…But I stumbled upon this article via Google and was deeply startled by the figure you give. The Amazon burning would add 3 degrees of warming? I wasn’t at the lecture and I don’t know what Mike Hulme said (An aside: I’m not much of a fan of Hulme and I don’t think it is a good idea to take him as representative of ‘climate scientists’).

However, I looked for papers on this, and as far as I can tell you are out by an order of magnitude. I found 0.3 degrees.

Here is a quote: “The trees of the Amazon contain 90-140 billion tonnes of carbon, equivalent to 9 to 14 years of current global, annual, human induced carbon emissions”

–that clearly isn’t 3 degrees of warming!

I have now chased up about 20 different ‘doomsday’ things like this, and they all turn out to be bad things that I would far rather didn’t happen (who wants to lose the Amazon?) but not obvious doomsday scenarios. I cannot see how you can get ‘curtains’ out of any of them without extrapolating hugely beyond the evidence and/ or talking about extremely low probability events.

I absolutely support action on climate change. But I can’t the Armageddon narrative from any of the science, and neither am I convinced that it is particularly helpful.

If I’m wrong please do point me at what I am missing; I am not an expert, only a layman who has done some reading.

[George writes Dear Josie- you are absolutely right. I was reporting from memory and do not remember the entire context for the figure. I have changed the piece to reflect that.]

The integrity of one’s scientific method is critical, but most scientists, and climatologists especially, need to realize that informing the debate and the decision-makers is indeed important…but informing the public is much more critical. And alarming results justify alarming rhetoric.

As a journalist, I share much of the criticism directed toward the popular press. But ‘intellectuals’ need to shed the priesthood language of pseudo-intellectuality, and learn to distill their research points for the public as efficiently as they distill an abstract up front on their research papers.

As biologists and ecologists know, change is inevitable, it is the SPEED of climatic change, and the lack of elbow room for ecosystem shifts, that is a very, very pressing and immediate problem for mankind.

To cloak inaction in linguistic obtuseness and ‘scientific’ detachment isn’t just irresponsible and immoral, it’s not true science. It’s the difference between a true scientific community, and a priesthood.

That figure was startling – that was the alarm bell that seemed to me like a logical starting-point for political decision-making. Demonstrate an eco-limit and set policy according to it – simple huh?! Needless to say, international political negotiations didn’t follow suit as I naively expected them to back then.

But I’ve never personally understood how the vast majority of scientists, who issued these figures in the first place, could not end up motivated, enraged, panicked and driven to ensure their warnings were properly heeded by anyone who had the influence to make enough of a difference. I still don’t really understand, even though I’ve met some of these scientists along the way, and they don’t seem psychologically deranged, and seemed to have no trouble sleeping… So thanks for going some way towards answering a question I’ve never heard properly discussed. Perhaps some of your answers indicate an interesting direction for some novel campaign strategies?

Scientists — at least in the West — are only doing what is demanded of them socially along with everyone else. In the corporate and academic world you cannot express negative ideas with any conviction. You cannot say there is no God, you’ll become an outcast. A Weirdo. A Nutcake. And NOBODY wants that. You have been “socialized” or, as I prefer to say, “domesticated.” Like a farm animal.

No newspaper would run a headline “Stock Crash Eminent” that would cause a panic, wouldn’t it? So newspapers talk about “possibilities” of “corrections” and bury it all in dull articles on the Business pages. No, a newspaper’s main focus is not on informing the public, the main focus is to keep the public docile, confused and lobotomized for their advertizers, so they can consume gleefully without asking pesky questions.

And it works. It works so well that Y2K incompatible computers were still on the shelves in the US for sale in June 1999.

I blame hierarchy — as opposed to working cooperatively — something that virtually nobody in the West agrees with. I could bore the list with 20 pages of arguments against organizing in hierarchies, but why bother. You either see it or you don’t. If I had a thousand pages it would not be enough for the pro-hierarchist because their belief in hierarchy is founded on self-interest, not logical debate.

But hierarchy seems to be on the winning track because they have what no other organization has: a total lack of moral and ethical understanding — they put their psychopathic personalities, or PPs, in the drivers’ seat. And they have a winning strategy: they kill off the competition. It works, at least in the short term.
SEE: Custodians of chaos By Kurt Vonnegut RE: PPs
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13659.htm

Hierarchy is poised to dominate the globe, and like climate change, you will not hear dire warnings because dire warnings are taboo.

I bailed out of academia in 1976 and have enjoyed academic freedom ever since. So I can say things that virtually nobody in the West agrees with — at least it’s better than saying things that I myself don’t agree with. So I don’t have any problem with fatalistic notions (so long as they don’t become self-fulfilling prophecies; excuses to do nothing) and that’s mainly why I posted the article “Peak Oil & Black Holes” to the list; over the years of looking for solutions, what I have been finding instead is piles of evidence that humanity is either designed to self-destruct, or has become so flawed that self-destruction is unavoidable. I simply cannot see a way to turn humanity around. It seems to me like trying to change the tides with a teacup.

In my limited experience, from trying to do inter-disciplinary work on housing design, as an architect, working with social scientists – they could not be moved from ‘objective’ studies of residents’ satisfaction, rather than producing imaginative ways of testing the social impacts of design proposals. (Architects also lack the scientific discipline to frame their proposals as hypotheses to be tested scientifically and the confidence to demand the imaginitive tests that they could require of social scientists). When Wright Mills produced his book ‘Sociological Imagination’ in 1959!!!, I was amazed to learn that sociology could be imaginative.

The standard scientific toolkit does not include tools for dealing with findings with ethical or political implications – it stops at publishing the results and hoping that a ‘policy-maker’ does something. My casual review of the categories of next step that some scientists have found it necessary to take includes (a) setting up a new mechanism, such as the Pugwash conference to reflect concern about nuclear weapons, and (b) finding a popular voice, as has Tim Flannery. But this is all difficult territory, with mixed results. It is also profoundly personal; not everyone has the emotional or visceral repertoire to call on, or the gifts to make their popular communications effective. And if they lack the motivation, is telling them that they ought to do it likely to have much effect?

There is no doubt that the unmediated concern of a respected authority is a very powerful tool, more so than that of the activist or campaigner; an obvious example is the Attenborough out-of-the-climate-closet TV programmes. But frustration or even anger that scientists are not exercising the power that they could does not really get us very far. They need help in finding this voice, not adversarial criticism.

[George replies:
Reading your comment- which I agree with- makes me think that the tenor of my piece was wrong. It is true that I am frustrated that scientists do not speak out more, and raised that, but what I was really trying to do was identify the various strategies that I observe that scientists use to distance themselves from the awfulness of climate change. Althought such denial mechanisms are a very human response, they become disguised as impartiality and objectivity. It is true that a good therapist does not confront a patient with their denial, but this was not a piece aimed at a predominantly scientific audience. Surely bringing something into the open is also an important stage in change?]

There is nothing special about scientists in this regard and in a couple of weeks I intend to post an item “do environmentalists really believe in climate change ” in which I will extend the analysis to environmental colleagues and include myself. Maybe I should have done this one first, but I was prompted by the item in realclimate ] 

I found myself a bit confused by this article at the start. It doesn’t help that the meaning of the second sentence, which actually sets the theme of the article, is not clear, when he writes “I would never argue that the scientific community agrees that climate change is real, human induced, and dangerous”, perhaps he does mean “dispute” rather than “argue” as suggested by DC, but in the next paragraph he asks “do scientists really believe in climate change? My observation is that many do not”, which would directly contradict this second sentence if dispute is really the intended meaning.

George Marshall then goes on to differentiate between “belief” and “knowledge”, and he points out that “belief” may imply an emotional or non-provable assertion, such as belief in God. It is not a scientific term. Yet one can use the word belief in a more general sense to imply something that is generally accepted, such as the law of gravity for instance. So a generally accepted belief among climate scientists that global warming is happening, is likely to cause trouble and needs dealing with is, I would contend, an acceptable way of putting it. Others call it a consensus.

George Marshall gives a reference to the realclimate site, and a discussion about the missing denialist viewpoint “it’s serious, but don’t panic”. (By the way, anybody in the least bit interested in global warming, should make realclimate a regular feature of their web-browsing).

However, I would contend that this is not a very useful discussion, as it is never helpful to panic in any situation. We definitely shouldn’t panic. Didn’t the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy have imprinted on the front in big bold letters “DON’T PANIC”. If one was to assert that global warming is serious, but we’ve got plenty of time to deal with it, or it’s serious, but don’t make it an urgent priority, then this certainly would be wrong, but that’s not quite the same as panic. And yet in some ways we are already panicking, the inability of our leadership to frame a coherent debate and policy over this matter is a sort of panic, the result of a knee-jerk and entirely inadequately thought-out reaction to the problem.

What we should be saying is something like this. “Global Warming is real, it is serious, it will profoundly affect the only planet that we have to live on, it is the single biggest problem facing mankind, and as such is the single biggest issue that should be receiving humanity’s attention – anthing less than this is not acceptable.”

George Marshall’s chides scientists for not saying this. But of course it isn’t just scientists, it’s politicians, business people, car lovers, the general population, and even people like me, very concerned about global warming, yet I still drive a car,and I’m planning a holiday to Europe next year.

In fact, it is probably the least fair to chide scientists, because their profession is based on telling what they know and what they can prove. We, the public, pay scientists billions of dollars every year to find out the “truth” about so many things, including global warming. 95% of the time, the truth about so many matters is not contentious, not because it is any more accurate or better researched, the knowledge about global warming is now incontrovertable, but because it has no direct bearing on our way of life.

Research the physics of planetary nebulae or the effect of gravity on the taxins in plants, continue the search for the Higg’s boson or the forest habitats of the Powelliphanta, publish the results, and who gives a damn. But find unarguable evidence for humanity’s dire effects on the planet we live on, which requires people to actually THINK AND ACT, and you are causing grave offense.

Global Warming = our responsibilty = no one else to blame = no one else can do anything about it = it will cost us time and effort = deny the problem exists = or deny the problem is bad = or deny we can afford to deal with it = or deny even if we could, it’s too late = DENY THE PROBLEM = make sure everyone else denies the problem.

However, I am not sure exactly where the ethical responsiblities of scientists lies. I am tempted to agree with George here; in fact, when I first found the realclimate internet site a few months after it started, I sent them an impassioned plea to treat the global warming problem as a personal ethical issue, exactly what George is also asking.

I got a personal e-mail back from one of the founders of the site, which was thoughtful of them, saying that they had set up their site deliberately not to do this, they desperately needed to have their opinions seen as those of dispassionate, professional scientists, doing the job for which we pay them. They felt that there were plenty of other outlets for a more personal approach or for activism. They wanted realclimate to reflect genuine scientific debate and not the more complicated issues arising from this debate. ( I have a copy of this e-mail on another computer, I will post it later, with their permission)

I respect this view. A trained scientist is anxious not to step outside the bounds of their expertise, they leave that, as we all do, to politicians and economists. And it is true that much of the misinformation in regard to global warming, so readily pounced on by global warming deniers, comes from scientists who have done just that, stepped out of their area of expertise. Many reading this will be able to think of a few names.

However at the end of the day, all of us, and this includes the most cloistered scientist, have an ethical duty to our community and our descendents and we most definitely cannot, as George Marshall puts it, forego these reponsiblities by hiding behind elaborate denial strategies.

There are some things that concerned scientists can be part of.

1) The IPCC needs to produce yearly reviews, their major reports are too far apart. The IPCC needs to counter anti-global warming arguments deftly, before they gain traction and acceptance, if those arguments are incorrect, and they all are, so far. It needs to point scientists to areas of contention or concern that haven’t been adequately adressed so these can be dealt with during the interim between major reports.

2) The UN needs to convene a permanent panel of scientists, engineers and economists, who will liase closely with the IPCC, that can advise, on the basis of present evidence, governments, organisations etc .

how much money is global warming likely to cost us,and how does that compare with the “cost” of dealing with it.

what planning regulations do states need to employ to reduce their demands for energy or to stop building on vulnerable property, like coastline.

what states need to do to making the problem worse, eg no more coal fired power stations

What renewable resources are available in each state

lobby car makers to markedly improve their performance and states to alter tax structures to encourage the use of fuel efficient vehicles etc.

act as port of call for interested parties to get independent advice.

To rank nations according to their efforts in dealing with global warming

How to mitigate the changes that are already unavoidable, eg water shortages, flooding, soil erosion etc.

To propose solutions to energy requirements for each nation, taking into account their populations and geography

To fund research into economic and technical resources to help in the amelioration and adaptation to climate change

To suggest and design political and economic structures that states can set up or incorporate to help them deal with the problem.

…….and a host of other matters that you can think of and I haven’t place to put.

3) Act ethically as their own conscience dictates. Join local groups, appear at meetings, lecture, inform, help others who are trying to deal with this matter, join their local Green Party, rubbish the politicians and business elite who continue to deny the problem etc.

We are indeed all in this together. It’s been my thought for some years that sending all our political and business leaders for a few weeks sojourn on the Moon, would provide them with a much needed perspective on the criticality of this issue to our continued comfortable existence on this planet. (Of course, leaving them on the moon might be even more desirable, and would certainly be a lot cheaper.) It is this lack of perspective that is so astounding, bizarre really; that there are so many people in the world, and particularly those in a position of responsibility, who cannot understand that there is no set of scales in existence, or that can be devised, that can simultaneously weigh the health of our planet against any other consideration, but especially that of our comfort and convenience. It is a perverse perspective of truly galactic proportion, and millions, possibly billions, will die if it remains uncorrected .