change the climate, they don’t like the implications of climate change, they don’t like the things we might have to do to address it, or they just don’t like government or science. But they have no alternative scientific explanation that works.”
He goes on to describe some of the unsavoury communications being received by many in the climate science community, which seems to be a deliberate and coordinated attempt to frighten or intimidate. I guess if you can’t successfully attack the basic science you start to play the man rather than the ball. Ugly, and about as intelligent as the average schoolyard bully.
However it doesn’t look as if the scientists are retreating, with widespread discussion on how best to communicate their point of view.
James Hansen, has been in this from the beginning, (if you count official warnings to government then the congressional hearings in 1988 are a good start point). He is a personal hero for his uncompromising statements, both about the science, the action we need to take. He has an excellent Op Ed in the Australian here which starts:-
AUSTRALIA will suffer if fossil fuel use continues unabated. Climate extremes will increase. Poleward expansion of the subtropics will make Australia often hotter and drier, with stronger droughts and hotter fires, as the jet stream retreats southward.
But when ocean temperature patterns bring rain, the warmer air will dump much more water, causing damaging floods. Storms will become more devastating as the ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland begin to disintegrate and cool the neighbouring ocean, as I describe in [my book] Storms of My Grandchildren. Ice discharge from Antarctica has already doubled in the past five years.
Science has shown that preservation of stable climate and the remarkable life that our planet harbours require a rapid slowdown of fossil fuel emissions. Atmospheric carbon dioxide, now almost 390 parts per million, must be brought back to 350ppm or less. That is possible, with actions that make sense for other reasons.
But the actions require a change to business-as-usual. Change is opposed by those profiting from our fossil-fuel addiction. Change will happen only with courageous political leadership.
Leaders must draw attention to the moral imperative. We cannot pretend that we do not understand the consequences for our children and grandchildren. We cannot leave them with a situation spiralling out of their control. We must set a new course.
Yet what course is proposed? Hokey cap-and-trade with offsets, aka an emissions trading scheme. Scheme is the right word, a scheme to continue business-as-usual behind a fig leaf.
He goes on to advocate a “Fee and Cheque” system where a rising price on fossil fuels is levied as close to the point of production as possible and returned to the public in an equal share per person, and to suggest that part of China’s problem with Copenhagen was that while they were willing to put a rising price on carbon, the west tried to force them into a cap and trade system. If correct, this is encouraging as China will call a lot of the shots going forward. He also thinks nuclear power will be needed in a low carbon world, and believes we have to develop the IFR (more details on this here).
A second well regarded senior scientist (who also testified in 1988) has also come out with a clear statement of facts, on Climate Progress. Dr George Woodwell states in part:-
The information that is important in making the decisions as to how to manage our world is unequivocal and must be advanced, not as questions at the edge of scientific knowledge where scientist like to dwell, but as the facts that they are, facts as immutable as the law of gravity. The climatic disruption is not a theory open to a belief system any more than the solar system is a theory, or gravity, or the oceanic tides, or evolution. This approach is uncompromising, partisan in the sense of selected for the purpose. It is not a lecture to undergraduates; nor is it ecology 101. It is a clear statement of what is required for government to do its job in protecting the public welfare. The scientific community has a firm responsibility in this realm now. This is not the time to wring our hands over the challenges to hyper-scientific objectivity, the purity of scholars, and to tie ourselves in knots with apologies for alleged errors of trifling import.
Hopefully this plain talking from those who should know what they are talking about, as opposed to some of the more lordly recent visitors to Australia, will lead to some significant action before it is too late.
