STATE OF THE CLIMATE

Fifteen Australian climate scientists published in The Sydney Morning Herald and elsewhere concluded:

Temperature rises above two degrees will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with and will increase the level of climate disruption through the rest of the century.

All of these concerns are firmly grounded in science. They have led the great majority of climate scientists to conclude (paraphrasing the summary of the Copenhagen conference) that rapid, sustained and effective emissions reductions are required to avoid ‘‘dangerous climate change’’, regardless of how it is defined.

Higher future emissions increase the risk of crossing climate tipping points and they increase the likelihood that the long-term social and economic costs of both adaptation and mitigation will be higher.

The conclusion is positive in the sense that since humans are the principle agency in the observed and expected climate change which has the appearance of being disastrous, human beings can do something about it, which means reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Still the Australian Government cannot even conceive of going cold turkey on coal.

The climate scientists identify four key conclusions around which they say there is a broad consensus:

1. The world’s climate has warmed since  around 1850 by 0.8 degrees celsius.
2. The release of  greenhouse gases created by human activities has been the dominant cause of heating since 1950.
3. Heating will continue if these gas emissions continue to increase global temperatures by 6 degrees Celsius.
4. These effects are not likely to be reversed for hundreds of years because of the role of the oceans as heat sinks.

The atmosphere operates as a system. One thing leads to another. It is a set of interrelationships and interactions. And these can change creating new states within the system. Some of these conditions can be foreseen and some remain unknown.

The climate represent the greatest existential crisis facing humankind. It is the ultimate test of our collective intelligence, wisdom and humanity. If as may be demonstated at Copenhagen in September this year the governments of the world cannot act appropriately then it will be up to the people to do so.

ELSEWHERE:

Emeritus Professor Garth Paltridge addressed each of the conclusions noted above on ABC’s Counterpoint. He doubts the evidence on all.

He has written, The Climate Caper reviewed by The Australian Conservative who conclude:

It seems that governments are indeed becoming captive to a scientific and technological elite – an elite which is achieving its ends by manipulating fear of climate change into the world’s greatest example of a religion for the politically correct.

In this interview, Paltridge ends up with political critique of the science establishment and scientists. On this level he arguing that there are emotional reasons for not accepting the reality of the implications and potential ramifications of climate change. He is adopting the technique of public relations. In science we should look squarely at the best information, and if the fifteen scientist signatory to the article are not that, there is something conduct of science.

Rather than the allegation we some evidence, and some prescription to get science and truth back on track. Furthermore, I suspect, it not enough in science to be critical, you have to constructively propose a set of observations that can be made that confirm doubts, and since such results can exist independently of quantitative analysis a superior model for them. So in Professor Paltridge’s argument he has propose the social science observations that confirm his conclusions, or at the least quote the relevant experiments. He may feel is he not competent to do the relevant science, but why draw such conclusions?

Clearly, Professor Paltridge is an intelligent, considered commentator but perhaps he fails the understand that human beings are part of nature. They are not simply spectators as the climate system crashes. Human beings like other sentient beings, only more so, can be stupid or intelligent, and in matters where our collective behavior is involved requires collective decision making.

The only good news from the looming climate disaster, perhaps even now incompletely understood, is that it has been caused by human agency, which is the only source of hope we have.

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