There appears to be a concerted effort by mainstream commentators to counter the recent dissentient surge which is very welcome if somewhat overdue. A number of well reasoned articles are referenced further down the page. First however I have to highlight two videos.
As you probably know I am an avid watcher of Climate Denial Crock of the Week, and he presents a delightful little piece on Lord Monckton.
Secondly a forum called Transforming Data into Policy: What can we learn from climate change policy making in Australia so far? was held at the University of Melbourne recently. It featured four speakers including Ross Garnaut, Rod Sims, Greg Combet and Paul Kelly speaking on climate policy. I watched the video as Rod is a friend, even though he is espousing what I might loosely call the industry case, but I would especially recommend listening to Ross Garnaut.
He says “We have lost the capacity of governments to act on the basis of informed analysis of the national interest against the pressures of private interests”. He questions whether the US government could now actually act in what they see as the national interest against the powerful business lobbies even if they wanted to and suggests that the history of climate change policy in Europe and Australia is not encouraging. “Powerful vested interests are resisting the policy reform necessary to tackle climate change just as they resisted financial regulation policy”.
He talks of “Distorted incentive structures” and suggests that “the future of human civilization is probably at stake” when discussing whether the government can resist the pressure of vested interests, and clearly feels that the government’s ETS has been adversely affected by industry.
Towards the end he says “The private interests have acted genuinely privately, have not sought to debate the issues publicly and have had very strong and clear and ready access to the main ministers…. There has not been similar access for interests that might be seen as representing the public interest.”
So his message is quite clear if quietly spoken
“I would contest that the unhappy circumstances of this current Australian policy is very much the result of government having not got on top of the process of managing the role of private interests in our demographic discussion on this issue.”
The other speakers are worth listening to if you have an hour or so to spare.
The New York Times magazine has a very well written article called Building a Green Economy by Paul Krugman which is well worth reading. He agrees with James Hansen that we should ban any new coal fired power stations though he doesn’t mention nuclear and is slightly in favour of an ETS rather than a tax (I find his logic here rather torturous).
The latest climate talks in Bonn, the first since Copenhagen, have ended in deadlock with the outgoing UN Climate head Yvo de Boer saying there was no chance of a final deal this year.
There also seems to be a welcome swing towards people willing to call for more emphasis on birth control as per this Grist article. Making sure that women everywhere have the tools and information to determine when and if they have kids seems a no brainer. Laurie Mazur points out that the cost of the scheme to the West would be $20 billion, or roughly the same as bankers awarded themselves in bonuses in 2008. I disagree with those who like to focus on population rather than emissions reductions; both will be needed.
Lastly George Monbiot looks at some of the stolen emails and is rightly critical of some of the secrecy involved. In one Phil Jones from the Climatic Research Unit says “Even if WMO [the World Meteorological Organisation] agrees, I will still not pass on the data. We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it”. Sorry but in my opinion this is not acceptable. The whole idea of science is that you publish complete and clear papers so that others can either build on them or try and improve them. Especially in an area that is so sensitive public servants must be open and accountable, and not hide data to try and perpetuate their own reputations. While the inquiries have by and large exonerated those involved, and the dissentient claims that this somehow makes climate change magically go away are utter rubbish, we need to ensure that science remains scientific and doesn’t slowly slip into dogma. I suspect that the peer review process and the influence of the major scientific journals are not helpful in this respect and need revision.
