20111219_PG

Source: YouTube

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKIPL-ksU3k

Date: 19/12/2011

Event: Peter Gleick - climate change is happening

Attribution: National Center for Science Education

People:

• Dr Peter Gleick: Hydroclimatologist, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, Oakland CA

[Caption: Is there evidence of climate change?]

Peter Gleick: There's a huge amount of evidence. That evidence takes the form of paleoclimatic work that extends our understanding of the climatic record back literally millions of years. It takes the form of ground-based observations that go back a century or a couple of centuries. It takes the form of satellite remote-sensing observations that monitor temperature, sea-level, precipitation patterns, soil moisture, all sorts of parameters related to the climate. And all of that observational evidence is part of what climate scientists base their conclusions on, and it's very compelling.

There is evidence going back millions of years, and hundreds of thousands of years, and it's what the - it's the field that we call paleoclimatology, that is: the climate of ancient times. We look at ice cores, we look at pollen records, we look at vegetative fossils that tell us what climates were like, and what kind of plants there were on different parts of the planet at different times. We look at the orbital dynamics, and what we understand about past orbits of the Earth and the other planets, and all of these things weave together into a remarkable story about the climate history of the planet.

That ancient history is partly what tells us that we know climate has changed in the past. And that's what led to our understanding of how that climate has changed in the past, what the natural components of climate change are. And it's our understanding of the natural components that is really what tells us that the climate changes we're seeing today cannot be explained purely by natural phenomena.

[Caption: Why is there climate change denial?]

Peter Gleick: I'm always a little reluctant to speculate about motive for why some people deny the science of climate change, or deny the science of evolution - there're different reasons for different people. And sometimes it's simply - it's simply an unwillingness to believe that humans can be as influential on a large geophysical thing like the climate, as we actually are. That it's - how could humans possibly change something as fundamental as the Earth's climate? And I think that incredulity, if you will, is part of what's going on. But I actually think that a large part of the current denial about climate change - political scepticism about climate change - is actually not truly about the science. The scientific community is almost unanimous about this - there are very few credible scientists that really say that climate change isn't happening or that it isn't due to human activities. But if it is happening, and if it is due to human activities, policymakers have to do something. There's going to have to be a policy response to deal with, for example, the fundamental ways we produce and use energy, and that's a very difficult question. And I actually believe that a large part of the climate denial is actually fear about dealing with the policy components of climate change.

[Caption: How do you convince people that climate change is happening?]

Peter Gleick: I'm not sure how you do, either. Scientists have been trying for decades, now. I do think the most important thing is to make sure the science is good and credible. The second thing is to communicate the science. People have a fundamental trust in science and scientists, overall. More so than politicians, more so than, perhaps, the media. But there is a fear about science, there is a fear about environmental issues that - there are all sorts of things that make it difficult for some people to accept certain kinds of scientific findings, and I think really the first thing is: scientists have to make sure the science is well-done and good and then properly communicated.

[Caption: Is there controversy about climate change among scientists?]

Peter Gleick: There is always controversy about science. The climate's an incredibly complex thing. There are plenty of things about the climate we don't understand well. There are plenty of cutting-edge research opportunities in the climate area. We're going to learn more and more, as our models get better, as our observational networks get better, as our understanding of the fundamental physical characteristics of the climate get better. But the disputes in the climate science community don't take the form of: is climate change happening or isn't it? There really is an incredibly strong consensus in the scientific community that climate change is happening and it's due to human activities. Everything else is a nuance, in my opinion.

[Caption: "Promoting uncertainty".]

Peter Gleick: Well, I think there're lots of things going on. I think scientists are doing a fairly good job about communicating what we know and don't know, and expect about climate change. But on the other side, there's an incredibly strong, incredible powerful, incredibly well-funded campaign, very much like the tobacco campaign, to deny the science of climate change, and to confuse the public. There was a memo written by a leading Republican strategist, more than a decade ago now, about the climate issue, saying: look, if the public ever realises that the science has been accepted, we've lost the battle, and so what we have to do is we have to promote uncertainty. And that's a very well-funded campaign under way, to promote uncertainty, to make it seem as though there's much less certainty in the scientific community than there is. And that campaign has been pretty effective.

[Voice of a man, off-camera: The Merchants of Doubt.]

Peter Gleick: The Merchants of Doubt. And there were merchants of doubt in the tobacco debate long after the science of tobacco and health was clear. There are plenty of very clear statements by the tobacco industry long after the science was in on tobacco and human health, saying: we have to promote doubt. If we can promote doubt, we can continue to do what we do, which was sell - in this case, tobacco - or fossil fuels, and I think the merchants of doubt have been very effective in the climate debate.

[Caption: The hidden climate change story.]

Peter Gleick: If there's any single thing that the science community could probably do better, in the climate area, it's to make clear to the public how fundamental climate is to everything we care about. We live in the climate system. Our food production depends on climatic factors. Human health and human health vectors of disease depend upon climate, at temperature and rainfall patterns. Heat stress, energy production, availability of water resources, the quality of our water resources, sea-level rise and our coastal communities, all of those are fundamentally integrated with our climate system. And as the climate changes, every one of those things that we really care about is also going to change. And that actual- the truth is, we don't care about climate change. What we care about is these other things. We care about our ability to produce food, and generate energy and provide safe water and protect our coasts from damaging storms. And those are the things that are going to kill society, and hurt us the most, as the climate changes.

[Caption: Beyond global warming.]

Peter Gleick: In the early years of the climate discussion, scientists were calling it the "greenhouse effect", which was a very nice analogy for the way heat-trapping gases trap heat and raise the temperature of the Earth. But the focus of the - of the idea of the greenhouse effect was global warming, was temperature alone. And in recent years, scientists have moved away from talking about global warming and the greenhouse effect, they're talking about climatic change and climatic disruption, precisely because temperature changes alone are not what's going to happen. We're going to see changes in temperature but we're going to see changes in precipitation patterns, and storm intensity and frequency, and sea level rise and coastal damage, and all of the fairly broad suite of things that really is the climate. We're really not just talking about warming. We're really talking about disruption of the fundamental climate.

Caption: Common Misconceptions]

Peter Gleick: Well, there're lots of them. Some of them are scientific, some of them aren't. They all come down to: humans couldn't possibly change the climate. You know, it's driven by natural phenomenon, it's sunspots, it's - CO2 isn't really a heat-trapping gas, it's a lot of stuff that's very easily refuted by science, and has been refuted over and over again. It's: the temperature sensors are - the thermometers are wrong, they're all in urban areas rather than rural, and they're affected by the heat island effect... There are, literally, more than a hundred, sort of, typical misunderstandings and misconceptions about climate, and there are some excellent websites that have debunked them one by one. Skepticalscience.com, I believe, is one that has a list of the favourite problems, the favourite misconceptions about climate change, and the scientific refutations of those.

[Caption: Why is climate change education important?]

Peter Gleick: It's absolutely vital that we teach climate change in our high schools, and in fundamental environmental science classes or physics classes or chemistry classes or biology classes, 'cause of course climate change affects all of those things. Climate change is probably the most significant environmental impact that future generations are going to have to deal with, and that our current generation is going to have to deal with. And not to teach it is to ignore a key characteristic, a key component of what our world is going to be like. It's not too difficult to explain. Climate is an important part of our environment. It's pretty straightforward to teach. You don't have to teach climate modelling to understand, first of all, the importance of climate to society, and then to teach what the scientific community is telling us to expect.

Okay, the first place that climate science really needs to be taught is the U.S. Congress. [Laughter from man off-camera.] Beyond the U.S. Congress, because climate is a science issue, but also a social, political and economic issue, I would roll it into every, every curriculum. You'd teach it in physics, you'd teach it in chemistry, because of the chemical behaviour of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, you'd teach it in biology because of the way that the biological cycle deals with the carbon cycle. Plants absorb carbon dioxide, fossil fuels are ancient plants that have been laid down over millions of years, that we're burning and re-emitting that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. There's a biological component. Teach it in economics - the role of climate in our economics system, for agricultural production, for damages to society through floods and droughts, or coastal impacts. It's an economic question and teach it in politics, in a political science course. It's fascinating - frankly, it's a fascinating case study, even for those of us who are depressed by the current political situation.

[Caption: Bad news, good news]

Peter Gleick: Okay, so there's bad news and there's good news. The bad news is that I think we are irreversibly committed to climate change, and I think we're irreversibly committed to quite a bit of climate change. The delay in the global community in reducing greenhouse gas emissions has meant that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere - they're very close to 400 parts per million today, in late 2011. The pre-industrial concentration was down at 280. We're way - the system is out of equilibrium now, and we're going to see a very significant amount of climate change. That's the bad news. The good news is that there are things that can be done. Not to prevent climate change - which we're already seeing - but to reduce the severity of the ultimate impacts and to slow the rate of those changes. Fast climate change is worse than slow climate change. A lot of climate change is worse than some climate change. So, as depressing as it might be, that we've failed to deal with climate change so far, we have to still work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So we do the things that we know we ought to be doing, to reduce the severity of the impacts in the future. And there are smart, effective things that can be done.

[Caption: Will policymakers respond?]

Peter Gleick: I don't know. I think at the global level it's going to be very difficult, but I'm somewhat encouraged by the fact that at the local level, at the state level, individual nations are beginning to both understand the severity of the climate risks and to take actions to reduce those risks, either to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases or to reduce their vulnerability to the climate changes that are coming. I think we're going to have to do both.

[Caption: Why are you joining NCSE's board?]

Peter Gleick: The issue of climate change is a science issue. And I'm a scientist by training. I think it's critically important scientists do good science and communicate to the public. But we're not always very good at communicating. And one of the things that NCSE is great at, is communicating. Communicating science and the importance of science, at multiple levels. And I'm delighted that we're starting to take on, not the evolution piece of this - which NCSE has been so effective at - but the climate change education component of it. We can do for climate change what we've done for evolution. I think there's a possibility that the policymakers will get in line and do what they're really supposed to be doing.

Thomas Jefferson believed that an educated populace was critical to a well-functioning democracy. And I believe that too, I believe our educational system has a responsibility to produce informed citizens, informed voters, about the critical issues of the time. Climate change is a big issue, it's the fundamental environmental challenge of the future, I believe, and because it affects everything, I think it's absolutely necessary to teach climate, the role of climate, the way society functions in the climate system, the way climate affects society in turn, across the board, at all levels, in every curriculum.

[Caption: National Center for Science Education www.ncse.com/climate]