Are we wasting our time? Maybe, but speaking truth to power always feels like this. Eventually though, truth will win over falsehood, just as a cliff will crumble after withstanding thousands of waves. The BBC has certainly suffered an awful lot of earache after this last run that they gave to Lord Lawson.
Anyway, here goes:
To Rebecca Fullick
Unit Administrator
BBC Executive
Complaints Unit
Dear
Rebecca Fullick
Complaint regarding
the Today programme's approach to Climate Change
I wish to add further to the complaint contained
in the several emails that you have seen, and at the same time I will
collate the several emails already sent, to make for a more
integrated reading.
Jeremy Hayes says on 22nd Sept that "Lord
Lawson was invited to discuss the claims of Al Gore, a politician, on
the economic case for investing to address the effects of climate
change".
Lord Lawson believes that there is no economic
case whatsoever for investing to address the effects of climate
change, because he believes that the changes that humans are making
to the greenhouse effect will not significantly affect human
wellbeing, either now or in the future.
Therefore it is futile to invite Lord Lawson or any other climate change denier to discuss the economics of climate change mitigation, because all they have to say is that there is no reason to change the way we produce energy.
Therefore it is futile to invite Lord Lawson or any other climate change denier to discuss the economics of climate change mitigation, because all they have to say is that there is no reason to change the way we produce energy.
This is not an attempt to close down debate on the
economics of climate change mitigation and adaptation. There is a
significant and useful debate to be had regarding the economics of
climate change mitigation, on these topics:
Are the market mechanisms to reduce carbon use
which have been tried working?
Have carbon credits been set at the right level?
Have carbon credits been set at the right level?
Would a carbon tax be simpler and more effective
than carbon credits?
At what level should a carbon tax be set?
How can the regressive effects of carbon taxes be rectified?
At what level should a carbon tax be set?
How can the regressive effects of carbon taxes be rectified?
What are the employment benefits of energy
conservation and renewable energy?
How many jobs can be created?
What is the net jobs change as lobs are lost in the fossil carbon industry and gained in renewables anc conservation?
How skilled are they? How could these jobs best be created - by the market alone, or by state support, maybe by allowing benefits to be carried into renewable energy and conservation jobs?
How many jobs can be created?
What is the net jobs change as lobs are lost in the fossil carbon industry and gained in renewables anc conservation?
How skilled are they? How could these jobs best be created - by the market alone, or by state support, maybe by allowing benefits to be carried into renewable energy and conservation jobs?
How successful or unsuccessful has the
Government's Green Deal been?
How could it be improved?
How could it be improved?
And so on. There is an extensive, useful and
intelligent conversation to be had about the economic case for
investing to address the effects of climate change. Such a
conversation will be educative, informative and entertaining in the
widest sense, and therefore in line with the central mission of the
BBC.
Instead of this, we are presented by Today with
stultifying re-runs of Lord Lawson giving his immmutable but fatally
flawed opinion on why he is right and the vast majority of climate
scientists are wrong. This is an insult to the intelligence of Today
programme listeners.
Mr Neal in his email of 21/9/17 argued that "you
may disagree with the position Lord Lawson takes on this issue, but
his stance is an important one and is reflected, for example, in the
current US administration which has distanced itself from the Paris
Agreement".
There is no merit to this argument. Today would not give airtime to an advocate of sexism on because President Trump is a pussy grabber, or a Nazi on because the President thinks that many Nazis and are fine people. This is no justification whatsoever. President Trump has no credibility in this or most other matters.
There is no merit to this argument. Today would not give airtime to an advocate of sexism on because President Trump is a pussy grabber, or a Nazi on because the President thinks that many Nazis and are fine people. This is no justification whatsoever. President Trump has no credibility in this or most other matters.
Next, there is an argument about "balance".
Many people have pointed out that the BBC does not
bring on a creationist every time evolution is mentioned. The BBC
does not bring on a denier of the smoking/cancer link every time that
link is mentioned. Why not? Because the debate is over in those two
cases. The vested interests (Church and tobacco companies) put up a
brave fight, deploying exactly the same techniques that the fossil
fuel lobby is now deploying - playing up the uncertainties within the
science. The pro-creation and pro-smoking campaigns delayed
acceptance of the truth for a number of years in both cases, but in
the end their hypotheses were overthrown by the science itself.
Which brings us to the central question - the
science of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
As you know, science does not "prove"
things, it tests hypotheses and attempts to disprove them.
The central findings of climate science are that
the greenhouse effect is real, that CO2 is a greenhouse gas (GHG),
that we are increasing the concentration of CO2 and other greenhouse
gases, that this is causing observable, unnaturally rapid global
warming which will have serious effects on the ability of humans and
other life forms to flourish.
Although in principle no scientific knowledge is
immutable (in contrast to the claims of fundamentalist belief
systems), these findings are as firm as any science can be. They form
a central core, while at the periphery of the expanding science
points which are uncertain are questioned, tested and debated. In
this sense, no science is wholly settled. For instance, the question
of attribution, of whether we can already detect an impact of our
emissions on extreme weather events, is a new chapter in climatology,
and subject to legitimate debate, although the weight of evidence is
that we can detect such impacts, especially in the case of heat
waves.
From the point of view of the scientific method,
the hypothesis is that continuing to increase GHGs will have an ever
increasing effect on earth climate, and this will have a serious
adverse effect on the ability of humanity to live in comfort and
security.
This hypothesis has been tested and examined over
and over again in thousands of climatology papers, and it still
stands. Consilience is often found in the literature, which means
that topics have been examined from several angles, by differing
means, resulting in convergence towards the same conclusion, which
makes the conclusion ever more robust.
Climatological hypotheses have been tested and
criticised not just in the normal way that good science is tested,
but also in the extreme criticism that has emanated from the AGW
denial lobby, and the science still stands. In this way, the
opposition from those in denial has in the end made the science
stronger and more certain.
We are now at the stage that the vast majority of
climate scientists accept that our burning of fossil carbon is
altering Earth's energy balance. The central hypothesis of climate
science has been tested and re-tested, it stands and it remains
valid.
It is time now to look at the hypothesis of the
climate change deniers. In entering the field of science, they
necessarily advance an hypothesis, and theirs is that continuing to
add unlimited quantities of fossil CO2 to the atmosphere will not
damage the ability of present and succeeding generations to live in
comfort and security on this planet.
Their hypothesis demands that one or all of the
following statements is/are not true:
[update 11/10/17 The "not" in the above sentence should be deleted. Apologies ]
[update 11/10/17 The "not" in the above sentence should be deleted. Apologies ]
- The greenhouse effect is not real. If this were so, the average surface temperature of our planet would be -15ºCelsius, instead of the present +15ºCelsius.
- Carbon dioxide is not a greenhouse gas, the second most important after water vapour.
If this were so, basic molecular physics would need to be rewritten. - CO2 is known not to be increasing in the atmosphere, and/or this increase is known not to be due to our burning of fossil carbon. This belief is refuted by a large body of work.
From the above we can see that the deniers'
hypothesis that continuing to add CO2 (and other GHGs) to the
atmosphere will not damage the ability of present and succeeding
generations to live in comfort and security is refuted. It is not
sustainable. It is contradicted by the scientific facts of the case.
Climate change denial should be relegated to history along with creationism and the belief that smoking does not cause lung cancer. Climate change deniers do not have a place in intelligent public discourse in 2017.
There are many other points that can be made to show that the deniers' position is refuted by the facts, but in the end, theirs is not a scientific position at all. Science creates a coherent picture of what is happening in the world, using the method of discarding disproven claims, and using consilience, the coming together of many different lines of evidence. In contrast, climate change deniers present an eclectic range of criticisms and objections, each of which they loudly proclaim as "the final nail in the coffin of global warming". They have some 50 disparate talking points, which manifest in an infinite number of variations, but they are not presenting a coherent picture, only bringing up an endless series of criticisms and doubts.
Climate change denial should be relegated to history along with creationism and the belief that smoking does not cause lung cancer. Climate change deniers do not have a place in intelligent public discourse in 2017.
There are many other points that can be made to show that the deniers' position is refuted by the facts, but in the end, theirs is not a scientific position at all. Science creates a coherent picture of what is happening in the world, using the method of discarding disproven claims, and using consilience, the coming together of many different lines of evidence. In contrast, climate change deniers present an eclectic range of criticisms and objections, each of which they loudly proclaim as "the final nail in the coffin of global warming". They have some 50 disparate talking points, which manifest in an infinite number of variations, but they are not presenting a coherent picture, only bringing up an endless series of criticisms and doubts.
It may be argued that “lukewarmers” should not
be lumped with deniers. In the case of lukewarmers, you would find
that they might reluctantly, and with qualifications, accept the core
science, but argue that doubling natural levels of CO2 (which is due
to at sometime around 2075) would lead only to 2ºCelsius
of warming at worst.
This is an important figure, since it is agreed by both sides; it is at the high end of the range of probability of the lukewarmers, and the low end of the range of probability accepted by the scientific community. It is also important as the threshold that scientists say we should not cross. Since are seeing adverse climatological effects at present, about 0.9ºC above pre-industrial temperatures, 2ºC would definitely not be the trivial change that the lukewarmers try to make out.
This is an important figure, since it is agreed by both sides; it is at the high end of the range of probability of the lukewarmers, and the low end of the range of probability accepted by the scientific community. It is also important as the threshold that scientists say we should not cross. Since are seeing adverse climatological effects at present, about 0.9ºC above pre-industrial temperatures, 2ºC would definitely not be the trivial change that the lukewarmers try to make out.
It is important to note that the 2ºC
figure is not a place where warming ends, even in the lukewarmers'
belief system; all they are aguing is that serious impacts on the
planet will take longer to come about. They are arguing as it were
that their policies will make our grand children's lives intolerably
miserable, rather than the lives of our children. This is not really
a defensible position.
I hope that I have shown that climate change
denial has no place in intelligent political debate in the present
day because it rests on an invalidated hypothesis. I hope that the
BBC will in future give time to educating and informing the public in
an engaging and enjoyable way about the changes that we need to make
in the way we generate and use energy.
Yours sincerely
Richard
Lawson
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