To start the new year off I was on a climate debate on Sunrise on Monday with a conservative UK political advisor - see the video (and crazy comments) here if you can bear it. For those wanting some sort of insight into where we are in Australia in 2010, this is my summary: evidence and reason is losing the public debate. Debating what we do about climate change in a policy sense is very much needed and debating the science within the realm of science is the exactly what scientific progress is about. However somehow trying to discredit thousands of working climate scientists on national TV by a UK Lord with no scientific background is just slightly crazy - and there are many coming from the rafters that are given this platform of crazy. Have a look at the video when Monckton says ‘I’m not an expert’ - I was speechless to be honest given I teach, research and coordinate scientific syntheses on climate science every day of my working life. This is not to say there are no debates in the climate science community - of course there are - but not about the fundamentals of climate change and how humans are contributing to it (Richard Lindzen is known to be the lone contrarian among the hundreds of other atmospheric physicists - although he doesn’t dispute that greenhouse gases will warm the planet by the way) . If you would like to see the latest synthesis of climate science by climate scientists go to ‘The Copenhagen Diagnosis’ which undertook this process in writing its report. Do you think I should get national media play debating whether junk food causes cancer - NO - I’m not an expert in cancer. We have opinions but opinions do not shape scientific progress. It seems anyone is free to comment on climate science - I remember a historian being on the front page of ‘The Australian’ last year explaining how the climate science is flawed. This is going to be a big year of this nonsense given the impending Australian election - how backward has the debate become - it’s up to our national leaders to see through this right? Will they?
Credits
Thanks to all my supporters, friends and family for all their efforts. In particular my literary agent Benython Oldfield, has been magnificent and Sputnik Agency who developed this website and hosted the Melbourne book launch - I can't thank enough all those at Sputnik for donating, developing and supporting me!
I am not a scientist, but I am an academic and I have been party to many academic debates. Bismarck remarked once about laws and sausages. I think he could have added scientific consensus to that list. There are mistakes and arguments (there are two ecomomists, one from Harvard and one from Princeton whose disagreement has become so fierce that should they be put in the same room friends are sure it will turn physical. My money is on the Scottish fellow), and sometimes frauds in any academic field but consensus is reached through a process of publication, review and response.
In the field of climate science, the difference is that this is all being done in public, and amateurs seeking either notoriety or fame are inserting themselves into the debate. The deniers are given equal, or sometimes, even more time in the media, truncating difficult scientific argument with overly simplistic, and often flawed soundbites, leaving credible science struggling for air.
I am not sure how this can be rectified. The public want to know, but blogs like Bolt’s and people like Monckton steer people away from scientific explanation, and often toward stupidity. I have no answer other than to demand that CSIRO, BOM, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and others to start making some noise, and hope media outlets reverse their bias and give them a larger forum.
HI
I am not an academic or scientist but I am well travelled and a committed observor of many elements of both human and environmental aspects of this planet. What we now need is a middle perspective. That is, not right or left, academic or political but the opinions of the observant, educated person who has taken a long term view of the health of both humans and their environment. There are more of these people out there than most realise. We make buying decisions that affect the planet. We must navigate the ’shark infested waters’ of evolving markets. This is where we need to focus resources in order to bring change. Politicians are fearfull of change, the old world financial order cannokt see ‘ the forest for the trees’.
This is how I see it ;
In 1978 I used to watch the sun set on the Pacific horizon in San Diego (USA) and observe a thin layer of pollution on the waterline. In 1979, I regularily observed the sunset on the Paciic horizon at the western most point of USA (Mendocino) and rarely saw any signs of pollution. Ten years later I stood on the same beaches observing the same view and the difference was clear. The San Diego sunset consisted of pollution all the way across the horizon with a darker and thicker layer while the Mendocino horizon was now a layer of continuous pollution across the waterline.
Many years ago, London spent a great deal of money sand blasting the residue of many years of coal dust off city buildings. Is this not another example of mass pollution that is impacting our immediate environment, without the luxury of instant residue removal. Anyone that travelled the world over the last thirty years, with their eyes open to the environment, can see the obvious damage we humans are imposing on this planet. This planet needs a rest from degradation from human abuse and selfishness. If we cannot agree with legislation to force change why don’t we view this opportunity to make money from the necessary changes. If the general public only think about the cost of change, why not combine the skills of scientists with the business community and spend the same amount of energy on collaborative development without the frustrations of politics, media dumbing down and celebrity promotion. That is, use the forces of the free market instead of pushing ‘the giant bolder of resistance’ up the political hill. The quiet revolution is more likely to sneak up on the sceptics and isolate their ignorance instead of giving them a voice for the fearful.
Yes, Political Will can be fundamentally important in bringing about large scale change but look at the past thirty years. I think the age of reasoning, on a political level, has actually slowed potential change. Focus on the business community and the buyer market. I believe this is the opportunity for greater pace of change. GB
GB - you’ve encapsulated my sentiment in the book (and my philosophy generally) exactly! Very well put indeed - the most poignant bits for me:
‘If the general public only think about the cost of change, why not combine the skills of scientists with the business community and spend the same amount of energy on collaborative development without the frustrations of politics, media dumbing down and celebrity promotion. That is, use the forces of the free market instead of pushing ‘the giant bolder of resistance’ up the political hill. The quiet revolution is more likely to sneak up on the sceptics and isolate their ignorance instead of giving them a voice for the fearful.
Yes, Political Will can be fundamentally important in bringing about large scale change but look at the past thirty years. I think the age of reasoning, on a political level, has actually slowed potential change. Focus on the business community and the buyer market. I believe this is the opportunity for greater pace of change.
Hmm, that’s all fair and well, but your good friend and mine, Al Gore started off the whole mess of turning science into politics. Having watched both him and Monckton I had to side with Monkton. Further, you can’t deny that AL Gore’s bogus movie (which was thrown out of court), was riddled with nonsense. Come to think of it, why hasn’t the science been taken to court? Anyway, even if it is all true, I refuse to give people like Rudd the go ahead to sign away Australian sovereignty to a cabal of international government minded commie nazis. Let’s get out of the international banking system and the UN and the CFR and the Commonwealth so we can begin the process of a made in Australia sustainable economy by and for those who live here, not the international world government horse and pony politics show. If Rudd were a patriot with any balls he’d get on with that. Of course we can’t solve any problems in this all or nothing conversation, and the international carbon trading cabal doesn’t care about the environment anyway! It’s all a ruse at the expense of whatever is true and whatever is not but can be made believable to patchouli doused paisley clad hippies (real scientists they and real scientific data needed there!), for world government and central regulation in Europe by the world’s most powerful families. The plans have been in the works for a long time. So stop allowing your passion for the environment to be used by these people. Let’s solve some problems here and Europe and America can figure their respective messes out themselves. Australia emits a whopping 2% of world total, so what are YOU going to do about those other countries anyway!? Stop being a pawn.