Scientists who eat, sleep and dream the evidence building up that
climate change is real, is terrifying and man-made will, if they have
any humanity, feel drawn to becoming 'eco-evangelists'.
This is because virtually all the scientific evidence and computer
projections point with a high degree of probability that persisting in
doing what we've been doing over the last few hundred years will bring
about a calamitous future in but a few decades. The evidence strongly
suggests that without a fundamental and very precarious transition,
civilisation as we know it will collapse. So the temptation to say as
much becomes nearly irresistible if one has any shred of fellow feeling.
But in saying as much a scientist will enter into a field where he has
no authority to comment. It is the field of what is politically
possible. It may be politically possible to achieve a massive turn
around as has been achieved in the course of war. Or it may not be
politically possible because where as war can be 'here and now', the
'armies of destruction emanating from climate change' will not be
entering our city gates for decades to come. And what citizen can be
galvanised by the threat of an enemy 20, 30, 40 years hence.
So the scientists who declares that his studies say that without a
profound change the enemy will be at our gates a few decades from now
will be directly challenged, not because he is basicly wrong but
because his warning cannot be acted upon and as such should best be
silenced, for it merely makes the natives extremely restless - but to
no good effect because an answer is not democratically deliverable.
But if there is to be any hope, the scientific evidence must continue
to be built up because the greater the certainty behind the
scientists' predictions the greater will be the conviction of all
those who are privy to them. But as I argue above, the last thing the
scientists should do is to enter the political domain where the
question becomes "What should we do about this?".
The scientists can, in their projections, make assumptions about
future levels of the release of GH gases and perhaps link them loosely
to projections about economic activity. And they can conjecture about
the levels of 'suffering' from flooding, droughts, famine and disease.
But what they must not do is venture opinion on the balance of
reducing this 'suffering' with the 'suffering' caused be constraining
economic activity.
This, in my view, must be left to a new breed of politician. A
politician who is able to absorb the science with confidence and
erudition and then address the complex world of politics and political
persuasion from a sound base of up-to-date scientific facts and
understanding.
This will allow the scientists to remain in their ivory tower pursuing
the 'truth' or the 'facts', protected from the messy world of politics
and journalists and 'special interests'.
Such a breed of politicians should be able to run rings around the
likes of Nigel Lawson, who, regrettably, seems to be able to run rings
round any scientifically competent academic not schooled in the dirty
tricks of open public debate.
Brian Orr
On 15 Dec 2009, at 21:42, Jonathan Ward wrote:
> see leader at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=409510
>
> and Martin Cohen's piece at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409454&c=2
>
> I was not impressed by either article (I ended up going a little
> comment happy on the Leader story).
>
> It's strange how the mood at the moment suggests that those
> (normally non natural-science/climatologists) who oppose AGW are
> heralded as decent, reasonable and rational. Trying to bring back
> debate and save us from the eco-evangelists (their words not mine).
> Radicals against the orthodoxy.
>
> How did it come to this?
>
> Where has real scientific debate gone?
>
> Why aren't even journals such as THES exploring why this of all
> issues polarises us, and leads to such debased debate?
>
> Best wishes
>
> Jon
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