BBC’s Panorama programme on 28th June was dedicated to the science of climate change. For those who missed it, an overview of the programme written by Panorama reporter, Tom Heap, can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front_page/newsid_8758000/8758352.stm.
“Much of the science about climate change and global warming has been taken on trust, a belief that so many senior scientists could not be wrong,” writes Heap. “The revelations of “climate-gate” fractured that trust and probably many in the environment movement felt the same way.”
The aim of the Panorama special was to “clear as much of the fog as possible”. In the sceptical corner of the wrestle for the truth on climate change was John Christy, an atmospheric chemist from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, who has just finished a film to counter Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Both men agreed that the world was warming and that man was at least partly responsible. John Christy reckoned our impact was minimal, while Bjorn Lomborg, surprisingly, agreed that man-made climate change would trigger bad weather events of greater severity, especially hurricanes.
In the other corner were Bob Watson and Bob Ward, who campaign for policies to tackle global warming.
The two sides started from a position of agreement on the basic science – surprising when you consider the ferocity of much of the public debate. “Splits emerge when you begin to forecast what will happen in the future and what we should do about it,” says Heap. “Watson and Ward believe temperature rises could be above three degrees in the next century – closer to the upper end of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s predictions – Christy and Lomborg would go much lower.
“Put another way, while they all think change is coming, one side thinks it will be manageable, the other, catastrophic. But neither side can deliver copper-bottomed facts about the future.
“Absolute certainty, it seems, will not be there to guide us as we make tricky personal and political decisions on this issue.
Heap concludes, “It is a question of risk. You do not expect to crash your car – but you have plenty of expensive safety features fitted just in case you do.”