26 Comments on Climate change – excuse my ignorance

James Seddon on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 3:32 pm


As has been said before, one of the big problems with global warming as a marketable threat is that there’s no one person or organisation to blame. Global warming needs its own Osama bin Laden. We should hold a vote to choose the sacrificial lamb.

And please don’t quit blogging. People only tend to comment if they disagree. Take the silence as a compliment

Nick on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 3:59 pm


Mathew,

This post is mostly just to say that I read your blog avidly and would greatly miss both your own insights and the the other thinkers you have introduced me for. So it’s a plea to continue blogging.

In regards to the post, I agree it is important and concerning that scepticism towards climate change is so heavily associated with the right of the spectrum. As you say, most people, including myself, have their view on anthropogenic global warming shaped by who they trust. I think it would be much easier to gain the strong consensus necessary for action if there was a feeling that whether you believed in it or not had nothing to do with where you place yourself on the spectrum. If instead it becomes identified with a group then it can solidify people’s view. I remember seeing a poll which found less republicans believe in anthropogenic climate change now then they did 10 years.

However I can see two reasons why people with a right wing perspective are more likely to distrust the consensus.

The first I’ll call the Lawson instinct. This instinct has a very strong trust in markets and feels doubly confident because it’s felt the last 30 years vindicates it. Political battles have been defined around markets being the best solution and as it is currently stated the climate change theory is an affront to this. It suggests that markets, left to their own devices, will lead to ruin for the earth. And so it’s supported by all the people you’ve spent your time arguing against and usually besting.

The second is the Clarkson instinct. This is the feeling that society/government/(people who have more power than you but for no legitimate reason) have been using their power to incrementally but consistently impinge on your ability to live life as you wish because of wrong headed and ill thought through theories which mask a basic dislike of people like you. As you can probably tell by my wording I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for this sense of victimhood (and so half prove their point) but it’s incredibly strong and it does not fit easily with a theory which suggests that behavioural change- and behavioural change which puts you more in line with groups you dislike- is necessary.

I wonder if it actually might help if the left articulated a bit more thoroughly why climate change is a terrible thing for the left. How it sucks away huge amount of resources which could be used on public services. How it would be nice to see the re-opening of coal mines as a good thing for certain neighbourhoods. How no one wants to stop flying. A sense of it not being an opportunity for the left to do one on the right might help. But it’s probably too late.

Anyway, please keep posting.

Emma on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:19 pm


Hello. There was a TED talk by the brilliant quantum physicist David Deutsch a couple of years ago. His response to being asked about climate change was (and I’m paraphrasing from memory here) ‘I do not know because I’m not a climate scientist, but because I’m a scientist I trust the expertise of my colleagues – that is the only rational thing to do.’ And I agree with him.

lynn broadbent on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:22 pm


We had a great discussion on this last night at our screening of the Age of Stupid in New York. With 200 people in the room our excellent moderator, Charles Vorosmarty, nimbly took us through the arguments on both sides of the climate change debate. I will transcribe the discussion when I get back to my desk but salient points include our failure to study global earth systems and the lack of governance in this area. We are very good at reacting to the last big disaster and dabbling with seat-of-the-pants earth engineering. For example, some think wind farms are the answer but scientists at MIT say all that agitation at the lower levels of the atmosphere would skew the natural balance and create new issues.

Watch for the full transcript in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, do visit http://www.blog.rsa-us.org for a provocative debate taking place on Copenhagen and beyond.

matthewtaylor on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:27 pm


Thanks James good point and kind words.

matthewtaylor on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:29 pm


Thanks so much Nick. This is a great comment – which helps me in preparing for Moral Maze. I already feel embarrassed about the fishing for reassurance but the blogging boots will be staying on for the moment at least. Thanks again

matthewtaylor on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:29 pm


Nice one Em

matthewtaylor on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:37 pm


Thanks Lynn. Sounds like a great event

Rob on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:48 pm


Hi Matthew,
Please don’t hang up your blogging boots just yet – I only discovered your blog this week!
I think you put forward some sensible points about the climate change debate. In fact, as you say, I think it is precisely other peoples’ strong opinions about the existence / extent of anthropogenic climate change which often push uninformed people (I definitely sit within this group) to react against a perceived fanaticism amongst those people who do ‘believe’.
For my part, I’m not prepared to have some pseudo-intellectual debate filled with statistics that no one can quite remember while humans are (or perhaps aren’t) irreversibly messing up the world.
Whether or not we are contributing heavily to a climate catastrophe (and we’ll all be dead by the time this question is fully answered) we undeniably over-use and under-respect the earth’s resources. That should be argument enough for calming down over the finger pointing and (as you say) instead concentrating on how to build more effective governance in all of these areas.
Good luck tonight.
Rob

Ben Morgan on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 4:52 pm


Interesting that you raise the ‘precautionary principle’ that formed part of the initial justification following the Stern report’s central recommendation that action was a worthwhile investment decision based upon risk.

David Davis’s comments in the Guardian this morning are also based on a similar evaluation of risk – that reorientating an economy certainly entails a big risks (that are magnified if emission cuts aren’t agreed at an international level) and shouldn’t be embarked upon unless we are sure of the science.

Perhaps Davis’s assessment invites two responses –
1, That the costs he identifies underline the importance of international agreement to stop climate policy stomping on pro-competition and free market principles. (This is pertinent in part because the recent upsurge in scepticism has in part been orchestrated to time with the final negotiations around Copenhagen).
2. That if an international framework to limit emissions is inevitable then we run purely economic risks if we do not attempt to reorientate to a low carbon footing – thereby making it more efficient and competitive in a newly carbon-constrained world.

james on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 5:48 pm


Matthew, don’t quit blogging or your excellent work at the RSA – where the recorded debates have been particularly helpful.

I think the issues are a little confused – does it matter if climate change is man-made? We’re becoming ever-reliant on imported energy, and if we to avoid having this increasing cost as a burden on our economy, we’ve to generate our own energy – which just so happens to be more likely low-carbon than high.

Living in the UK’s first low-carbon region, the North East of England, I read everyday in the local paper about the growing investment in new low-carbon technologies as there are plenty of people with the skills to work in biomass, solar, wind turbine production, etc. So, where I am, it seems like there’s a huge benefit to the greening of our economy and a growth in employment.

Perhaps for those with interests in the immaterial production of financial services, there’s a big concern about a drive to green industry as it displaces the hegemonic role of the CIty in the UK economy. So it’s easier to read climate change as a hoax perpetuated by rival interest groups, than see it as an occurring challenge to our collective well-being.

oldandrew on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 8:02 pm


Until recently I felt much as you did, that I simply wasn’t qualified to judge the issue.

More recently I’ve been reading blogs and forum posts by climate change sceptics and I noticed that, pretty much without exception, they were utterly barking mad and were completely unable to put together an actual argument. I believe in man-made climate change, not because a scienitific consensus is always right, but because conspiracy theorists and cranks are always wrong.

Phil Korbel on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 8:33 pm


The audience is still there Matthew, keep the blog rolling.

Re Climate Change

The current sceptic tide is far more a reaction against distrusted messengers than against the message. We must enable less likely messengers that speak peer to peer, of common interests/benefits in tackling the issue.

As a non scientist I’m persuaded by both the conservatism built into the IPCC process [i.e. it's probably worse than they say] and the ‘follow-the-money’ principle – look who’s funding the sceptic propaganda… A sceptic once patiently explained to me that it was the insulation industry who were funding the ‘big con’ on climate change to line their own pockets [as it were]. I liked the picture of loft laggers taking on the global might of the petro-chemical combine.

Meanwhile, here in Manchester there’s been an extraordinary collaboration of Council, academe, greenies and business to write a Climate Change Action Plan that commits the city to a 41% CO2 cut by 2020. It’s both radical and fully in line with the city’s plans to grow prosperity for its people. If we started our global carbon addiction with ‘Cottonopolis’, we reckon we should play a role in putting it right. Watch this space…

rhian on Wed, 2nd Dec 2009 11:16 pm


I am lying in bed with (swine?) flu and just listened to the Moral Maze which prompted me to read this.. Your blog is in my top 10 since the summer so you can’t give it up yet..i feel better hearing your calm tones on the radio and dealing admirably with that Portillo fellow..
In this feverish state I don’t have anything unique to contribute on the matter whatsoever but i can’t resist having a flu-induced rant at the risk of alienating more of your readers..
You can always come to me if you want the laywoman’s view; as someone who has no idea which of the 2 opposing global camps are correct, I can only agree with Rob above when he says the world’s resources are squandered needlessly; this I pin on the lack of Sacred awareness in modern life. Seriously, the Native American Indians understood far more than we do about the sanctity of our small, precious planet…
It would be nice if you’re right but I’m not sure that carbon neutral solutions are compatitble with global economic growth or realistic with such a growing world population: As the Green party were saying 20 years ago, surely we have too much growth which is why the problem has arisen in the first place.
I think there are 2 reasons people are starting to side with Lawson; firstly because and I hate to say this, people, including some of the young are starting to get global-warming fatigue…they are sick of the whole discussion especially when they are made to feel guilty for everything they do in modern life. When they hear that even the experts are squabbling, they turn off even more and see it as just another political issue…maybe when the Maldives disappear they will get interested again..
Secondly i wonder if people find it easier to disagree if agreeing means they are going to have to make some unwelcome changes in their lifestyle: Maybe people can’t believe that having radio4 on, plus their tv and 2.4 cars in the drive is as bad as some factory in Shanghai belching out pollution twenty four seven so why should they bother.. sorry, but it could be down to simple psychology, this backlash reaction.. + another situation where the public have been misled so many times, they have become more sceptical about everything….talking of the lay-view, that Tiger Woods is on the news again just now…what a creep, demanding privacy when it suits him… oh sorry wrong blog..

rhian on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 12:10 am


Unfortunately I’ve just been sent this article on the matter..
I can’t do graphs with a fever but It would seem to suggest a mini-ice age rather than a period of warming? http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm

Jon Reeve on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 1:36 am


Dear Matthew,

I have been an avid reader of your blog for many months now and until now have never felt compelled to comment. Your blog is frequently fascinating, never less than interesting and (I think) always cutting-edge. Something which I wish the national newspapers would do (Guardian/Independent reader). To convince you to keep on writing I have decided to put finger to keyboard.

The argument as to whether man-made CO2 emissions cause global warming could keep rumbling on for a long time. Although scientists are fairly certain their right, scientists are also very conservative when establishing the ‘truth’ and have to hedge their conclusions with limitations whereas our politicans and opinion-formers frequently make grand statements of the ‘truth’ with limited supporting evidence. But I don’t think that is important.

Firstly, as you rightly pointed out, climate change is the norm. The past four hundred years in which industrial civilisation has grown up has been an unusually stable period for our climate and it’s unlikely to last much longer. We should be shaping our economies to pursue robustness in the face of climate change instead of efficiency and we should be learning to live without affecting the climate. With the present growth of our industrial economies if we are not affecting the climate yet, we soon will be. (We’ve have many regional environmental crises and our first global environmental crisis – the ozone ‘hole’)

Secondly, there is a proven historical link between global temperature and CO2 levels in the atmosphere. They are correlated to a remarkable degree as shown in a graph presented by Al Gore. We have broken this historical link which seems a stupid thing to do when we need to live in harmony with nature when it provides most of the services that our civilization relies upon.

I hope this has provided food for thought and please, keep writing.

Brian Hughes on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 10:50 am


Although I used to be an engineer rather than a scientist, I think the David Deutsch quote that Emma included in her comment (thanks Emma!) pretty much encapsulates my view. I do get irritated though by some of the more vocal green evangelists many of whom appear to be technical ignoramuses and to have seized on climate change largely as a way to elevate their own feelings of self importance.

As to why right-leaning folk are more likely to be sceptics, Generalising wildly, I think there are parallels with their likely attitudes to contemporary art and culture. Maybe they don’t understand, they’re a bit frightened, they yearn for life to be simple and comprehensible, they’re unable to accept their own insignificance as part of a large species. So they seek comfort by burying their heads in Clarksonesque bluster…

Barbara Russell on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 3:32 pm


Climate Change – “What’s the worst that can happen?

“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ

For me this is the most compelling argument for action.

Ben Dean on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 4:38 pm


Matthew

Glad you seem to have overcome your ‘Stephen Fry’ style moment re quitting blogging. I do think there are too many bloggers out there, posting poorly thought through ideas or views but I’ve been reading your blog for a few months and it is one of only 5 I follow. I don’t always agree with you but have often been made to think about my own views and positions by your views and this climate topic is another such example.

For me there seem to be various phases of the debate that people can contest. A tiny minority still deny that there is any climate change, given the amount of counter evidence I am amazed that these get the airtime they do. A larger minority deny human impact on the climate, again I am not a climate scientist and thus feel we should place our trust with those in the know such as the IPCC. Where I think there is good grounds to have debate and would like to see more is along the Bjorn Lomborg area of whether we put too much money and resource into carbon reduction vs. adaptation and dealing with other issues which have some links to climate change (but plenty of other causes) and could benefit from greater resource allocation e.g. AIDs, malaria, malnutrition.

Whilst climate change is a key issue I also feel proponents of action don’t help themselves by often treating the topic like a religion – e.g. I often feel proponents of action would like to burn me at the stake for merely challenging or questioning their interpretation were it not for the extra carbon it would cause!

Dave Gorman on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 8:38 pm


Hi Matthew,

Yes please do keep blogging!

I should declare an interest as department head for climate change at an environment agency.

I agree with much of what has been said- briefly the best arguments (for me) are:

- that costs of action are low compared to costs of inaction
- science seems reasonably clear, based on not waiting until we are certain
- the moral argument- we created almost all of the problem, the world’s poorest will experience most of the worst effects, despite only emitting 1% of the world’s GHGs
- there are going to be major economic opportunities in the low carbon/resource and energy efficient/renewables sectors

But given the scale of what will need to be done, compared to what people are normally prepared to acccept- transport restrictions; rising energy bills; mandatory recycling; tighter control of products; madatory insultation etc- its easy to see why there is a backlash.

This is particularly because of the absence of one, or two, really large disasters or similar that cant be attributed directly to climate change in the UK. I think the evidence says people respond to wars/disasters by resetting what they will accept.

The problem is the effects are out there- Africa etc- or are long-term and subtle; or are simply several links in the chain away- more heat in the atmosphere means (probably) more vapour, more rain, more extreme events, economic damage via crop loss, changes to seaosnable patterns, phenology (ecological timing) effects etc.

The arguments from past records have some weight I think, but not when you hear the stuff about Co2 being 1000 ppm 20 million years ago etc. The reply should be- so how many successful, happy, highly-integrated, technological human societies were running in those days of extreme heat or cold? Answer- none.

phil h on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 9:17 pm


I think what’s coming through is that it is not science. It is computer based modelling – guess work in other words.

In science you can predict with accuracy the time it will take for an item of a particular weight (say 1kg) to reach the ground if dropped out of a window at a height of 100 metres.

Repeated 100 times, the result will be the same.

We can’t predict the climate. We can’t control the climate – there are just too many variables – sun spots, water vapour, natural cycles, medieval warming periods to know what causes the climate to fluctuate. We can’t even predict tomorrow’s weather with more than 60% accuracy.

How much CO2 is man made? How much comes from the ocean?

Phil Jones at the CRU has a BA in Enviromental Science ( A BA not a BSc).

Christopher Johnson on Thu, 3rd Dec 2009 10:27 pm


Matthew, I must join the chorus of voices urging you to keep your blogging boots on. As someone else noted above, those of us who subscribe to your blog don’t always comment — and a main reason for this is that your writings (and discussions at the RSA and elsewhere) are very circumspect and thorough (not ‘wishy-washy’, as you fear).

Please keep up the great, intelligent work.

Jonathan Schofield on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 3:19 pm


Very happy to have discovered this blog after a search on Michael Sandel.

Your post above resonates with my own feelings about the precautionary principle and I’ll be seeking out the Moral Maze episode on iPlayer tonight!

I’ve just added my thoughts on this debate in response to an article on Prospect Magazine.

Livy on Fri, 4th Dec 2009 4:45 pm


Basically you’re all wrong,

this might help clear things up a little:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOjfxEejS2Y

bossman on Mon, 25th Jan 2010 1:25 pm


Matthew,
ten people want you to keep on blogging.
Please employ a cost-benefit analysis.
R

Livy on Thu, 4th Feb 2010 10:54 am


I’ll be there for you

“Why should it matter? Why do we need to know how many followers we – or others – have on Twitter or friends on Facebook? The average number of friends is 150, the ideal number of close friends is between six and 12 and your popularity at school is positively linked to your wage level in later life”

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