tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/climate-debate-15007/articlesClimate debate – The Conversation2023-03-30T15:25:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029762023-03-30T15:25:50Z2023-03-30T15:25:50ZWhy a serious climate strategy is almost impossible in the UK’s current political system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518497/original/file-20230330-1194-9knsyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=57%2C19%2C4186%2C1730&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In its new energy strategy, the government says it "remains absolutely committed to maximising the vital production of North Sea oil and gas as the North Sea basin declines".</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">donvictorio / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/24/uk-government-launch-revamped-net-zero-strategy-oil-gas-capital-aberdeen">reportedly</a> chose Aberdeen, its carbonisation capital, as the original location to relaunch its de-carbonisation strategy. The strategy, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/powering-up-britain">now published</a>, has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/30/half-baked-half-hearted-critics-ridicule-uk-long-awaited-climate-strategy">strongly criticised</a> by environmentalists. Part of the plan to transition the country away from oil and gas is to allow highly subsidised, mostly foreign-owned companies to extract more oil and gas from these islands and sell it overseas to the highest bidder, thereby improving the UK’s national energy security. This is barely a week after climate scientists gave their starkest, <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/">final warning</a> to keep fossil fuels in the ground or risk catastrophic, civilisation-threatening levels of global overheating.</p>
<p>If your response to “energy security day” is to ask yourself: how on Earth can our leaders offer this as an adequate plan? After all the flooding, wildfires, heatwaves and storms; after all the scientific reports; after David Attenborough’s Climate: The Facts; after Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg and the millions of young people who refused to go to school; and <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/articles/worriesaboutclimatechangegreatbritain/septembertooctober2022">poll</a> after <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/8-10-britons-concerned-about-climate-change-half-think-net-zero-target-should-be-brought-forward">poll</a> showing how concerned we now are; how we want our government to go much further and faster on climate policy. Do they really think we will swallow this Orwellian doublethink – hold two contradictory beliefs in our minds simultaneously, and accept them both? Are we really going to put up with this?</p>
<p>According to my <a href="https://openresearch.surrey.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/doctoral/99705866502346">doctoral research</a> at the University of Surrey, the answer to these questions, unfortunately, is yes. Until the elements of UK civil society and polity who advocate accelerating action for a rapid transition become a much more effective, collaborative, strategic and coherent coalition, most of us probably will accept the doublethink and put up with it. To understand why, you first need to understand the “ecosystem” of UK climate actors and coalitions.</p>
<p>One key insight of this research, which relied on analysing the views of 100 experts from a wide cross-section of society, is that the decarbonisation transition needs to be both politically and ecologically viable, but a configuration of actors and narratives that combines these two necessary conditions into an effective force for change does not yet exist. </p>
<h2>Politically but not ecologically viable</h2>
<p>There is a large, dominant, politically viable coalition – I call it the “green growth” coalition – which consists of the government, the main political parties, the business and finance sectors, the mainstream media, and most civil society NGOs. It is politically viable because it enjoys a broad cross section of support, is relatively unified, and communicates a familiar, coherent, consistent, “win-win” narrative: private wealth and public health and wellbeing go together, and you need a viable, growing economy to pay for public goods. </p>
<p>This coalition also conforms to the global financial system and its deeply embedded addiction to GDP growth. No single politician, political party or national government acting alone is likely to survive a campaign pledge that doesn’t prioritise economic growth.</p>
<p>However, the green growth coalition is ecologically unviable. The internationally agreed safety limit of +1.5O°C of global overheating will almost certainly be breached by the 2030s. If we factor in our greater historical responsibilities and financial capabilities to make things fairer for newly industrialised and less wealthy countries, then developed nations like the UK should be reaching <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipccs-conservative-nature-masks-true-scale-of-action-needed-to-avert-catastrophic-climate-change-202287">zero emissions by the mid-2030s</a>. </p>
<p>The government’s net zero by 2050 transition is therefore far too slow and increases the risk of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds">tipping Earth systems</a> beyond critical thresholds. 2050 is based not on ecological necessity but on least-cost optimisation and a belief that existing power relations and “<a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1028157/net-zero-strategy.pdf">the grain of existing behaviour and trends</a>” must be maintained. It also relies on “exporting” emissions to other countries and on speculative carbon removal technologies.</p>
<h2>Ecologically but not yet politically viable</h2>
<p>Two further coalitions – which I label “limits” (consisting of The Green Party, Greenpeace, and various more radical thinktanks, NGOs and campaigners) and “revolution” (Extinction Rebellion and similar non-violent direct-action groups) – are ecologically viable. They respect the overriding importance of the Earth’s biophysical capacities (<a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html">planetary boundaries</a>). However, they are (currently) politically unviable, being composed of fragmented groups of more radical actors with marginal influence, few resources and no support at all in key sectors. They also face well-resourced, skilled, incumbent opposition with the backing of all the major media.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people with XR flags on a protest in London" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518492/original/file-20230330-22-psfhzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Extinction Rebellion: limited influence and powerful enemies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Joe Kuis / shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Concerned, but not yet persuaded</h2>
<p>A rapid transition to net zero carbon by 2035 for the UK may be an ecological and humanitarian necessity. But despite record levels of concern, the UK public and key sectors are not yet persuaded. In addition, we have our own doublethink issues to contend with. We want better public transport and clean air. And we want to keep our cars and our cheap flights and to pay less in taxes. We want the government to take the lead. And we don’t trust them to manage the rubbish collection let alone a just transition to a new economy. </p>
<p>If we want to take back control and have real energy security – based on renewable energy, properly insulated buildings, the right to generate and sell our own renewable electricity, free public transport funded by a tax on frequent flyers – we’re going to have to break the “<a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/too-hot-to-handle">silent stand-off</a>” that leads politicians and the public to assume that the other party doesn’t really care about the climate or surely they would be doing more about it. We need a proper national conversation about the kind of society we want to live in, and the real risks and difficult trade-offs we face in the years ahead, so that rapid transition or incremental change becomes a <a href="https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/11/05/getting-climate-citizens-assemblies-right-pub-83133">conscious choice</a>.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven R. Smith is also Tipping Points Research Impact Fellow at the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter.</span></em></p>The country is missing a strong and strategic coalition of pro-climate interest groups, says research.Steven R. Smith, Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), University of SurreyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2023062023-03-22T17:09:55Z2023-03-22T17:09:55ZHow to talk to your family and friends about the new IPCC report – five tips from climate change communication research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516966/original/file-20230322-22-ipk2ph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C18%2C6016%2C3989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Esther Pueyo / Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/it-can-be-done-it-must-be-done-ipcc-delivers-definitive-report-on-climate-change-and-where-to-now-201763">latest report</a> is a sobering read, which some describe as a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/20/ipcc-climate-crisis-report-delivers-final-warning-on-15c">final warning</a>” from scientists. The core message remains the same as prior IPCC reports: human-driven climate change is happening, it’s bad, but we can act – though we now have even less time.</p>
<p>On the positive side, there are growing indications that humanity will avert worst-case global warming scenarios – we already have the knowledge and tools needed, and progress is being made (but not quickly enough).</p>
<p>It’s important that people who already know about climate change and treat it seriously take proactive steps to speak with others about IPCC reports and climate change more generally. </p>
<p>As a researcher examining <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03493-5">how to promote successful climate discussions among diverse groups of people</a>, I have become convinced that one of the most effective ways of doing this is simply by talking to our family, friends, coworkers and communities about climate change. This not only helps <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s44168-022-00027-0">mobilise climate action</a>, it also creates spaces for us to process and reflect upon climate change, which can at times feel very overwhelming. </p>
<p>Despite the scale of the problem, <a href="https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-spiral-silence-america/">we do not often speak about it</a>. There are a variety of reasons for this, including a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-32412-y">false perception that others do not care about climate change</a> as much as we do, that it will spark contentious political debates, and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494417300440?via=ihub">a lack of confidence in our own knowledge about the topic</a>. Raising such a depressing topic can generally feel awkward. Speaking up about climate change therefore takes courage.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="girl on protest holds 'stop burning our future' sign" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516984/original/file-20230322-1520-b3zckn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Time for some awkward conversations?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christie Cooper / Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>So, rather than hoping that others will read about the new IPCC report in the news, here’s an alternative idea. Send someone you know a link to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-damage-is-worsening-faster-than-expected-but-theres-still-reason-for-optimism-4-essential-reads-on-the-ipcc-report-202116">news article</a> about it, or even the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/">report itself</a>, then have a discussion about it. (You could also share this discussion at <a href="http://www.talkclimatechange.org">www.talkclimatechange.org</a> – a website colleagues and I created to track climate conversations happening around the world.) </p>
<p>Ideally, try to engage someone who doesn’t normally talk about climate change. Here are a few conversation tips to consider if you decide to raise the topic:</p>
<h2>1. Listen more than you speak</h2>
<p>Remember, it’s a two-way conversation, not a lecture. Focus on asking questions – what do they think about climate change? How do the conclusions of the new IPCC report make them feel? What do they think we should do about it? Really try to listen to what they have to say rather than interjecting your own views, though of course you can and should share your perspective as well.</p>
<h2>2. Affirm emotional responses</h2>
<p>Climate change can spark diverse emotional responses in different people. Some might feel angry, fearful and worried, while others might feel hopeful and optimistic. If your conversation partner expresses emotional sentiments, it’s not your job to judge these feelings. Simply affirm that it is a complex topic and that it’s <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00318-1/fulltext">OK to feel the way they do</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, don’t be afraid to push back against claims that the world is absolutely doomed. You might say something like: “I understand where you’re coming from, but for what it’s worth, thousands of IPCC experts say there is still time to act to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.”</p>
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<span class="caption">Many technologies to radically reduce emissions already exist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bannafarsai Stock / Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>3. Tailor the conversation</h2>
<p>Find ways to adjust your conversation based on what people are interested in. Researchers call this “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220301524">tailoring</a>”. You do not need to do this surreptitiously – simply express that you’d like to explore what climate change means to them. For example, if your friend loves skiing, talk about the potential impacts of climate change on mountain slopes. If they have grandchildren, talk about intergenerational impacts. The key is to find ways to help people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvcToPZCLI">connect the dots</a> between what they already care about and acting on climate change.</p>
<h2>4. Embrace uncertainties</h2>
<p>IPCC reports are very carefully calibrated with levels of scientific certainty. Likewise, you do not need to know all the answers on climate change. In discussions, don’t be afraid to say you don’t know. Sometimes the best answer can be: “That’s a good question. I’m not really sure so we should look it up.”</p>
<h2>5. Explore actions together</h2>
<p>Before ending your discussion, try to pivot to action. The new IPCC report makes clear that feasible climate solutions already exist for every sector, and that individuals have an important role to play. Explore what steps you might be able to take together, whether through lifestyle choices such as diet or transportation, or through actions aimed at policymakers (such as voting, contacting elected officials or joining a protest). </p>
<p>If your conversation partner is ready to act, make plans. If they are hesitant, suggest that you can follow up at a later point. If they respond negatively to the idea of taking personal climate action, agree to disagree and try to end on a positive note. Even if no direct outcomes arise out of your discussion, remember that simply having a climate conversation is a significant accomplishment.</p>
<p>With scientists across the world warning us about the need for urgent climate action with greater alarm than ever, it is uncertain how long heightened attention to climate change in the wake of the new report will last. However, by speaking with our family, friends and communities about it, we can help maintain the attention this crucial issue deserves, and widen the pool of people engaged in climate action.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
<br><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeTop">Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead.</a> Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/imagine-57?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Imagine&utm_content=DontHaveTimeBottom">Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.</a></em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Ettinger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Raising such a depressing topic can feel awkward. Speaking up about climate change therefore takes courage.Josh Ettinger, Doctoral Candidate, School of Geography and the Environment, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1887502022-09-11T20:10:12Z2022-09-11T20:10:12ZThe climate crisis is real – but overusing terms like ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ comes with risk<p>“Crisis” is an incredibly potent word, so it’s interesting to witness the way the phrase “climate crisis” has become part of the <em>lingua franca</em>. </p>
<p>Once associated only with a few “outspoken” scientists and activists, the phrase has now gone mainstream.</p>
<p>But what do people understand by the term “climate crisis”? And why does it matter?</p>
<h2>The mainstreaming of crisis-talk</h2>
<p>It’s not only activists or scientists sounding the alarm. </p>
<p>UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres now routinely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCeZeu1Kr4E">employs</a> dramatic phrases like “digging our own graves” when discussing climate. Bill Gates <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/how-to-avoid-a-climate-disaster-9780141993010">advises</a> us to avoid “climate disaster”.</p>
<p>This linguistic mainstreaming marks redrawn battle lines in the “climate wars”. </p>
<p>Denialism is in retreat. The climate change debate now is about what is to be done and by whom? </p>
<p>Scientists, using the full authority of their profession, have been key to changing the discourse. The lead authors of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports now pull no punches, talking openly about mass starvation, extinctions and disasters.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-official-welcome-to-the-anthropocene-epoch-but-who-gets-to-decide-its-here-57113">An official welcome to the Anthropocene epoch – but who gets to decide it's here?</a>
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<p>These public figures clearly hope to jolt citizens, businesses and governments into radical climate action. </p>
<p>But for many ordinary folks, climate change can seem remote from everyday life. It’s not a “crisis” in the immediate way the pandemic has been.</p>
<p>Of course, many believe climate experts have understated the problem for too long.</p>
<p>And yet the new ubiquity of siren terms like climate “crisis”, “emergency”, “disaster”, “breakdown” and “calamity” does not guarantee any shared, let alone credible, understanding of their possible meaning. </p>
<p>This matters because such terms tend to polarise. </p>
<p>Few now doubt the reality of climate change. But how we describe its implications can easily repeat earlier stand-offs between “believers” and “sceptics”; “realists’ and "scare-mongerers”. The result is yet more political inertia and gridlock. </p>
<p>We will need to do better.</p>
<h2>Four ideas for a new way forward</h2>
<p>Terms like “climate crisis” are here to stay. But scientists, teachers and politicians need to be savvy. A keen awareness of what other people may think when they hear us shout “crisis!” can lead to better communication.</p>
<p>Here are four ideas to keep in mind.</p>
<p><strong>1. We must challenge dystopian and salvation narratives</strong></p>
<p>A crisis is when things fall apart. We see news reports of crises daily – floods in Pakistan, economic collapse in Sri Lanka, famine in parts of Africa.</p>
<p>But “climate crisis” signifies something that feels beyond the range of ordinary experience, especially to the wealthy. People quickly reach for culturally available ideas to fill the vacuum. </p>
<p>One is the notion of an all-encompassing societal break down, where only a few survive. Cormac McCarthy’s bleak book <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road">The Road</a> is one example. </p>
<p>Central to many apocalyptic narratives is the idea technology and a few brave people (usually men) can save the day in the nick of time, as in films like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_(film)">Interstellar</a>. </p>
<p>The problem, of course, is these (often fanciful) depictions aren’t suitable ways to interpret what climate scientists have been warning people about. The world is far more complicated.</p>
<p><strong>2. We must bring the climate crisis home and make it present <em>now</em></strong></p>
<p>Even if they’re willing to acknowledge it as a looming crisis, many think climate change impacts will be predominantly felt elsewhere or in the distant future.</p>
<p>The disappearance of Tuvalu as sea levels rise is an existential crisis for its citizens but may seem a remote, albeit tragic, problem to people in Chicago, Oslo or Cape Town. </p>
<p>But the recent floods in eastern Australia and the heatwave in Europe allow a powerful point to be made: no place is immune from extreme weather as the planet heats up. </p>
<p>There won’t be a one-size-fits-all global climate crisis as per many Hollywood movies. Instead, people must understand global warming will trigger myriad local-to-regional scale crises. </p>
<p>Many will be on the doorstep, many will last for years or decades. Most will be made worse if we don’t act now. Getting people to understand this is crucial.</p>
<p><strong>3. We must explain: a crisis in relation to what?</strong></p>
<p>The climate wars showed us value disputes get transposed into arguments about scientific evidence and its interpretation. </p>
<p>A crisis occurs when events are judged in light of certain values, such as people’s right to adequate food, healthcare and shelter.</p>
<p>Pronouncements of crisis need to explain the values that underpin judgements about unacceptable risk, harm and loss. </p>
<p>Historians, philosophers, legal scholars and others help us to think clearly about our values and what exactly we mean when we say “crisis”.</p>
<p><strong>4. We must appreciate other crises and challenges matter more to many people</strong></p>
<p>Some are tempted to occupy the moral high ground and imply the climate crisis is so grand as to eclipse all others. This is understandable but imprudent. </p>
<p>It’s important to respect other perspectives and negotiate a way forward. Consider, for example, the way author Bjørn Lomborg has <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/?s=_False+Alarm%3A+How+Climate+Change+Panic+Costs+Us+Trillions%2C+Hurts+the+Poor%2C+and+Fails+to+Fix+the+Planet">questioned</a> the climate emergency by arguing it’s not the main threat.</p>
<p>Lomborg was widely pilloried. But his arguments resonated with many. We may disagree with him, but his views are not irrational. </p>
<p>We must seek to understand how and why this kind of argument makes sense to so many people.</p>
<p>Words matter. It’s vital terms like “crisis” and “calamity” don’t become rhetorical devices devoid of real content as we argue about what climate action to take.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mass-starvation-extinctions-disasters-the-new-ipcc-reports-grim-predictions-and-why-adaptation-efforts-are-falling-behind-176693">Mass starvation, extinctions, disasters: the new IPCC report’s grim predictions, and why adaptation efforts are falling behind</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Noel Castree does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Words matter. It’s vital terms like ‘crisis’ and ‘calamity’ don’t become rhetorical devices devoid of real content as we argue about what climate action to take.Noel Castree, Professor of Society & Environment, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1311372020-07-01T05:23:50Z2020-07-01T05:23:50ZToday, Australia’s Kyoto climate targets end and our Paris cop-out begins. That’s nothing to be proud of, Mr Taylor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344953/original/file-20200701-54126-fk0bxm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=29%2C14%2C4947%2C3298&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mick Tsikas/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today marks the end of Australia’s commitments under the Kyoto climate deal as we move to its successor, the Paris Agreement. Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor on Wednesday was quick to <a href="https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/media-releases/australia-beats-2020-emissions-reduction-target">hail Australia’s success</a> in smashing the Kyoto emissions targets. But let’s be clear: our record is nothing to boast about.</p>
<p>Taylor says Australia has beaten Kyoto by up to 430 million tonnes — or 80% of one year of national emissions. On that record, he said, “Australians can be confident that we’ll meet and beat our 2030 Paris target”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-number-of-climate-deniers-in-australia-is-more-than-double-the-global-average-new-survey-finds-140450">The number of climate deniers in Australia is more than double the global average, new survey finds</a>
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<p>The fact that Australia exceeded its Kyoto targets means it’s accrued so-called “carryover” carbon credits. It plans to use these to cover <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/media/report_australia_kyoto_carryover_dec2019.pdf">about half</a> the emission reduction required under the Paris commitment by 2030. </p>
<p>But there’s been little scrutiny of why Australia met the Kyoto targets so easily. The reason dates back more than 20 years, when Australia demanded the Kyoto rules be skewed in its favour. Using those old credits to claim climate action today is cheating the system. Let’s look at why.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344954/original/file-20200701-54162-k728ru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Paris climate deal officially starts today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Munoz/Reuters</span></span>
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<h2>Australian scorns the spirit of Paris</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://unfccc.int/kyoto_protocol">Kyoto Protocol</a> was an international treaty negotiated in 1997. Industrialised nations collectively pledged <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/Publications_Archive/CIB/CIB9798/98CIB10">to reduce</a> greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% below 1990 levels. The reductions were to be made between 2008 and 2012. </p>
<p>Any surplus emissions reduction in the first Kyoto period could be carried over to the second period, from 2013 to 2020. In the name of climate action, five developed countries – Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK – <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/QG-DohaAmendment">voluntarily cancelled</a> their surplus credits. </p>
<p>However, Australia held onto its credits. Now it wants to use them to meet its <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/government/international/paris-agreement">Paris target</a> – reducing emissions by 26-28% below 2005 levels by 2030.</p>
<p>This is clearly not in the spirit of the Paris agreement. And importantly, the history of Kyoto shows Australia did not deserve to earn the credits in the first place.</p>
<h2>Sneaky negotiations</h2>
<p>Under Kyoto, each nation was assigned a target – measured against the nation’s specific baseline of emissions produced in 1990. During negotiations, Australia insisted on rules that worked in its favour.</p>
<p>Instead of reducing its emissions by 5.2%, it successfully demanded a <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AURELawJl/2008/1.pdf">lenient target</a> that meant emissions in 2012 could be 8% more than they were in 1990.</p>
<p>Our negotiators argued we had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/01/australia-kyoto-climate-targets-cabinet-papers">special economic circumstances</a> - that our dependence on fossil fuels and energy-intensive exports meant cutting emissions would be difficult. Australia threatened to walk away from the negotiations if its demand was not met.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344961/original/file-20200701-54156-19scofz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australia negotiated an advantageous deal under the UN Kyoto protocol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Australia then waited until <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AURELawJl/2008/1.pdf">the final moments</a> of negotiations – when <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/27/welcome-to-the-wonderful-world-of-climate-talks-where-less-means-more">many delegates were exhausted</a> and translators had gone home – to make another surprising demand. It would only sign up to Kyoto if its 1990 emissions baseline (the year future reductions would be measured against) included emissions produced from clearing forests.</p>
<p>Here’s the catch. Australia’s emissions from forest clearing in 1990 were substantial, totalling about a quarter of total emissions, or <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/docs/2009/irr/aus.pdf">131.5</a> million tonnes of carbon.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-devotion-to-coal-has-come-at-a-huge-cost-we-need-the-government-to-change-course-urgently-140841">Australia's devotion to coal has come at a huge cost. We need the government to change course, urgently</a>
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<p>Forest clearing in Australia <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-011-0210-x">plummeted after 1990</a>, when Queensland enacted tough new land clearing laws. So including deforestation emissions in Australia’s baseline meant we would never really struggle to meet – or as it turned out, beat – our targets. In fact, the rule effectively <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/media/report_australia_kyoto_carryover_dec2019.pdf">rewarded Australia</a> for its mass deforestation in 1990.</p>
<p>This concession was granted, and became known as the <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/QG-DohaAmendment">Australia clause</a>. It triggered <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/nov/27/welcome-to-the-wonderful-world-of-climate-talks-where-less-means-more">international condemnation</a>, including from the European environment spokesman who reportedly called it “wrong and immoral”.</p>
<p>Then prime minister John Howard declared the deal to be “splendid”.</p>
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<span class="caption">John Howard was thrilled with Australia’s concessions under Kyoto.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LYNDON MECHIELSEN/AAP</span></span>
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<p>A new round of Kyoto negotiations took place in 2010, for the second commitment period. Under the Gillard Labor government, Australia agreed to an underwhelming 5% decrease in emissions between 2013 and 2020. </p>
<p><a href="https://climateanalytics.org/media/report_australia_kyoto_carryover_dec2019.pdf">Australia insisted</a> on using the deforestation clause again, despite international pressure <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/australia-and-climate-change-negotiations-table-or-menu">to drop</a> it. It meant Australia’s carbon budget in the second period was about <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/media/report_australia_kyoto_carryover_dec2019.pdf">26%</a> higher than it would have been without the concession.</p>
<p>Had forest clearing not been included in the 1990 baseline, Australia’s emissions in 2017 were <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/media/report_australia_kyoto_carryover_dec2019.pdf">31.8% above 1990 levels</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344968/original/file-20200701-54166-19tbyry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Forest clearing in 1990 made it easy for Australia to beat Kyoto targets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Harley Kingston/Flickr</span></span>
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<h2>History repeats</h2>
<p>At the Madrid climate talks last year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/16/un-climate-talks-australia-accused-of-cheating-and-thwarting-global-deal">Australia reiterated</a> its plans to use its surplus Kyoto credits under Paris. Without the accounting trick, Australia is <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/australia/">not on track</a> to meet its Paris targets. </p>
<p>Laurence Tubiana, a high-ranking architect of the Paris accord, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/16/un-climate-talks-australia-accused-of-cheating-and-thwarting-global-deal">expressed her disdain</a> at the plan:</p>
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<p>If you want this carryover, it is just cheating. Australia was willing in a way to destroy the whole system, because that is the way to destroy the whole Paris agreement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Whether Australia will be allowed to use the surplus credits is another question, as the Paris rulebook is still being finalised. </p>
<p>Analysts say there is <a href="https://www.tai.org.au/content/no-legal-basis-australia-s-use-kyoto-credits">no legal basis</a> for using the surplus credits, because Kyoto and Paris are separate treaties.</p>
<p>Australia appears the only country shameless enough to try the tactic. At Senate estimates last year, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/22/australia-is-the-only-country-using-carryover-climate-credits-officials-admit">officials</a> said they knew of no other nation planning to use carryover credits.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344969/original/file-20200701-54162-kppdm0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Protesters in Spain in January 2020, calling for global climate action.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JJ Guillen Credit/EPA</span></span>
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<h2>Nothing to be proud of</h2>
<p>Some hoped Australia’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-03-05/bushfire-crisis-five-big-numbers/12007716">recent bushfire disaster</a> might be a positive turning point for climate policy. But the signs are not good. The Morrison government is talking up the role of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-single-mega-project-exposes-the-morrison-governments-gas-plan-as-staggering-folly-133435">gas</a> in Australia’s energy transition, and has so far failed to seize the opportunity to recharge the economy through <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-an-economic-tonic-mr-morrison-use-that-stimulus-money-to-turbocharge-renewables-137074">renewables investment</a>.</p>
<p>Crowing on Wednesday about Australia’s over-achievement on Kyoto, Taylor said the result was “something all Australians can be proud of”. </p>
<p>But Australia abandoned its moral obligations under Kyoto. And by carrying our surplus credits into the Paris deal, we risk cementing our <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-fires-rage-australia-pushes-to-emit-more-carbon/">status</a> as a global <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australia-banned-from-speaking-at-un-climate-change-summit-in-unprecedented-rebuke">climate pariah.</a></p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-single-mega-project-exposes-the-morrison-governments-gas-plan-as-staggering-folly-133435">A single mega-project exposes the Morrison government's gas plan as staggering folly</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131137/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny van Oosterzee is a director of Biome5 which has received Australian Carbon Credit Units under the Emissions Reduction Fund for rainforest restoration.</span></em></p>Australia abandoned its moral obligations under Kyoto. By carrying our mistakes into the Paris deal, we risk firming our status as a global climate pariah.Penny van Oosterzee, Adjunct Associate Professor James Cook University and University Fellow Charles Darwin University, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1302112020-01-21T19:04:35Z2020-01-21T19:04:35ZScientists hate to say ‘I told you so’. But Australia, you were warned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310924/original/file-20200120-69559-1lnkyys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C4%2C2901%2C1988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Without a radical change of course on climate change, Australians will struggle to survive on this continent, let alone thrive.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dave Hunt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Those who say “I told you so” are rarely welcomed, yet I am going to say it here. Australian scientists warned the country could face a climate change-driven bushfire crisis by 2020. It arrived on schedule.</p>
<p>For several decades, the world’s scientific community has <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar5/">periodically assessed</a> climate science, including the risks of a rapidly changing climate. Australian scientists have made, and continue to make, significant contributions to this global effort. </p>
<p><a href="https://climate.anu.edu.au/about/people/academics/professor-will-steffen">I am an Earth System scientist</a>, and for 30 years have studied how humans are changing the way our planet functions.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/conservation-scientists-are-grieving-after-the-bushfires-but-we-must-not-give-up-130195">Conservation scientists are grieving after the bushfires -- but we must not give up</a>
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<p>Scientists have, clearly and respectfully, warned about the risks to Australia of a rapidly heating climate - more <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/">extreme heat</a>, changes to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2201">rainfall patterns</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ipcc-report-paints-catastrophic-picture-of-melting-ice-and-rising-sea-levels-and-reality-may-be-even-worse-124193">rising seas</a>, increased <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA/Areas/Oceans-and-climate/Sea-level-rise-planning">coastal flooding</a> and more <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-08/economic-bushfires-billions-ross-garnaut-climate-change/11848388">dangerous bushfire conditions</a>. We have also warned about the consequences of these changes for our <a href="https://ama.com.au/ausmed/warning-over-health-impacts-climate-change">health and well-being</a>, our <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Costs-of-climate-change-report.pdf">society and economy</a>, our <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/">natural ecosystems</a> and our <a href="https://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/3f374cfd-3eaa-4c56-a2d3-92fd4bee286e/files/greenhouse.pdf">unique wildlife</a>. </p>
<p>Today, I will join <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/17/what-could-i-have-done-the-scientist-who-predicted-the-bushfire-emergency-four-decades-ago">Dr Tom Beer</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-bowman-4397">Professor David Bowman</a> to warn that Australia’s bushfire conditions will become more severe. We call on Australians,
particularly our leaders, to heed the science.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310925/original/file-20200120-69547-3vrm9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prime Minister Scott Morrison comforting a man evacuated from his home during then recent bushfires.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren Pateman/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>The more we learn, the worse it gets</h2>
<p>Many of our scientific warnings over the decades have, regrettably, become reality. About half of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef have been <a href="http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/the-reef/reef-health">killed by underwater heatwaves</a>. Townsville was last year decimated by <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-01/townsville-floods-hundreds-displaced-six-months-later/11370062">massive floods</a>. The southeast agricultural zone has been crippled by <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/drought/">intense drought</a>. The residents of western Sydney have sweltered through <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/extreme-heat-a-threat-to-western-sydney">record-breaking heat</a>. The list could go on. </p>
<p>All these impacts have occurred under a rise of about <a href="https://climateanalytics.org/briefings/global-warming-reaches-1c-above-preindustrial-warmest-in-more-than-11000-years/">1°C in global average temperature</a>. Yet the world is on a pathway <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-un/global-temperatures-on-track-for-3-5-degree-rise-by-2100-u-n-idUSKCN1NY186">towards 3°C of heating</a>, bringing a future that is almost unimaginable.</p>
<p>How serious might future risks actually be? Two critical developments are emerging from the most recent science.</p>
<p>First, we have previously underestimated the immediacy and seriousness of many risks. The <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">most recent assessments</a> of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change show that as science progresses, more damaging impacts are projected to occur at lower increases in temperature. That is, the more we learn about climate change, the riskier it looks. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-crisis-has-been-unfolding-for-years-4-photos-of-australia-from-space-before-and-after-the-bushfires-129450">'This crisis has been unfolding for years': 4 photos of Australia from space, before and after the bushfires</a>
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<p>For Australia, a 3°C world would likely lead to much <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/weather-services/fire-weather-centre/bushfire-weather/index.shtml">harsher fire weather</a> than today, more <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/OandA/Areas/Oceans-and-climate/Climate-change-information">severe droughts and more intense rainfall</a> events, more prolonged and intense heatwaves, accelerating <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/home/">sea-level rise</a> and coastal flooding, the <a href="http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/our-work/outlook-report-2019">destruction of the Great Barrier Reef</a> and a large increase in <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/">species extinctions</a> and <a href="https://soe.environment.gov.au/theme/biodiversity">ecosystem degradation</a>. This would be a tough continent to survive on, let alone thrive on. </p>
<p>The city I live in, Canberra, experienced an average seven days per year over 35°C through the 1981-2010 period. Climate models projected that this extreme heat would more than double to 15 days per year by 2030. Yet <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/act/summary.shtml">in 2019 Canberra experienced</a> 33 days of temperatures over 35°C. </p>
<p>Second, we are learning more about <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-climate-tipping-points-are-and-how-they-could-suddenly-change-our-planet-49405">‘tipping points’</a>, features of the climate system that appear stable but could fundamentally change, often irreversibly, with just a little further human pressure. Think of a kayak: tip it a little bit and it is still stable and remains upright. But tip it just a little more, past a threshold, and you end up underwater. </p>
<p>Features of the climate system likely to have tipping points include Arctic sea ice, the Greenland ice sheet, coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest, Siberian permafrost and Atlantic Ocean circulation.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310928/original/file-20200120-69563-1vhkuer.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dogs hauling a sled through meltwater on coastal sea ice during an expedition in northwest Greenland in June last year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">STEFFEN M. OLSEN/DANISH METEOROLOGICAL INSTITUTE</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>Heading towards ‘Hothouse Earth’?</h2>
<p>These tipping points do not act independently of one another. Like a row of dominoes, tipping one could help trigger another, and so on to form a tipping cascade. The ultimate risk is that such a cascade could take the climate system out of human control. The system could move to a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30082409">“Hothouse Earth” state</a>, irrespective of human actions to stop it.</p>
<p>Hothouse Earth temperatures would be much higher than in the pre-industrial era – perhaps 5–6°C higher. A Hothouse Earth climate is likely to be uncontrollable and very dangerous, posing severe risks to human health, economies and political stability, especially for the most vulnerable countries. Indeed, Hothouse Earth could threaten the habitability of much of the planet for humans. </p>
<p>Tipping cascades have happened in Earth’s history. And the risk that we could trigger a new cascade is increasing: <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0">a recent assessment</a> showed many tipping elements, including the ones listed above, are now moving towards their thresholds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310930/original/file-20200120-69555-1h4w9ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Beachgoers swim as smoke haze from bushfires blanketed Sydney last month.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steven Saphore/AAP</span></span>
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<h2>It’s time to listen</h2>
<p>Now is the perfect time to reflect on what science-based risk assessments and warnings such as these really mean.</p>
<p>Two or three decades ago, the spectre of massive, violent bushfires burning uncontrollably along thousands of kilometres of eastern Australia seemed like the stuff of science fiction.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-morrison-should-control-that-temper-in-liberal-climate-debate-130227">View from The Hill: Morrison should control that temper in Liberal climate debate</a>
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<p>Now we are faced with more than <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-50951043">10 million hectares</a> of bush burnt (and still burning), <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/02/mothers-daughters-fathers-sons-the-victims-of-the-australian-bushfires">29 people killed</a>, more than <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51015536">2,000 properties</a> and several villages destroyed, and more than <a href="https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/01/08/australian-bushfires-more-than-one-billion-animals-impacted.html">one billion animals</a> sent to a screaming, painful death.</p>
<p>Scientists are warning that the world could face far worse conditions in the coming decades and beyond, if greenhouse gas emissions don’t start a sharp downward trend <em>now</em>.</p>
<p>Perhaps, Australia, it’s time to listen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130211/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Will Steffen is a councillor at the Climate Council.</span></em></p>For decades Australian scientists have, clearly and respectfully, warned about the risks to Australia of a rapidly heating climate. After this season’s fires, perhaps it’s time to listen.Will Steffen, Emeritus Professor, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1237462019-09-18T22:16:49Z2019-09-18T22:16:49ZYouth climate movement puts ethics at the center of the global debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293007/original/file-20190918-187991-vuqctn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Young environmentalists are putting the ethical dimensions of climate change at the center of a global debate that has historically focused on politics, efficiency and cost-benefits analysis.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hong-Kong-Climate-Student-Protests/ab34783ffcc342c5a4566e5ac6770b29/143/0">AP Photo/Kin Cheung</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Even if you’ve never heard of Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish environmentalist who <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/754818342/teen-climate-activist-greta-thunberg-arrives-in-new-york-after-sailing-the-atlan">crossed the Atlantic on a sailboat</a> to attend a Sept. 23 <a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/">United Nations summit on the climate</a>, you may have seen the student-led <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/climate/global-climate-strike.html">Global Climate Strike</a> she helped inspire on Friday, Sept. 20. </p>
<p>People in all 50 U.S. states and more than 150 countries, from Germany to Australia, took to the streets to “to <a href="https://globalclimatestrike.net/#faq">declare a climate emergency</a>” the organizers said, and show politicians what “action in line with climate science and justice means.” </p>
<p>The strike was galvanized by a global youth movement, whose <a href="https://www.fridaysforfuture.org/about;">Friday school walkouts</a> over the last year were themselves inspired by Thunberg’s own three-week strike in August 2018 to demand climate action by the Swedish parliament. </p>
<p>People of all ages joined the global protest, though adults – with their environmental organizations, climate negotiations and election campaigns – took <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/9/17/20864740/greta-thunberg-youth-climate-strike-fridays-future">a little longer to get on board</a>. The Union of Concerned Scientists published an “<a href="https://blog.ucsusa.org/erika-spanger-siegfried/what-is-the-climate-strike-an-adults-guide">Adult’s Guide</a>” to the climate strike to help parents of participants get up to speed. </p>
<p>But the kids are clearly leading on climate change – and they’re changing the way we talk about this global challenge, putting ethics at the center of the debate.</p>
<h2>Climate change is an ethical problem</h2>
<p>Economic assessments of climate change, such as cost-benefit analysis, have for years helped justify political procrastination. By <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1577&context=ylpr">discounting</a> the importance of anticipated harms to people in the future, policymakers can argue that taking actions to address climate change today are too costly.</p>
<p>Short-term thinking by today’s “grown-ups” ignores her generation, Thunberg <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=730383662">says</a>. </p>
<p>“When you think about the future today, you don’t think beyond the year 2050,” she said in a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/greta_thunberg_the_disarming_case_to_act_right_now_on_climate?language=en">2018 TED talk</a>. “What we do or don’t do right now will affect my entire life and the lives of my children and grandchildren.”</p>
<p>Youth climate activists argue that “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate">our house is on fire</a>” and insist that world leaders act accordingly. They are attuned to the ecological consequences, intergenerational implications and international unfairness of climate change for all people living today. </p>
<p>Scholars in my field of environmental ethics have been <a href="https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/faculty/documents/ethics_pub_policy.pdf">writing about climate justice</a> for decades. The arguments vary, but a key conclusion is that the burdens of responding to climate change should be divided equitably – not borne primarily by the poor.</p>
<p>This notion of “common, but differentiated responsibilities” is a fundamental principle of equity outlined in the 1992 <a href="https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf">United Nations climate change treaty</a>, which laid the groundwork for the many international climate negotiations that have occurred since. </p>
<p>Philosophers like <a href="https://www.merton.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-henry-shue">Henry Shue</a> have laid out the reasons that wealthy countries like the United States are morally bound not just to significantly cut their own carbon emissions but also <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/climate-justice-9780198778745?lang=en&cc=us#">help other countries adapt to a changing climate</a>. That includes contributing financially to the development of climate-friendly energy sources that meet the pressing and near-term basic needs of developing countries. </p>
<p>Historically, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/246327954_Global_Environment_and_International_Inequality">wealthy countries</a> have contributed the most and benefited the most from fossil fuel emissions. These same countries have the greatest financial, technological and institutional capacity to shift away from fossil fuels. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, poor countries are often <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/environmental_protection-protection_environnement/climate-climatiques.aspx?lang=eng">most vulnerable</a> to climate impacts like <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-we-save-low-lying-island-nations-from-rising-seas-80232">rising seas</a>, more intense storms and eroding coastlines. </p>
<p>For these reasons, many environmental ethicists hold, wealthy high-emitting countries should lead the way on mitigation and finance international climate adaption. Some even argue that rich countries should <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21550085.2017.1342965">compensate affected countries for the climate loss and damage</a>.</p>
<h2>Practical, not ethical</h2>
<p>Political leaders tend to dodge questions of ethics in their policymaking and global debates on climate change. </p>
<p>According to Stephen Gardiner, a philosopher at University of Washington, climate policy often <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199996476.001.0001/acprof-9780199996476">focuses on “practical” considerations</a> like efficiency or political feasibility. </p>
<p>U.S. climate negotiators in particular <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199337668.001.0001/acprof-9780199337668-chapter-2">have for decades pushed back</a> against ethically grounded differentiated responsibilities and resisted top down mandatory emissions cuts, seeking a more politically palatable option: <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs">Voluntary emissions cuts</a> determined by each country.</p>
<p>And some legal scholars say a climate policy based not on ethics but on <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199996476.001.0001/acprof-9780199996476-chapter-6">self-interest</a> might be more effective.</p>
<p>University of Chicago law professors Eric Posner and David Weisbach have gone so far as to suggest, on efficiency grounds, that <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9130.html">developing nations should pay wealthy countries to emit less</a>, since poorer and more vulnerable nations have more to lose as a result of the climate crisis.</p>
<h2>The kids aren’t buying it</h2>
<p>Young activists like Greta Thunberg are reversing the marginalization of ethics from climate conversations. </p>
<p>With their focus on challenging “<a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/5-youth-led-climate-justice-groups-to-save-the-environment">systematic power and inequity</a>” and <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/5-youth-led-climate-justice-groups-to-save-the-environment">respect and reciprocity</a>, they recognize that virtually all decisions about how to respond to climate change are value judgments. </p>
<p>That includes inaction. The status quo – a fossil fuel-dominated energy economy – is making the <a href="https://theconversation.com/global-inequality-is-25-higher-than-it-would-have-been-in-a-climate-stable-world-115937">rich richer and the poor poorer</a>. Sticking with business as usual, the argument goes, places more importance on near-term benefits enjoyed by some than on the longer-term consequences many will suffer.</p>
<p>Polls show <a href="https://beta.washingtonpost.com/science/most-american-teens-are-frightened-by-climate-change-poll-finds-and-about-1-in-4-are-taking-action/2019/09/15/1936da1c-d639-11e9-9610-fb56c5522e1c_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1">the youth are concerned and engaged</a>. Youth activists are explicitly calling attention to the harm climate change is causing now and the harm it threatens for the future – and demanding action. And they are working internationally, in a global movement of solidarity.</p>
<p>Scholarship on climate ethics is robust, but it has had <a href="https://ethicsandclimate.org/2019/08/12/unesco-examines-the-urgency-of-and-strategy-for-getting-traction-for-ethical-guidance-in-climate-change-policy-formation-at-bangkok-program/">limited effects on actual policy</a>. Young people, on the other hand, are communicating the ethical issues clearly and loudly. </p>
<p>In doing so, they are demanding accountability from adults. They are asking us to consider what our resistance to change means for the world they will inherit. </p>
<p>So when my high school-aged daughter pulled a wrinkled climate strike flier out of her backpack recently, asking, “Can I skip school and go?” </p>
<p>I asked myself, “What am I saying if I say no?” </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marion Hourdequin serves on a National Academies of Sciences study committee that studies climate intervention strategies that reflect sunlight to cool Earth. The views expressed in this article are her own.</span></em></p>Economic and political assessments of climate change have for years helped justify inaction. Now, young environmentalists worldwide are shifting the debate to focus on values, ethics and justice.Marion Hourdequin, Professor of Philosophy, Colorado CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1177522019-06-12T20:16:56Z2019-06-12T20:16:56ZWhy old-school climate denial has had its day<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276713/original/file-20190528-92765-10ox7aq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New South Wales, which was 100% drought-declared in August 2018, is already suffering climate impacts. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/157067200@N03/32872663567">Michael Cleary</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Coalition has been re-elected to government, and after six years in office it has <a href="https://www.afr.com/news/politics/australias-greenhouse-gas-emissions-continue-to-rise-20190228-h1bum1">not created any effective policies for reducing greenhouse emissions</a>. Does that mean the Australian climate change debate is stuck in 2013? Not exactly. </p>
<p>While Australia still lacks effective climate change policies, the debate has definitely shifted. It’s particularly noticeable to scientists, like myself, who were very active participants in the Australian climate debate just a few years ago. </p>
<p>The debate has moved away from the basic science, and on to the economic and political ramifications. And if advocates for reducing greenhouse emissions don’t fully recognise this, they risk shooting themselves in the foot.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276507/original/file-20190527-187157-1ik6hml.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s carbon dioxide emissions are not falling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Environment and Energy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The old denials</h2>
<p>Old-school climate change denial, be it denial that warming is taking place or that humans are responsible for that warming, featured prominently in Australian politics a decade ago. In 2009 Tony Abbott, then a Liberal frontbencher jockeying for the party leadership, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/tony-abbott-draws-battlelines-for-the-liberal-party/2674932">told ABC’s 7.30 Report</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am, as you know, hugely unconvinced by the so-called settled science on climate change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The theory and evidence base for human-induced climate change is vast and growing. In contrast, the counterarguments were so sloppy that there were many targets for scientists to shoot at. </p>
<p>Climate “<a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-sceptic-or-climate-denier-its-not-that-simple-and-heres-why-117913">sceptics</a>” have always been very keen on cherrypicking data. They would make a big fuss about <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/climate-change-deniers-raise-the-heat-on-the-bureau-of-meteorology-20140909-10eedk.html">some unusually cold days, or alleged discrepancies at a handful of weather stations</a>, while ignoring broader trends. They made <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-bureau-of-meteorology-is-not-fiddling-its-weather-data-31009">claims of data manipulation</a> that, if true, would entail a global conspiracy, despite the availability of <a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/analysis-code/">code</a> and data. </p>
<p>Incorrect predictions of <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/sorry-to-ruin-the-fun-but-an-ice-age-cometh/news-story/e886912c2f02d7a22e0fb9a568e4f4da">imminent global cooling</a> were made on the basis of rudimentary analyses rather than sophisticated models. Cycles were invoked, in a manner reminiscent of epicycles and stock market “<a href="https://www.worldfinance.com/wealth-management/the-myth-of-chartism">chartism</a>” – but doodling with spreadsheets cannot defeat carbon dioxide. </p>
<p>That was the state of climate “scepticism” a decade ago, and frankly that’s where it remains in 2019. It’s old, tired, and increasingly irrelevant as the impact of climate change becomes clearer. </p>
<p>Australians just cannot ignore the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drought-wind-and-heat-when-fire-seasons-start-earlier-and-last-longer-101663">extended bushfire season</a>, <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs70.pdf">drought</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-barrier-reef-has-been-bleaching-for-at-least-400-years-but-its-getting-worse-101691">bleached coral reefs</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1131162014733090816"}"></div></p>
<h2>Partisans</h2>
<p>Climate “scepticism” was always underpinned by politics rather than science, and that’s clearer now than it was a decade ago. </p>
<p>Several Australian climate contrarians describe themselves as libertarians - falling to the right of mainstream Australian politics. David Archibald is a climate sceptic, but is now better known as candidate for the <a href="https://www.watoday.com.au/federal-election-2019/fraser-anning-recycles-wa-candidate-who-says-single-mothers-are-lazy-and-ugly-20190425-p51hb3.html">Australian Liberty Alliance, One Nation and (finally) Fraser Anning’s Conservative National Party</a>. The climate change denying Galileo Movement’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190308085928/www.galileomovement.com.au/who_we_are.php">claim to be to be non-partisan</a> was always suspect - and now doubly so with its former project leader, Malcolm Roberts, representing One Nation in the Senate. </p>
<p>Given this, it isn’t surprising that relatively few Australians reject the science of climate change. Just <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/a-record-share-of-australians-say-humans-cause-climate-change-poll-20190328-p518go.html">11%</a> of Australians believe recent global warming is natural, and only <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/a-record-share-of-australians-say-humans-cause-climate-change-poll-20190328-p518go.html">4%</a> believe “there’s no such thing as climate change”.</p>
<p>Old-school climate change denial isn’t just unfounded, it’s also unpopular. Before last month’s federal election, Abbott <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/07/tony-abbott-bet-me-100-the-climate-will-not-change-in-10-years">bet a cafe patron in his electorate A$100 that “the climate will not change in ten years”</a>. It reminded me of similar <a href="https://mashable.com/article/climate-change-science-bet/">bets made and lost over the past decade</a>. We don’t know whether Abbott will end up paying out on the bet – but we do know he lost his seat.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1125647633488465921"}"></div></p>
<h2>The shift</h2>
<p>So what has changed in the years since Abbott was able to gain traction, rather than opprobrium, by disdaining climate science? The Australian still runs Ian Plimer and Maurice Newman on its opinion pages, and Sky News “after dark” often features climate cranks. But prominent politicians rarely repeat their nonsense any more. When the government spins Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/whichever-way-you-spin-it-australias-greenhouse-emissions-have-been-climbing-since-2015-118112">rising emissions</a>, it does it by claiming that investing in natural gas helps cut emissions elsewhere, rather than by pretending CO₂ is merely “plant food”.</p>
<p>As a scientist, I rarely feel the need to debunk the claims of old-school climate cranks. OK, I did recently discuss the weather predictions of a <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/astrology/11130220">“corporate astrologer” with Media Watch</a>, but that was just bizarre rather than urgent.</p>
<p>Back in the real world, the debate has shifted to costs and jobs.</p>
<p>Modelling by the economist Brian Fisher, who concluded that climate policies would be very expensive, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/new-modelling-to-unleash-explosive-row-over-climate-change-costings-20190501-p51j5e.html">featured prominently in the election campaign</a>. Federal energy minister Angus Taylor, now also responsible for reducing emissions, used the figures to attack the Labor Party, despite expert <a href="https://twitter.com/frankjotzo/status/1107742351139602432">warnings</a> that the modelling used “absurd cost assumptions”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1123334993185361920"}"></div></p>
<p>Many people still assume the costs of climate change are in the future, despite us increasingly seeing the impacts now. While scientists work to <a href="https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/1133172695871320064">quantify the environmental damage</a>, arguments about the costs and benefits of climate policy are the domain of economists.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/federal-election-2019/don-t-buy-into-the-fake-coal-war-union-calls-on-labor-candidates-to-back-mining-20190411-p51d8g.html">Jobs associated with coal mining</a> were a prominent theme of the election campaign, and may have been decisive in Queensland’s huge anti-Labor swing. It is obvious that burning more coal makes more CO₂, but that fact <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-everyone-cares-about-climate-change-but-reproach-wont-change-their-minds-118255">doesn’t stop people wanting jobs</a>. The new green economy is uncharted territory for many workers with skills and experience in mining.</p>
<p>That said, there are <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-23/the-math-on-adani-s-carmichael-coal-mine-doesn-t-add-up">economic arguments against new coalmines</a> and new mines <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-23/macmines-abandons-mining-lease-applications/11138310">may not deliver the number of jobs promised</a>. Australian power companies, unlike government <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/a-new-coal-fired-power-plant-would-cost-3-billion-drive-up-energy-prices-and-take-eight-years-to-build-20180403-p4z7jg.html">backbenchers</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-28/clive-palmers-waratah-coal-meets-with-queensland-government/11155728">Clive Palmer</a>, have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/big-power-companies-snub-government-underwriting-for-new-coal-plants-20190311-p513a2.html">little enthusiasm for new coal-fired power stations</a>. But the fact remains that these economic issues are largely outside the domain of scientists.</p>
<p>Debates about climate policy remain heated, despite the scientific basics being widely accepted. Concerns about economic costs and jobs must be addressed, even if those concerns are built on flawed assumptions and promises that may be not kept. We also cannot forget that climate change is already here, <a href="http://www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate/State-of-the-Climate-2018.pdf">impacting agriculture in particular</a>. </p>
<p>Science should inform and underpin arguments, but economics and politics are now the principal battlegrounds in the Australian climate debate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. I. Brown receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and Monash University.
</span></em></p>Ten years ago, politicians such as Tony Abbott would routinely voice disdain for climate science. Now, while the policy debate remains fierce, the battleground has shifted to economics and jobs.Michael J. I. Brown, Associate professor in astronomy, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1179132019-06-04T20:08:15Z2019-06-04T20:08:15ZClimate sceptic or climate denier? It’s not that simple and here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/277799/original/file-20190604-69055-dxefvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C244%2C4138%2C2752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's a difference between not believing and denying the science on climate change.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/nito </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate <em>change</em> is now climate <em>crisis</em> and a climate <em>sceptic</em> now a climate <em>denier</em>, according to the recently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-observer-style-guide-c">updated style guide</a> of The Guardian news organisation.</p>
<p>The extent to which the scientific community acknowledges climate change is very close to the extent to which it also sees it as a crisis. So the move from “change” to “crisis” recognises that both rest on the same scientific footing. </p>
<p>The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want to ensure that we are being scientifically precise, while also communicating clearly with readers on this very important issue. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the move from “sceptic” to “denier” is more interesting.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whose-word-should-you-respect-in-any-debate-on-science-69557">Whose word should you respect in any debate on science?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Sceptics need to earn the name</h2>
<p>Many people who do not accept the findings of climate science often mark themselves as “sceptics”. It is, in part, an attempt to portray themselves as champions of the Enlightenment: imagining that they refuse to believe something based solely on the word of others, and opt to seek the evidence themselves.</p>
<p>It is true that scepticism is an essential component of science – indeed, one of its most defining characteristics. The <a href="https://royalsociety.org/about-us/history/">motto of the Royal Society</a>, perhaps the world’s oldest scientific institution, is “<em>nullius in verba</em>” or “take nobody’s word for it”.</p>
<p>But scepticism has two imperatives, each buttressing the other. The first is the imperative to doubt, so nicely captured in the above motto. The second is the imperative to follow the evidence, and to give more credibility to claims that are <a href="https://theconversation.com/whose-word-should-you-respect-in-any-debate-on-science-69557">well justified</a> than those which are not.</p>
<p>In other words, it’s fine to ask questions, but you also have to listen to the answers.</p>
<p>Too often, so-called sceptics do not want to have their views challenged (let alone changed) and do not wish to engage with the science. Even worse, they may choose to adopt any number of justifications for rejecting science, not from their own free inquiry but from a ready-made selection provided by <a href="https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org">commercially or ideologically motivated industries</a>. </p>
<p>This move away from “sceptic” might, therefore, be seen as simply an improvement in accuracy. But the move to “denier” might be seen as derogatory, especially as the term is associated with nefarious stances such as holocaust denial.</p>
<p>But is it, at least, accurate? </p>
<h2>Three categories of climate science disbelief</h2>
<p>Let’s consider three possible categories of people who do not accept the consensus and consilience of human-induced climate change: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>those who engage in scholarly disagreement through the literature</p></li>
<li><p>those who are not engaged with the debate and have no clear view either way</p></li>
<li><p>those who associate climate science with conspiracy, wilful ignorance or incompetence (or even see in it an unpalatable truth).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>The first category is the rarest. Several papers with <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/97-percent-consensus-robust.htm">reliable methodology unchallenged in the literature</a> show an enormous majority of climate scientists agree that the planet is warming and humans are largely responsible.</p>
<p>But contrary positions are not unknown. Some questions regarding the credibility of some aspects of climate models, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309880579_Problems_in_Modeling_and_Forecasting_Climate_Change_CMIP5_General_Circulation_Models_versus_a_Semi-Empirical_Model_Based_on_Natural_Oscillations">for example</a>, exist for some working academics. </p>
<p>While these scientists do not necessarily doubt all aspects of climate science, issues of reliability of methodology and validity of conclusions in some areas remain, for them, alive. </p>
<p>Whether they are correct or not (and many have been <a href="https://skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-advanced.htm">responded to</a> in the literature), they are at least working within the broad norms of academia. We might call these people “climate sceptics”.</p>
<p>The second category is quite common. Many people are uninterested in science, including climate science, and have no real interest in the debate. This attitude is easy to criticise, but if there are pressing concerns regarding the availability and security of food, health and safety in your life, you may be preoccupied with these things and not marching for action on climate science. </p>
<p>Others may simply not spend much time thinking about it, nor care very much one way or the other — such is the nature of voluntarily participatory democracy. They might not believe in climate science, but that doesn’t mean they have rejected it. We might call these people “climate agnostics”.</p>
<p>The third category is the most problematic and arguably the most high-profile. It could be subdivided into: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>people convinced of the incompetence of scientists and having a naïve view of their own analytical powers (or <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-cant-trust-common-sense-but-we-can-trust-science-53042">common sense</a>)</p></li>
<li><p>folks motivated to reject climate science because of its implications for social or economic change, who consequently see climate science as a conspiracy of social or political engineering</p></li>
<li><p>those accepting of climate science but not caring about the consequences and seeking only to maximise their opportunities in any resulting crisis - which may include continuing existing business models based on fossil-fuel technologies (and hence encourage those who reject the science for social reasons).</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Let’s call these subdivisions, in order: climate naives, climate conspiracists, and climate opportunists. Certain combinations of the above are also possible and are probably the norm. </p>
<p>The term “contrarian” is also a common one, but since it basically means only to go against public opinion, it seems a bit shallow in this analysis. </p>
<h2>What is it to deny?</h2>
<p>The definition of denialism is not uniform. In <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/our-emotional-footprint/201512/the-denial-reality">psychology</a> it is to reject a widely accepted claim because the truth of it is psychologically discomforting (to that extent, there are many aspects of reality we all deny, ignore or minimise for the sake of our sanity). </p>
<p>In popular culture, including discussions of history and climate science, it is an active act of rebellion against the consensus and consilience of experts, often motivated by ideological factors. These are quite distinct and it may not pay any persuasive dividend to blur them together. </p>
<p>The latter definition does not seem appropriate for climate sceptics or for climate agnostics. But for the rest of the disbelievers, it does seem to resonate. So let’s try it here for a moment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-you-know-that-what-you-know-is-true-thats-epistemology-63884">How do you know that what you know is true? That's epistemology</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This taxonomy of disbelief is not built on any psychological model, but is simply descriptive.</p>
<p>In summary, three categories of climate science disbelief are: sceptic, agnostic and denier. Three subdivisions of deniers are: naive, conspiracists and opportunists. </p>
<p>Is The Guardian right to use the blanket term “deniers” instead of any of the above? Arguably, they have a technical case in some instances, but I would say not in others. </p>
<p>What’s wrong with calling someone a climate agnostic instead of a climate denier, if that is a better description of their state of belief?</p>
<p>But for those who are deniers – and let’s be clear, the evidence is bearing down on all humans like a freight train – then a failure to act is more than negligence, it is a failure of moral courage. I would not want to be remembered as someone who denied that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Ellerton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calling all people who don’t agree with climate science “deniers” is neither accurate nor helpful.Peter Ellerton, Lecturer in Critical Thinking; Curriculum Director, UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/878952017-12-12T02:50:32Z2017-12-12T02:50:32ZHow Bill McKibben’s radical idea of fossil-fuel divestment transformed the climate debate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198032/original/file-20171206-31532-1fph25r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest against fossil fuels at a coal mine in 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Keep-it-in-the-ground.jpg">Rikuti</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“We need to view the fossil-fuel industry in a new light. It has become a rogue industry, reckless like no other force on Earth. It is Public Enemy Number One to the survival of our planetary civilization.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>With these words, environmental activist Bill McKibben launched a radical and moral broadside against the fossil-fuel industry and its contributions to climate change in <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719">Rolling Stone</a> magazine in 2012. </p>
<p>In a coordinated move, the McKibben-founded climate advocacy group 350.org launched its Go Fossil Free: Divest from Fossil Fuels! Campaign with a <a href="https://350.org/about/">stated goal</a> to “revoke the social license of the fossil fuel industry.” With the help of activist college students, the movement sought to stigmatize fossil fuel companies, restrict future cash flows and depress share prices by compelling universities to divest their holdings in these companies.</p>
<p>Now, five years later, the effort seems to <a href="http://www.marcgunther.com/the-fossil-fuel-divestment-movement-is-failing-except-its-not/">some</a> to have been a failure, at least by the financial measures they laid out. Only a limited number of institutions have divested their endowments, and the stocks of major fossil-fuel companies show little effect. </p>
<p>But in doing a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1086026617744278">network text analysis</a> of news articles, we found that by other measures the effort has been a success. Exhibiting a phenomenon in the social sciences called the “radical flank effect,” McKibben and 350.org have dramatically altered the climate change debate in the United States. Their success on this dimension offers important insights relevant for all social activists to consider.</p>
<h2>Parallel in Civil Rights movement</h2>
<p>First introduced by sociologist <a href="http://irasilver.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Reading-Movement-funding-Haines.pdf">Herbert Haines</a> in 1984, the radical flank effect refers to the positive or negative effects that radical activists can have on more moderate ones in the same cause. </p>
<p>The negative radical flank effect creates a backlash from opposing groups. In such cases, all members of a movement – both moderate and radical – are viewed with the same critical lens. For example, some may think that all environmental groups should be judged by the tactics of those who spike trees to prevent logging or ram whaling ships.</p>
<p>Conversely, the positive radical flank effect is when members of a social movement are viewed in contrast to each other; extreme actions from some members make other organizations seem more palatable or reasonable. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198034/original/file-20171206-31546-jcqple.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bill McKibben (on right) speaks at a 2015 event to pressure Harvard University to divest from its financial stakes in fossil fuel companies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/17136785065/in/photolist-s7bujo-rPSfZr-s52voG-rMZv7k-ravY5X-s7gcJi-rajrJ9-s7jrYZ-s7jtUT-rPSdzr-s7gdoe-rajrXA-rajrDE-s7jv22-rMZxat-rPJ8tu-rMZvM8-s7jvat-rMZw1V-rPKj11-rPSg4z-s7gcc6-rPJbqm-rMZybr-s52xeA-rPJ8pw-s7gdCn-rMZwHg-ravXtB-s7gcFn-raw1De-s52wQj-s52xGj-rajts9-s7gcBp-s7geLK-rPKgJC-s7geZk-rbGAA7-s7brB9-s7bsDQ-rbUqn6-rPSewg-s7jtCa-s52wgy-rPKjKN-s7geQc-s7bu1Y-s6VRmd-rVvar9">350.org</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Haines first studied this in the context of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. When Martin Luther King Jr. first began speaking his message, it was perceived as too radical for the majority of white America. But when Malcolm X entered the debate, he extended the radical flank and, as a result, made King’s message look moderate by comparison. </p>
<p>Russell Train, second administrator of the EPA, articulated the positive radical flank effect in the 1970s when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/07/us/david-brower-an-aggressive-champion-of-us-environmentalism-is-dead-at-88.html">he quipped</a>, “Thank God for David Brower. He makes it so easy for the rest of us to be reasonable.” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1971/03/27/encounters-with-the-archdruid-ii-an-island">Brower</a>, the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, was a controversial figure who pushed the environmental movement to take more aggressive actions. </p>
<h2>The radical flank effect and divestment</h2>
<p>It was in 2012 that McKibben and 350.org staked the radical flank by mobilizing students to pressure their colleges or universities to liquidate their investments in fossil fuel companies. </p>
<p>This was a far more extreme position than was previously taken by activists in the climate change debate. Namely, where others argued for industry-wide controls on <a href="http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon">carbon</a> without demonizing any particular industry, McKibben’s radical flank portrayed the fossil-fuel industry as a public enemy and called for its extermination. </p>
<p>The campaign’s goal was to stigmatize – and thereby harm – the value of fossil fuel companies. But in our study, we found the ultimate effect of their efforts was not so much financial as on the terms of the debate over climate change.</p>
<p>We used text analytics software to sift through 42,000 news articles about climate change between 2011 and 2015 and map the influence of the radical flank. In this analysis, we found that the divestment campaign expanded rapidly as a topic in worldwide media. In the process, it disrupted what had become a <a href="http://webuser.bus.umich.edu/ajhoff/pub_academic/2011%20Nature%20Climate%20Change.pdf">polarized debate</a> and reframed the conflict by redrawing moral lines around acceptable behavior. </p>
<p>Our evidence suggests this shift enabled previously marginal policy ideas such as a carbon tax and carbon budget to gain greater traction in the debate. It also helped translate McKibben’s radical position into new issues like “stranded assets” and “unburnable carbon,” the idea that existing fossil fuel resources should remain in the ground. </p>
<p>Although these latter concepts are still radical in implication, they adopt the language of financial analysis and appeared in business journals like <a href="https://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21710632-oil-companies-need-heed-investors-concerns-how-deal-worries-about-stranded">The Economist</a>, <a href="http://fortune.com/2015/12/17/energy-companies-feel-the-burn-from-paris-climate-deal/">Fortune</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-05-10/coal-s-stranded-assets">Bloomberg</a>, which makes them more legitimate within business circles. </p>
<p>Thus, the battle cry of divestment became a call for prudent attention to financial risk. By being addressed in these financial publications, the carriers of the message shifted from grassroots activists to <a href="http://citywire.co.uk/money/ftse-trackers-expose-investors-to-stranded-assets/a964227">investors</a>, <a href="http://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/lloyds-warns-industry-of-stranded-assets-on-global-scale-60931.aspx">insurance companies</a> and even the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/97ba13d4-6772-11e5-97d0-1456a776a4f5">Governor of the Bank of England</a>.</p>
<h2>The upshot</h2>
<p>The radical flank effect and our findings offer some critical insights for social activists. </p>
<p>Social movements typically achieve influence by gaining attention from news media and gaining buy-in from critical supporters. A conventional approach might collapse these goals into a plan to directly challenge specific targets, as when a labor campaign elicits public support to unionize a workplace or an environmental campaign seeks to shut down a specific pipeline. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198035/original/file-20171206-31546-1nj6ssa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=632&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More radical movements than divestments, such as blaming capitalism for lack of progress on environmental problems, have not been as effective in shaping the climate debate in the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/17136785065/in/photolist-s7bujo-rPSfZr-s52voG-rMZv7k-ravY5X-s7gcJi-rajrJ9-s7jrYZ-s7jtUT-rPSdzr-s7gdoe-rajrXA-rajrDE-s7jv22-rMZxat-rPJ8tu-rMZvM8-s7jvat-rMZw1V-rPKj11-rPSg4z-s7gcc6-rPJbqm-rMZybr-s52xeA-rPJ8pw-s7gdCn-rMZwHg-ravXtB-s7gcFn-raw1De-s52wQj-s52xGj-rajts9-s7gcBp-s7geLK-rPKgJC-s7geZk-rbGAA7-s7brB9-s7bsDQ-rbUqn6-rPSewg-s7jtCa-s52wgy-rPKjKN-s7geQc-s7bu1Y-s6VRmd-rVvar9">Stephen Melkisethian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, our analysis shows the value of distinguishing between challenging specific targets and changing the broader public discourse. Although the divestment campaign chose an objective that was largely impossible to fulfill, its tactics expanded the boundaries of the public debate and enhanced the viability of progressive issues. As such, the radical flank effects social change indirectly by creating opportunities for more moderate groups and issues to become more influential. </p>
<p>But, it is important to note that this works in some circumstances and not others. Radical positions can go so far that they have limited effects on the mainstream, which appears to be the case for Naomi Klein’s book <a href="https://thischangeseverything.org/">This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate</a>. In our data, we found her more extreme calls to “shred capitalism” had a far more limited effect in the public debate. </p>
<p>Our study also suggests that <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/29/16377806/mckibben-effect">indirect attempts to shift the debate</a> may be especially useful in highly polarized issues like U.S. climate politics. In these conditions, direct challenges are likely to meet unyielding resistance, while a more indirect route may create space for incumbents, such as established corporations, opinion leaders and politicians, to positively re-evaluate climate activist positions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87895/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An analysis of media coverage provides lessons for how to move the climate debate forward and other highly polarized issues.Todd Schifeling, Assistant Professor at the Fox School of Business, Temple UniversityAndrew J. Hoffman, Holcim (US) Professor at the Ross School of Business and Education Director at the Graham Sustainability Institute, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818222017-08-14T03:27:19Z2017-08-14T03:27:19ZThe Madhouse Effect: this is how climate denial in Australia and the US compares<p><em>This article is part of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">ongoing series</a> from the <a href="https://posttruthinitiative.org/">Post-Truth Initiative</a>, a Strategic Research Excellence Initiative at the University of Sydney. The series examines today’s post-truth problem in public discourse: the thriving economy of lies, bullshit and propaganda that threatens rational discourse and policy.</em> </p>
<p><em>The project brings together scholars of media and communications, government and international relations, physics, philosophy, linguistics, and medicine, and is affiliated with the Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (<a href="http://chcinetwork.org/sydney-social-sciences-and-humanities-advanced-research-centre-sssharc">SSSHARC</a>), the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a> and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org">Sydney Democracy Network</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/about/">Michael Mann</a> is well known for his classic “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-hockey-stick-and-the-climate-wars/9780231152549">hockey stick</a>” work on global warming, for the attacks he has long endured from climate denialists, and for the good fight of communicating the environmental and political realities of climate change. </p>
<p>Mann’s work, including his recent book <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-madhouse-effect/9780231177863">The Madhouse Effect</a>, has helped me, as a dual US-Australian citizen, think about the similarities and differences between the US and Australia as we respond to what has been called the <a href="http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566600.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199566600-e-10">climate change denial machine</a>.</p>
<p>In both countries, the denialists and distortionists have undermined public knowledge, public policy, new economic development opportunities, and the very value of the environment. Climate policy is being built upon alternative facts, fake news, outright lies, PR spin and industry-written talking points.</p>
<p>From the carbon industry <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-new-books-show-theres-still-no-goodbye-to-messy-climate-politics-80957">capture of the two major parties</a>, to the Abbott-Turnbull government <a href="https://theconversation.com/ultra-super-clean-coal-power-weve-heard-it-before-71468">parroting industry talking points</a>, to coal industry <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/csg-industry-hires-wellconnected-staffers-20150515-gh2rg3.html">lobbyists as government energy advisers</a>, to the outright idiotic <a href="https://theconversation.com/one-nations-malcolm-roberts-is-in-denial-about-the-facts-of-climate-change-63581">conspiracy pronouncements</a> of senators funded and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/dec/15/one-nation-senator-joins-new-world-order-of-climate-change-denial">advised by the US-based denial machine</a>, the Madhouse Effect is in full force in Australia.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-coal-plants-wouldnt-be-clean-and-would-cost-billions-in-taxpayer-subsidies-72362">New coal plants wouldn’t be clean, and would cost billions in taxpayer subsidies</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>How we can expose and counter this denialist machine? To partly lay out the task, I will discuss three points of contrast between the US and Australia.</p>
<h2>Political culture</h2>
<p>There is a key difference between the two countries’ political cultures. As much as the denialists have determined Australian energy and climate policy, they have not been as successful, yet, at undermining deep-seeded respect in Australian culture for the common good, for science, for expertise and knowledge.</p>
<p>I left the US at the start of 2011. Living in Arizona, I had experienced the full weight of the racism, the white nationalism, the anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-fact atmosphere that has since spread all the way to the White House. </p>
<p>I used to tell people I left because Arizona had simply become anti-enlightenment. Folks really didn’t get it, until now, when it is the attitude that rules the country.</p>
<p>Shortly after I arrived in Australia, the then-prime minister, Tony Abbott, led an attack on the work of economist Ross Garnaut. Abbott slammed Garnaut’s 2011 <a href="http://www.garnautreview.org.au/">report</a> as <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate-report-an-assault-on-democracy-says-abbott/news-story/095c330b7317e707fef3e933d7a8b4a3">anti-democratic</a>. The report had simply pointed out the cost of climate inaction and the viability of putting a price on carbon. </p>
<p>Later, Abbott doubled down and dismissed the quality of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/think-again-on-carbon-tax-abbott-tells-economists/2779488">Australian economists</a> as a whole. Other denialists went further – Garnaut was called a <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/garnaut-an-eco-fascist-says-monckton/news-story/3f21e222e0be2d9f4668bca8ad8a96a3">fascist</a> and was subject to the kind of attacks Mann is well familiar with.</p>
<p>Surprisingly to me, a good part of the public seemed appalled by Abbott’s trashing of an academic. This was seen an attack not just on a carbon price, or a policy recommendation, but on science and knowledge as a whole.</p>
<p>And there was the chief scientist on TV, defending the academy – and that’s when I learned Australia actually had a chief scientist, to whom the media paid attention. This is not something we had in Arizona.</p>
<p>Abbott wound up backing down from the worst of the criticism. The whole series of events illustrated to me, a new Australian, that there is a strong cultural norm here that supports science, that respects expertise and that understands that real knowledge should be used to inform good policy in the public interest.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a one-time event. Last year, when the government <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/">fired climate scientists</a> at CSIRO, there was another huge public backlash. The government had to step back a bit, both on the actual science to be done and the radical agenda change away from science for the public good.</p>
<p>And again, when the government wanted to support the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-consensus-centre-what-are-the-costs-and-benefits-to-uwa-40808">dubious work of Bjorn Lomborg</a>, that caused an outcry from both the university sector and the public. Even though the government wound up paying more than A$600,000 on what The Australian called his “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/govt-funded-lomborgs-vanity-book-senate-estimates/news-story/c910a37727718a081b303897238a3913">vanity book project</a>”, they couldn’t import him and plant him at any Australian university.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australian-consensus-centre-what-are-the-costs-and-benefits-to-uwa-40808">The Australian Consensus Centre: what are the costs and benefits to UWA?</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>As Mann says, the main issue in implementing good, sound climate policy is no longer simply the science. The main issue is the cultural understanding of, and respect for the role of science in informing political decisions. </p>
<p>That’s not to say there are no attacks on science – clearly, these continue (such as the recent <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/bom-faces-storm-over-weather-data-inaccuracies/news-story/375538d5c05310727b6a4154f841cfe2">challenges to normal Bureau of Meteorology practices</a>). But, overall, climate denialists and their enablers are outnumbered outliers in Australia, rather the norm.</p>
<h2>The power of the carbon industry</h2>
<p>My second point of comparison is not quite as positive. </p>
<p>The problem in Australia is less a culture turning against the Enlightenment, and more the direct political power and influence of the carbon industry. This is most evident not just in our poor emissions and climate policies, but also in the fact the Australian government is hell-bent on sabotaging an entire industrial sector.</p>
<p>I honestly do not understand how the sabotage of the renewables industry in Australia – an all-out attack on a clearly promising and innovative sector – is not treated as a form of industrial treason. </p>
<p>We have had a set of politicians, under the influence of a dying industry, undermining one of the most promising areas of our own economy. They do so for the sole benefit of carbon diggers, at the expense of the rest of Australia, of the next generation and of the planet.</p>
<p>And the justification for this is all based on falsehoods and lies, straight from the PR team of the carbon industry. We hear arguments for energy security, energy poverty and clean coal; we hear that renewables undermine the reliability of the grid. It’s all absolute <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-origins-of-environmental-bullshit-80955">bullshit</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/on-the-origins-of-environmental-bullshit-80955">On the origins of environmental bullshit</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>But, again, even here I think there is some hope. We have seen, over the last few years, an incredible coalition grow – one focused on the end of carbon mining, on protecting communities, on creating real jobs, and on supporting renewables. </p>
<p>Once-unthinkable coalitions of farmers and Aboriginal communities are fighting new mines, new attacks on sacred and fertile land and water. </p>
<p>We have intensive household investment in rooftop solar – and as the feed-in tariffs are undermined, those folks will increasingly invest in battery storage. And we’re finally seeing <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-solar-panel-and-battery-revolution-how-will-your-state-measure-up-76866">states move in this direction</a>, with increasing development of utility-scale renewable and storage projects. As hard as the federal government and its allies resist, renewables are growing and the public supports this – even conservative voters. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"832064537717141504"}"></div></p>
<p>This industry will be the innovator, the job creator, the future of this country’s energy system. That is a movement – a transformation – that now seems inevitable even in the face of the carbon industry, its political allies and their outright attacks on innovation.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-solar-panel-and-battery-revolution-how-will-your-state-measure-up-76866">The solar panel and battery revolution: how will your state measure up?</a></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>Impacts and adaptation</h2>
<p>There is one other important point to make in comparing the US and Australia – and maybe it is the most dire.</p>
<p>All of this talk, about the science, about the power of the denialist machine, about post-truth and the sabotage of renewables, is all about one side of the climate issue: emissions.</p>
<p>The other side, which is crucial to us here in Australia, is how we adapt to the climate change the denialist machine has baked into our future. This nice stable period of the last 10,000 years, the Holocene, in which humanity has evolved, built our cities, our infrastructure, our supply chains, the expectations of our everyday lives – is over. </p>
<p>Climate change means change, and Australia is already facing it in more severe ways than the US.</p>
<p>So adaptation is the next battle, and it must be just. We know who benefits from denialism and the sabotage of renewables. And it is pretty straightforward who will be harmed most if we don’t plan for coming change. We know <a href="https://theconversation.com/hospitals-feel-the-heat-too-from-extreme-weather-and-its-health-impacts-70997">who dies in heatwaves</a>, for example – the poor, the elderly, those who live alone, those without resources.</p>
<p>This is happening right here. The Rockefeller-funded <a href="http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/263975/2016-503932-Report-Resilient-Sydney-PRA-FINAL-ISSUED.pdf">Resilient Sydney</a> project found that the number one chronic stress is increasing health services demand, which is crucial to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-people-can-best-make-the-transition-to-cool-future-cities-80683">resilience in Western Sydney during heatwaves</a>. If we don’t attend to that, vulnerable people will continue to die every time it heats up.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><strong>Further reading:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-people-can-best-make-the-transition-to-cool-future-cities-80683">How people can best make the transition to cool future cities</a></em></p>
<hr>
<p>Australia needs to face up to adaptation planning on a large scale – rather than <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-2017-budget-has-axed-research-to-help-australia-adapt-to-climate-change-77477">cut funds to the good work</a> already being done. We need to focus on giving those most vulnerable to climate change a fair go by looking after their needs first. </p>
<p>One promising step is that the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a>, with colleagues in <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/research/centres/planetary-health-initiative.html">Planetary Health</a> and Public Health at the University of Sydney, are establishing a new research hub for NSW OEH on the Health and Social Impacts of Climate Change. </p>
<p>We have also partnered with <a href="http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/towards-2030/resilient-sydney">Resilient Sydney</a> to examine the actual experience of <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/news/sei-researchers-win-grant-to-study-urban-vulnerability-and-resilience/">communities in shock events</a> – the impacts on people and how policy responses can be improved. This work is all about adapting to the complex impacts of climate change in fair and just ways.</p>
<p>Overall, then, yes, Australia has industry-led denialists creating a madhouse effect, just as Mann writes about in the US. </p>
<p>But my hope is that we can use our broad political culture of respect for science and for the fair go to resist denialism and the coal profiteers, to implement a post-carbon energy transformation, and adapt fairly and justly to the inevitable changes the denial industry has locked in here.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Michael Mann is taking part in a panel discussion, <a href="https://sydneyscience.com.au/2017/event/madhouse-effect/">The Madhouse Effect: What is Stopping Action on Climate Change?</a>, from 6.30-8pm on Wednesday, August 16, as part of the Sydney Science Festival. This article is an edited and revised version of comments given in response to Mann’s February 8 talk on The Madhouse Effect, organised by the University of Sydney’s <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/environment-institute/">Sydney Environment Institute</a>.</em></p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rfjBM_BB-ic?wmode=transparent&start=2008" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Mann’s talk about The Madhouse Effect, and the response by David Schlosberg.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>You can read other pieces in the post-truth series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/post-truth-initiative-38606">here</a>.</em> </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series is a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Schlosberg has previously received funding from the Australian Research Council to study adaptation planning. </span></em></p>While climate denialism impedes policymaking in both the US and Australia, there are key differences in their political and public cultures.David Schlosberg, Professor of Environmental Politics and Co-Director Sydney Environment Institute, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806632017-08-14T02:34:28Z2017-08-14T02:34:28ZRed team-blue team? Debating climate science should not be a cage match<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181833/original/file-20170811-14040-1uy41uu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Having an antagonistic debate over climate change will not shed any more light on the fundamentals of climate science. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ivica Drusany/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scott Pruitt, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056858">has called for</a> a “red team-blue team” review to challenge the science behind climate change. “The American people deserve an honest, open, transparent discussion about this supposed threat to this country,” he <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/345937-epa-head-casts-doubt-on-supposed-threat-from-climate-change">said on a radio show</a>, adding he hoped to hold the exercise in the fall. </p>
<p>Most commonly, red team-blue team reviews are used as a <a href="http://www.csoonline.com/article/2122440/disaster-recovery/emergency-preparedness-red-team-versus-blue-team-how-to-run-an-effective-simulation.html">mechanism to improve security</a> of information systems or military defenses. The blue team is associated with an institution, the owner of an asset or a plan. The red team is charged with attacking the blue team, with the goal of revealing vulnerabilities. </p>
<p>I have participated in red team-blue team exercises and in many reviews that share characteristics with their philosophy. Whether the review is cast as a hostile intruder, a devil’s advocate or scenario planning, there is always the spirit of challenge by an antagonist. </p>
<p>This can take many forms. As a climate researcher, I have participated in reviews where weather and climate projects were investigated for budget reductions. Others examined the role of high-risk research and technology along the critical path of a project. I have participated in studies of management acumen and how projects fit into a national and international political and scientific context.</p>
<p>I have also participated in forums of scientific debate. This is where scientists provided evidence supporting competing arguments to explain unresolved observed behaviors. The arguments were testable, hence, scientific hypotheses. </p>
<p>From my experience in both types of review, I can say confidently that red team-blue team exercises are not a mechanism for scientific debate. They are not designed to take a testable hypothesis and then look at whether observations and theory support or refute it. They are more like <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/The_Joker_(Heath_Ledger)">Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight</a>, causing disruption, distortion and chaos. </p>
<p>And so, Pruitt’s call for a red team-blue team review is not designed to test the scientific robustness of our knowledge of climate change. Rather, it is part of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-rolling-back-obama-rules/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.aeec51a7f253">political strategy</a> to continue the dissolution of the EPA’s climate change activities and to destroy President Obama’s efforts to address climate change – something Pruitt and the Trump administration have made their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/us/politics/trump-epa-chief-pruitt-regulations-climate-change.html">stated goal</a>. </p>
<h2>Scientific reviews of climate science</h2>
<p>Administrator Pruitt’s call for a red team-blue team review has been discussed by a number of other scientists. In a Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/21/attention-scott-pruitt-red-teams-and-blue-teams-are-no-way-to-conduct-climate-science/">commentary</a>, Ben Santer, Kerry Emanuel and Naomi Oreskes discuss peer review and its checks and balances. Former Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/07/24/the-perversity-red-teaming-climate-science/VkT05883ajZaTPMbrP3wpJ/story.html">John Holdren, in the Boston Globe</a>, takes on the political nature of Pruitt’s position and documents the extensive reviews of climate change science by many organizations.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181606/original/file-20170809-13168-1n6r722.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1226&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In addition to ongoing scientific reviews of climate science going back decades, there have been extensive political and policy challenges, as this 1995 House hearing document shows.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/stream/scientificintegr111695unit#page/n1/mode/2up">U.S. government</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These many reviews of climate change science are motivated by the consequences of climate change. The disruptions to the world are enormous and costly. To intervene and limit those disruptions requires changes in how we use energy, and essentially, the elimination of fossil fuel emissions. For decades it has been in the best interest of our prosperity and environmental security to get the answer on climate science right. Hence, reviews have been carried on from many perspectives.</p>
<p>Indeed, law professor Daniel Farber has reviewed the practice of climate science and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1030607">concluded</a>, “Climate scientists have created a unique institutional system for assessing and improving models, going well beyond the usual system of peer review. Consequently, their conclusions should be entitled to considerable credence by courts and agencies.”</p>
<p>Farber not only cites the <a href="http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/howscienceworks_16">attributes of peer review</a>, but also the extensive community efforts to compare and improve the computer models scientists use to project future climate change. Further, the review process of the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> contributes to the robustness of the basic conclusions that the Earth’s surface air temperature will warm, ice will melt, sea level will rise and the weather will change.</p>
<p>So the scientific investigation of the Earth’s climate does not suffer from a lack of scrutiny.</p>
<h2>Political challenges to climate science</h2>
<p>In addition, climate change science has been the target of political and public debate for decades. In 1995 the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science <a href="https://archive.org/stream/scientificintegr111695unit/scientificintegr111695unitdjvu.txt">held hearings on the integrity of climate models</a>. The results of those hearings persist today in the political and societal discourse, and there have been many subsequent political hearings. </p>
<p>The political and public attacks on climate science have led to reactionary research. This research has served to strengthen the foundation of climate science. On the other hand, no findings have seriously challenged that foundation. Therefore, resources have been spent, and we have delayed action on climate change to check the dots on the i’s. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181826/original/file-20170811-21897-900bgs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1027&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Steve Koonin, a former undersecretary of energy under Obama and NYU professor, has said it’s worth a red team-style debate to argue if climate change is the ‘greatest catastrophe that’s facing the planet or this is a nothing burger.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://cusp.nyu.edu/people/steve-koonin/">New York University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Administrator Pruitt’s call for the red team-blue team review seems inspired by a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-red-team-exercise-would-strengthen-climate-science-1492728579">Wall Street Journal commentary</a> by physicist and New York University professor <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060058443">Steven Koonin</a>, who called for an adversarial, public red team-blue team review of climate science. Koonin maintained that such a review would be a step toward “evidence-based policymaking and against the politicization of science.” A goal would be to “Put the ‘consensus’ to a test, and improve public understanding, through an open and adversarial process.”</p>
<p>In my view, however, the “consensus” argument to support the correctness and the reliability of climate change is poorly posed. It is an argument based on polls that maintain that an <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-true-97-of-research-papers-say-climate-change-is-happening-14051">overwhelming majority of climate scientists</a> have accepted the basic conclusions of a warming climate. The consensus argument likely emerged as a tactic for communication, but it is not a prudent tactic. It sets up a choice: Whose side are you on? Who or what do you believe?</p>
<p>More fundamentally, the consensus argument is not an argument of climate science; it’s one of communication or political science. Hence, putting “consensus” to the test is not accomplished by an adversarial review of climate science. An adversarial review of climate science, especially one motivated by a hostile political appointee, serves only to escalate the politicization of climate science and undermine evidence-based policy making. </p>
<h2>Been here before</h2>
<p>At the beginning of the Bush-Cheney administration in 2001, the White House asked a committee of the National Academy of the Sciences for a short-fuse, less-than-one-month <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ceq/global-change.html">evaluation of the key uncertainties of climate science</a> as well as an analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary reports. The committee included <a href="http://climate-science.mit.edu/news/featured-stories/mit-faculty-working-on-climate-write-to-president-trump">professor Richard Lindzen</a>, frequently cited as a climate change skeptic in the public media. </p>
<p>The committee stated in <a href="https://www.nap.edu/read/10139/chapter/2">their conclusion</a>, “The committee generally agrees with the assessment of human-caused climate change presented in the IPCC Working Group I scientific report, but seeks here to articulate more clearly the level of confidence that can be ascribed to those assessments and the caveats that need to be attached to them.”</p>
<p>During the 1990s there were many reviews of climate science and proposed climate programs. As one example, JASON Reviews were an especially interesting form of review. I made presentations at these reviews. Professor Koonin <a href="http://www.csm.ornl.gov/chammp/news/news.aug.98">took part</a> in these reviews as well.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/">Federation of American Science</a>, “JASON is an independent scientific advisory group that provides consulting services to the U.S. government on matters of defense science and technology. It was established in 1960.” JASON was formed originally by scientists, mostly physicists, associated with the World War II Manhattan Project. They have been used to review climate science several times, and their membership has included those counted as climate skeptics, for example, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/letters-to-a-heretic-an-email-conversation-with-climate-change-sceptic-professor-freeman-dyson-2224912.html">Freeman Dyson</a>. </p>
<p>The JASON review has some elements of a red team review - an independent team of highly trained and accomplished scientists examines proposed and existing research programs. </p>
<p>I never saw any indication of the JASON panel questioning the underlying tenets of climate science or the methodology of climate scientists. </p>
<h2>What Pruitt’s review is really about</h2>
<p>Given the many instances of scientific, political and policy reviews over decades, one cannot legitimately argue that an adversarial-style process will shed light on core climate science. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jWQCqlD5JuI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has cast doubt on the role people have in global warming, contradicting the findings of thousands of specialized scientists over decades.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, what Pruitt has proposed has all of the characteristics of formalizing as behavior, if not policy, a federal disruption of climate policy. </p>
<p>His tactic can be viewed only as spectacle to advance a political agenda. Such spectacle will be based on emotional appeal and will rely on manipulating the message about the role that uncertainty plays in scientific investigation. The goal will be the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1075547016677043">amplification and persistence of public doubt</a> – a goal that would be undoubtedly achieved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard B Rood receives funding from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Park Service. He is affiliated with the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society and he writes for its ClimatePolicy.org blog. </span></em></p>Why assembling two teams to debate climate change is all about political spectacle and sowing doubt – and has nothing to do with actual climate science.Richard B. (Ricky) Rood, Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/586212016-05-03T13:03:31Z2016-05-03T13:03:31ZLord Krebs: scientists must challenge poor media reporting on climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120706/original/image-20160429-10488-1wszntx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yep...still melting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/5103118034/">NOAA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ocean acidification is causing <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330092821.htm">fundamental and dangerous changes</a> in the chemistry of the world’s oceans yet only one in five Britons has even heard of ocean acidification, let alone believes it a cause for concern. Around <a href="https://theconversation.com/consensus-confirmed-over-90-of-climate-scientists-believe-were-causing-global-warming-57654">97%</a> of climate scientists believe global warming is principally driven by human activity, yet only <a href="http://eciu.net/press-releases/2015/public-understanding-grows-on-energy-and-climate-change-consensus">16%</a> of the public know the expert consensus to be this strong.</p>
<p>These are just two examples of common misconceptions among the UK public on the science of climate change. When surveyed, many people report feeling unsure and confused about various aspects of the discipline. Furthermore, they lack trust in scientists: in the wake of the IPCC’s fifth assessment report, nearly <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/09/23/climate-change-real-it-man-made/">four in ten people</a> felt that scientists were exaggerating concerns.</p>
<p>Are these realities any surprise when we see headlines such as “<a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/environment/article4696832.ece">Planet is not overheating, says professor</a>” and “<a href="http://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/scientists-are-exaggerating-carbon-threat-to-reefs-and-marine-life/">Scientists ‘are exaggerating carbon threat to marine life’</a>” in the UK’s national media? It was the former article that recently prompted a number of members of the House of Lords, including me, to write a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/21/timess-climate-change-coverage-distorted-and-poor-quality">letter</a> to the editor of The Times, John Witherow. We highlighted the newspaper’s recent record of tendentious and misleading coverage of climate science (among many other articles, it must be said, that are worthy of the paper’s name and tradition).</p>
<p>The “not overheating” article described a study suggesting there is no statistically valid evidence for man-made climate change – and therefore that the planet will not warm significantly by the end of the century. But the study was not conducted by a climate scientist and it <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2016/02/23/gwpf-report-predicts-no-global-warming-ignoring-main-cause-global-warming">ignored basic physical laws</a>. It did not undergo scientific peer-review and it was funded by a climate-sceptic lobby group, the <a href="http://www.thegwpf.org/">Global Warming Policy Foundation</a>.</p>
<p>The fact that a newspaper of The Times’ standing gave coverage to such a piece of research is both remarkable and deeply concerning. But it is not an isolated example. Instead it typifies a disturbing pattern in parts of the UK national media where there is an apparent determination to systematically undermine climate science and those conducting it – and to amplify marginal dissenting arguments even when they come with no evidence.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overheating? 2015 was actually the hottest year on record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/2015-global-temperature">Met Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our letter was intended to highlight the loss of credibility that inevitably comes with printing such stories. Indeed, it is precisely the failure of papers such as The Times to treat climate change properly that is prompting more informed readers to vote with their feet and turn to credible web-based news outlets such as <a href="http://www.businessgreen.com/">BusinessGreen</a> and <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/">Carbon Brief</a>. The media is changing rapidly and established papers such as The Times are competing for readers, credibility and eventually influence against smaller publications that are often producing better coverage.</p>
<p>The Times’ loss of credibility is its own problem. However, such articles raise wider concerns about the misunderstandings generated among the public, and the loss of trust in science.</p>
<h2>The media remains important</h2>
<p>These problems result because, despite the proliferation of new media, the established titles continue to play a very important role in perceptions of science. They form the principal conduit through which the public and politicians access scientific information, they provide a proxy for public debate and help set the tone – and often the agenda – for policy-making. Thus poor-quality or slanted science reporting contributes, either unwittingly or wittingly, to the public misunderstanding of science.</p>
<p>Public misunderstanding of science can have serious consequences. In the early 1990s, The Sunday Times persisted in denying the link between HIV and AIDs after most other publications had acknowledged reality. An editorial in Nature <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/10/world/british-paper-and-science-journal-clash-on-aids.html">described its reporting</a> as “seriously mistaken, and probably disastrous”. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, media outlets gave widespread coverage to the hypothesised link between the <a href="http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/">MMR vaccine and autism</a> – coverage that has since been criticised as naïve and misleading.</p>
<p>It goes without saying that such misrepresentations of scientific knowledge run against the interests of society. People are unable to make informed decisions or to demand appropriate action from politicians. In the MMR case, outbreaks involving more than <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22085678">2,000 cases of measles</a> in 2012 were attributed to years of under-immunisation following media misreporting of the MMR issue. In the case in hand, The Times’ poor reporting on climate science has the potential to cause real harm.</p>
<p>Of course, there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-climate-scientists-actually-disagree-about-51167">uncertainties in climate science</a>, but uncertainty should not be conflated with doubt. As Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have so clearly documented in their excellent book <a href="http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/">Merchants of Doubt</a>, those who wish to undermine the credibility of scientific evidence, for instance the tobacco industry in relation to cancer and smoking, have systematically tried to turn “uncertainty” into “doubt”.</p>
<p>So where does this leave us? Editors must be free to print what they want within the law, as a free press is vital for democracy. It is entirely right that scientists, like everyone else, are subject to questioning. Not all of us are angels – and not all research is good research. We are above neither the law nor legitimate journalistic scrutiny – and editors are quite within their rights to seek out divergent views.</p>
<p>But the key word here is “legitimate”. Scrutiny that is carried out in the public interest with the intention of uncovering genuinely bad practice is entirely fair; questions asked and articles slanted with the intention of promoting a specific argument are not. And even opinion articles must acknowledge the evidence, otherwise what are they but fiction?</p>
<p>Readers also have rights – and the right to object to distorted or biased coverage is one of them. I would argue that in the case of scientists, this extends far beyond being a right – it is virtually an obligation. In 2014, UK citizens invested about <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/public-policy/index_right/edit/events/Why-fund-research/Graeme_Reid_Report">£10 billion</a> in research and development. If research is funded by the public, then it is the public’s right to have findings disseminated accurately. And as both the recipients of public funding and the individuals with expertise in these complex subjects, the onus is on us academics to ensure that research is properly communicated.</p>
<p>Engaging with the media is not to every scientist’s taste. The journalist’s world is a lot more feisty and less respectful than ours. But in the end, accurate reporting of science matters. Editors do respond to comments and criticism. Scientists can and indeed must <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-point-of-the-met-office-easy-to-miss-when-you-ignore-the-facts-45794">challenge poor reporting on climate change</a> and, if enough of us do so regularly, it will improve – to the benefit of scientists, the public and indeed journalism itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Krebs is affiliated with the Climate Change Committee, the Wellcome Trust and Oxford University. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils or any other public funders.</span></em></p>Yes, editors have the right to search out diverging views. But readers also have the right to object to distorted or biased coverage.John Krebs, Professor of Zoology, member of the UK Climate Change Committee, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/562552016-03-14T17:31:49Z2016-03-14T17:31:49ZMeltdown Earth: the shocking reality of climate change kicks in – but who is listening?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/115014/original/image-20160314-11267-w4g81t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Parts of the Arctic were 16℃ warmer than normal in February.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bernhard Staehli / shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>And another one bites the dust. The year 2014 was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-nino-could-mean-2015-is-even-hotter-than-last-years-scorcher-35837">warmest ever</a> recorded by humans. Then 2015 was <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-have-12-months-until-the-next-hottest-year-memo-will-we-be-ready-53460">warmer still</a>. January 2016 <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/january-global-temperature-record-20035">broke the record</a> for the largest monthly temperature anomaly. Then came last month. </p>
<p>February didn’t break climate change records – it <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/01/february_2016_s_shocking_global_warming_temperature_record.html">obliterated them</a>. Regions of the Arctic were were more than 16°C warmer than normal – whatever constitutes normal now. But what is really making people stand up and notice is that the surface of the Earth north of the equator was 2°C warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. This was meant to be a line that must not be crossed.</p>
<p>Two degrees was <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2010/cop16/eng/07a01.pdf#page=2">broadly interpreted</a> as the temperature that could produce further, potentially runaway warming. You can think of it as a speed limit on our climate impact. But it’s not a target speed. If you are driving a car carrying a heavy load down a steep hill you’re often advised to change down from top gear and keep your speed low, as if you go too fast your brakes will fail and you will be unable to stop. Less braking means more speed which means less braking – a dangerous runaway feedback loop. Hopefully the hill flattens out and you have enough straight road ahead to recover. If you don’t then you will be stopping much more abruptly. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"709148100800094208"}"></div></p>
<p>We are currently swamping the Earth’s ability to absorb greenhouse gases. 2015 saw the <a href="http://www.noaa.gov/record-annual-increase-carbon-dioxide-observed-mauna-loa-2015">largest annual increase</a> in carbon dioxide since records began – far higher than the Earth has experienced for hundreds of thousands of years. </p>
<p>More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means higher temperatures. There is already one positive feedback loop in operation; the extra warming from our emissions is increasing the amount of <a href="https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas.htm">water vapour</a> in the atmosphere, which further increases temperatures. Fortunately, this is not a very strong feedback loop. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, there seem to be other, much more powerful ones lurking in the event of further warming. <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-climate-tipping-points-are-and-how-they-could-suddenly-change-our-planet-49405">Tipping points</a> such as the thaw of permafrost and release of the very powerful greenhouse gas methane in large quantities would drive world temperatures well beyond the 2°C threshold. </p>
<p>Even if we came to our collective senses and rapidly reduced carbon emissions at that point, we would still have to revert to drastic <a href="https://theconversation.com/blocking-out-the-sun-wont-fix-climate-change-but-it-could-buy-us-time-50818">geoengineering</a> to rein in further warming. There is no guarantee that such climate brakes will work. If they fail, our civilisation would be on a collision course with a much hotter planet. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/114974/original/image-20160314-11274-1izjq4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Permafrost may contain a huge global warming time bomb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Galyna Andrushko / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The safe–unsafe threshold of 2°C recognises the significant amount of uncertainty there is over where dangerous warming really begins. It could be at more than 2°C. Hopefully it is. But it’s not impossible that <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-matter-of-degrees-why-2c-warming-is-officially-unsafe-42308">it is less</a>. We need to bear in mind that it was only the northern hemisphere that crossed the 2°C line. Also, we need to factor in the monster El Niño that is having an effect on temperatures across the globe. In 2014, I predicted that 2015 <a href="https://theconversation.com/el-nino-could-mean-2015-is-even-hotter-than-last-years-scorcher-35837">would break record temperatures</a>. This is not due to any psychic powers on my part, but the then very clear El Niño signal that was emerging. </p>
<p>So while temperature records may continue to be set for the rest of 2016, by the end of this year the situation should have cooled somewhat. Right? At times, it feels as if such statements are offered up as prayers in the hope that we are not in fact witnessing the beginning of abrupt and sustained climate change. But what’s even scarier is the political, economic and social reaction to these landmarks in climate change. </p>
<p>Have you heard any political speeches referring to these recent climate change records? Not one of the <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/12/21/3734216/republican-candidates-climate-change-lindsey-graham/">major Republican presidential candidates</a> even “believes” in human-produced climate change, let alone that it is something to worry about. </p>
<p>How was the stock market this morning? It appears febrile enough to lurch from euphoric boom to catastrophic bust on the basis of bland statements from central bankers but proves remarkably deaf to evidence that the entire industrial and financial system is headed for disaster.</p>
<p>Know what’s trending on Twitter as I write? A photoshopped giant dog, the latest Game of Thrones trailer and Kim Kardashian’s naked body. Actually, it’s mainly Kim Kardashian’s naked body and people’s responses to it. Followed by people’s responses to the responses. </p>
<p>It would be churlish of me to deny people the pleasure of looking at pictures of a photograph of a cuddly dog adjusted in order to make it appear <a href="http://petapixel.com/2016/03/12/guy-photoshops-dog-giant-fluffy-best-friend/">both cute and monstrous</a>. But we appear disinterested, either through denial or desensitisation, to the environmental changes happening right in front of our eyes.</p>
<p>There are sure to be more climate records broken this year. But we treat them as we treat new fashions, phones or films. More novelty, newer features, more drama. We seem unable to understand that we are driving such changes. Record breaking changes that will ultimately break our civilisation, and so scatter all that we obsess and care about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Dyke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>February was the third consecutive month to break global temperature records.James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/535762016-01-25T10:32:40Z2016-01-25T10:32:40ZWe just had the hottest year on record – where does that leave climate denial?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109002/original/image-20160122-408-2at7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Keith A Frith / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At a <a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/advisories/011516-advisory-noaa-nasa-to-announce-official-analyses-of-2015-global-temperature-climate-conditions.html">news conference</a> announcing that 2015 broke all previous heat records by a wide margin, one journalist started a question with “If this trend continues…” The response by the Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, summed up the physics of climate change succinctly: “It’s not a question of if…”</p>
<p>Even if global emissions begin to decline, as now appears possible after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-paris-climate-deal-52256">agreement signed in Paris</a> last December, there is no reasonable scientific doubt that the upward trends in global temperature, sea levels, and extreme weather events will continue <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1236372">for quite some time</a>.</p>
<p>Politically and ideologically motivated denial will nonetheless continue for a little while longer, until it ceases to be politically opportune.</p>
<p>So how does one deny that climate change is upon us and that 2015 was by far the hottest year on record? What misinformation will be disseminated to confuse the public?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/108996/original/image-20160122-441-zwzxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The real deal: 2015 was the hottest year on record.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/2015-global-temperature">Met Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXA777yUndQ&feature=youtu.be">identified several telltale signs</a> that differentiate denial from scepticism, whether it is denial of the link between smoking and lung cancer or between CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and climate change.</p>
<p>One technique of denial involves “cherry-picking”, best described as wilfully ignoring a mountain of inconvenient evidence in favour of a small molehill that serves a desired purpose. Cherry-picking is already in full swing in response to the record-breaking temperatures of 2015.</p>
<p>Political operatives such as <a href="https://www.heartland.org/james-m-taylor-jd">James Taylor</a> of the Heartland Institute – which once compared acceptance of the science of climate change <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-heartland-billboards-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-climate-denial-6888">to the Unabomber</a> in an ill-fated billboard campaign – have already denied 2015 set a record by pointing to satellite data, which ostensibly shows no warming for the last umpteen years and which <a href="https://via.hypothes.is/http:/www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2016/01/14/2015-was-not-even-close-to-hottest-year-on-record/#6900d24d23c64e79d87a23c6">purportedly relegates 2015 to third place</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/109029/original/image-20160122-403-1om0r32.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Satellite data (green) has much more uncertainty than thermometer records (red).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kevin Cowtan / RSS / Met Office HadCRUT4</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what about the satellite data?</p>
<p>If you cannot remember when you last checked the satellites to decide whether to go for a picnic, that’s probably because the satellites <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Response-Data-or-Dogma-hearing.html">don’t actually measure temperature</a>. Instead, they measure the microwave emissions of oxygen molecules in very broad bands of the atmosphere, for example ranging from the surface to about 18km above the earth. Those microwave soundings are converted into estimates of temperature using highly-complex models. Different teams of researchers use different models and they come up with fairly different answers, although they all agree that there has been <a href="http://www.globalchange.gov/sites/globalchange/files/sap1-1-draft3-all.pdf">ongoing warming since records began in 1979</a>.</p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with using models, such as those required to interpret satellite data, for their intended purpose – namely to detect a trend in temperatures at high altitudes, far away from the surface where we grow our crops and make decisions about picnics.</p>
<p>But to use high-altitude data with its <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/ted-cruz-fact-check-which-temp-data-best.html">large uncertainties</a> to determine whether 2015 is the hottest year on record is like trying to determine whether it’s safe to cross the road by firmly shutting your eyes and ears and then standing on your head to detect passing vehicles from their seismic vibrations. Yes, a big truck might be detectable that way, but most of us would rather just have a look and see whether it’s safe to cross the road.</p>
<p>And if you just look at the surface-based climate data with your own eyes, then you will see that <a href="http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20160120/">NASA</a>, the US <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201513">NOAA</a>, the UK <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2016/2015-global-temperature">Met Office</a>, the <a href="http://berkeleyearth.org/temperature-reports/dec2015/">Berkeley Earth</a> group, the <a href="http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html">Japan Meteorological Agency</a>, and many other researchers around the world, all independently arrived at one consistent and certain end result – namely that 2015 was by far the hottest year globally since records began more than a century ago.</p>
<p>Enter denial strategy two: that if every scientific agency around the world agrees on global warming, they must be engaging in a conspiracy! Far from being an incidental ornament, <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/conspiracy/suspect-science/stephan-lewandowsky/alice-through-looking-glass-mechanics-rejection-of-climate-science">conspiratorial thinking is central to denial</a>. When a scientific fact has been as thoroughly examined as global warming being caused by greenhouse gases or the link between HIV and AIDS, then no contrary position can claim much intellectual or scholarly respectability because it is so overwhelmingly at odds with the evidence.</p>
<p>That’s why politicians such as Republican Congressman Lamar Smith <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2015/11/smith-misfires-on-climate-science/">need to accuse the NOAA</a> of having “altered the [climate] data to get the results they needed to advance this administration’s extreme climate change agenda”. If the evidence is against you, then it has to be manipulated by mysterious forces in pursuit of a nefarious agenda.</p>
<p>This is like saying that you shouldn’t cross the road by just looking because the several dozen optometrists who have independently attested to your 20/20 vision have manipulated the results because … World Government! Taxation! … and therefore you’d better stand on your head blindfolded with tinfoil.</p>
<p>So do the people who disseminate misinformation about climate actually believe what they are saying?</p>
<p>The question can be answered by considering the stock market. Investors decide on which stock to buy based on their best estimates of a company’s future potential. In other words, <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/investing/5-stock-market-myths.stm">investors place an educated bet</a> on a company’s future based on their constant reading of odds that are determined by myriad factors.</p>
<p>Investors put their money where their beliefs are.</p>
<p>Likewise, climate scientists put their money where their knowledge is: physicist Mark Boslough recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-boslough/why-global-warming-bullie_b_8886968.html">offered a $25,000 bet</a> on future temperature increases. It has not been taken up. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsfQaOGW1Zk">Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt</a> similarly offered a bet to an Australian “skeptic” on climate change. It was not taken up.</p>
<p>People who deny climate science do not put their money where their mouth is. And when they very occasionally do, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/climatechange-bets-idUSL8N1541LL">they lose</a>.</p>
<p>This is not altogether surprising: in a recent peer-reviewed paper, with James Risbey as first author, we showed that wagering on global surface warming <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0463">would have won a bet every year since 1970</a>. We therefore suggested that denial may be “… largely posturing on the part of the contrarians. Bets against greenhouse warming are largely hopeless now and that is widely understood.”</p>
<p>So the cherry-picking and conspiracy-theorising will continue while it is politically opportune, but the people behind it won’t put their money where their mouth is. They probably know better.</p>
<hr>
<hr>
<p><em>Now read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-last-time-earth-was-this-hot-hippos-lived-in-britain-thats-130-000-years-ago-53398">The last time Earth was this hot hippos lived in Britain (that’s 130,000 years ago) </a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53576/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephan Lewandowsky receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Royal Society, and the Psychonomic Society.</span></em></p>Prepare for misinformation and grand talk of scientific conspiracies.Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/525602016-01-08T15:14:27Z2016-01-08T15:14:27ZHow you can play a part in tackling climate change – long after the Paris hype is over<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107632/original/image-20160108-3326-updz75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">a katz / Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a curious paradox at the heart of climate change. Despite scientists asserting the <a href="http://climatenewsnetwork.net/ipccs-urgent-warning-to-tackle-climate-change/">need for urgent action</a> and the widespread <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n11/full/nclimate2728.html">acceptance of the reality of climate change</a> by people worldwide, it is a subject that <a href="http://climateoutreach.org/resources/climate-silence-and-how-to-break-it/">we tend not to talk about</a> with friends, family or colleagues. Just 6% of the British public say they discuss climate change often, whereas approaching half (44%) do so <a href="http://psych.cf.ac.uk/understandingrisk/reports/URG%2015-01%20WinterFlooding.pdf">at most rarely</a>. Likewise, two-thirds of Americans <a href="http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/files/Climate-Change-American-Mind-October-2015.pdf">rarely or never discuss the subject</a>. </p>
<p>Perhaps we are too fearful of appearing worthy or hectoring to express our concerns, or maybe the issues seem too complex and overwhelming. Or we have grown tired of seeing polar bears floating on melting icebergs. Whatever the reasons for our reticence, however, it is hard to see how a global impetus for public engagement and action can be realised if it remains out of bounds for discussion by all but an interested few.</p>
<p>The Paris summit meant climate change was headline news for a week or two. Perhaps you did find yourself reflecting on the unusual weather or the fate of low-lying Pacific nations. But now that Christmas has come and gone, are you still worrying about these things? The discussion can’t tail off from here – after Paris, we need public conversation about climate change more than ever before. Whether you think the agreement was a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-deal-cop-diplomacy-developing-united-nations">resounding success</a> or are troubled by <a href="http://kevinanderson.info/blog/the-paris-agreement-1010-for-presentation-410-for-content-shows-promise/">its limitations</a>, it is clear that the hard work still lies ahead.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107629/original/image-20160108-3348-1ve3goz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You may have seen this one before.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/noaaphotolib/5277242231/">Pablo Clemente-Colon, NOAA</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amid the focus in news reports on compromises struck and the commitment to keep temperatures rises “well below” 2°C one aspect of the process has received less attention. The role of civil society, never more vocal than at the Paris talks, will be crucial for words to become action.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://newint.org/blog/2015/12/07/civil-society-escalates-cop21-message/">protestors took to the streets</a> in the final hours of the negotiations, inside the sprawling complex north of Paris, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=52781#.Vm8aOEqLSM8">called on grassroots organisations</a> to keep up the pressure on governments to act, arguing that “active engagement” was required from across society in order to hold governments to account. Adjoined to the sealed-off buildings housing the international delegates, the <a href="http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en/climate-generations-areas-official-opening/">Climate Generations hall</a> provided the space for organisations and individuals from across the world to make their voices heard.</p>
<p>This should be seen as more than the usual rhetoric and well-meaning outreach accompanying a fleeting international limelight. Article 12 of the <a href="http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf">Paris Agreement</a> affirms that its signatories commit to climate change education, increased public awareness, and public participation in order to achieve its aims. We can be sure that organisations such as Greenpeace and 350.org need no encouragement to do just this. But what of the wider public and their role in the process? Are we ready to play our part?</p>
<p>Meeting the 2°C target will require an unprecedented level of disruptive change. This won’t be achieved unless we embark upon a process of meaningful public dialogue to work out our collective response. In doing so, we will inevitably encounter the old <a href="http://www.mikehulme.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/15_08-Hulme-for-Zygon.pdf">disagreements</a> about climate change, but this is all the more reason to talk openly about the many challenges that remain.</p>
<p>Perhaps most significantly, and for the first time in human history, the Paris talks have led to a <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-paris-climate-deal-52256">unanimously-endorsed policy position</a> which appears completely at odds with continued fossil fuel dominance: the world aims to be “net zero” in emissions of carbon dioxide by the end of the century. </p>
<p>But despite the rush to celebrate the end of the fossil fuel era, the truth is likely to be more complicated. In addition to this “net zero” target, there are precisely zero mentions of fossil fuels in the final Paris text, and zero indications of how the production of fossil fuels (as opposed to the emissions they cause) will be curtailed by leaving most of these in the ground. </p>
<p>Have we even begun to imagine how this can be achieved, to consider the implications for <a href="http://zerocarbonbritain.org/images/pdfs/Zero%20Carbon%20-%20Making%20it%20happen%20-%20initial%20findings.pdf">changing the ways in which millions of people live</a>? How do we, as citizens, want this to be done? None of the options currently available are straightforward or palatable to many – whether through reducing our consumption, or at the system level through an acceleration of renewable energy, nuclear power, or the use of (still speculative) <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-get-serious-about-negative-emissions-technology-fast-52549">carbon extraction technologies</a>.</p>
<p>The conversations that are necessary as we attempt to restructure our societies – <em>if</em> we attempt to do so – are where the real discussion on climate change is now required. This will not result in neat texts endorsed by all, but will instead give rise to disputes grounded in different values, and played out in the familiar fight between conservatives and progressives. Finding common ground on these more contentious topics is where the energies of climate campaigners and communicators are best placed now that the skeleton of a more sustainable world has been assembled.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52560/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Capstick has been funded by the ESRC to investigate public understanding of climate change. He has undertaken work with Climate Outreach in the area of climate change communication. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Corner is Research Director of Climate Outreach, a charitable think tank which receives funds from government, research councils, NGOs, and charitable foundations (full details at climateoutreach.org). He is a member of the Green Party.</span></em></p>People know global warming is a big problem requiring urgent action, but still find it difficult to talk about.Stuart Capstick, Research Fellow in Psychology, Cardiff UniversityAdam Corner, Honorary Research Fellow, School of Psychology, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/516002015-12-01T15:21:55Z2015-12-01T15:21:55ZCOP21: thanks to our sponsors, the climate debate is open for business<p>The first thing that struck me about the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – helpfully shortened to <a href="http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/remise-des-cles-a-lonu-par-laurent-fabius/%20">COP21 </a>– was its scale. During the fortnight 195 countries will be represented by their leaders, innumerable civil servants, lobby groups, industrial interests, environmental delegations and, of course, hundreds of journalists.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34953626">the BBC</a>, more than 40,000 people will participate in the talks. All of them will want to be heard and will compete for space in a news agenda dominated by the continuing crises in Syria and Iraq.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/5-things-you-need-know-about-paris-climate-talks-cop21">Greenpeace</a> is cautiously optimistic about what the talks may achieve. It points to the <a href="http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2014/11/12/comment-historic-us-china-deal-marks-beginning-end-chinas-coal-chapter/">historic China-US climate agreement</a> of 2014 which indicated a move away from fossil fuels and the commitment of China and India to renewable energy. Though discussion on how we arrive at a world where temperatures rise no more than 2°C is the key point of COP21, global political consensus appears to have been reached on the immediacy of the need to tackle climate change.</p>
<p>Global political consensus is one thing, public consensus is another – because it seems that, even with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/11/climate-change-political-media-ipcc-coverag">97% agreement</a> on human caused global warming in the scientific community, citizens in the United States do not rank global climate change as one of the <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/08/28/as-new-dangers-loom-more-think-the-u-s-does-too-little-to-solve-world-problems/">top threats facing the country</a>.</p>
<h2>Hearts and minds</h2>
<p>As the PEW Research Centre reported last year, almost 50% of Americans rated global climate change as a major threat – well behind concerns over the threat of ISIS (67%), Iran’s nuclear program (59%) and North Korea’s nuclear program (57%). PEW found that in an <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/24/climate-change-and-financial-instability-seen-as-top-global-threats/">international survey</a> of the general public in 39 countries last year, Americans were among the least concerned about climate change threatening their country.</p>
<p>Why might this be the case? Perhaps it has something to do with how successfully industrial corporate interests have managed the environmental debate over the past couple of decades. Just last week the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/23/why-are-so-many-americans-skeptical-about-climate-change-a-study-offers-a-surprising-answer/?postshare=1021448522247529&tid=ss_tw-bottom%20">Washington Post</a> highlighted a study by Justin Farrell, a Yale University sociologist, which reviewed 20 years of data illustrating the connection:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>between corporate funding and messages that raise doubts about the science of climate change and whether humans are responsible for the warming of the planet. The analysis suggests that corporations have used their wealth to amplify contrarian views and create an impression of greater scientific uncertainty than actually exists.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103871/original/image-20151201-26574-1ldkhfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some of the corporate sponsors for COP21.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2015/05/cop21-sponsors-are-not-so-climate-friendly">Corporate Europe Observatory</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/11/05/exxonmobil-under-investigation-for-misleading-the-public-about-climate-change/">also points out</a>, the publication of Farrell’s research arrives just two weeks after New York prosecutors announced an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest public energy company, misled the public and investors about the risks of climate change. And it was only in February that <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/global-warming/climate-deniers/koch-industries/dr-willie-soon-a-career-fueled-by-big-oil-and-coal/">Greenpeace</a> revealed Willie Soon, a researcher at the <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/">Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics</a>, received a total of $1.25m from Exxon Mobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the Koch brothers who have been accused of giving close to <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/">US$70m to climate change denial front groups</a>.</p>
<h2>False balance</h2>
<p>This has only been part of the problem. False balance, which is, in <a href="http:/www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/11/false-equivalence-balance-media">Bob Garfield’s</a> colourful prose, the practice of giving equal media time and space to demonstrably invalid positions for the sake of supposed reportorial balance, has long been a recognised feature of the climate debate. A <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/10/study-media-sowed-doubt-in-coverage-of-un-clima/196387">Media Matters for America</a> study of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2013 found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>many mainstream media outlets amplified the marginal viewpoints of those who doubt the role of human activity in warming the planet, even though the report itself reflects that the climate science community is more certain than ever that humans are the major driver of climate change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his analysis of the findings <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/oct/11/climate-change-political-media-ipcc-coverage">Dana Nuccitelli</a> hit the nail on the head: the 3% of climate contrarians were given a disproportionate amount of media coverage, creating the perception that there was a significant divide amongst climate experts. Nuccitelli noted that in their purported efforts to be “fair and balanced” and represent “both sides”, media outlets were in fact creating an unbalanced perception of reality.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"671597469260767232"}"></div></p>
<p>False balance has been a problem in the UK, too – notably for the BBC. In 2014 the corporation’s radio flagship news programme, Today, faced criticism over an item where Lord Lawson, a renowned climate sceptic, shared airtime with Sir Brian Hoskins, the eminent climatologist. Their debate, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/02/mps-criticise-bbc-false-balance-climate-change-coverage">reported the Guardian</a> resulted in alleged scientific inaccuracies and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/mar/26/bbc-failing-robust-debate-climate-change">a demonstration outside Broadcasting House</a> by direct action group Climate Rush against the BBCs coverage. The chairman of parliament’s Science Technology Committee, Labour MP Andrew Miller, said of the BBC’s coverage of climate science in general:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Given the high level of trust the public has in its coverage, it is disappointing that the BBC does not ensure all of its programmes and presenters reflect the actual state of climate science in its output. Some editors appear to be particularly poor at determining the level of scientific expertise of contributors in debates, for instance, putting up lobbyists against top scientists as though their arguments on the science carry equal weight.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Big end of town</h2>
<p>In the run up to COP21, Open Democracy’s <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/adam-ramsay/six-examples-of-corporate-infuence-over-climate-coverage">Adam Ramsay</a> drew attention to how the major industrial players were attempting to influence coverage in the UK press. Ramsay called out the New Statesman for running a double-page feature about energy policy and COP21 sponsored by EDF energy. In other publications he found many incidents of “advertising and coincidental coverage” – he featured an image of an article in the Spectator saying now is the time to buy crude oil while on the opposite page sits an advertisement inviting us to invest in what is a “crude awakening”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103877/original/image-20151201-26544-1h4nmjy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Strictly business, you understand…</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay/climate-change-reporting-for-sale">Adam Ramsey/Open Democracy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Corporate involvement in COP21 is explicit and the official list of sponsors contains some of the least <a href="http://corporateeurope.org/pressreleases/2015/05/cop21-sponsors-are-not-so-climate-friendly">climate-friendly multinationals</a>. But the world’s governments have to work with big business, so let’s hope the commitment to renewable energy is sincere and practical. For some, such as Exxon Mobil, it may be that fossil fuels are here to stay – at least for another generation. </p>
<p>In May 2015 the <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-companies-look-to-join-climate-debate-1432497683%20">Wall Street Journal</a> quoted Rex Tillerson, Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, as saying that “everyone agrees” that even three decades from now about 80% of the world’s energy supply will come from fossil fuels. “We think we’re in a business the world needs,” he said. “What we have to do is deliver in a way that is acceptable to the public.”</p>
<p>He’ll need the help of the media for that. So let’s hope the reporters covering COP21 are more inclined to listen to the science than the corporate spin.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Paris Climate Conference must not be hijacked by big business and its allies in the world’s media.John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/457942015-08-07T05:29:47Z2015-08-07T05:29:47ZWhat’s the point of the Met Office? Easy to miss when you ignore the facts<p>The BBC is under attack again, but not from its usual right-wing opponents. This time the charge comes from those concerned about the amount of unchallenged air time the BBC gives to climate change sceptics. </p>
<p>The current controversy centres around an episode of the Radio 4 programme <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06418l5">What’s the point of …</a>, presented by Daily Mail columnist <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/columnist-228/Quentin-Letts-Daily-Mail.html">Quentin Letts</a>, in which the work of the UK’s national weather service the <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/">Met Office</a> is subjected to unsubstantiated criticism.</p>
<p>Leading the attack is one of the BBC’s former environment correspondents, Richard Black. He has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/05/whats-the-point-of-bbc-editorial-guidelines-climate-change">blasted the editors</a> of the programme for allowing Letts to play fast and loose with the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/">BBC editorial guidelines</a>. Black contends that the material in the programme, contrary to the guidelines, was not “well sourced and based on sound evidence”. </p>
<p>The programme is worth a close listen as it raises important questions about the presentation on air of minority views on climate change, the ubiquitous presence of non-specialist opinion in the British media, and its possible effect on audiences. The programme’s sub-title is “expensive liability or essential?”, but much of it is an attack on the Met Office over its <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-guide/science/science-behind-climate-change/hadley">mainstream position on climate change</a>. </p>
<h2>Challenging the spread of misinformation</h2>
<p>One of the first witnesses Letts introduces to attack the Met Office is Piers Corbyn, a <a href="http://leftfootforward.org/2015/04/why-is-the-daily-express-still-quoting-this-crank-in-its-weather-stories/">well-known sceptic</a> of mainstream climate science. His scientific credentials to speak on the issue are never established. A little later comes <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/graham-stringer/449">Graham Stringer</a>, a Labour MP, who casts doubt on the link between climate change and the 2013/2014 UK flooding: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>…the chief scientific officer [at the Met Office] said that this was undoubtedly due to climate change, but most of the scientists even in the Met Office looked askance at that, because there’s no scientific evidence whatsoever that rain was related to climate change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, it turns out there is evidence to link the two, according to Dr Friederike Otto from the <a href="http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/">Environmental Change Institute</a> at Oxford University. “I would say that Stringer is wrong”, she tells me. “We do have scientific evidence that the likelihood of these kinds of floods occurring has increased.” She and her colleagues have <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/weatherathome/weatherhome-2014/results/">studied</a> the UK floods as part of their wider research on individual extreme weather events becoming more (or less) likely as a result of climate change. </p>
<h2>Laughing along with climate scepticism</h2>
<p>Stringer is followed by Conservative MP and self-described “luke-warmist” <a href="http://www.peterlilley.co.uk/#ad-image-0">Peter Lilley</a>. He is allowed to put the case for the so-called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/improved-data-set-shows-no-global-warming-hiatus-42807">climate pause</a>” since 1998 without any challenge. More significantly, there is no mention that both Stringer and Lilley sit on the <a href="http://www.thegwpf.org/labour-and-conservative-mps-join-gwpf/">board of trustees</a> of the sceptic campaigning organisation, the <a href="http://www.thegwpf.org/">Global Warming Policy Foundation</a>. </p>
<p>Omitting the interests of interviewees in this way does not give the listener enough context to understand their views. You can argue that in the name of pluralism it’s desirable to have minority views on air, but they must be clearly labelled and fairly challenged. In this instance, Letts laughs along with Stringer and Lilley; only the Met Office representative is confronted.</p>
<h2>No respect for facts</h2>
<p>As the host of a “personal view” programme, Quentin Letts may enjoy more editorial latitude than most. But the BBC editorial guidelines are clear, stating that authored pieces, “particularly when dealing with controversial subjects, should be clearly signposted to audiences in advance”. I may have missed it, but I did not hear Letts’ programme presented as such. Such pieces should also “retain a respect for factual accuracy”, and “fairly represent opposing viewpoints when appropriate”. Letts could have kept the wit in his text and still have been true to the guidelines. </p>
<p>The wider picture in the UK media’s coverage of climate change is that in recent years it has often been non-specialist opinion that gets disproportionate time or space. A <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/WC5N2sbGmUDTQF5diN4Z/full#.VcMscU1_lHi">recent study</a> of the presence of sceptical voices in the UK print media concluded that such voices were more likely to be included in pieces written by in-house non-specialist columnists than by environment editors or correspondents. It would be worrying if the BBC was going down a similar path of giving exaggerated space to non-specialists. </p>
<h2>The consequences of biased reporting</h2>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/digital-news-report-2015">recent revolution</a> in the way people, and particularly younger age groups, consume news, the BBC is still a <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/disaster-averted-television-coverage-201314-ipcc%E2%80%99s-climate-change-reports">very well used and trusted source</a>. <a href="http://jspp.psychopen.eu/article/view/96/37">Research shows</a> that the promotion or presence of uncertainty in media reporting of climate science can act as an obstacle to public understanding and lead to disengagement, so it is critically important that the BBC provides proper context when covering such an important issue. </p>
<p>In one of his final comments, Letts describes the Met Office as following a “politically risky intervention on climate change said by some fellow scientists to be plain wrong”. Which scientists say this, and why weren’t they invited onto the programme? Much of the BBC’s coverage that relies on the expertise of its correspondents and editorial guidelines is first class, but problems arise when handing over airtime to others to make assertions like this without due scrutiny.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s time for the BBC editors to dust off their handbooks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45794/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Painter is Director of the Journalism Fellowship Programme at the University of Oxford Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, which receives funding from the Thomson Reuters Foundation. James previously worked for the BBC and has received funding in the past from The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE, the European Climate Foundation, and the Norwegian Environment Ministry.</span></em></p>The BBC is under fire for unbalanced representation of the UK’s national weather service.James Painter, Head of the Journalism Fellowship Programme, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/420552015-06-03T20:14:55Z2015-06-03T20:14:55ZClimate meme debunked as the ‘tropospheric hot spot’ is found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/83772/original/image-20150603-2334-17x9b0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=68%2C103%2C3552%2C2046&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new analysis of historic weather balloon data reveals that the troposphere has been warming as climate models predicted.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NOAA/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before climate sceptics got excited about the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-global-warming-in-a-hiatus-18367">hiatus</a>” or slowdown in global surface warming during the past 15 years or so, they were fond of discussing the “missing tropospheric hotspot” – the alleged lack of anticipated temperature increase in the tropical upper troposphere (roughly 5-15 km altitude). </p>
<p>Both the “hiatus” and the “missing hot spot” have been interesting research problems, because models seemed like they might be missing something important.</p>
<p>There have been significant advances on both problems in the past year. And the new results do not offer much hope that scientists are fundamentally mistaken about global warming.</p>
<p>The “hiatus” has been addressed by a veritable avalanche of recent studies, as reported in articles on The Conversation (such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/heat-accumulating-deep-in-the-atlantic-has-put-global-warming-on-hiatus-30805">here</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-vindicates-climate-models-accused-of-missing-the-pause-29477">here</a>). These studies collectively show that the warming slowdown has been the temporary result of a regularly recurring change in ocean circulation – essentially, a bump in the road towards a warmer planet. The phenomenon has no evident link to global warming or the physical principles that connect it to greenhouse gases.</p>
<h2>Hitting the spot</h2>
<p>But what about the “missing hot spot”? In this case, part of the atmosphere has reportedly warmed little, in spite of predictions that it should warm significantly faster than the surface. This would seem highly relevant to the question of whether humans are causing climate change, although in fact, the warming maximum should happen equally whether warming is natural or human-induced. Still, the seeming lack of such warming is an important puzzle for atmospheric scientists. </p>
<p>I <a href="https://theconversation.com/satellite-stories-what-do-new-findings-on-tropospheric-warming-mean-for-climate-change-2277">wrote here in 2011</a> that recent (at the time) satellite studies were coming closer to showing the expected warming, but were still not all the way there. Some analyses of the data seemed to show it but were not completely convincing. Now, three newer papers make it look very much like the tropical atmosphere has indeed been warming as expected all along.</p>
<p>First, a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50465/abstract">2013 paper</a>, featuring a new analysis of radiosonde (weather balloon) data showed increased warming in the upper troposphere. This analysis, which used weather forecasts to help identify artificial changes in the balloon data (such as those due to undocumented changes to instruments), also came up with a reassuringly realistic pattern of warming compared with earlier efforts.</p>
<p>My colleague Nidhi Nishant and I have now <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/5/054007">analysed the radiosonde data yet again</a>, and we found a tropical warming profile even closer to that expected. The fastest warming was at an altitude of about 12 km, and averaged 0.25C per decade – much faster than at the surface (0.14C per decade). </p>
<p>This means that the troposphere is warming around 70-80% faster than the surface. So, far from being absent, this tropospheric warming is at least as strong as predicted by the average climate model, which predicted that the troposphere would heat 64% faster than the surface. </p>
<p>Moreover, our data show that the tropical troposphere has warmed at a more or less constant rate since widespread balloon launches began in 1958, which is a bit puzzling given the ocean-surface hiatus since 2000 or so.</p>
<h2>More evidence</h2>
<p>This result comes hot on the heels of a <a href="http://www.atmos.uw.edu/%7Eqfu/Publications/jtech.pochedley.2015.pdf">new University of Washington study</a> which overcomes one of the key obstacles to obtaining an accurate satellite-based record of atmospheric warming. The problem is that temperatures vary during the day, and when a new satellite is launched (which happens every few years), it observes the Earth at an earlier time of day than the old one (since after launch, each satellite orbit begins to decay toward later times of day).</p>
<p>This means that over time, if you don’t know the daily cycle of temperature very accurately over the whole planet, you are going to get an errors in the long-term warming trend when you piece the different satellite records together. The University of Washington group has come up with a way of estimating this temperature cycle from the satellite data themselves while at the same time accounting for other effects such as calibration changes.</p>
<p>The result is that they now find mid-to-upper tropospheric warming that is just as strong as predicted by models, in line with both of the new radiosonde studies. The troposphere was warming all along – it’s just that the warming is very hard to see when other things are happening to the instruments over time.</p>
<p>One remaining puzzle is that the radiosonde data do not show a “hiatus” in atmospheric warming, but the satellite data do. Another is that the surface warming rate over oceans has been somewhat weaker than predicted by most climate models, even going back well before the “hiatus.” </p>
<p>This could be due to the models being too sensitive, but would be more easily explained by the existence of some influence on climate that has up until now been partly offsetting the greenhouse effect, and has not been properly accounted for. Thus climate scientists still have important puzzles to solve — but it looks like the “missing hot spot” has finally been found.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42055/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Sherwood receives research funding from the Australian Research Council, the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, and the federal Department of the Environment.</span></em></p>Climate models have been criticised because observations could not find the predicted “hot spot” of strong warming in the troposphere. But analyses now show that the tropospheric hot spot is indeed real.Steven Sherwood, Director, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/381932015-03-02T10:43:38Z2015-03-02T10:43:38ZBBC’s Climate Change by Numbers supports big risk in place of big facts<p>The BBC is about to screen its first climate change-dedicated documentary in some years. The show, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02jsdrk">Climate Change by Numbers</a>, is all about the statistics at the heart of the effort to understand the scale and pace of human influence on our climate. Three mathematicians – Hannah Fry, Norman Fenton and David Spiegelhalter – explore the background to three numbers:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>0.85˚C</strong> – The amount of warming the planet has undergone since 1880.</li>
<li><strong>95%</strong> – The degree of certainty climate scientists have that at least half the recent warming is man-made.</li>
<li><strong>1 trillion tonnes</strong> – The total amount of carbon we can afford to burn – ever – in order to stay below “dangerous levels” of climate change.</li>
</ul>
<p>BBC Four chief Cassian Harrison said the show “<a href="http://blogs.plos.org/models/climate-change-numbers/">puts aside the politics to concentrate on the science</a>”. Nice try, but no: science and politics can’t be separated on this or indeed any other topic where there are wide economic and social consequences, and a good dose of uncertainty. </p>
<p>But everyone involved in the programme is doing us a great service in reminding us that climate science ought to be allowed to be just interesting sometimes. And this kind of approach offers a far more sturdy basis for public conversation than tired insistence upon a monolithic scientific “consensus”.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73347/original/image-20150227-16163-g7dox8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We’re only allowed another 0.5 trillion tonnes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/hdport/13020609303/in/photolist-hXfQh-6vpUEn-33K4Wf-pnjU7R-oYpJ7p-kQA2vR-amUnLi-bN23m4-pS6A8B-q7o4Dx-oww4rP-mCuBsA-ekWa5b-6nTPex-7fGbqA-oXu77C-aAjyNP-bsCP1K-69Lb42-brE6fQ-okk1QX-gDSdQn-6gbFjr-8uHaaT-dJVqk2-gNoMs9-bp5reT-iefJsZ-fc1UQj-oEbcbY-oHRm2T-4yB5T3-beP4C2-8Ho6AJ-iYZbTw-cYrVj-ieg6ro-foyhFU-7k2y3i-foxJ4w-a4Un5a-foit7p-9TXvJX-fojiVt-foyERW-fojhTV-foiqzz-vUwci-fUJssh-dpEvvL">Hunter Desportes</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In an exemplary move for a TV show the team includes three academic consultants. Two of them, <a href="https://twitter.com/flimsin">Tamsin Edwards</a> from The Open University and <a href="https://twitter.com/dougmcneall">Doug McNeall</a> from the Met Office Hadley Centre, have long been very active on social media inviting people into an understanding of their work as unfolding and ambitious. <a href="http://blogs.plos.org/models/climate-change-numbers/">Tamsin asks us</a> to learn to love the uncertainty in climate science:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We haven’t always sold the idea of uncertainty as not only inevitable but even exciting, and we’ve sometimes over-simplified our communication. That pause in warming of the atmosphere surprised the media and public, even though scientists always expected this kind of thing could happen in the short term.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This fits nicely with my own argument that appears in a book of essays <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/researchcentres/osrc/files/osrc/NARRATIVES.pdf">Culture and Climate Change: Narratives</a>. As a social scientist and policy researcher with a particular interest and involvement in the media I’ve long been frustrated by the predominant tactics aimed at mobilising public concern. Phrases like “the science is finished” and “the greatest challenge facing humanity” have sought to enrol the public and politicians in a grand cause. But these approaches may alienate as many as they attract.</p>
<p>It is far more robust to headline the natural science of climate change as a hugely ambitious risk assessment, the main contours of which have changed little since the early 1990s, and then explain that the rest of the research and policy effort is a big, messy risk management process. It is often forgotten that the IPCC’s First Assessment Report back in 1990 <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/1992%20IPCC%20Supplement/IPCC_1990_and_1992_Assessments/English/ipcc_90_92_assessments_far_overview.pdf">insisted</a> “we are confident that … uncertainties can be reduced by further research. However, the complexity of the system means that we cannot rule out surprises.”</p>
<p>Focusing on risk frees the natural science to become a lot more interesting on its own terms, enchanting even. Explaining it as a backroom risk assessment operation, and inviting everyone into that room now and again to follow progress will help to build trust and engagement in some of the most interesting, complex and difficult questions human beings have ever set themselves. </p>
<p>But the natural science is only one, albeit centrally important, part of the climate change story. In cultural terms, climate change is a difficult body of new knowledge that holds significance for all the challenges that humanity has always faced regarding shelter, comfort, food and mobility. In media terms, however, the topic often seems strangely disconnected from mainstream business, politics and everyday life. </p>
<p>Climate change is one of the strongest drivers of innovation in engineering and design, and is spurring radical new thinking in the arts, humanities and social sciences. It is catalysing major advances in lighting, mobility, communications, architecture, food and energy. It is also driving far-reaching and entirely novel conversations about where and how we redraw the boundaries of ethics and politics across time and space. </p>
<p>Not everyone is going to find all of this interesting. But slivers of these themes will be important to pretty much everyone. Giving full rein to the mad diversity of ideas set in motion by this difficult new knowledge helps to engage those people who are bored or alienated by an over-generalised and repetitive chorus of projected woe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38193/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joe Smith currently consults for the International Broadcasting Trust. In the past he has consulted for the BBC, Reuters and Kudos Film and Television on communications and climate change themes. He is currently in receipt of £5K funding from the Ashden Trust, and has consulted for the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts. He receives funding from the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council in his role as Principal Investigator on the Stories of Change (£1.47m) and Earth in Vision (£470K) projects. </span></em></p>Sometimes it’s fine for climate science to be plain old interesting.Joe Smith, Senior Lecturer in Environment, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377652015-02-19T06:12:37Z2015-02-19T06:12:37ZDeniers vs alarmists? It’s time to lose the climate debate labels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72412/original/image-20150218-20778-iz5l74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Climate debaters will put you in a box, whatever your views might be.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/daveynin/14873196271">daveynin</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The climate debate seems to be as polarised as ever. While <a href="http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/Leaders_Joint_Climate_Change_Agreement.pdf">joint political pledges</a> offer some hope that climate change no longer has to be a partisan issue, a look at the comments below most articles on global warming says otherwise. </p>
<p>Some put this is down to <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science-34949">differing core values</a>, others point to <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n8/full/nclimate1610.html">psychological outlooks</a>. However <a href="http://wires.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WiresArticle/wisId-WCC332.html">our research</a> highlights an overlooked element – language itself and labelling opinions can frame public debate as polarised and antagonistic.</p>
<p>Labels are everywhere in the climate debate, including politicians railing against “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/dec/04/flat-earth-climate-change-copenhagen">flat-earth climate sceptics</a>”, popular science writers calling their critics “<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/bjorn-lomborg-the-alarming-thing-about-climate-alarmism-1422832462">climate change alarmists</a>”, and even others who argue that people who use the word denier should themselves be called “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/02/25/global-warming-climate-change-roy-spencer_n_4853119.html">global warming Nazis</a>”.</p>
<p>These labels are not only offensive, but they also polarise the debate into opposing “us and them” factions. This has important knock-on effects, as the <a href="http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/7972/20140709/climate-change-skeptics-dumped-by-bbc-to-create-balance.htm">perception</a> of widespread scientific and policy disagreement makes the public less certain climate change is happening and lowers support for climate policies.</p>
<h2>We like putting people into boxes</h2>
<p>Categorising and grouping people is a fundamental part of the human cognitive process, helping us understand and assimilate the vast amount of information we face each day.</p>
<p>Labels are used in all walks of life, but when it comes to climate change, <a href="https://theconversation.com/belief-and-scepticism-creating-nonsense-by-mislabelling-scientists-and-deniers-6790">Susan Lawler’s words</a> could not be truer: “their meaning is opposite to their definitions”. For example, “scepticism” implies seeking the truth, constant questioning and is a fundamental scientific tenet – it famously took Thomas Edison 1,000 attempts to invent the light bulb, refining his approach along the way – but these days it is applied to <a href="http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/about_us/meet_us/max_boykoff/readings/hobson_2012.pdf">all sorts of positions and rationales</a>.</p>
<p>The use of the term “denier” is also particularly contentious and obstructive – however all labels in the debate can contribute to polarisation, regardless of their origin. Crucially, no labels exist to identify those who are not actively engaged in the climate debate (with the label “<a href="http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/my-life-as-a-climate-lukewarmer.aspx">lukewarmer</a>” arguably on the sceptical end of the spectrum, rather than identifying the unengaged general populace). The debate is therefore putting people off from engaging in constructive dialogue. </p>
<h2>How labels lead to polarisation</h2>
<p>Firstly, labels have pejorative undertones which frame the debate as antagonistic and combative, allowing uncriticised stereotypes to develop. Using labels directly influences the way in which individuals are seen in the eyes of others, rather than attempting to understand how underlying political or ideological viewpoints can contribute to individual opinion formation.</p>
<p>Secondly, labels only identify those at polarised extremes, encouraging these groups’ identities to harden and become less open to dialogue. This delays public understanding about climate change by contributing to a “logic schism” across which dialogue and real policy action is less politically viable. Labels foster an environment where preservation of one’s ideology and group identity takes priority over constructive deliberation of knowledge or evidence. Essentially who one is becomes more important that what one is arguing.</p>
<p>Thirdly, labels fix opinions and increase their likelihood of transforming into stereotypes. Opinions can evolve over time, but labelling an adversary allows people to ignore their views and can contribute to an opinion becoming increasingly static or unresponsive to new information. Labels such as “denier” or “warmist” reduce the need to delve deeper into arguments and rationales of others in the debate and to write off those expressing an opposing point of view.</p>
<p>Fourth, labels fail to capture the complexity of individual opinions and rationales. Academics have come up with increasingly <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378012000581">detailed taxonomies of climate thinking</a>, yet they do not capture well the arguments and motivations which together make up an opinion. Labels are also failing to capture geographic complexity, as viewpoints on climate change encompass different meanings <a href="https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Poles%20Apart%20the%20international%20reporting%20of%20climate%20scepticism%20Executive%20Summary.pdf">in different geographical contexts</a>].</p>
<h2>The way forward…</h2>
<p>We need new ways of framing and talking about climate change. We need to remember that science “<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-ill-talk-politics-with-climate-change-deniers-but-not-science-34949">does not provide us with convenient yes/no answers</a>” and being sceptical is part of the scientific process.</p>
<p>Removing these antagonistic labels from the debate could encourage all those engaged in this area to think of it less as a polarised debate and move towards a more nuanced and constructive discussion about specific issues of disagreement.</p>
<p>The current academic focus on categorising labels about climate change diverts attention away from much-needed research on underlying rationales. Scientists can play an important role in informing and legitimising new policies, therefore it is vital that climate researchers pay attention to their choices of language.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37765/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Candice Howarth receives funding from the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics & Policy: Climate Policy Innovation Fund</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amelia Sharman received funding for this research from the London School of Economics and Political Science.</span></em></p>The climate debate seems to be as polarised as ever. While joint political pledges offer some hope that climate change no longer has to be a partisan issue, a look at the comments below most articles on…Candice Howarth, Senior Research Fellow, Anglia Ruskin UniversityAmelia Sharman, PhD researcher in Environmental Policy, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.