Climate Change Denial 2

These are my further thoughts on the post yesterday on Climate Change Denial, prompted by the comment left by "anonymous." He is right in one respect. To some people science has become their new religion, which then becomes unquestionably right and has no room for other viewpoints. But this refers to scientific reductionism, a perpetuation of the view that eventually everything in nature will be described and explained scientifically and there can be no other explanations “outside the box.”

The Dalai Lama has warned us about this; that we should not ‘overlook the limitations of science. In replacing religion as the final source of knowledge in popular estimation, science begins to look a bit like another religion itself. With this comes a similar danger on 

the part of some of its adherents to blind faith in its principles, and, correspondingly, to intolerance of alternate views.’ I agree that this spawns those who are as fervent and aggressive in their scientific beliefs as the religious fundamentalists.

But there can be no comparison between the ignorant illiterate masses who were within the influence of the priests of old, and the literate well educated, indeed often overly opinionated people of today who are mostly quite capable, scientist background or otherwise, of reading and understanding the essence of the reports of the IPCC on climate change. These reports are based on the research of very many well-qualified scientists worldwide, whose work is subject to the rigorous peer reviews that are a part of all new scientific research. 

We should respect and try to understand, but this is not a question of reverence. And yes science has its limitations, not only within the IPCC reports. Science cannot explain everything, and increasingly many scientists understand this. Science can and does ignore another dimension, another way of knowing, that is somewhere between (or above?) the two extreme mental poles of objectivity and subjectivity, language based or sensory based, analytic or holistic, rational or intuitive, science or religion, left hand or right hand brain if you like. 

Perhaps this is where wisdom comes into its own and is most needed.
Iain McGilchrist in his wonderful book The Master and His Emissary shows how it seems that the former objective end of the mental polarity is suppressing the subjective element, with huge implications for our future on this planet. We need a balance between the way our different brain hemispheres relate and act, a harmony between science and spirituality that has been lost, particularly by those with the new scientific reductionist faith.

We need joint tools and joint actions to heal the breach, for science to dialogue with spirituality to redress the balance.

Professor Clarke suggested that perhaps the very real threat of Climate Change becomes an opportunity to heal that problem within society; the problem that is the disjunction between these different ways of knowing, which poses a greater risk to society than Climate Change itself. 

And we should heed the work and words of  The Elders, who have wisdom beyond anything most of us can conjure.

Climate Change Denial

I was at a conference for members of the Scientific and Medical network last weekend and very good it was too. But one session really had me worried. Professor Chris Clarke, author of Weaving the Cosmos, was talking to us about the need to connect science and spirituality in our living planet, the different ways of knowing the world, and the need for bringing back a harmony between our rational and emotional selves. In the one and a half hours of talk and dialogue he covered much of enormous interest and significance for the future of humanity, that I may come back to in more detail another time. But what was the cause of my concern?
Well apparently something like 50% of Americans are in total denial about climate change. And what is more, the percentage seems to be increasing as the science produces even better and more indisputable evidence. It seems that there are psychological dynamics at work here. We rely so much on technology and when we are told it has to change, we find this uncomfortable, unendurable, intolerable even, and think there has to be a way out, that science has it wrong, and we go into denial.
We in Britain are nearly as skeptical. A Times poll in 2009 found that only two in five Britons believed that this current and visible problem was largely man made. We really should take more notice of the evidence, including for example the report to world leaders by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following its meeting in Paris at the start of 2007. This report concludes that it is very likely (and that means a 90% chance!) that the activities of man are responsible for the increased greenhouse gases and the resultant problems of climate change now being seen and predicted for the foreseeable future. As a consequence average temperatures are likely to rise by 4°C by the end of the century. This is the consensus of opinion from the combined efforts of more than 800 contributing authors and more than 450 lead authors, with more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers involved in the two-stage scientific and technical review process.
For the continuing cynics why not use an adaptation of Pascal’s Wager? Pascal reasoned that whether or not one believed in the existence of God, it was a safer bet and one had nothing to lose by supposing that He existed. So it is with the global warming debate. If we allow ourselves to become more spiritually aware, more sensitive to our finely balanced place in the world, more compassionate towards the plight of our brethren across the globe, more simple in our needs, more at peace with ourselves, more in tune with our own souls and the soil beneath our feet, then surely we are all enriched? We will certainly be happier, and we will be leaving a better world for those who come after us. What do we have to lose, climate change or not?
Of course there are bound to be some controversies and debates surrounding the details of the IPCC report and the scale of its significance. But much of our best scientific research effort continues to be directed towards gaining a fuller understanding of all the issues involved, and what actions we can take.
Please let's not ignore the evidence any longer.
And let's find a dialogue between the scientists and spirituality, between the rational and the emotional, combine the analytical with wisdom.
E F Schumacher said something along the lines of: "Man is now far too clever to survive without wisdom."
(The photo is of white hydrangeas at Loseley Park, Surrey, England) 

Let’s all do one extra compassionate act today.

I have written over the last week of the dangers of remoteness – not linking our behaviour with the effects of our actions. This remoteness is seen at a global and human level, when we do not always associate the extreme manifestations of climate change happening in other parts of the world with our own excessive and consumer lifestyles.
10% of the world’s population is consuming 50% of its resources. 20% of the world’s population has no safe water supply. Observing our speed limits can save a liter of fuel or more per 100 miles. Are we going to slow down, stop using that pressure hose, cut our consumption?

The IPCC said in 2007 ‘that by 2050 up to 2 billion people worldwide could be facing major water shortages. The U.S. used more than 148 trillion gallons of water in 2000, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That includes residential, commercial, agriculture, manufacturing and every other use — almost 500,000 gallons per person.’ Serious water shortages in the US are predicted sooner than 2050, caused by ‘rising temperatures and evaporation rates, lack of rain, urban sprawl, waste and overuse.’
We usually take our potable water supply totally for granted, because we have not experienced for ourselves and cannot begin to imagine having to walk miles each day to carry back pitchers of water that is possibly dirty and harmful to drink. The chronic water shortages that hit parts of the South of England in the summer drought of 2006 provoked a positive response from customers to the requests to save water. This was almost certainly because the threat of water standpipes in the roads was seen as a real possibility that would affect us all directly and make our lives quite difficult.

The same principles could equally apply to any of the other resources that we hold dear to us or take totally for granted, such as food, fuel, power. I feel sure that we would be far more interested in being frugal with such commodities if we could only fully comprehend the real risk of us losing them by our inappropriate actions.
In the UK shock tactics have been used to change public opinion. Celebrity chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver have both used powerful documentaries on prime time TV to drive home the message about unacceptable and cruel farming practices.
Do we need celebrities to make television programs or videos with shock tactics about every aspect of our lives before we will act responsibly as individuals? I hope not! Change needs to come from a change of heart, a sense of love and compassion and empathy, rather than by the use of shock tactics.



Someone said to me yesterday: “we cannot do anything at all about atrocities happening in other parts of the world except pray.” I was horrified! At the very least we can find out more about the many wonderful charities and other organizations that are working tirelessly in so many places to improve the lot of humankind, to relieve hunger and suffering and to provide education and support wherever needed. So many of us are very privileged. So many of us don’t really have to worry about where our next meal will come from, and we can take for granted our relative safety in our own secure homes and neighbourhoods. We may not be able to become directly involved with the work of aid agencies etc., but we can at least support them financially as well as in our prayers.

Let’s all do one extra compassionate act today.

Creation in Crisis; Christian Perspectives on Sustainability Part Two

I took this book to bed again last night and made significant inroads into its depths. It is so good, that today I have read much more of it and will be posting a review on Amazon soon.
Christian or not, we really do need to heed its message. After all, one argument often used by atheists against the need for religion is that there is no need of a faith or a God for them to have their own strong morals and ethics. We can, they say, be good without God.
OK, so the actions urged in this book have very strong ethical and moral support, albeit from Christian teachings. Any "good" atheist true to his own beliefs should also therefore find himself unable to ignore the reasoning in this book, founded very much on the scale of human suffering that will result from man's past actions exacerbated by the extent of any future inaction.

Sir John Houghton is currently Honorary Scientist of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the UK Meteorological Office, but his experience and qualifications as an eminent scientist over 40 years are immense. He of all scientists will most certainly know what he is talking about. He is also one of those many scientists, eminent and otherwise, who contrary to a common misperception, also feel able to have a faith, a religion. He is a Christian. And his own chapter in Creation in Crisis, Sustainable Climate and the Future of Energy, makes frightening reading indeed.

This is just a small snatch of part of his message for the climate change cynics:
"...it is only during the past century that increases in human population and the development of large-scale industry have begun to have widespread and severe effects on our climate...The change we are experiencing and which is rapidly growing is ...unsustainable because its impacts are largely adverse and will negatively affect our children and subsequent generations, many human communities (especially the poor and disadvantaged) and many ecosystems, which will experience great losses of species and biodiversity."
What adverse phenomena can we expect? The most worrying aspect is the projected rise in climate change refugees, displaced by a combination of flooding of their homelands, and extreme droughts, which will be longer and more severe as we advance into this century. A cautious estimate predicts that by 2050 there will be more than 150 million refugees, human tragedy on a vast scale. Where do they all go? How does the earth cope?
And no assessment on any other scientific topic, he assures us, has been so thoroughly researched and reviewed as the results of the IPCC's assessments and related reports.
Creation in Crisis reinforces the serious of climate change, looks in detail at all the causes, points to the possible solutions, and all within a Christian perspective. The overriding message is very clear. We have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and we have to act urgently. We also have to adapt to changes already happening, and unavoidable. We need to work on improved water defences, land management, water management, crop management, all to counter soil erosion, flooding, drought and heat. And we need a global cooperation. We also need the determination of us all, as encouraged and incentivised by governments. We need to work much more on energy efficiency, on developing non fossil fuels, on carbon capture and storage, and we need to act with a sense of urgency, akin to the mobilisation for war seen in 1941 by Roosevelt's government, or the British rally seen a couple of years earlier at the onset of World War Two.
Most of all, the book in its many and varied essays, emphasises the high level commitment and behavioural adaptations needed by you and I, now. For this to happen we have to really and truly understand, in our hearts and minds, that human well-being does NOT grow with economic growth, with consumerism and with excessive material comfort. This understanding MUST be promoted by the advertising industry and by those who guide and direct the economies of the nations.
There is so much good scientific fact, straight common sense and well reasoned ideas in this book. It is the very best from the finest scientific and theological minds. I can only say if you care at all about the future of this planet, about the future of your children and grandchildren, about the whole of humanity, (and ethically that must include us all) this book must be read; not only read, but recommended to others, and acted upon by all of us even if only in some small way, to start our own Ripple of Hope.
The photos by the way are off the book cover and attributed to Shutterstock. The refugees are crossing from DR Congo to Uganda. The car speaks for itself.



Here is a photo I took in the Nun's Valley in Madeira at the time of the Chestnut Festival held every November. This weather was exceptional for the area. The locals did not appear to have seen anything quite like it before. Clearly this was a part of the exceptional weather patterns resulting from climate change as predicted by the science and described by John Laughton.

Climate Change and Global Warming

I don't know what triggered my mind to do this, but yesterday I googled my scientific paper that I wrote with my supervisor on, wait for it, The Surface Phosphatase Activity of Roots of Beech Mycorrhiza. I was amazed that something I wrote in 1973 (in my maiden name) was now floating around in cyberspace, and just a little flattered that quite a few scientists still see fit to cite it in their own works! This was after all my subject for my PhD thesis, and for a long time afterwards I felt disillusioned as to the usefulness of this work in the grand scheme of things!

Perhaps I should not have been so doubtful!

The lesson from this small exercise in narcissism is that science is an art! There is a misunderstanding prevalent among many in the general non scientific public that scientific experiments categorically prove something to be true or false. This in many cases is simply not so. Scientists devise experiments around hypotheses and conclusions are made around probabilities and relative weight of evidence one way or another.

All this is very relevant to the current debates on climate change.

A Times poll in 2009 found that only two in five Britons believed that this current and visible problem was largely man made. But those that still harbor any doubts that we are in any way responsible for climate change should heed the report to world leaders by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following its meeting in Paris at the start of 2007. This report concludes that it is very likely (and that means a 90% chance!) that the activities of man are responsible for the increased greenhouse gases and the resultant problems of climate change now being seen and predicted for the foreseeable future. As a consequence average temperatures are likely to rise by 4°C by the end of the century. This is the consensus of opinion from the combined efforts of more than 800 contributing authors and more than 450 lead authors, with more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers involved in the two-stage scientific and technical review process. So what is there to doubt?

For the continuing cynics why not use an adaptation of Pascal’s Wager? Pascal reasoned that whether or not one believed in the existence of God, it was a safer bet and one had nothing to lose by supposing that He existed. So it is with the global warming debate. If we allow ourselves to become more spiritually aware, more sensitive to our finely balanced place in the world, more compassionate towards the plight of our brethren across the globe, more simple in our needs, more at peace with ourselves, more in tune with our own souls and the soul beneath our feet, then are we not alll enriched? We will certainly be happier, and we will be leaving a better world for those who come after us. What do we have to lose?

There are bound to be some controversies and debates surrounding the details of the IPCC report and the scale of its significance. Much of our best scientific research effort is being directed towards gaining a fuller understanding of all the issues involved, and what actions we can take.

We saw the distress that extreme weather can inflict in the 2005 devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Even those who cannot quite believe or accept the evidence for the part humankind may be playing in climate change cannot deny the extent of human suffering now seen on a global scale. This then becomes more than a debate on climate change. It becomes a matter of human compassion and justice. These injustices brew a potentially dangerous potion of civil unrest and worse. There is a social and moral imperative for us all to share everything, to watch out for each other, to work for global healing. I believe we can no longer ignore our global responsibilities.
These photos by the way are from the Nun's Valley in Madeira when there annual chestnut festival was washed out by the most extraordinary rain in November 2008. The capital Funchal of course suffered even more from freak weather in February 2010.