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Is it time to de-mystify climate science?
It struck me a while back, just how many of my intelligent, well-educated and (relatively) well-informed friends and acquaintances either simply don't believe that climate change is real, at all, and that there is a need to control emissions, or just pay lip-service to environmental sustainability efforts in their everyday lives. You know the kind of things I mean; turning things off, not filling the kettle fully, household recycling, yadda, yadda, all those little steps we take to try and reduce our contribution.
From the comversations I've had it's evident that a large number of them have been truned off environmental issues by:
- over-exposure to the 'green' message;
- cynicism about climate change science which has too often been hijacked for political (and Political) aims and which has (in their view) too often subsequently not been as well-proven as might have been stated;
- inability to fully grasp the complexity of climate/biosphere interactions (and who can blame them);
- in some cases, resignation to the inevitability of climate 'doom' being protrayed by some commentators.
My own view is that too much reliance has been put on trying to absolutely, defintively and quantitatively 'prove' the case for anthropogenic climate change effects when we, in reality, a fair way off being able to do so. It is also evident, to me at least, that too much damage has been done by politicains and some scientists, stating what are in the end no more than scientific theories and (very reasonable) inferrences, as absolute scientific fact; in this I think politicians and those organisations with a fairly hard-line environmental agenda share the majority of the blame. Climate change is happening, that much is almost certainly an absolute truth. The main argument, surely, is whether or to what extent, anthropogenic causes are a significant contributory factor.
I feel it's time for a new message, one that any person, regardless of background or educational standing can comprehend, and it is this:
forget the science; intuitively, is it not self-evident that the continued emission of millions of tons of chemicals into the air and water of our very small planet is bound to have dire consequences. Therefore, it makes sense that we all have to act to reduce emissions in whatever small way we can.
That's it - short, to the point and, whilst some may say this message is out already 'out there', it'sdefinitely not at the forefront of the climate change debate and that's where it should be. Let's stop baffling and befuddling the common man with complex scientific equations, arguments and theories.
Am I stating the obvious!!?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Graeme Mills on -
Hi Mike
With you on all this.
I'd also add the issue of resource depletion. Even if you've decided the science is dodgy - there are ver few that would argue that we are running out of resurces - oil, gas, metals, bauxite - so all the activities we do in th enam eof reducing climate change should be done in the name of resource depletion as well. It's like a smoker refusing to believe that smoking causes heart problems but understanding it causes lung cancer - same action applies - stop smoking.
Gareth Kane on this network may have an opinion on this...
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Permalink Reply by Mike Potts on -
Graeme,
I agree with you in principle, but I think that it's actually very important tha the message has to be kept simple to start with. The biggest problem is just getting people on board in the first place and at the moment there's information overload - I consider myself a reasonably well-informed technical expert within the environmental field, and I can't keep up with all the issues! It seems that we need to overcome the disconnect in people's minds; for example, I suspect that whilst the majority in the UK agree with and believe in environmental matters on the whole, they just think it's somebody else's job to sort it out, that the Government will deal with it etc. Much like smoking, to use your own analogy; most smokers cannot help but be very aware of the dangers of smoking, yet they continue to do it partly because "cancer happens to other people" - until it actually affects them personally, it's no more than a concept, it's just not real. And the same with drink-driving, the average drink-driver thinks they're perfectly capable of having several pints and then driving home, it's other people who are the problem. The human mind seems to have an incredible ability to disassociate the issues around with wioth personal responsibility; anti-social pehaviour, litter, crime, teeenage pregnancy, take your pick, they're all 'society's problem', not yours or mine. It's the Government's/the Councils/the UN's/Greenpeace's job to deal with these matters, you and I have no impact. In the West in particular, we're relatively well-shielded from climate impacts that cause utter devastation elsewhere; people sigh and tut and shake their heads in pity at the floods in pakistan, bemoaning the effects of climate change, then get back in their 4x4 and go home to watch their wide-screen TV with surround-sound cinema effect, withall the lights on, everything on standby and the internet left on 24-7, etc, etc.
I think that winning the environmental sustainability battle is about getting over this barrier. I'd just like to persuade the majority that this is something that is very, very real, that potentially affects every single one of us and that will only be sorted out when we 'all' take some personal repsonsibility. If we can just get the wider public to get 'on-message', to absorb and fully grasp the significance of our tiny, seemingly insignificant individual actions within the group responsibility, then we might have a chance of turning things around. If we can overcome this initial hurdle and get people to really start thinking about the issues on a personal level, then the rest will follow naturally. Once you add in mineral resources, and somebody else adds in natural resources etc, etc, the issue becomes overloaded again.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Potts on
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Oh my lord, I'm turning into a ranter!!! :)
Mike Potts said:Graeme,
I agree with you in principle, but I think that it's actually very important tha the message has to be kept simple to start with. The biggest problem is just getting people on board in the first place and at the moment there's information overload - I consider myself a reasonably well-informed technical expert within the environmental field, and I can't keep up with all the issues! It seems that we need to overcome the disconnect in people's minds; for example, I suspect that whilst the majority in the UK agree with and believe in environmental matters on the whole, they just think it's somebody else's job to sort it out, that the Government will deal with it etc. Much like smoking, to use your own analogy; most smokers cannot help but be very aware of the dangers of smoking, yet they continue to do it partly because "cancer happens to other people" - until it actually affects them personally, it's no more than a concept, it's just not real. And the same with drink-driving, the average drink-driver thinks they're perfectly capable of having several pints and then driving home, it's other people who are the problem. The human mind seems to have an incredible ability to disassociate the issues around with wioth personal responsibility; anti-social pehaviour, litter, crime, teeenage pregnancy, take your pick, they're all 'society's problem', not yours or mine. It's the Government's/the Councils/the UN's/Greenpeace's job to deal with these matters, you and I have no impact. In the West in particular, we're relatively well-shielded from climate impacts that cause utter devastation elsewhere; people sigh and tut and shake their heads in pity at the floods in pakistan, bemoaning the effects of climate change, then get back in their 4x4 and go home to watch their wide-screen TV with surround-sound cinema effect, withall the lights on, everything on standby and the internet left on 24-7, etc, etc.
I think that winning the environmental sustainability battle is about getting over this barrier. I'd just like to persuade the majority that this is something that is very, very real, that potentially affects every single one of us and that will only be sorted out when we 'all' take some personal repsonsibility. If we can just get the wider public to get 'on-message', to absorb and fully grasp the significance of our tiny, seemingly insignificant individual actions within the group responsibility, then we might have a chance of turning things around. If we can overcome this initial hurdle and get people to really start thinking about the issues on a personal level, then the rest will follow naturally. Once you add in mineral resources, and somebody else adds in natural resources etc, etc, the issue becomes overloaded again.
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Permalink Reply by Gareth Kane on -
To me, the biggest problem is the deliberate attempt by certain elements to stir up enough mud off the bottom of the pond so we can't see the fish. The same suspects tried to do the same to passive smoking, DDT and ozone damage - which they also saw as a threat to unrestricted economic growth - but ultimately failed. As a result everyone thinks they're qualified to pontificate on climatology.
Other environmental arguments are easier to make, so maybe we do need to de-emphasise climate change. For example, while the rest of us were glued to the Royal Wedding or Mr bin Laden's sticky end, the IEA quietly slipped out that they now believe we hit peak oil 5... a 2015 peak. "Running out of oil" is a much easier sell to the public than invisible changes to the atmosphere - remember much of the US still has 55mph speed limits as a result of the 73/74 oil crisis.
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