Yet another mainstream Media commentator thinks he can act as arbiter on exactly how seriously dangerous Climate Change isn’t.
Tom Chivers’ writing is nice and easygoing, and his reasoning sounds reasonable, but in my opinion, his conclusion that there’s nothing to worry about is utter rot :-
“The Met Office’s climate change report: between denial and alarm lies reality” : By Tom Chivers, July 30th, 2010
What makes Tom Chivers believe that his opinion is valid ?
I expect he thinks he can do things like judge war crimes, build nuclear power steam turbines or invent a new diabetes vaccine, without any training, without any mastery, and without any knowledge of the history or research literature of the relevant Science.
No, Tom. The reality about Climate Change is that the data evidence is coming in at the high end of the projections of the last few decades, and there is no reason to accept that it’s going to calm down, ease off or go away or into reverse.
Climate Change is very, very dangerous, and with all the uncertainties in how exactly some parts of the Earth system will respond, our best decision is to put the Precautionary Principle into play immediately.
Stop burning Coal. Stop approving Coal-burning power stations. Ban half of all urban traffic by cars. Double all public transport services. Put regulations in place to prohibit indoor temperatures being raised over 21 degrees Celsius by heating systems during cold periods. Put in place regulations to prohibit cooling systems to drop below 24 degrees Celsius in hot periods.
Repower Europe to make all electricity green. Turn over all farms to small collectives growing organic produce and rearing organic livestock.
Reform the banks to finance only green energy projects in future.
Build wind turbines everywhere.
Climate Change is urgent, risky and getting worse. Stop pouring soothing appeasement on people. It indicates that you may not have a detailed appreciation of the scientific facts.
Whether or not your scepticism about serious risk is your genuinely-held opinion, I very much doubt it’s based on a wide body of evidence.
To pacify people when the data points in the other direction isn’t right or ethical, in my view.