Here's what I think on the issue of climate change, for the avoidance of doubt.
- It seems to me that the increase in extreme weather events can no longer be ignored, there is some issue with the climate.
- All the sources I've read concur that there has been a significant uptick in global temperatures starting somewhere about the middle of last century.
- The most likely explanation for this is human activity.
- We'll probably never be able to prove that conclusively. Earth's climate and its interaction with life on earth is simply too complex to model accurately with the current state of the art.
- It makes sense to control and mitigate our emissions of greenhouse gases, if nothing else we should stabilise emissions until we fully understand the situation.
On the battle in the media and on Wikipedia:
- There are very powerful vested interests who do not want greenhouse emissions controlled in any way.
- There are quite weak vested interests in promoting a scientific consensus on the issue.
- The weak interests have persuaded a significant proportion of a much stronger group, politicians, to their way of thinking.
- The powerful vested interests do not like this. They have strong links with the political right and that has caused them in some cases to portray attempts to control emissions as a "socialist" agenda.
- This is analogous to the situation with creationism; belief in and teaching of evolutionary theory is undoubtedly a liberal education issue, but that does not make it wrong even if you don't like liberals - the liberals are teaching what science finds, and science is science.
On the issue of whether we should control emissions:
- There are two possibilities: either the substantial majority of scientists is right, or the much smaller but more vociferous group led by the energy lobby is right.
- The energy lobby want to carry on with business as usual until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that adverse climate change exists and humans are responsible for it. Scientists argue the precautionary principle and also that we should use the balance of probabilities. These are, at this time, irreconcilable differences.
- If we believe the scientists and they are wrong, we have saved some energy we did not need to save. I am an engineer, saving energy is what we term "efficiency" and is probably good. For example, a typical European family car will now go easily 40 and often 50 miles on a gallon of petrol - this is substantially better than a decade or two ago. A modern small car with power steering, air conditioning and other creature comforts is more fuel efficient than Issigonis' groundbreaking Mini.
- If we believe the energy lobby and they are wrong, we may well be screwed. We'll have sent a complex multivariable system - our atmosphere - into uncharted territory with absolutely no idea how to bring it back.
So. Let's challenge the scientists to get it right, let's make sure they do their work to the very highest standards, but let's not wait until the last Texas oil baron finally admits the obvious before we take action.