| Andrew Simms | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Yesterday, the Royal Society, the voice in the UK for the scientific establishment, published a new general public guide to the science of climate change. It covers areas of general agreement, broad consensus where there is still some debate and aspects that are still not fully understood. The nature of scientific enquiry is such that there is no such thing as absolute certainty, merely explanations of the world that are waiting to be disproved.
But, if deniers of human-driven climate change were hoping for rare succour, they will be disappointed. The Royal Society guide is wholly supportive of the mainstream view of climate science. Humanity is dangerously altering the climate through the bad management of natural resources, overconsumption and the generation of waste. The chair of the IPCC, the group of scientists representing that mainstream view, recently took criticism. A broadcast journalist found some environmentalists prepared to agree with the suggestion that he should not complete a second term of office. Others, who were not reported, did not agree. The crime to be answered was defending too aggressively the IPCC's work, and the need for urgent action on the basis of what is known.
In spite of some of the more peculiar assumptions behind economic models, we never possess "perfect information". And absolute certainty is a condition more closely associated with fundamentalist religions, rather than the circumstances under which we daily have to make choices and take decisions.
This is the point: we make judgements on the balance of probabilities. And, as we stand on current greenhouse gas emissions trends and the scientific establishment's cautious assessment of risk, along with further cautious estimates of how damaging "feedback" will happen in key ecosystems, we have 74 months before the accumulation of greenhouse gases makes it more, rather than less likely we will become committed to cross the dangerous 2C temperature rise. Choices have to be made.
Yes, of course there are unknowns. Ecosystems could react badly, and much quicker to warming. Or some unforeseen events – such as a deep and long global recession – might slow things down. But while, as in medicine, a false positive diagnosis may be an inconvenience, a false negative one can be lethal.
On a beach in Phuket, Thailand, during Christmas 2004, a 10-year-old British schoolgirl suddenly remembered her geography lesson of two weeks before. The water looked different and was behaving oddly. It was just like the signs she'd been taught were the messengers of an impending tsunami.
Everyone else was out for a good time on a sunny day on the beach – who wanted to listen to a young, increasingly desperate girl? But she trusted her judgement, the best knowledge she had gained from her science lesson, and finally persuaded her mother who had helped with her geography homework. In turn, they persuaded the lifeguard and the beach was cleared, saving about 100 lives on a day when possibly a quarter of a million died.
On a different continent, and in a very different situation, James Hansen, the Nasa climate scientist, took a similar risk. He put his reputation and establishment credentials in jeopardy and was prepared to be arrested in a public demonstration against the use of fossil fuels.
"The most revolutionary thing one can do," wrote the radical intellectual Rosa Luxemburg, "is always to proclaim loudly what is happening." She both lived and died by these words, being murdered for speaking out.
Now we have as leader of the UK's official political opposition, Ed Miliband, the first-ever former minister for climate change. He is running on the ticket of the new generation. Unless his policy package contains measures to push action at the scale and speed to stay comfortably on the right side of the 2C climate threshold, his new generation may also be the last to live in a world not tormented by universal environmental upheaval. This is now an age when the greatest risk will be not taking any.
• Take action and visit onehundredmonths.org
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