33 Comments on How to turn the tide on climate change

Tina Stowell on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 6:45 pm


Not sure about this bit: “I would then get all the major Party leaders to sign up to this statement at a public event hosted by the Queen and broadcast on every channel” as it sounds like a Moonie Wedding ceremony. But overall – as someone turned off by the whole topic – it’s probably the most sensible and realistic approach/theory I’ve read.

Dave Boyle on Fri, 12th Feb 2010 7:45 pm


Sadly, this isn’t enough, but it makes me smile:

http://politicalirony.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/091207usatC.slideshow_main.prod_affiliate.91.jpg

Alan on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 1:14 am


I would then get all the major Party leaders to sign up to this statement at a public event hosted by the Queen and broadcast on every channel. Only something as simple and clear as this can get public opinion back on track. Otherwise I fear we will have to give up the battle for public support until climate change is so unquestionably real no one can deny it. For many or most of the world’s inhabitants that will be too late.

So you’re not at all for independence of thought? Or for choice? If so the tide is turning without you. If you want a lasting consensus it must develop naturally. Fixing policy decisions based on a very narrow consensus (Governments, lobby groups and IPCC) and then trying to rope everyone else into it without giving our views a chance to influence a new set of policy decisions isn’t likely to work.

We cannot qualify and quantify the risks of climate change. The IPCC meta-analysis process is inherently skewed in that it ignores vast swathes of peer-reviewed science that does not accord with more CO2 = warming. Peer-review is no automatic stamp of correctness either. It is nothing more than a step in a lengthy process and as has been discovered with the CRU leaks peer-review has been adulterated into pal-review and elbowing out competing theories.

We do not know the risks climate change will bring. We cannot even say with much certainty what the climate was doing before the use of satellite data. The bulk of the IPCC “science” rests on unverified computer models themselves based on assumptions about economic progress for the century ahead. Much of the work WG2 and WG3 have produced is simply retreading those and even scientists who have had a hand in the “science” now admit what the IPCC do is not science.(1) It is wholly wrong to describe climate change as “a very big risk” because we simply do not know – the science has *never* been settled except within the confines of a very narrow and self-selecting consensus. Even if you use the Precautionary Principle it requires you to put a value on all the outcomes. As so much is genuinely uncertain it cannot really be done, and worse, Governments and the IPCC have attempted to use PP without considering the risk of doing the wrong things and of stealing resources from existing developmental, evironmental and health programs.(As Bill Gates has highlighted recently (2))

The case for moving away from our reliance on fossil fuels can be made with many political reasons without ever having do delve into alarmist, contentious and partial science. It is to the detriment of the political process and to science itself that politicians have been playing at science and scientists have been playing at politics when it never needed to happen. Whether this came out of political cowardice, alarmism capturing the levers of power or what I am not sure but, it never needed to happen.

We were not hoping for energy too cheap to meter based on some notion that the environment needed to be protected but that affordable and reliable access to energy (wherever it comes from) is an engine of economic and national development. Better energy security. More efficient uses of energy. Our standard of living being less beholden to the price of oil. All perfectly reasonable notions and no science needed.

Whatever happened to free trade?

The global solutions that are being talked about will increase the cost of living for everyone and shove the poorest nations into an international welfare trap. Free trade and fuel duties can do all that needs to be done – free trade allowing poorer nations to trade their way to higher developmental status and afford to combat whatever climate change they may suffer and fuel duties in richer nations used to fund alternative energy research and generation. Developing nations see their incomes rise and no global welfare is needed – redistribute wealth by choice not by force with developed nations shouldering the cost burden of finding solutions to the *potential* problems the CO2 developed nations have already emitted *might* be causing. And even if CO2 theory is wrong the technology benefits from finding other sources of energy, not reliant on fossil fuels and at a price people can afford are obvious. We should be calling for a breaking down of protectionist walls not global welfare and proping up finance and carbon interests. Free trade could be a cost neutral solution. Global emissions trading, carbon capture and storage and all that is not.

1. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21977114-27197,00.html

2. http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/810300-bill-gates-dont-let-climate-change-fight-take-money-from-health

David Wilcox on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 10:36 am


On the nail. I was talking to someone in the field recently who was bemoaning the fact that the antis in the climate change debate are now making far more effective use of the social web, linked to mainstream media, than the pros. They are all over the place in terms of arguments – as you point out – and in terms of media strategy. There isn’t a strategy … so the argument is being lost.
So – another brilliant blog post from you that really resonates with me.
So what?
There will be another round of comments, a few tweets, and then on to the next hot topic.
How about using the potential internal power of the RSA Fellowship, as well as your external platform performances, online and off, to take this forward?
Currently you have an extraordinarily ability – through experience, skills, access – to synthesise and promote big ideas and challenges. Some are being followed up through RSA staff projects. But much just disappear into the cloud.
Why not invite the RSA Fellowship, perhaps through its Council, to engage with the challenge you have posed: how to create – and test – clear messages about climate change.
I’m not suggesting a campaign one way or the other: rather testing what enagement processes would enlist people in a discussion that could lead to action … collective or otherwise.
If the Fellowship isn’t for something like this, what is it for? After more than three years membership I’m still trying to find out. Offer us a challenge, and a way to engage.
Oh, and please keep on blogging too:-)

Pontus Westerberg on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 11:14 am


As David says, this really hits the nail on the head. And if something can be done about this through the RSA, so much the better.

Incidentally the new economics foundation recently published a report on growth and climate change called ‘Growth isn’t possible – why rich countries need a new direction’ which might be of interest.

http://neweconomics.org/publications/growth-isnt-possible

Jon Reeve on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 11:19 am


I liked your word insurance. Could the Government sell increased taxes and spend large amounts of money on the back of ‘climate insurance’? On the plus side even if the skeptics are right and global warming isn’t caused by CO2 emissions, we will still need the insurance money to cope with climate change that is the norm for the planet. It is only the past few hundred years that have been exceptionably stable.

Many thanks for your interesting blog.

David Wilcox on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 12:51 pm


Getting some interest on Twitter

DB on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 6:05 pm


Global warming is not a “very big risk”.

The risk of it occurring at any meaningful level is low (all the catastrophic forecasts rely on the existence of a positive feedback mechanism, something for which there is no evidence whatsoever).

By contrast, the costs of acting to restrict carbon dioxide emissions are very high and very certain.

Livy on Sat, 13th Feb 2010 9:37 pm


…yeah, but…isn’t it great that we now live materially comfortable, long lives which afford us time and mental energy to expend on this? Something I’ve lately come to realise is that we no longer live with the same personal fatalism of previous generations; it wasn’t so long ago people lived through world wars, pandemics, terrible healthcare and high infant mortality rates with a more evident connexion between health and wealth.

Right now, how many countries in the world provide their people with free antibiotics from eating the chicken or drinking the milk?

I think Halpern made the point that we overestimate how intractable some problems are and allow ourselves to be dominated by the ‘politics of deficit’, where pubic life obsesses over reducing ‘bads’:

“If you think the answer is a wholesale lifestyle change, then we are doomed” (2010).

He’s bang on.

@MT.

“The climate change argument is being lost…the tendency to overstate the certainty of the science; the way that some seem to want to use the issue to smuggle in a socialist utopia through the green back door…”

…Not being funny, but didn’t I come out with something a tad similar to this a while ago and get shot down?

Admittedly, this is pretty complicated to get into on a blog. But the last two posts were thought provoking, so what the hell.

“We do not know exactly how climate change would affect us directly”

This is key.

The scientific best and brightest are unable to paint us an accurate picture of the worst case doomsday scenario (for good reason), and there is total disconnect between these sensible empiricists and the more emotive, politically inclined theorists and people behind the levers of power. Basically, the policy wonks and media-trained elected officials charged with selling it to the foolish global warming deniers aren’t up to the job, and often look like even bigger fools themselves when they try. The obvious example that comes to everybody’s mind is Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film on the dangers of climate change; despite a high court ruling that showed it to have 9 factual errors, and that the number of polar bears has in fact increased, he refuses to graciously acknowledge the corrections in public and continues with his assertion that they’re an endangered species.

Obscene level of arrogance.

Then again, his book went on to sell 40,000 copies and Sarah Palin managed over 1 million, so I guess we know what really sells…

Basically, it goes to a larger problem deeply entwined with our flawed political system and the professional class that dominates it. (Sorry…). Parties and candidates use policy positions in order to get elected, they don’t get elected so they can then enact policy. I think there are actual mathematical formulae that demonstrate this to an alarmingly high degree of accuracy; one academic (I’ll double check the guy’s name) had a near full proof record of predicting major world events and general election outcomes on this basis.

Oh and not for nothing, but one long term agenda here is to soften the public mood for the nuclear option. The prospect of more power stations has to be made more palatable as an immediate stop-gap solution, and the west will look to reduce their dependence on foreign energy – even to the point of trying to export it themselves, just as France does to Italy. It’s all about power, literally and figuratively.

In the end? It might sound trite, but global crises require global efforts and we’ve barely begun. We have to start becoming content with the fact that anything achievable on the world stage within the next ten years is not so much a solution as it is a beginning.

Tessy Britton on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 2:20 pm


What commends your suggested simplified message is that it demonstrates meta-thinking – a synthesis which draws on multiple evidence of environmental facts, individual responses to mixed messages and operates in a political context.

When Alex Steffen of World Changing described The New Environmental Spectrum early last year, I liked the idea of deconstructing these perspectives… although I have continued concerns about re-enforcing the idea that an environmental spectrum could potentially be matched by a political spectrum (something which seems to be happening), and that one could adopt a particular ‘position’ on the environment, rather than try to create a maturity of thinking which incorporates multiple approaches.

From The New Environmental Spectrum:

- What is bright green? In its simplest form, bright green environmentalism is a belief that sustainable innovation is the best path to lasting prosperity, and that any vision of sustainability which does not offer prosperity and well-being will not succeed.

- Light green environmentalists tend to emphasize lifestyle/behavioral/consumer change as key to sustainability, or at least as the best mechanism for triggering broader changes.

- Dark greens, in contrast, tend to emphasize the need to pull back from consumerism (sometimes even from industrialization itself) and emphasize local solutions, short supply chains and direct connection to the land.

- Grays, of course, are those who deny there’s a need to do anything at all, whether as individuals or as a society.

What you seem to be supporting is the idea of being straightforward and sensible, acknowledging the responsibilities of government to manage the risks (good housekeeping), while supporting initiatives which empower individual and local change. As individuals we also need to be aware of how we process all these different messages, and stay alert to how easily it is for us to be swayed by the gloss/urgency/exaggeration of the campaign, or the convenience/inconvenience of the message (some of the things you mention as reasons why the argument is being lost).

With the election looming it would be nice to see the type of cross-party agreement that you describe. I think that people would like to see politics move out of the debating society. As Livy says ‘global crises require global efforts and we’ve barely begun’. Starting to get agreement at home would be a good start.

@David Interesting ideas around looking at the message and the media. With both being available now to the average person it would be interesting to examine and compare different uses, and see what efforts could potentially add clarity rather than confuse? Would be interested in your ideas of how Fellows could get involved in this discussion…

David Wilcox on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 3:30 pm


@tessy thanks – I suggest a number of stages for possible Fellowship involvement.
First, is the development of a clearer framework for engaging in debate, and possible action, on climate change a matter for the RSA? Clearly yes, because of past projects, and Matthew using his RSA blog to write about it.
Second, is this a matter just for staff? If not, who is responsible for helping engage Fellows? Is this staff, and/or Council?
Third, once responsibility for the engagement process has been agreed, how is that done? I think that’s a matter for some co-design by whoever is responsible, and a group of enthusiastic Fellows, then gaining commitment from others. I’ve got ideas, but believe we should go through the above first. Hope this helps.
And if not this issue, which? It’s an interesting tester on whether topics/action should be developed top-down or bottom up by staff and Fellows. Need a bit of both here, I think.

Tracey Todhunter on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 5:02 pm


Hello,
just briefly want to say I was very interested in Matthew’s comments at the Green Alliance event and on this post. Like Tessy and David, I wonder if there is a potential within a space created by RSA Fellows for a co-creative approach and I’d love to discuss this more – I am an informal advisor the the green Alliance’s green Living Consortium, which published the pamphlet Matthew refers to (from Hot Air to Happy Endings) and I’m advisor to the 10:10 Campaign. I doubt there is a one size fits all approach to this – it’s going to need a top down and bottom up approach to engaging – and involving the public in effective policy and I’d welcome the chance to be part of the process David suggests.

phil h on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 7:02 pm


I have to disagree with this rather cosy consensus.

If we are “enlightened,” we need to take a long hard look at the evidence.

We need to be open minded. We need to be prepared to accept that previous positions may have been wrong.

We need to drop the following from the discourse of climate change: “denier, alarmist, warmist, settled science,”

People are naturally very sceptical about what comes out of politicians/ mouths.

We had a rather settled cross party consensus about the economy about 3 years ago and look where that got us.

Phil Korbel on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 8:09 pm


I’m very enthused by the idea a Fellowship drive on this pressing issue… particularly as it could bring in another RSA hot topic on ‘well-being’ and how that might enable us to constructively re-define the growth paradigm. If ‘growth’ moves off from the simple GDP measure to actually embrace some notion of ‘happiness’ then our dangerous addiction to carbon-based over consumption might be blunted. It might also be a catalyst for pro-social behaviours at a local level… How much of this is party politcal?

Phil H – If the science isnt settled, the risk is, and many of the benefits of mitigating and adapting to climate change are net benefits regardless of your stance on climate change.

BTW – I really really want the science on climate change to be wrong – not because I am wedded to my C21st over consuming lifestyle but because if it’s right we’re all in a terrible amount of trouble.

Livy on Sun, 14th Feb 2010 9:51 pm


@Tessy B

Cheers And yeah, defo on the home front – and not just with carbon emissions either. How about we all have 3 bins in our kitchens like the Germans?

@PK

I hear you on the last point. Like so many of these problematic areas, I guess we just need the tendency to doubt and the capacity to believe in equal measure.

Sounds like everybody here is fellow but me. Do you guys get discounts at Dominos or something? From what you guys mention it all sounds interesting; wondered what the membership requirements are etc..

Steve on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 11:27 am


Hi Livy on Sun

Details of Fellowship can be found here

http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/become-a-fellow

Lots of other stuff to see on the site too

Rob Greenland on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 12:26 pm


Just to add that I’d be up for seeing if there’s something we could do as Fellows on this, from Tracey and David’s points, that I’d be interested in collaborating a bit on this.

Here are some posts I’ve written on this topic

http://bit.ly/9fOvNs

Thanks

Rob

philh on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 1:49 pm


Phil K – I don’t accept that the risk is “settled.”

In commercial terms how do you price the risk? What is the probability of catasrophic climate change?

There’s a risk that an asteroid may hit the earth but you don’t ask the whole country to alter its behaviour to manage the risk. We don’t apply the precautionary principle to that.

In terms of net benefit – how did you arrive at that? What costs did you compute?

I think people need more humility on this issue and look at the issue cooly and dispassionately. I think alot of people are showing signs of cognitive bias by being far too wedded to their position.

Alot of IPCC’s data turns out to be unreliable, like the Iraq war, politicians are trying to make the facts fit the policy.

Tessy Britton on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 1:59 pm


I have started a discussion group on the Fellowship website for anyone commenting here wishing to explore the potential of collaborating on this issue ……

http://rsafellowshipcouncil.ning.com/group/communicatingclimatechange

Livy on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 2:24 pm


@Steve

Cheers, I’ll have a look. So far I can’t see the discount section anywhere…

@Alan.

Brilliant post.

And this:

It is to the detriment of the political process and to science itself that politicians have been playing at science and scientists have been playing at politics when it never needed to happen.

sums it up.

Is my web browser a bit messed up? Even though you posted your comment before mine, it only just showed up my computer this morning.

Anyway, you asked why. I’m not so sure I’d go so far as to pin it on political cowardice; yes, a lot of them are cowards but usually for different reasons, on different issues and to a greater extent.

…But… yes. Basically, politicians are very risk averse people. You can observe the same behaviour with the DNA database. They don’t ever want to be in a position miles down the road where they realise too late that the point of no return has been passed, and then, while staring sunset in the face, are tormented by the sirens of public outcry saying they failed to act at the opportune moment.

Similarly, DNA will continue to be collected from both innocent people and those perceived as incapable of innocence under ‘stop and search’ mechanisms, despite the well known examples of prosecutor’s fallacy.

Not my place to be a denier or an alarmist; I’m qualified for neither. That’s the point. The common man MT mentions who feels “screwed” by establishment conspiracies probably remembers the time when we were all going to die of aids, and some people thought you could catch it off a coffee cup.

Michael on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 7:29 pm


“My view is that the climate change argument is being lost…”

This morning, I heard an (intelligent, university-educated) colleague saying “oh, now they are saying it has all been made up…”

one person, I know, but I think millions of people will also tend to see things in similarly binary, absolutist terms.
Pretty depressing.

David Wilcox on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 7:59 pm


Thanks Tessy, good idea.

Tessy Britton on Mon, 15th Feb 2010 10:41 pm


You might be interested to see how Bill Gates chose to communicate about climate change last Friday at TED 2010

http://rsafellowshipcouncil.ning.com/group/communicatingclimatechange/forum/topics/what-bill-gates-said-about

matthew.taylor on Tue, 16th Feb 2010 8:37 am


Another brilliant thread. Without wanting to sound pious I find it really inspiring that so many people – whether or not you agree with me – make the effort to comment so thoughtfully. It is clear that even a shift from prediction to risk will not be enough for those who reject the whole man made climate change thesis.

I am interested in the idea that we could justify most measures now advocated as a way of tackling clmate change in terms of energy supply and security, but there seems to be almost as much argument about the level of fossil fuel stocks as about climate change.

Thanks David and Tessy for getting more Fellows engaged. I will talk to Nina about having some events to explore these topics. The new Comment section http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/ on the website has been designed with a particular emphasis on providing more space for Fellows’ voices.

David Wilcox on Tue, 16th Feb 2010 9:56 am


Thanks Matthew. As well as being a supremely important issue, I think this could turn into a good demonstration of how to link RSA events, your blogging insights, Council leadership, and Fellowship engagement.
As well as this blog, the Council site, and possible commenting on the main site, there’s some discussion on Linkedin and Twitter. We live in a distributed online world! I hope to make some contribution as a social reporter by doing some joining up, and encouraging contributions on the lines Tessy touched on here.
Your encouragement is much appreciated.

Tessy Britton on Tue, 16th Feb 2010 11:51 am


Thanks Matthew – it would be great to get some events going around this. I think the new Comment section is fantastic – some very interesting discussions on there already.

Two points come to mind on the idea of Fellows engaging around this or any good topic: I like the idea of making space for Fellows to have informal ‘working conversations’ that potentially might lead to activity, as well as the very valuable ‘voice’ …. and also that co-creating some events that drew together some of the expertise and emergent thinking from within the Fellowship would be wonderful!

David Wilcox on Tue, 16th Feb 2010 4:54 pm


There’s now a forum discussion Climate: What should the RSA focus on? over here

stephen fitzpatrick on Wed, 17th Feb 2010 4:56 pm


David kicked this off by talking about public perception of climate change & role of online networks. This, following a conversation we had a few days earlier about the role played by a relatively insignificant number of highly motivated sceptics acting in concert to firebomb the uk media with sceptic povs on climate change following the UEA hack.
Here’s a bit more on what’s been happening over the last few weeks – this campaign has been phenomenally successful (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/whatevergate/) and (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/2010/01/the_dam_is_cracking.html)
in shifting the parameters of the debate and stealing the initiative from under the noses of progressives, govt depts, climate-neutral media & ngos esp as u/s of guerrilla activity of this kind is so poorly understood or even recognisable & therefore detectable as such.
Unless progressives engage in some very fast learning (& rapid action) in this area the race to act before it’s too late looks as if it will shift further in the direction of climate scepticism
Why?
These guys are not encumbered by the obligation to seek an ‘evidence base’ for their proposals before they embark upon configuring reality according to their agenda & are experienced in enacting strategy in extremis, pushing the envelope of the knowable & will grab any conceptual weapon to hand (see http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2006/09/why_the_israeli.html for a good case study in operational mentalities and ‘knowledge management’ at the sharp end of realtime operations. Here’s the same material presented in Harvard business-ese & inside the frame of complex adaptive systems http://www.bravacorp.com/leadershiphbr16decision.pdf)
They aren’t encumbered by dualist de haute en bas assumptions & attitudes to online media esp with regard to playing in msm vs online/social spaces & configure their networks in order to maximise the power of online networks to support mainstream media sympathetic to their agenda. MSM sympathisers are mobilised to push rumours and stories until they’re firmly the agenda & front of mind with news editors & the public (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100024023/global-warming-is-it-even-happening/)
They are aware of how to apply maximum intensity and pressure to weak-points in the system to bring about information cascades which shift the parameters of the sayable in mediated public spaces (http://climateaudit.org/2010/01/31/climategate-news-and-links/)
They are not continually missing the mark by misapplying ‘best practise’ communications management organisational systems to problems & situations to which they do not apply & which invariably constrain/frustrate/sabotage initiatives/innovation programmes which might permit established organisations (msm/ngos or even the RSA) to respond in kind (see snowden Harvard piece again above)./
By the way, they are not minded either to misapply ‘best-practise’ cases studies, abstracting ‘learnings’ from the highly particular circumstances which gave birth to, for example Wikipedia or Zopa, and enjoining organisations with entirely different cultures, aspirations, histories and trajectories to these innovators to adopt ‘transformational strategies’ only to discover, belatedly that these decontextualised models fail and are invariably stillborn. In most cases these people haven’t even heard of policy wonks’ talismanic archetypes and are making it up as they go along with wordpress, type-pad and google-groups minus research grants, minus enterprise architectures and minus unconferenced/deconstructed change management initiatives
Furthermore, unlike progressives – whose networks are highly dis-aggreagated & focussed on hyper-local initiatives – these people are – fewer on number but – highly focussed and clustering around a distributed guerrilla media strategy
On this see also:
Given the manner in which our societies are organized today in terms of communications, do acts that don’t engage in those communications systems exist at all? And if they don’t exist, do they make any changes? I think, for instance, that this might have been one of the shortcomings of protest strategies leading up to the Iraq War. Even though these were the largest protests in histories, their effect was nearly nil. Paradoxically, I suspect that these protests even tended to reinforce support for the administration by virtue of how they were coded by media systems. Time was when the relationship between protestors and politicians/police was far more direct allowing for genuine effects, but now all of this is filtered through and coded by media systems, such that our message wasn’t even heard (we were just “angry youth” trying to reproduce the sixties). Does an Act that doesn’t target these communications and media systems register or produce any change at all? It seems that forms of resistance like those found at Dailykos have been far more successful in producing some sort of change– even though along the lines of party politics and thus still constrained by the logic of the encyclopedia –precisely because they’ve found a way of communicating with media systems and producing informational events, that wasn’t taking place with traditional forms of protest and resistance (increasingly the blogs are the first to break stories disturbing and uncomfortable for the administration and to generate enough communications around these stories through letter writing campaigns and cross-blog communications to catch the attention of major politicians and media outlets, thereby filtering these discussions into the public setting and changing the frames and terms of discussion which leads to changes in action). 9 (http://larval-subjects.blogspot.com/)
Scenarios:
CF MTaylors original post: so who can/will respond to the sceptic challenge?
Govt? Govt won’t legislate unilaterally unless public opinion is ‘delivered’ to them by..who…NGOs? The Media?
NGOs? Well most NGOs are now constrained from engaging at the sharp end for fear of compromising their ability to act as policy influencers whilst at the same time their legitimacy in this area is being questioned by Cameron’s policy wonks (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6989449.ece) + sceptics networks online.
Danger? NGOs are shot by both sides as a post-brown administration de-legimates NGOs from above & sceptics manufacture consent using online networks to manufacture opinion from below
In addition, the situation is now extremely polarised & rebuttals of sceptic POVs are invariably met with escalating scepticism from public and/or paranoia/dismissal by sceptics. Who will take a much needed meta-position on all this, a reasoned neither/nor such that a dialogue might ensue & take some of the heat out of the balkanisation of interests that’s taking place right now?
The Media?: all evidence to date seems to suggest that this one has been subject to monumentally unfortunate handling by neutral and progressive media which are now either on the back foot or, belatedly, chasing the story. Either way, there is no extant media broker either able or willing to act as a bridge between the two camps…
The entire debate is now mired in so much doubt, uncertainty and mis/disinformation that the energy and focus required to bring about concerted action is deferred/delayed or disappears entirely..
So, is there a role for a fourth force (new fourth estate?) to step in here, an honest broker which opens a dialogic space which might ENGAGE a wider audience
Could this be a role for RSA?

phil h on Sat, 20th Feb 2010 12:48 am


Stephen – interesting analysis.

One influential blogger has been Bishop Hill, who has unpicked some of the evidence base of the IPCC report and Al Gore’s hockey stick.

It would also appear that the emails from UEA were not hacked but leaked.

stephen fitzpatrick on Mon, 22nd Feb 2010 8:27 am


phil

“It would also appear that the emails from UEA were not hacked but leaked”

thanks for the note phil – am intrigues; where did this come from?

s.

Tessy Britton on Tue, 23rd Feb 2010 8:03 pm


Following this rather excellent post, comments and a further discussion on the Fellowship ning:

http://rsafellowshipcouncil.ning.com/forum/topics/climate-what-should-the-rsa?

…. William Shaw (RSA Arts and Ecology project), Tracey Todhunter and myself have agreed to meet to talk about some of these questions and ideas on the 4th March at 2.30 at the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden Piazza. {could get some ideas for the Carbon Museum}

Everyone is welcome to join us! Please email me if you plan to come so we can order more tea! brittons100@btinternet.com

fourcultures on Sun, 28th Feb 2010 1:15 pm


Surely the language of risk itself is part of the problem. To review the deepseated arguments between, say, the risk society analysis of Beck and the culture of fear critique of Furedi is to recognise that this is a cultural issue. When we go looking for risks and then saying things like ‘no one except the most dogmatic would deny that it is a very big risk’ we are adopting a particular cultural bias. This means our arguments and claims, our facts and evidence will be discounted by those institutions and individuals who happen not to share the same cultural bias as ourselves.
By portraying climate change in terms of risk, the possibilities have been curtailed. Coudn’t it be, rather, a management opportunity, a bussiness opportunity, the domain of sheer fate? And if it was, what would we then say of it?
Here’s the real risk inherent in the discourse of climate change: like poverty, inequality, sexism and racism, it will never be ‘so unquestionably real no one can deny it’. If we wait till everyone agrees, we’ll be waiting forever. We need to change our discourse so we include, rather than exclude, the four cucltural biases you yourself have written about so eloquently.
I’d strongly recomend Prof Mike Hulme’s book, Why we Disagree about Climate Change, which I’ve linked to.

Tessy Britton on Sun, 7th Mar 2010 1:38 pm


As I mentioned on an earlier comment, this blog post and comments led to a meeting last week. As a follow up, a report of the ideas discussed at that meeting is posted on the Fellowship working site. Let us know what you think of this strand of ideas/thinking!

http://rsafellowshipcouncil.ning.com/profiles/blogs/communicating-climate-change

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