Dear Helen (and critical geographers)
Thanks for passing this message from this research network on to me. I think I belonged to this group once… However, I found it difficult to read beyond first sentence…’denier’..(or even ‘pleb mobility’) switched me off, or rather aroused my spirit of opposition (Widerspruchsgeist)! I am writing as long-term researcher and editor on this subject.
‘Denier’ is an insulting term deliberately echoing holocaust denier, hence I feel like shouting at the writer or worse. Nobody denies that climate is changing. It always has and always will, at issue is whether and how it is changing now, and whether it is ‘wise’ to be so afraid of climate change as to hand considerable additional powers to the bureaucracies which claim that they can mitigate or prevent approaching disaster by remove existing freedom from the public, even at the expense of many other, immediately urgent issues.
Given the large number of factors involved, simple maths would tell that you cannot predict for policy purposes (and even less for asserting ‘moral’ claims) until you know the relative importance of these factors. The role of human influence on climate change remain strongly disputed, with extremists on both sides – the extremes are usually linked to strong ideological belief: green, water melon, red or ‘free market’.
The ‘deniers’ are opposed to the claim that the science of climate/climate change is well understood and criticise the use of model prediction to ‘underpin’ or rather legitimise policy. I refer to , inter alia, decarbonisation as energy policy or ‘carbon footprint reduction rhetoric as way of exerting moral pressure in ‘plebs’ and accept rising prices.
They know that climate is a statistical definition or simply a list of all things natural, and that scientists, as distinct from soothsayers, cannot ‘predict’ the future of climate. At most they can offer scenarios from which politics, and research can select for their own purposes. I know what has been selected after 1990 in the energy arena: arguments, technologies and subsidies to support low-carbon energy technologies and economic instruments, like ETS and CDM (all pretty much dead by now unless..), as well as prepare the public for energy shortages and higher prices.
All this thanks largely to the UK MET Office, initially, and its ally the Thatcher administration (in spite of internal resistance….. why not do research into this ?
All predictions about future climates are based on computer models, the average Earth temperature has not risen for almost 20 years(not predicted by models, though this does not mean as much as the sceptics are trying to make out)…. and the debate about the reliability of the models has just started even here, and especially here for out MET Office was to a large extent responsible for the climate hysteria, started under the Thatcher government. Why then??
Model results depend on what assumptions and theories are fed into them…the physics (radiation theory, behaviour of water vapour and clouds..) , chemistry , feed backs etc ..and human factors, i.e., future emissions scenarios , being fed into them. If you want a certain answer you can get it with enough fiddling…. Many sceptics miss a proper engagement (by IPCC) with complexity theory and the behaviour of water vapour, not to mention extra-terrestrial influences, especially of the sun.
Research had of course a bonanza on the climate scare..and I was part of it.
There is certainly agreement that CO2 in atmosphere is increasing , and has done so for several 10,000s of years, but during geologic history it has also been very much higher, as well as lower, even during the recent ice ages….. I could go on….We do not really know why and there is much speculation. CO2 is a trace component of the atmosphere to which humans are ADDING A SMALL BUT SIGNIFICAMT AMOUNT, BUT WE ARE ONLY SPECULATING ABOUT THE IMPACTS of this increase. , There are many theories, but seems to be agreement that CO2 does not directly heat the earth surface. There has been some warming we have measured, but , sceptics can show, not outside past experienced variability. Warming does occur through disputed feedbacks, including back radiation and water vapour, but both processes are still hotly debated even among ‘deniers’. Luckily, at last attempts are being made, to bring the two sides if not together but into one room for discussion..here in UK, the Netherlands and even in Germany. Climate scepticism ( I prefer IPCC critique) has been influential and better organised for some time in Australia, Canada and parts of the USA, not to mention Russia. (Here is a subject for research!()
There is no certainty at all about how and by how much climate has changed, and if so (beyond natural variability measured over what period?), by how much and at what rate; we know even less about ‘global’ effects. You can find figures and model predictions to support almost any argument by using selected statistic and time intervals….. The temptation to make up one’s mind on the basis of getting grants, political ideology (pro or any state) or environmental belief system, is therefore very large.
The ‘climate sceptics’ are in fact divided between many disputing groups using different theories of physics and chemistry, arguing about almost everything. I get these debates daily and they drive me potty but they also teach…. It is so much easier to read the simply stated generalisation by policy-makers summaries (IPCC), or statements from Eurocrats, WWF or World Bank all handing out research grants. In my days it was mitigation research, now adaptation seems to be the buzz word… all about how the planet is threatened and can be saved if only we do enough research, pay enough subsidies and obey enough regulations, do enough nudging.
One thing is undeniable now, government subsidies for ‘green’ energy (all energy consumption?) are regressive. Also , environmental impacts should not be limited to effects on atmosphere/climate. CO2 is a fertiliser and the basis of life (and diamonds). Renewables have major environmental impacts I will not bore you with… but it is something I know a bit about..
Switching to new and different fuels may be justified by many rational and reasonable arguments, but science is not one of them. Hence I find the economic/class arguments below pathetic, farfetched and probably unsupportable even from an economist’s perspective (there are indeed different version of economics related to differ ideologies and assumptions, and their critics should always w=makes their own assumption clear.
IMHO, after 3 decades or research, projects and many publications, I have concluded that the science of climate should have been researched for much longer, and its many assumptions tested for many more years, before one version was accepted as the foundation for global policies ‘radical’ enough to be seen by some as attack on prevailing society and industry, including affordable cars and free plastic bags.
In my analysis, selected or value-laded science (called post-modern by some) escaped into the policy world because it suited so many interest groups (global and national bureaucracies in particular)), green ideologues as well as ambitious engineers keen to ‘attack’ and transform carbon dioxide. Among them were ‘green’ geographers because funding was coming this way being only one of them and probably no longer the most important. (In the early 2000s belonged to a RGS research group calling itself climate change research after having failed to change its name to simply climate research).
Put most simply, the climate threat was the problem that already existing solution needed , by the end of the 19802, - nuclear power, wind and solar farms and increased energy efficiency were all off-springs of the 1970s when oil prices were very high; later CCS and smart meters and electric cars were added; all promised to reduce GHG emission and hence ‘to tackle’ dangerous anthropogenic global warming (never cooling!)
One thing is undeniable now, government subsidies for ‘green’ energy (all energy consumption?) are regressive. The environmental impacts of decarbonisation are not minor and extend far beyond the poorly understood atmosphere; they are limited to still debated effects on atmosphere/climate. CO2 is a fertiliser and the basis of life (and diamonds). Renewables also have major environmental impacts I will not bore you with… but it is something I know a bit about..
The pleasures and advantages of cars , that is individual mobility not linked to fixed places, hugely underestimates above. To really appreciate the advantages of this mobility you need to have/ have had small children, lived in hilly areas and love nature without millions and noise around you, as well as old age, or have widely dispersed friendship groups.
It has done me good to read the above message from and to ‘young’ geographers. My question to you, can’t critical geography think of more important things in this disturbed, unfair and increasing unequal world?? Why not attack market economics and the regulation of profits (or lack thereof), the effect of environmental regulations on employments etc… , and what is happening to our educations system as the result of ‘regionalisation’ rather than worry about bin liners etc.
I remain a little shocked and disappointed, is it possible that this message from and to British geography research group uses the language of a ‘sect’ and not of academe? Having written enough about this in the past, I must stop…but IMHO the retreat from environmentalism as research priority and with it from the danger of eco-fascism, has already began.
Best wishes
Sonja
PS To Hilary Shaw: “So we need to inject a little more science here..”
Indeed, as well as honesty and common sense, and perhaps even more respect for people as the are. They don’t mind initiatives that make sense and do not restrict freedom even more, that do not smack of social engineering by elites or their funded advisors. I agree, a renting culture would make social engineering easier, but do you really believe that green ideology (support for ‘pleb mobility’ can or should change this?
Dr.Sonja A.Boehmer-Christiansen
Reader Emeritus, Department of Geography
Hull University
Editor, Energy&Environment
Multi-Science (www.multi-science.co.uk)
HULL HU6 7RX
Phone:(0044)1482 465421/465385
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