Warming to the Facts of Climate Change

[caption id="attachment_30" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Copenhagen conference must agree to cut pollution."][/caption]

In 100 days, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen begins, with leaders in Britain and China already playing up the stakes involved. Representatives from 192 nations will conspire to agree to a policy that will replace the Kyoto Protocol over the two week conference.

At the recent G8 summit in Italy, rich nations agreed to try to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees, above which most scientists are convinced catastrophic climate change will occur.

They have also agreed an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions in developed nations by 2050 and 50% in global emissions, but crucially they have not said how they will reach those targets.

However, the main stumbling blocks in December are likely to be over which countries must make emissions reductions and how large they should be.

The G8 have committed to implement a plan to limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees and cut greenhouse gas emissions in developed nations by 80%, but the main difficulties will revolve around each nation finding the balance between reducing their carbon footprint and continuing economic growth.

A further complication may be the apparent gross underestimation of the cost of achieving an international climate change agreement. Professor Martin Parry of the International Institute for Environmental Development has recently authored a report suggesting that the costs may run up to 3 times more than the $100 billion currently being projected.

Most research has pointed to catastrophic global consequences of a global temperature rise of more than 2ºC and Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has personally endorsed a goal of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to 350ppm (currently they stand at 387ppm).

Yet despite the screaming urgency from the rest of the world, Americans still seem slow to accept the impending doom associated with climate change. America is historically the largest source of greenhouse gases, only recently overtaken by China, yet in a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, Americans realise climate change is an issue, but don't feel an urgency to support change. Three of the leading reasons given in the survey were "uncertainty, mistrust and denial".

Uncertainty – Research has shown that uncertainty over climate change reduces the frequency of "green" behavior.
Mistrust – Evidence shows that most people don't believe the risk messages of scientists or government officials.

Denial – A substantial minority of people believe climate change is not occurring or that human activity has little or nothing to do with it, according to various polls.

As a scientist, I did a double-take on first reading of these reasons, surely the scientific community is almost unanimous in the importance of climate policy reform? The problem seems to revolve around the "signal-noise" ratio of the message when it comes to promoting views on climate change. Prominent scientist opponents of climate change reform, such as Fred Singer, Bjorn Lomborg and Frederick Seitz often resort to discrediting and misrepresentation to aid their cause while media figures like John Coleman and Christopher Booker are self-proclaimed experts with media pulpits to preach from. Booker in particular is a compulsive denier, thus far challenging the dangers of smoking, asbestos, climate change, BSE and also opposing evolution.

[caption id="attachment_29" align="alignleft" width="270" caption="Climate Change Deniers, head in the sand or corrupt and conflicted?"][/caption]

Among the assertion of such people is the belief that "junk science" (such as that linking cancer to smoking or climate change to man) should be replaced with sound science. A noble pursuit, but a puzzling one given the source. Unfortunately, there is no definition of "sound science" within the science field itself, rather it is a buzz phrase employed by corporate business, industry public relations, national and international government agencies, and environmental groups to describe the scientific research that is used to justify their political claims or positions.Take for instance the use of the following two articles as evidence against climate change.

“From National Geographic: Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun.”

“ From MIT: the average surface temperature of the nitrogen ice on Pluto has increased slightly less than 2 degrees Celsius over the past 14 years.”
Since Pluto is moving further away from the Sun and continuing to warm despite that fact, it indicates that something doesn’t fit into “Solar Constant” dismissal theories.

Astoundingly, both articles contain sound rebuttal of the claims but are selectively ignored. Most of the changes in Mars temperature can be attributed to axial "wobble" and the changes have been calculated to roughly match changes in Earth climate due to our own axial "wobble" in the Milankovitch cycle (the natural rhythmical earth wobble that occurs over 200K years, give or take). The lack of a martian moon means it's wobble are bigger and therefore the changes more dramatic. Meanwhile Pluto has a 248 year orbit round the sun, which makes a 14 year change in temperature rather inconclusive when compared to that of the Earth.

[caption id="attachment_31" align="alignright" width="279" caption="Unbiased opinion?"][/caption]

The main question is, what prompts these scientists to forsake peer reviewed journals and turn to media publicity and cheap tricks to make their point? The predictable answer is money. Most of the strong proponents of Climate change denial are heavily associated with lobbyist organisations such as the Heartland Institute, The Marshall Institute and the deceptively named, Advancement of Sound Science Center. Notably all three institutes have boards littered with current or former oil and big tobacco executives, all three receive funding from ExxonMobil and such companies and all three actively deny climate change and links between smoking and cancer. Meanwhile, most of their scientist spokesmen are either funded by or on the payroll of companies that invoke a conflict of interest. Current Marshall Institute Chairman, William O'Keefe was told by his own scientists, while head of the Global Climate Coalition (another lobbyist organisation) that :

The scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2 on climate change is well established and cannot be denied.

Meanwhile the Global Climate Coalition continued to oppose climate change.

As Copenhagen approaches, the spotlight is shining brightly on the climate change issue and more climate change skeptics and deniers will find their voice. There is a real threat that their propaganda will continue to muddy the waters for the average American and maintain the status quo of the US public's ambivalence to climate change. It becomes more and more important that objective, intelligent reporting be heard and again the importance of the science press is cannot be overemphasised.

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