The Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa seems to think that the media exaggerate climate change risks, and that there are plenty of scientists who can demonstrate that we don't have all that much to worry about, or at least that the evidence is inconclusive. They are regularly giving the impression that there is still a lot of debate around climate science, and that this is a reason to be cautious about trying to mitigate climate change. The media thrives on stirring controversy and bad news, some people say, and is therefore inherently biased. Not only that, but climatologists and others involved in researching the factors contributing to climate change are basing entire careers on studies and analysis that builds the case for climate change - while funding is in short supply for studies that question climate change. In effect, the UN is being hoodwinked by a conspiracy of monstrous proportions.
There are many counter arguments to this position, but consider this.
James Hansen is the 68-year-old director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). He also created one of the world's first climate models thirty years ago, which he used to predict much of what happened to the climate between then and now. Not everything he forecast happened exactly as anticipated - the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 caused an unexpected pause in the upward trend in temperatures. But he's been patiently building up the scientific facts surrounding climate change.
What Hansen is not good at, according to a report in the New Yorker of 29 June 2009, is playing political games. More than once he has been invited to Washington to make presentations,
But by 2004 the Administration had dropped any pretense that it was interested in the facts about climate change. That year, NASA, reportedly at the behest of the White House, insisted that all communications between GISS scientists and the outside world be routed through political appointees at the agency. The following year, the Administration prevented GISS from posting its monthly temperature data on its Web site, ostensibly on the ground that proper protocols had not been followed. (The data showed that 2005 was likely to be the warmest year on record.) Hansen was also told that he couldn't grant a routine interview to National Public Radio. When he spoke out about the restrictions, scientists at other federal agencies complained that they were being similarly treated and a new term was invented: government scientists, it was said, were being "Hansenized."
Hansen's message is certainly grim, but then so is that of the IPCC - and the IPCC text on climate change is also watered down to suit political negotiators. The body of science is steadily increasing, and the message is getting more worrying all the time.
Hansen argues that politicians willfully misunderstand climate science; it could be argued that Hansen just as willfully misunderstands politics... For his part, Hansen argues that while the laws of geophysics are immutable, those of society are ours to determine. When I said that it didn't seem feasible to expect the United States to give up its coal plants, he responded, "We can point to other countries being fifty percent more energy-efficient than we are. We're getting fifty percent of our electricity from coal. That alone should provide a pretty strong argument."
And the Free Market Foundation presents an article from the George C. Marshall Institute agreeing that the IPCC is overly politicised - but the article concludes the exact opposite of what is really happening with the IPCC.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has become too politicised, according to a panel of scientists and public policy experts chaired by former U.S. Secretary of Defence and Energy James Schlesinger. And U.S. climate change research efforts are fragmented and lack specific goals.
The scientific and policy conclusions in the IPCC's periodic reports – particularly its summaries, which downplay uncertainties and conclude observable global warming is caused by human activity – are not supported by the underlying science or existing climate models, says the panel.
Thus it is important that the U.S. develop an alternative approach to climate change. The U.S. Global Change Research Programme is the umbrella for federally funded research on climate change.
Now why would the IPCC downplay uncertainties, when the dominant players in the negotiations are countries like the US that want a way to weasle out of carbon reduction commitments? It would help these countries to emphasise the uncertainties. Anyone who has read the texts and followed the debates at the UN climate summits can see that a lot of the negotiation is between scientists wanting to express the full impact that is shown by the current state of climate science, and politicians wanting to downplay these impacts so that they can avoid "hurting their economies." The result is that the IPCC is overly cautious about stating the full extent of impacts that the science is indicating.
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