Here is the Climate Forecast

Article on Climate Change from magazine 2/2007 with web links

• Posted on Apr 23, 2007

The real problem with climate change is what young people call TMI – too much information. Everybody and their sister seems to have an opinion and they all claim ‘scientific’ backing for them. And here lies another difficulty. Most of us are in no way competent to follow far less judge the complex processes of the various scientific disciplines involved. We therefore have to take things on trust.

But like everything else nowadays there is evidence that commercial, industrial and political interests have tried to modify, if not to negate, the work of scientists to accommodate vested interests. There is a very active, vociferous and well funded constituency of climate change sceptics and deniers. There are also the sensationalising doom merchants who would have us flooded, boiled or frozen the week after next. Hardly surprising then that we can feel that we’ve watched one documentary too many, or else give up in a kind of despair.

The most useful starting point is that the vast majority of the world’s scientific community supports the general view that it is very likely (ie over 90% probable) that climate change and global warming are accelerated by the human contribution to the production of carbon dioxide. This greenhouse gas (carbon emissions produce by industrial processes and vehicle exhausts) forms an insulating layer in the atmosphere leading to rising temperatures, the melting of icy and glaciated regions and the raising of the temperature of the earth’s oceans. All of this is leading to the prospect of rising sea levels and flooding in coastal areas as well as changing weather patterns and drought elsewhere.

The life threatening implications for population, industrial disruption and damage or destruction of eco-systems the world over mean we cannot afford to do nothing. This has led to major reports based on a consensus of scientific research so far and calls for further research into likely developments. It has also produced what is called the ‘Precautionary Principle’. This states that while we may not be sure of the consequences of climate change, we cannot simply pretend it will be all right and we must do what we can to prevent making it potentially worse – see the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, n469.

For basic information on climate change, there is a very useful BBC website. The official UK government site is found under Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by two United Nations organisations, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), to evaluate the risk of climate change brought on by humans. It undertakes no research itself but brings together and compares the latest research in reputable published scientific and technical literature. Its next report is due in May.

Much useful information can be found online in Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. Despite recent concerns for accuracy, this area is generally well documented, with useful background and links and worth using, albeit not as the only or definitive source.

From a Christian perspective there is a great deal of valuable material. Development agencies, noting that the danger from global warming threatens poorer and developing countries disproportionately, have taken up the cause. They see climate change as diminishing the achievement of Millennium Development Goals which are already at risk. Tearfund has really risen to the challenge. Its scientific adviser is Sir John Houghton, a distinguished scientist and former chair of an IPCC working group. It also publishes useful bible study material, and an excellent downloadable booklet titled For Tomorrow Too, filled with useful information about climate change and hints about lessening our own ‘global footprint’. This is probably the best resource for small groups starting out. Christian Aid has also published a series of excellent reports.

Nevertheless the complexity of the science means that conclusions are spoken of in degrees of likelihood. And as the recent Stern Report implied, ecology is closely linked to economy. The necessary long term view required by sustainability, biodiversity, conservation and what Christian social thought has come to call the Integrity of Creation does not sit easily with profit, exploitable resources and investment. Hence the backtracking on Kyoto and the supposed solution of carbon trading. Anything other than a change of direction from economies of growth.

Christian reflection begins from a different premise: that the creation is the work of God who sustains it in part through human stewardship. And while the Christian tradition is human centred, this is not a license for exploitation of the rest of creation. A useful if somewhat tentative reflection from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is
Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good. The Bishops use the Common Good as a means of addressing what they see as the two central moral questions:

1. How are we to fulfill God's call to be stewards of creation in an age when we may have the capacity to alter that creation significantly, and perhaps irrevocably?
2. How can we as a ‘family of nations’ exercise stewardship in a way that respects and protects the integrity of God's creation and provides for the common good, as well as for economic and social progress based on justice?

Climate change is not very well served in the Compendium, which only mentions the issue in one paragraph (n 470). This is however part of a new and developing theology, in which the Gospel of Life needs to be extended to the whole of creation.

For those old fashioned souls who still like to get their information from books, there is an excellent overview entitled Climate Change (Columba Press) by the pioneering ecological theologian, Sean McDonagh.
Sir David King, the UK government's chief scientist, is on record as saying, that climate change is the biggest problem that civilisation has had to face in 5,000 years. This is not alarmism from a lunatic fringe. We do not lack the means to cope with the human causes of the problem. We seem rather to lack the political will. And this is not simply the fault of governments. They are looking over their shoulders, not only at the greedy power brokers, but at vast populations in India and China and Africa, who feel that they are entitled to the benefits enjoyed in the developed world.

One solution might be to spend a fraction of what we currently devote to weapons of destruction and exploitative industries, to pursuing sustainable alternatives to carbon emitting technologies. Even a nuclear capable Canute will not be able to turn back the waves of rising oceans.

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