3. Should we do something about Climate Change?

I'm indebted to.....
the author of http://www.wonderingmind42.com/ for this analysis which he demonstrated on white boards in his lab with a video camera running. 'CD' is climate destabilisation - he uses this term and I also tend to use it rather than 'CC' as it conveys a future picture of unpredictable results, rather than everywhere just getting a degree or two warmer but otherwise everything carrying on as normal.

The slide, when it isn't a picture on a blog, is animated and the smiley faces come in afterwards. I will therefore have to fill in the few words you can't read.

The basic argument....
goes as follows. Is mankind confronted with a looming climatic disaster of its own making or not?
The orthodox approach is to ascertain scientifically whether we are the authors of our own climate change problem or whether it is caused by Nature. Having done that we can then decide whether there is any point in changing how we are conducting ourselves right now. He says that there will always be debate about that, because science can never be 100% sure about anything and therefore we will never decide whether to act or not.

He therefore suggests looking at it from the other end of the telescope, as it were. Let's look at the possible outcomes based upon the best advice available around at the moment and perhaps that will help us decide what the best way to act would be. Hence the use of the matrix on the slide - the choices down the left hand side represent the two possible answers to the first question is CD man-made or not? The two choices across the top represent the two ways to act - do something, or do nothing.

1. Top left: We act, only to find that CD is not man-made. We've therefore wasted a lot of money and caused a lot of economic upheaval achieving nothing more than nature would have resolved - bad news.



2. Bottom left: We act, and it turns out to be a good job we did, as the problem was caused by human beings. So we did what we had to do and bequeathed a sustainable planet to our children, which is great news although it did cause a lot of economic hardship along the way.



3. Top right: Now, we decide not to act and because CD is not do with our effect on the planet we save a lot of money and the problem goes away - the perfect scenario - everyone happy, the planet safe.



4. Bottom right: We ignore the doom mongers, decide not to act and find out we're wrong. CD kicks in and we have continual climatic disasters, inundation by the sea, potable water supplies polluted causing epidemics, mass deprivation, economic turmoil etc etc.

Now imagine you were running the world....
and needed to make a decision about what to do. How would you decide? Wondering Mind42's argument follows basic risk management. How can we avoid the 'red risk' in the bottom right hand corner? There are two ways: one is a bet against unknown odds, and the other is a near certainty.

• the former is to put your faith in the judgement of some of the scientists and do nothing.



• the latter is to decide to take action and thereby keep out of the right hand column. Yes it will be painful but avoids the ultimate pain. of the bottom right corner.

Most people....
I've spoken to would act - wouldn't you? Wondering Mind42 then goes on to cite recent opinion from eminent scientific bodies which is tending to the view that CD is man-made. So the odds of being caught out by taking the right hand column are increasing. If anything the political debate, thanks to Al Gore and others, is virtually won. Wondering Mind42 then expresses considerable optimism that Mankind's creativity will find a solution, but he does not give any. Herein lies the next problem area - deciding what to do. The framework, which I keep referring to has helped several of us come to an appreciation of some approaches that are likely to be most efficacious, and certainly some current practices which when scrutinised carefully seem worse than useless. I mean that seriously - to make people feel good, that they are making a real difference to the environment / CC by throwing and smashing perfectly good glass bottles into a bottlebank is worse than useless. There will be a post on the waste hierachy in due course. However there are a few steps I'd like to take with you before building up the framework.

Look out for the next post which describes the current big picture.........

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2. A brief history - through my eyes.

This is a sporadic history....
of the last two years which started considering 'global warming' at quite a challenging time. There seemed little consensus on whether there was even a problem.
On the one hand, those who believed there was looked like amateur doom mongers and many scientists were sceptical and dismissive. On the other hand, politicians at all levels of government were 'going green' but this was not in specific response to global warming which, at that stage, was a relatively new thing. It was more a result of a vociferous and longstanding general environmental lobby.

The initial step.....
was quite daunting. I could not answer simple questions like:

• what do we mean by a global climate?
• what do we mean by it changing?
• how could we measure any such change?

I needed help. I was very fortunate in having many acquaintances who could provide some pointers and we happened to be on a week long philosophical retreat together in May 2006. Most of what will follow in subsequent blogs will still be based upon those initial discussions and suggested lines of enquiry. The most compelling outcome of this was that Man had to stop digging up fossil fuels - not before they ran out - but before we seriously disturbed the small and delicate levels of CO2 and other more powerful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even my O-level understanding of the carbon cycle made this clear to us. This did not appear to be clearly enunciated in the world at the time. You will hear a lot more from me on the difference between 'emissions' and 'extraction' (also described as 'stop digging') in later posts. This is a most unpalatable message to the economic world and therefore probably impossible, which continued to niggle for me. Some recent ideas of ours have suggested a new angle on this, which I'll be posting up in due course.

And subsequently....
as time has gone by, the disciplines listed on the left hand side of the slide have needed to be employed.

First early conclusion....
well, if there is a man-made problem, then there sure is no effective global leadership on it. Everyone's opinion is as god(sic) as the next. In June 2006 I confronted a 'Friends of the Earth' rep on my doorstep on whether they had a consolidated view on what the truth of the matter was. In the end he resorted to saying that as long as we all do something, it's better than nothing - I was shocked. I immediately visited their web-site and then felt very sorry for the guy - there was no definition of the problem, let alone a coherent response. I also concluded that my early curiosity was not going to be easily satisfied and I had better carry on.

Second conclusion....
By August 2006, I had blagged my way into speaking on Climate Change to a group of amateur economists from across the globe on a similar retreat, to the one I was on in May. I hastily put together a presentation and laced it with pictures of polar bears, melting icebergs and ice retreat. Whilst some of the ideas were reasonable to the audience I got marmolised for using 'factoids' and having a very blinkered understanding of deforestation in Africa and Brazil. I concluded that I had to be far more careful to work from original thought and research each point as best I could. This was an important lesson to learn, for which I remain grateful, as I do to all the people I pepper questions at.

The more recent history....
Al Gore's film (and book, which I bought the day after), "An Inconvenient Truth", Sarah and I saw early, before most of our friends in Autumn of 2006. I was struck by the persuasiveness of his brilliant displays and oratory and thought that this was a powerful force for good.
On getting the book I was disappointed by the paucity of ideas about how to solve the problems so beautifully depicted. Less than 10% of the pages at the back of the book were devoted to a mish mash of ideas, very much like the aforementioned Friends of the Earth. Sorry, Mr Gore, but the other 90% has done a great job in waking up the world to the problem.

James Lovelock and Gaia....
In January 2007 we heard James Lovelock being questioned by Claire Gilbert, and old acquaintance and leading thinker in the Church of England, in St Paul's Cathedral. My main memory of that occasion was his reluctant acceptance that nuclear power was a large part of the solution, being the lesser of two evils. I was both depressed and excited. A partial solution, at best, from a combination of a wise man and the Church - was this the best they could come up with?

More confusion....
Channel 4's programme in Spring 2007 which persuaded a large number of my associates that the crisis was not man-made and therefore was little effect from moderating our behaviour on the planet. Note to ed: I must watch my DVD of this.

Stern words....
for the world from Sir Nicholas Stern in his Stern Review in Summer 2007. He basically gave credence to the widening view that climate change (CC from now onwards) was inevitable and would have large scale consequences, but that if we acted now its cost to the global economy seemed quite palatable in comparison to the predictions of even quite optimistic models.

Next speaking occasion....
was lined up for August 2007 in London. I had to hedge my bets on whether Al Gore was right and C4 were wrong by ignoring the question and stating in my advertising that 'irrespective of whether it was a man-made phenomenon or not was there not an opportunity for mankind?' That, along with the 'Kyoto Protocol' being effectively dead meant there was merit in starting to look at what might both make mankind happier and make it less ignorant of the effect of its excesses. The 'stop digging' message also seemed to be quite a good wake up call for the audience.

A sagacious science teacher in the American mid-west....
in October 2007 solved the "is it; isn't it" debate for me and many others, as to whether climate change is the result of man-made action or not. He put a 'global risk management hat' on and quickly concluded that the only reasonable course was to stop debating whether the cause of CC was Man or not and to act decisively to mitigate its effects. This was the best use of a 'Boston Matrix' I had ever seen. You'll find his arguments beautifully explained at http://www.wonderingmind42.com/. I will be devoting a post on this shortly.

Still no real solutions though....
despite the Bali roadmap and Al Gore receiving his Nobel Prize in December 2007. Our work on the framework was developing it further and it is around Feb 2008 that some of the disciplines on the left hand side of the screen started to become important. That's about it for now on this post.

I do look forward to your comments.

Oh - and those curious icons across the top of the slide? - there is one of those for each big topic to follow in subsequent posts.

And so to my next post, which will be shorter, I promise...............................................

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