20120314_AJ

Source: RTCC

URL: http://www.rtcc.org/audio-is-climate-change-science-too-complex/

Date: 14/03/2012

Event: Dr. Andrew Jarvis interviewed at Berkhamsted Transition Town event

Attribution: RTCC

People:

• Dr Andrew Jarvis: Climate modeller, Lancaster University, UK
• Ed King: Editor, RTCC

Andrew Jarvis: We are thinking about having to reorganise a lot of the way that we conduct social activities, if we believe the risks of climate change are meaningful. And it will only be through events like this that people will see what kind of landscape we need to reorganise to. And so I personally believe that things like this could be critical, which is why I've travelled down from Lancaster to join into this.

Ed King: And what are you going to be telling the audience tonight? How serious are you going to be laying it on the table for them, as far as the consequences of climate change?

Andrew Jarvis: I don't think it's my job to necessarily try and convince people. That has been something that has been in the popular press for an awful long time. I want people to be sober, I want people to behave like rational actors and be able to weigh the evidence for themselves, not to be spoon-fed yet more arguments indicating they need to be doing X, Y and Z. They should be able to understand what is fairly straightforward information, often shrouded by several layers of uncertainty, I admit, but you can quite easily peer through that and see what the real risks are. And so I don't think it's my job to bash people over the head, I think it's my job to remind people that they are educated and that they have access to the information they need to be able to make those evaluations themselves.

Ed King: But I guess the problem is that nothing about climate science, it appears to me, is that straightforward. There are so many different probabilities, and as a man like yourself, working in climate modelling, you must be able to appreciate that for your - you know, people in the general public, this is a difficult issue for them to get their heads around.

Andrew Jarvis: So let's not focus on the difficult ones. Let's focus on the simple ones. And let's try and comprehend the simple ones, which still communicate the risks very effectively. We understand much about the global energy balance - admittedly, there are many things we don't understand, but we understand a lot about the global energy balance and how greenhouse gases impact on that. And these things are not particularly difficult to communicate, and the uncertainties are an awful lot narrower than if we try and think about all the other things we don't know about. I think Rumsfeld's quotes are very useful here, you know, let's - there are things we know, there are things we don't know and there's things we don't know we don't know, so let's focus on the things that we do know, because they're quite effective in communicating the risks.

Ed King: We do know that there's going to be potentially a severe drought in the UK this summer. I noticed in my Evening Standard, on the way up here, Thames Water are already telling us how to - well, how to not water our gardens and not clean our cars with hosepipes. How can you use events like that to explain the consequences of climate changing, and can you also link events like that directly or indirectly to climate change, as it develops?

Andrew Jarvis: So let's take your second point first. There's ambiguity in making that link, let's be clear about that. But it is in the right direction. You know, that drought that you may encounter this summer are [sic] the kind of things that we would expect to be associated with a warming world, for this part of the world. With regard to how useful they are, they are critically useful, because until people start to really experience for themselves the changes that we are predicting will become more severe in the future, it's very hard to conceive how people can assimilate the risks and start to make tangible changes to their lifestyles.

Ed King: Okay, and what else are you going to be telling the audience tonight about what they can actually do? I mean, I appreciate as a climate modeller you're focussing a lot on the consequences and looking at the science. What can you tell people tonight, what can they actually - you know, physically go and do?

Andrew Jarvis: I think that the example you've just quoted is a very useful one. If people behave selfishly, in response to the drought, and do not modify their water consumption, or do not modify their paying habits, to pay for the extra storage required to minimise the risk of these droughts for the future, and they grumble about that, and they vote for people that will not implement policy in around that, then that is a very difficult way of moving forward. Whereas if we can get people to modify their behaviour in light of the tangible risks that, for example, this drought presents, these are the kind of actions that will slowly turn what is a juggernaut, socio-economically, in a direction that will behave appropriately for the risks that I believe society faces.