Deniers to Doomsters

The latest twist in climate change debate is revealing itself. According to a report I heard on the BBC (but previously well trailed in climate scientist Michael Mann’s recent writings) climate change deniers have shifted tack. They used to say the science wasn’t proven—it’s just changes in the weather (always happened), solar cycles (always happened) or simply some other form of misinterpretation (always happened). The trouble now, with the evidence of climate change advancing with an avalanche of facts, those who decry efforts at mitigation are protesting that it’s too late to do anything about it. Hence they are accusing climate scientists of saying it’s not bad enough. From denier to doomster in one easy step. I have to say I was always a bit of a doomster, but that’s because I noticed that as the facts rolled in, they always seemed to outpace the models. Now we are witnessing irreversible melting in the polar ice sheets—north and south—and Greenland is losing ice measured in the billions of tons every year. We are fast approaching a permanent breach of the so-called ’safe’ temperature increase of 1.5 degrees. In these circumstances, we should of course double, triple, quadruple efforts to mitigate climate change, but we have to realise that a very significant part of the horse has bolted. That means more resources will inevitably be piled in to adaptation measures—flood protection for example –not least for the vast bulk of the human race that lives in sea level communities (e.g. most of Bangladesh, which I’m willing to bet won’t get the help it needs, least of all from their encircling neighbour India which has built a barrier around the entire country). On this issue of all others I don’t think, as a natural born cynic, I am out of step with the reality of the challenge human civilisation faces. But in the world of the blind, what use is it to have one eye?