A group of us, all interested in climate science, put together a list of the most notable, often, most worrying, climate-related stories of the year, along with a few links that will allow you to explore the stories in more detail.

We did not try to make this a “top ten” list, because it is rather silly to fit the news, or the science, or the stuff the Earth does in a given year into an arbitrary number of events. (What if we had 12 fingers, and “10” was equal to 6+6? Then there would always be 12 things, not 10, on everyone’s list. Makes no sense.) We ended up with 18 items, but note that some of these things are related to each other in a way that would allow us to lump them or split them in different ways. See this post by Joe Romm for a more integrated approach to the year’s events. Also, see what Jeff Masters did here. We only included one non-climate (but related) item to illustrate the larger number of social, cultural, and political things that happened this year. For instance, because of some of the things on this list, Americans are more likely than they were in previous years to accept the possibility that science has something to say about the Earth’s climate and the changes we have experienced or that may be in the future; journalists are starting to take a new look at their own misplaced “objective” stance as well. Also, more politicians are starting to run for office on a pro-science pro-environment platform than has been the case for quite some time.

A failing of this list is that although non-US based people contributed, and it is somewhat global in its scope, it is a bit American based. This is partly because a few of the big stories happened here this year, but also, because the underlying theme really is the realization that climate change is not something of the future, but rather, something of the present, and key lessons learned in that important area of study happened in the American West (fires) the South and Midwest (droughts, crop failures, closing of river ways) and Northeast (Sandy). But many of the items listed here were indeed global, such as extreme heat and extreme cold caused by meteorological changes linked to warming, and of course, drought is widespread.

This list is subject to change, because you are welcome to add suggestions for other stories or for links pertaining to those already listed. Also, the year is not over yet. Anything can happen in the next few days!

The following people contributed to this effort: Angela Fritz, A Siegel, Eli Rabett, Emilee Pierce, Gareth Renowden, Greg Laden, Joe Romm, John Abraham, Laurence Lewis, Leo Hickman, Michael Mann, Michael Tobis,, Paul Douglas, Scott Mandia, Scott Brophy, Stephan Lewandowsky, and Tenney Naumer

1 Super Storm Sandy

Super Storm Sandy, a hybrid of Hurricane Sandy (and very much a true hurricane up to and beyond its landfall in the Greater New York/New Jersey area) was an important event for several reasons. First, the size and strength of the storm bore the hallmarks of global warming enhancement. Second, its very unusual trajectory was caused by a climatic configuration that was almost certainly the result of global warming. The storm would likely not have been as big and powerful as it was, nor would it have likely struck land where it did were it not for the extra greenhouse gasses released by humans over the last century and a half or so.

A third reason Sandy was important is the high storm surge that caused unprecedented and deadly flooding in New York and New Jersey. This surge was made worse by significant global warming caused sea level rise. Sea level rise has been eating away at the coasts for years and has probably caused a lot of flooding that otherwise would not have happened, but this is the first time a major event widely noticed by the mainstream media (even FOX news) involving sea level rise killed a lot of people and did a lot of damage. Fourth, Sandy was an event, but Sandy might also be the “type specimen” for a new kind of storm. It is almost certainly true that global warming Enhanced storms like Sandy will occur more frequently in the future than in the past, but how much more often is not yet known. We will probably have to find out the hard way.

Note that the first few of the links below are to blog posts written by concerned climate scientists, whom the climate change denialists call “alarmists.” You will note that these scientists and writers were saying alarming things as the storm approached. You will also note that what actually happened when Sandy struck was much worse than any of these “alarmists” predicted in one way or another, in some cases, in several ways. This then, is the fifth reason that Sandy is important: The Earth’s weather system (quite unconsciously of course) opened a big huge can of “I told you so” on the climate science denialist world. Sandy washed away many lives, a great deal of property and quite a bit of shoreline. Sandy also washed away a huge portion of what remained of the credibility of the climate science denialist lobby.

Is Mother Nature revving up an October Surprise (w/ human thumbs on the scale)?

Grim Trajectories

Has climate change created a monster?

Ostrich Heads in the Sand(y)? Does your meteorologist break the climate silence?

Climate of Doubt As Superstorm Sandy Crosses US Coast

Are Tropical Storms Getting Larger in Area?

What you need to know about Frankenstorm Sandy

2 Related to Sandy, the direct effects of sea level rise…

… were blatantly observed and widely acknowledged by the press and the public for the first time

Sea Level Rise … Extreme History, Uncertain Future

Peer Reviewed Research Predicted NYC Subway Flooding by #Sandy

How peer-reviewed material understates likely sea-level rise and examining NY Times interactive graphic relying on this optimistic material.

See WMO summary of year for info on global extremes – especially floods in Africa, India, Pakistan, China

3 The Polar Ice Caps and other ice features experienced extreme melting this year.

This year, Arctic sea ice reached a minimum in both extent (how much of the sea is covered during the Arctic summer) and more importantly, total ice volume, reaching the lowest levels in recorded history.

Arctic sea ice extent settles at record seasonal minimum

Ice Loss at Poles Is Increasing, Mainly in Greenland

4 Sea Ice Loss Changes Weather …

We also increasingly recognized that loss of Arctic sea ice affects Northern Hemisphere weather patterns, including severe cold outbreaks and storm tracks. This sea ice loss is what set up the weather pattern mentioned above that steered Sandy into the US Northeast, as well as extreme cold last winter in other areas.

Arctic Warming is Altering Weather Patterns, Study Shows

5 and 6 Two major melting events happened in Greenland this summer.

First, the total amount of ice that has melted off this huge continental glacier reached a record high, with evidence that the rate of melting is not only high, but much higher than predicted or expected. This is especially worrying because the models climatologists use to predict ice melting are being proven too optimistic. Second, and less important but still rather spectacular, was the melting of virtually every square inch of the surface of this ice sheet over a short period of a few days during the hottest part of the summer, a phenomenon observed every few hundred years but nevertheless an ominous event considering that it happened just as the aforementioned record ice mass loss was being observed and measured.

Greenland Losing Ice Fast

7 Massive Ice islands…

…were formed when the Petermann Glacier of northern Greenland calved a massive piece of its floating tongue, and it is likely that the Pine Island Glacier (West Antarctica) will follow suit this Southern Hemisphere summer. Also, this information is just being reported and we await further evaluation. As summer begins to develop in the Southern Hemisphere, there may be record warmth there in Antarctica. That story will likely be part of next year’s roundup of climate-related woes.

8 More Greenhouse Gasses than Ever

Even though the rate of emissions of greenhouse gasses slowed down temporarily for some regions of the world, those gasses stay in the air after they are released, so this year greenhouse gas levels reached new record high levels

United StatesGreenhouse Gas Levels Reach New Record High

World Meteorological Organization: Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Reach New Record

9 It Got Hot

As expected, given the greenhouse gases just mentioned, Record Breaking High Temperatures Continue, 2012 is one of the warmest years since the Age of the Dinosaurs. We’ll wait until the year is totally over to give you a rank, but it is very, very high.

UK Met Office forecasts next year to set new record

Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math

10 …and that heat brought extreme, killer heat waves

Hot, Very Hot, Extremely Hot Summers

11 For many areas, this was the year without a Spring.

The growing season in temperate zones is longer, causing the USDA in the US to change its planting recommendations.

It’s the Heat of the Night

12 There were widespread, unprecedented and deadly wildfires…

…around the world and in the American West.

Media Begin To Connect The Dots Between Climate Change And Wildfires

13 There was a major drought…

…in the US with numerous negative effects including threats to the food supply

Drought, Water & Energy

What is the link between Global Warming and Drought?

Brutal Droughts, Worsened by Global Warming, Threaten Food Production Around The World

Alarm bells on climate change as extreme weather events sweep the world: CCSOS

The Bacon Shortage

14 River Traffic Stops

A very rare event caused by drought conditions was the closing of the Mississippi River to traffic in mid-summer at two locations. This is part of a larger and growing problem involving drought, increased demands for water, and the importance of river traffic. Expect to hear more about this over the next couple of years.

Drought Closes Mississippi River Traffic in Two Locations

15 Very, very bad storms.

In June, a major and very scary derecho event – a thunderstorm and tornado complex large enough to get its own Wikipedia entry – swept across the country. This was one of several large storm systems that caused damage and death in the US this year. There were also large and unprecedented sandstorms in Asia and the US.

June 2012 North American derecho

16 Widespread Tree Mortality is underway and is expected to worsen.

Dire Drought Ahead, May Lead to Massive Tree Death

17 Biodiversity is mostly down…

We continue to experience, and this will get worse, great Losses in Biodiversity especially in Oceans, much of that due to increased acidification because of the absorption of CO2 in seawater, and overfishing.

Big loss of biodiversity with global warming

18 Unusual Jet Stream Configuration and related changes to general climate patterns…

Many of us who contributed to this list feel that this is potentially the most important of all of the stories, partly because it ties together several other events. Also, it may be that a change in the air currents caused by global warming represents a fundamental yet poorly understood shift in climate patterns. The steering of Hurricane Sandy into the New York and New Jersey metro areas, the extreme killer cold in Eastern Europe and Russia, the “year without a Spring” and the very mild winters, some of the features of drought, and other effects may be “the new normal” owing to a basic shift in how air currents are set up in a high-CO2 world. This December, as we compile this list, this effect has caused extreme cold in Eastern Europe and Russia as well as floods in the UK and unusually warm conditions in France. As of this writing well over 200 people have died in the Ukraine, Poland and Russia from cold conditions. As an ongoing and developing story we are including it provisionally on this list. Two blog posts from midyear of 2011 and 2012 (this one and this one) cover some of this.

The following video provides an excellent overview of this problem:

19 The first climate denial “think” tank to implode as a result of global warming…

… suffered major damage this year. The Heartland Institute, which worked for many years to prove that cigarette smoking was not bad for you, got caught red handed trying to fund an effort explicitly (but secretly) designed to damage science education in public schools. Once caught, they tried to distract attention by equating people who thought the climate science on global warming is based on facts and is not a fraud with well-known serial killers, using large ugly billboards. A large number of Heartland Institute donors backed off after this fiasco and their credibility tanked in the basement. As a result, the Heartland Institute, which never was really that big, is now no longer a factor in the climate change discussion.

Updated 1/1/13

Analogies are a mainstay of human communication and reasoning. In science, Niels Bohr used an analogy with the solar system to explain the structure of atoms. In everyday language, analogies help us make a point effortlessly: It is obvious what it means to say that “Bing Cosby has a velvet voice” or that someone is “as annoying as fingernails on a blackboard”, even though voices aren’t made of fabric and people’s personalities don’t consist of fingernails.

However, there is a flipside to the ease with which people process analogies: Because they are so important to our reasoning and communication, we can sometimes be fooled into perceiving an analogy when there is none—simply because two terms presented in close proximity are similar to each other or are emotionally laden. According to many cognitive theorists those two aspects of the processing of analogies arise because we have two systems of reasoning: One very rapid system that relies on relatively shallow analysis of stimuli, which allows us to respond in situations in which time is at a premium, and another one that requires slow deliberation but is guided by more complex rules. Arguably, the former may be triggered by emotive stimuli, because emotion may serve as a “stopping rule” for reasoning—in a nutshell, the more emotion, the less deliberation.

This distinction between two different modes of reasoning is not just dry laboratory science but can also be observed in the public arena. This can be illustrated with recent public controversy involving some of the most toxic and emotive issues of our times that involved Australia’s only national newspaper (The Australian), the national broadcaster (the ABC), and at least indirectly also me.

In May 2012, The Australian ran an opinion piece by Mr James Delingpole in which he riled against wind energy under the title “wind farm scam a huge cover-up.” Wind turbines actually constitute an increasingly important tool in our arsenal of alternative energy to wean the planet off fossil fuels; however, Mr. Dellingpole begs to differ. Among other arguments, Mr. Delingpole cited an unnamed Australian sheep farmer’s opinion that “The wind-farm business is bloody well near a pedophile ring. They’re f . . king our families and knowingly doing so.”

Yes, that did appear exactly as quoted in The Australian.

The use of “is” to connect one concept (“wind-farm business”) to another (“pedophile ring”) leaves little doubt that this statement was intended as an analogy. Any remaining doubt evaporates with the graphic description of what is being done to families by pedophiles and wind energy alike. By engaging our deliberative system of reasoning, we can identify this analogy quite clearly.

Let’s turn to another apparent analogy that was splattered across The Australian’s front page a few days ago under the headline ”It’s OK to link climate denial to pedophilia, ABC tells ex-chairman”: Did the ABC really draw an analogy between climate denial and pedophilia?

Clearly, some journalists and the ABC’s former chairman thought so. But did this opinion reflect deliberation or might it have been their rapid system misfiring because the emotiveness of the issue got the better of them?

Let’s find out. The ABC’s Science Show on 24 November opened with the words “What if I told you that pedophilia is good for children, or that asbestos is an excellent inhalant for those with asthma? Or that smoking crack is a normal part and a healthy one of teenage life, to be encouraged? You’d rightly find it outrageous. But there have been similar statements coming out of inexpert mouths again and again in recent times, distorting the science.”

The presenter, Robyn Williams, then proceeded to cite an Economist article about American politicians, among them one staunch foe of abortion who believes that the “bodies of women subjected to rape can shut down a pregnancy.”

Only later in the show did Mr. Williams turn to climate change, by interviewing me about my research which seeks to explain why people deny the overwhelming evidence about the fact that the climate is changing and that humans are causing it. (Full disclosure: the interview was pre-recorded and I had no advance knowledge of or input to anything preceding it on air.)

So did the Science Show link pedophilia to climate denial by way of an analogy? Did Mr. Williams suggest that climate denial is akin to pedophilia, the way that wind energy was linked to a pedophile ring in the pages of The Australian?

No.

To see why not, let’s engage our deliberate reasoning system and amend the opening of the Science Show by replacing the emotive trigger words thus: “What if I told you that lamp posts are made of chocolate, or that armchairs are an excellent tranquilizer? Or that tractors make great pets?”

Would this link climate denial to lampposts, armchairs, and tractors?

No. Instead, it links climate denial to statements that most people would recognize as being false or outrageous. Drawing that analogy is appropriate because much of climate denial is recognized as false or outrageous by people who are familiar with the scientific process or the peer-reviewed literature.

This actual analogy was lost on some listeners of the Science Show and the headline writers of The Australian because the emotive keywords of the opening statements overpowered analysis of what was actually said. Instead, the emotive content of the key words triggered the rapid reasoning system and tricked it into perceiving an analogy where there was none.

The ABC, by contrast, engaged its deliberative reasoning system and came to much the same conclusion as the preceding analysis, noting that there is no equivalence between the piece in The Australian and the ABC’s science show.

The saga does not end there.

A few days ago, The Australian received an adjudication by the Australian Press Council against them for likening wind energy to pedophilia in the piece mentioned above. This slap on the wrist was promptly followed by another piece in The Australian by the same author who unrepentantly declared “I stand by every word of the piece – especially the bit about paedophiles. I would concede that the analogy may be somewhat offensive to the paedophile community.”

No ambiguity there, this is the deliberative reasoning system wantingly, and wantonly, drawing an analogy between wind energy and pedophilia.  There really are people like that out there, and they are given an opportunity to publish in Australia’s national newspaper.

But that doesn’t mean The Australian will publish just about anything, however bizarre or pornographic it may be. Far from it, The Australian is quite capable of editorial restraint. For example, they elected not to run the statement from the ABC that very calmly explained the difference between an analogy and emotive short-circuitry.

Update 1/1/13: On the day this post went up, The Australian did publish the letter from the ABC, 3 days after the ABC posted that the letter had been declined. The premise underlying the last paragraph of this post is therefore now outdated and hence no longer valid.

In the previous two posts, I made two principal points: In the first post, I noted that doubt about the efficacy of government intervention to address HICC may become as much a barrier to action as the denialist strategy of manufacturing doubt about the scientific basis of climate change. In the second post, I illustated this notion by surveying the range of climate policie across the entire spectrum.

In this final post, I take up the roles of worldviews and ideologies, and how they may give rise to a new type of “merchants of doubt” in the economic realm.

The concepts of worldviews and ideologies are central to the full analysis of the climate change issue.  In his recent review of the role of psychology in limiting the impact of climate change, Stern made the point that “values, attitudes, beliefs, worldviews, and emotional reactions” (Stern 2011, p. 309) are crucial players in policy and that “public support for policies to limit climate change is associated with environmental worldviews and fundamental values” (Stern 2011, p. 309).  He also remarks that, “Opposition to such policies is also linked to values and political ideology” (Stern 2011, p. 309). 

I would go further and say that values, worldviews and ideologies are associated with all policy responses to Human-Induced Climate Change (HICC). 

Both left wing and right wing and even third way ideologies are involved here. For example, the free market policy response to climate change has many connections with the ideological movement towards neo-liberalism and market fundamentalism that has been a feature of economic thinking over several decades.

Some form of what might be called “free marketism” is probably a relatively common ideological position even amongst those who recognise the reality of HICC and know that the science is valid. This is particularly relevant in the economics discipline where free-market driven policies responses to climate change are frequently espoused. It is particularly important here to recognise that different ideological positions are held by different scientists even when they agree on the science. Rational individuals listen to and defer to the opinions of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who propose that HICC is real and that its impacts are significant and wide-ranging.

What should the response be, however, when highly respected scientists, including economists, engineers, chemists and agricultural scientists, agree that HICC is real but differ greatly with respect to the policy response to this threat. There may be a solid consensus among climate scientists that HICC is real but there is no consensus at all among scientists on the next most crucial question – What should we do about it?

So let me bring this issue of worldview and ideology back to the spectrum of policy responses. I have argued that the ideologically-driven battle over whether climate change is real or not will now be replaced by an ideologically-driven battle over what should be done about it. In particular, those who shape public policy including academics, and who all agree that HICC is real, will increasingly be divided in terms of their ideologies and worldviews and how these factors inform their respective positions on policy responses.  The different sides of the political spectrum will now both be able to claim (quite accurately) that there is strong scientific support for their opposing positions. 

The danger is that ideologies that underpin market-based policies, and which are also associated with denialist positions, will again work to cast doubt over what climate policies are to be implemented and, more particularly, over whether they should be government lead or market lead.   The “merchants of doubt” will not focus their attention on issues of science but on issues of policy. As I pointed out in the figure in the previous post, shown again below, the place on the policy spectrum where this becomes most crucial is where market-based policy (the C threshold) engages with a mixed policy position (the D threshold).

What will this battle look like? 

First, the battle will not be between expert climate scientists and self-educated bloggers. Nor will it be between “warmists” and “deniers”.  The lines that will separate the opponents in this emerging front will be more difficult to identify. The battle will be between, on the one hand, intelligent and highly respected scientists, politicians and business people who calmly argue that HICC is real and that both government policies and private actions are needed and, on the other hand, intelligent and highly respected scientists, politicians and business people who calmly argue that HICC is real and that markets will determine the best way to respond.  

In other words, the contest will be between those who want real action through government intervention and business and community action, and those who want real action by the invisible hand of the market only. 

The new economic “Merchants of Doubt”

This will be a major issue because this second group, the free marketeers, will cast doubt on the need for deliberate and targeted regulation of economic activity.  In essence, the free-marketeers will argue that nothing should be done because the market will naturally sort out the best response in the most efficient and effective manner. The free marketeers are the new (economic) merchants of doubt because they will bring uncertainty, suspicion, and distrust to whether any specific action should be taken to address HICC and to the motives for doing so.  The really difficult issue here is that unlike the debate between the climate scientists and the denier bloggers, this debate will be between respected scientists who differ only in their scientific worldviews.  The debate will be based not on the acceptance or rejection of science but on the more difficult territory of what kind of scientific worldview a scientist/economist holds and bases their research on. 

As societies all over the planet grapple with the questions of “what” should be done (e.g., tax or direct action), “how” should it be done (e.g., government or markets), and “who” should do it (e.g., individuals, companies, governments, international bodies), perhaps the most crucial issue of all will once again get lost in the furore: “When” should action be taken is the most crucial issue in climate change because the more action is delayed the less any of the other questions matter. This is why the debate over HICC and the casting of doubt over the science has been so destructive and why the new debate over how action should be driven may have similar reprehensible repercussions.

The market-lead HICC supporters will cast doubt over concerted and timely (if that is any longer possible) government and community-based action and once again this will lead to inaction.  Many long-standing social problems have festered for decades due to debates over whether government or the private sector should act to solve these issues.  These include child and adult obesity and advertising, inequality and poverty, homelessness, environmental degradation and the loss of indigenous heritage. In recent decades the pendulum has swung much more towards corporate self-regulation rather than government regulation, towards market-lead solutions rather than community-lead solutions. The same equivocation will probably be the case with the climate response debate. 

The role of economists will be increasingly important in all this as the need for economic intervention and government direction setting becomes more urgent.   One important group who will argue for the market-lead response to climate change will be conservative economists.  Although the great majority will agree that HICC is occurring, we will also hear from this group a range of arguments against direct government-lead action to address climate change.  These arguments will appear in many forms but they will tap into the usual psychological biases and weaknesses that previous doubt merchants have preyed upon (Gifford 2011).  The arguments of the new merchants of doubt (e.g. economists who support HICC and argue for market lead “policy” response) will raise doubt and bring about inaction.

This will create a very difficult barrier for those wanting to take targeted action to address HICC. 

One very real and unpalatable possibility here is that a new anti-climate-change alliance will emerge between the radical denialists and those with a scientific and rational perspective on HICC but who endorse the free market response.  Two powerful forces may bring these two groups into an expedient coalition.  First, both will share free-market ideologies and so government regulation of climate change policy will be anathema to their worldviews. This will occur irrespective of whether they hold a scientific or anti-scientific worldview.  The connections they have in believing that government regulation needs to be minimised at all cost will override any divergent views they have about the scientific validity of climate science.  Second, money and the funding of research will form a convenient bridge between radical denialists and scientists seeking backing for their research. 

My prediction is that corporate and private funding of hyper-technologies and geo-engineering efforts such as carbon sequestration and sulphate seeding of the upper atmosphere will increase dramatically in the coming years. Again, the outcome of all this will be to stymie direct government-led legislation and regulation to maintain the status quo of free-market operations.

In summary, the climate change policy spectrum shows that the battlelines of the climate wars will shift and new alliances will be forged as the need for climate action and intervention in markets and economies inevitable grows. In particular, it shows that the analysis of worldviews, values, scientific paradigms and political ideologies will take centre stage in our response to HICC.  The need for a deeper understanding of how our metatheories and worldviews affect the choices and decision we make will become ever more crucial as the urgency of action escalates.  

References

Gifford, R 2011, ‘The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation’, American Psychologist, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 290-302.

Stern, P 2011, ‘Contributions of Psychology to Limiting Climate Change’, The American Psychologist, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 303-314.

In a previous post, I noted that doubt about the efficacy of government intervention to address HICC may become as much a barrier to action as the denialist strategy of manufacturing doubt about the scientific basis of Human Induced Climate Change (HICC).

In this post I expand on that possibility by describing a few more features of the policy response spectrum.

Let’s consider some of the issues that will occur as realities force the need for a co-ordinated policy response to HICC. As we move along the policy response spectrum from inaction to action, we reach a number of interesting thresholds where shifts in policy positions emerge.  Referring to Figure 2 below, these thresholds points include:

A: This is the extreme denialist position which is typically anti-government, anti-regulation and ideologically opposed to government interventions of most kinds.  The influence of advocates of this  position has been discussed previously by Naomi Oreskes (Oreskes & Conway 2010) and others.

B: Moving further we come to the point where global warming is acknowledged but its anthropogenic cause is denied.  This end of the policy response spectrum maintains that warming is part of the natural cycle of global environmental change and that the recent increase in surface temperatures is not caused by human activity.  Attributing climate change to natural causes means that no policy response is required or even desirable because it will have no effect and consequently be a waste of resources that could be better channelled towards adapting to the impact of unavoidable climate change.

C: The next major threshold is where the scientific evidence for HICC is recognised but the policy response is driven by a market-oriented worldview.  At C a person completely accepts the science behind HICC but rejects government intervention in favour of allowing market forces to drive what changes need to occur. The market here is king and government intervention is seen as inefficient and ineffective because it results in unwarranted costs and unintended consequences that damage business, shrink profits and reduce a society’s economic capacity to do the things it needs to do. Government is seen as the problem not part of the solution.

D: Recognising the need for both government and markets to actively take steps to address HICC is the next key threshold along the policy response spectrum.  At D a person sees government intervention, business regulation and legislated policy as essential elements for guiding markets in the right direction.  Moreover, at D, markets and businesses are also regarded as important players in their own right and that markets can take leadership roles, create technological innovations and produce momentum for change that governments cannot emulate or control.  D is the threshold point where a balanced mix of climate change policy responses, both interventionist and market-based, is acknowledged. 

E: Next comes the position where government is seen as the arbiter of policy settings and that, while consultation with business and community is required, it is the role of government to set the legislative agenda for change.  E is the point at which a person says the implications of HICC are so significant that governments must not just send markets signals through taxation and carbon market mechanisms but must legislate for whole-of-system changes that force business and economic systems towards carbon neutrality.   

F: Moving still further along the spectrum we come to the point where markets are seen as the problem and not part of the solution.  Market forces are seen as completely inadequate for driving the shift towards carbon-neutral economies and that governments must unilaterally require systemic change.  Here the urgency of the climate change issue demands direct and even authoritarian government intervention to shift economies from fossil fuel energy sources to alternative energy systems.         

The ideological and worldview divide between interventionist and free market positions will shift across these different thresholds as the urgency and scale of adequate policy responses grows.  A few points can be made about the current situation in Australia and other countries using this spectrum.

• The major battle over climate is/will not between those who deny and those who accept climate change but between those who want targeted and deliberate action and those who want to leave it to the market. 
• At this point in Australia and in several other countries the battles lines in terms of the public debate still lie somewhere between thresholds B and C. 
• The policy battle, however, is between points C and D – between those who want a mix of government, community and market lead action and those who want to leave it all up to market forces. 
• Policies reliant on market forces are in contention with a more mixed policy response where the government role is formally acknowledged.  This being so, the greatest obstruction to proactive policy development and implementation will not come, and perhaps already does not come, from the denialist position on the spectrum (points A and B) but from those who acknowledge HICC while also advocating for free market solutions. 

I believe that it is from this quarter, from those who agree with HICC and, at the same time, deny the interventionist role of government, who present the biggest obstacle to taking the level of action required to seriously address the climate crisis.   

In the next post, I will explain the reasons underlying this hypothesis by considering the role of worldviews and ideologies.

Reference

 Oreskes, N & Conway, EM 2010, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handfull of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury Press, New York.

In a study of the responses of farmers to changing weather patterns Rogers, Curtis and Mazur found that, “Personal values and worldviews were found to be the most frequent factors linked to adaptive behaviour.” (Rogers, Curtis & Mazur 2012, p. 258)

This is the first post in a three-part series that examine the policy spectrum that emerges from the landscape of values and worldviews.

Policy responses to human induced climate change (HICC) cover a spectrum of views ranging from the radical denier’s dismissal of any need for policy to the radical interventionist call for policies that require immediate and wide-ranging transformation of the economic system (see Figure 1).   Because they fear the effects of devastating climate change over the coming decades, radical interventionists call for policies that will require a mandatory shift away from a carbon-based economy.  Radical interventionists generally hold the view that immediate and harsh, perhaps even authoritarian, government action is required to avoid the catastrophic environmental, social and economic disruption that will unfold if climate change continues unabated.  At the other end of the spectrum, the radical deniers claim that no policy response is needed as they deny the scientific evidence for HICC.  These two opposing views also represent vastly different worldviews regarding the role of government and business in society.  Where interventionists want direct government regulatory control, denialists want small government, the unhindered functioning of free markets and freedom for the businesses that operate in those markets. In between these two positions lie a variety of policy options with their own associated worldviews.

Figure 1 shows the spectrum of policy responses defined by the opposing positions of acceptance of HICC and radical government intervention as the most appropriate government response and radical denial of HICC and the ideological defence of free markets against regulation and government interference.  Between these positions there are battle lines that shift as a function of changing public and private attitudes, the ongoing reality of climate change impacts and debate over the role of government and business.

Although their influence has worked in very different ways, both the radical interventionist view and the radical denialist view inhibit the development and implementation of well-considered, timely climate policies.  In particular, denialist activities have been successful in weakening the social and political will to address global warming in a concerted and pro-active manner. But as the science accumulates, dramatic weather events occur and observable environmental impacts become more evident, the power of the denialist position to influence business and political leaders and public opinion will diminish.  

Even if the radical denialist position continues to influence public opinion, it will gradually hold less sway over policy makers and corporate leaders. It will not be so much the mounting scientific evidence that will convince many to take HICC seriously as it will the economic impacts of global warming through such realities as rising insurance premiums, emergency service costs, special assistance payments for drought and flood affected regions and the relocation costs of coastal housing and infrastructure.   The emergence of politically sensitive topics such as responding to the issue of climate refugees will also impact greatly on public opinion.  The increasing acceptance of HICC will not, however, automatically mean that governments and business will take the proactive steps necessarily to address climate change impacts. Greater recognition of the scientific reality of global warming will not necessarily shift worldviews that are suspicious of government regulation or unilateral action by a few progressive businesses.  Opposition to government action may even be galvanised by increasing acknowledgement of HICC. 

As the realities of HICC impacts hit home, the real battle ground will become less over whether HICC is a fact or not, and more over what the policy response should be. The battle will move from one defined by scientific versus anti-intellectual worldviews to one of interventionist worldviews versus free market worldviews. As the urgency of the climate crisis escalates, the debate over government regulation versus market-based solutions will take centre stage. Of course, this is already happening to some degree with the contrasting policy positions of the Commonwealth Government (moderate interventionist position via the carbon tax and other legislated measures) and the Opposition (free market position via its Direct Action Plan).  However, the debate over whether interventionist or free market policies offer the best pathway to responding to HICC will continue to grow.  Doubt about the efficacy of government intervention to address HICC may even become as much a barrier to action as the denialist strategy of manufacturing doubt about the scientific basis of HICC.  To unpack this topic further I need to describe a few more features of the policy response spectrum.

The next two posts will unpack those features.

Reference

Rogers, M, Curtis, A & Mazur, N 2012, ‘The influence of cognitive processes on rural landholder responses to climate change’, Journal of Environmental Management, vol. 111, pp. 258-266.

The Debunking Handbook has now been translated into the following languages:

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The PBS Frontline program Climate of Doubt did a masterful job in exposing the tactics climate denialists have used to delay meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the USA.  The #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.  As the program discussed, a similar secondary strategy has involved exaggerating the uncertainties in climate science.  For example, a 1998 American Petroleum Institute memo stated:

“Victory will be achieved when average citizens “understand” (recognize) uncertainties in climate science”

There are two important points to be made here.  First, while it is important to understand the remaining uncertainties in climate science, it is critical to also realize how much we do understand about the climate.  Second, when it comes to climate change, uncertainty is not our friend.

Continue reading Climate of Doubt Strategy #2: Exaggerate Uncertainty →

This post relates to a poster at the American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco in December 2012 that summarizes our work on uncertainty in climate science. (Thursday, 6 December, 1:40 PM – 6:00 PM, Poster Hall, Moscone South).

There is also an oral session on Uncertainty organized by the same team: Wednesday, 5 December, 2:30-3:30, 3003 (Moscone West).

The abstract of the poster is shown below, and it is followed by links to earlier posts on Shapingtomorrowsworld that present the arguments in greater detail:

TITLE: Uncertainty as Knowledge: Constraints on Policy Choices Provided by Analysis of Uncertainty

AUTHORS: Stephan Lewandowsky¹, James Risbey², Michael Smithson³, Ben R Newell⁴

INSTITUTIONS:

1. University Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia.
2. CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Hobart, TAS, Australia.
3. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
4. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

ABSTRACT:

Uncertainty forms an integral part of climate science, and it is often cited in connection with arguments against mitigative action. We argue that an analysis of uncertainty must consider existing knowledge as well as uncertainty, and the two must be evaluated with respect to the outcomes and risks associated with possible policy options. Although risk judgments are inherently subjective, an analysis of the role of uncertainty within the climate system yields two constraints that are robust to a broad range of assumptions. Those constraints are that (a) greater uncertainty about the climate system is necessarily associated with greater expected damages from warming, and (b) greater uncertainty translates into a greater risk of the failure of mitigation efforts. These ordinal constraints are unaffected by subjective or cultural risk-perception factors, they are independent of the discount rate, and they are independent of the magnitude of the estimate for climate sensitivity. The constraints mean that any appeal to uncertainty must imply a stronger, rather than weaker, need to cut greenhouse gas emissions than in the absence of uncertainty.

LINKS AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

The poster summarizes the points made on this blog over the last 6 months or so. There are several arguments that are worth drawing attention to:

Uncertainty is not your friend. Uncertainty about the evolution of the climate system (operationalized as the variance of the sensitivity distribution) means that things could be worse than anticipated, rather than better. And in the case of the climate system, there is an inherent asymmetry such that uncertainty is more likely to cause nasty surprises than positive outcomes.

There is another aspect of uncertainty that is not altogether comforting: greater uncertainty inescapably means that the damages from unabated climate change are likely to increase. That is, all other variables being equal, greater uncertainty translates into greater expected risk. This fact rests on a single assumption, namely that the function relating global warming to damages is convex (i.e., accelerating), and all extant economic models agree on that point.

We can even relax the convexity assumption when we consider sea level rise. It turns out that for some fairly straightforward and inescapable mathematicaly reasons, the risk of inundation increases with the uncertainty of future sea level rises. Once again, all other things being equal, greater uncertainty implies greater risk.

Finally, uncertainty is also not a friend when it comes to mitigation. All other things being equal, greater uncertainty means a greater risk that mitigation might fail. A mitigation failure is said to occur when the carbon budget that would limit temperature increases to any agreed maximum is already exhausted by the time mitigation commences. This represents a failure because emissions cannot cease over night—by definition, therefore, mitigation will fail because we will necessarily exceed our budget. It is the probability of such failure that increases with greater uncertainty.

The bottomline of all those strands of argument is that greater uncertainty means greater risk. Greater risk of damages and greater risk of mitigation failure. Any appeal to uncertainty therefore implies a greater need to cut emissions than if uncertainty were smaller.

The PBS Frontline program Climate of Doubt did a masterful job in exposing the tactics climate denialists have used to delay meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the USA.  Perhaps the #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.  As Myron Ebell of the right-wing think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put it,

“We felt that if you concede the science is settled and that there’s a consensus…the moral high ground has been ceded to the alarmists.”

Republican Congressman from Wisconsin and climate denialist James Sensenbrenner explained the importance of the public awareness of the scientific consensus:

JOHN HOCKENBERRY: Do you think this will ever be settled scientifically, if 97 percent consensus doesn’t settle it for you?

Rep. JAMES SENSENBRENNER: Well, I — you know, I think that it’s up to the scientists and their supporters to convince the public that this is the right thing to do. And the supporters of that side of the argument in the Congress have been a huge flop.

The Consensus is Real

As Frontline correspondent John Hockenberry noted, there is a consensus amongst 97% of climate scientists that humans are driving global warming.  Continue reading Climate of Doubt Strategy #1: Deny the Consensus →

What does “frankenstorm” Sandy have to do with smoking? Well, quite a bit actually, in an indirect way. I talk about the underlying cognition of tobacco and climate change here, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.