I used to think that it would take a major environmental disaster to kick the country into gear and get serious about climate change, but after three months of the BP Gulf oil disaster and record breaking heat waves across the country the Senate has given up on passing a comprehensive climate bill. While official statements suggest that the bill will be up for debate again after the August recess, it is doubtful that the Democrats will try to push hard on a controversial bill with the midterm elections approaching.
This will ultimately be more devastating to the UN climate negotiations than the failure to produce anything meaningful from the Copenhagen talks last December. Prospects for a legally-binding climate treaty were already nonexistent for COP-16 this December in Cancun and slim for COP-17 next year, but if the US fails to act by then the negotiations could completely fall apart. China and India are dumbfounded by this latest US development as they make serious headway in their climate efforts, and if the US continues to show up to the table empty-handed they may just walk away, having no incentive to stay involved.
I see a great parallel here between the financial crisis and the climate crisis. During the financial crisis, the government didn't get involved until Lehman Brothers failed, bailing out the rest of the banks. Will the US stay uninvolved in the climate crisis until the oil runs out or islands start disappearing? I certainly hope not, but there's not much giving me hope otherwise.
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label climate change. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
For Science!
Due to the highly political nature of the subject of its research, the IPCC is constantly under attack from critics and those opposed to climate change action, who hope to use anything that can be regarded as a mistake on behalf of the panel to turn public opinion against taking action on climate change. The most recent “scandal” concerns the panel's assessment of economic losses from catastrophe and their relation to observed global temperature increase.
The story, published by the Times Online on January 24, accused the IPCC of cherry-picking data from a then-unpublished study on the increasing costs of hazard loss since 1950. The study, which has since been published, compared the costs incurred by natural disasters to growth in population and infrastructure and found no increase in the impact of disasters, after accounting for growth, between 1950 and 2005, and a slight 2% increase in the impact of disasters between 1970 and 2005, when strong rises in global average temperature began.
However, the published study also included caveats on technical factors, such as strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 and currency exchange rates, that could produce bias in the result, and so the author added a caution that there was “insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses”.
While revelations such as this reflect poorly on the IPCC (as they are designed to do), more scrutiny should also be given to the sources of these “scandals”, as it would appear that the Times Online is itself cherry-picking information to discredit the panel. The IPCC assessments are based on the entire body of climate change research, and one study that stands out would be insufficient to sway the conclusions reached by the entire panel.
The reality of the situation is exactly that. Although AR4 references the study that found the 2% increase in catastrophe losses since 1970, it also mentions that no other study has been able to detect a similar trend. The report offers a balanced view not only on this particular issue but on all of the research available at the time it was written. In fact, many have called the reports and processes of the IPCC conservative in that they require the agreement of hundreds of scientists before anything can be published.
In contrast, the Science and Environment Editor for the Times Online needs the approval of only a handful of managing editors (if that) for a story to be published, and while we hope that all journalists are proud enough of their profession to maintain their integrity, the truth is that the profit motive plays a much bigger role in the decision-making process of the editorial board for one newspaper than it does for a diverse group of hundreds of scientists – the amount of advertising on each group's respective website speaks clearly to this fact.
The story, published by the Times Online on January 24, accused the IPCC of cherry-picking data from a then-unpublished study on the increasing costs of hazard loss since 1950. The study, which has since been published, compared the costs incurred by natural disasters to growth in population and infrastructure and found no increase in the impact of disasters, after accounting for growth, between 1950 and 2005, and a slight 2% increase in the impact of disasters between 1970 and 2005, when strong rises in global average temperature began.
However, the published study also included caveats on technical factors, such as strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005 and currency exchange rates, that could produce bias in the result, and so the author added a caution that there was “insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses”.
While revelations such as this reflect poorly on the IPCC (as they are designed to do), more scrutiny should also be given to the sources of these “scandals”, as it would appear that the Times Online is itself cherry-picking information to discredit the panel. The IPCC assessments are based on the entire body of climate change research, and one study that stands out would be insufficient to sway the conclusions reached by the entire panel.
The reality of the situation is exactly that. Although AR4 references the study that found the 2% increase in catastrophe losses since 1970, it also mentions that no other study has been able to detect a similar trend. The report offers a balanced view not only on this particular issue but on all of the research available at the time it was written. In fact, many have called the reports and processes of the IPCC conservative in that they require the agreement of hundreds of scientists before anything can be published.
In contrast, the Science and Environment Editor for the Times Online needs the approval of only a handful of managing editors (if that) for a story to be published, and while we hope that all journalists are proud enough of their profession to maintain their integrity, the truth is that the profit motive plays a much bigger role in the decision-making process of the editorial board for one newspaper than it does for a diverse group of hundreds of scientists – the amount of advertising on each group's respective website speaks clearly to this fact.
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