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Melding Science and Diplomacy to Run a Global Climate Review
Andrew C. Revkin, NY Times
More than a few scientists think that Susan Solomon must be a glutton for punishment.
Who in her right mind would want to detour from doing world-class atmospheric research at a laboratory tucked under the Rockies to be a co-leader of a years-long, largely administrative review by hundreds of experts from dozens of countries of existing studies on the atmosphere? Dr. Solomon, who won a National Medal of Science in 1999 for linking synthetic chemicals to the seasonal ozone hole over Antarctica, nonetheless chose that course in 2002.
“Thomas Jefferson once said something like, ‘Science is my passion, politics my duty,’ ” Dr. Solomon, 51, said Sunday in a telephone interview. “That’s probably how I think about it, too. Science does have a duty, when called upon, to provide information that’s important to society the best way it can.”
In place of making expeditions to the South Pole and Greenland, her old stomping grounds, she spent chunks of the last five years hunkered in gray buildings in Beijing, New Delhi, Marrakech and Paris running meeting after meeting of experts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
…Several participants credited Dr. Solomon with ensuring that last-minute demands, particularly from China and the United States, did not derail the process or distort the science.
…Some scientists expressed frustration with Dr. Solomon for not making a stronger statement on the conclusions.
“As we all know, Susan is an outstanding scientist, and everybody has to make their own decision how to react to more political questions,” Robert T. Watson, the chief scientist of the World Bank and a former chairman of the panel, wrote in an e-mail message. “Ducking the question of what is needed did weaken the impact of the report to many observers. However, Susan could argue that her neutrality on the policy question provides her greater credibility as an unbiased scientist and chair.”
In the interview, Dr. Solomon was steadfast. She said: “I take the view that I’ll talk about science, but that policy is a collective decision. There are a lot of different ways different people view this. This is reflective of the fact that scientists are human beings like everyone else.”
(6 Feb 2007)
More Thoughts on Climate
Alex Steffen, WorldChanging
Now that I’ve had a chance to read the IPCC report and some of the media coverage about its conclusions, here are a few thoughts:
1) The climate debate is over, for good. …
2) Climate commitment — the fact that the actions we’ve already taken have doomed us to a very serious set of changes to our planet’s climate, with disastrous results — will require us, in some ways, to keep two contradictory ideas in mind at the same time: on the one hand, we need to fight like hell to reduce our carbon emissions to prevent disastrous climate change from turning into an unprecedented catastrophe for human civilization; on the other hand, we have to acknowledge that disaster is upon us, and start preparing our systems to be rugged enough for a world of rising seas, droughts and floods, ecological instability and mass migrations of refugees. …
3) What’s more, while we’re heartened by the media’s generally good reporting on the severity and unanimity of the IPCC’s conclusions, we’re a bit disappointed that more reporters haven’t picked up on the fact that the IPCC’s conclusions are baselines, conservative findings they were sure they could scientifically defend (and in some cases, even less bold than that) and (as Gil wrote yesterday), many serious scientists believe that the most accurate climate models suggest we can expect to see much more dramatic effects, much more quickly, particularly as regards how quickly the seas will rise. …
8) Finally, I think it’s important that we all start imagining that things will work out okay in the long run, and we have an opportunity for adventure and possibility now. The demand for this work is going to outlive everyone reading this today. We must learn to find happiness in the doing of the work, even when the skies are dark. We need, I think, to try to live as well, and fully, and happily as we can, even while we face tough challenges and bad news. We need to do our best to be the future we want to see in the world.
(5 Feb 2007)
On the Climate Change Beat, Doubt Gives Way to Certainty
William K. Stevens, NY Times
The author was lead reporter on climate change for the New York Times.
[climate skepticism is] out of date in light of a potentially historic sea change that appears to have taken place in the state and the status of the global warming issue since I retired from The New York Times in 2000.
Back then I wrote that one day, if mainstream scientists were right about what was going on with the earth’s climate, it would become so obvious that human activity was responsible for a continuing rise in average global temperature that no other explanation would be plausible.
That day may have arrived.
…I’ve been avidly watching from the sideline as the strengthening evidence of climate change has accumulated, not least the discovery that the Greenland ice cap is melting faster than had been thought. The implications of that are enormous, though the speed with which the melting may catastrophically raise sea levels is uncertain – as are many aspects of what a still hazily discerned climatic future may hold.
Last week, in its first major report since 2001, the world’s most authoritative group of climate scientists issued its strongest statement yet on the relationship between global warming and human activity.
…But perhaps the most striking aspect of the 2007 report is the sheer number and variety of directly observed ways in which global warming is already having a “likely” or “very likely” impact on the earth.
(6 Feb 2007)
Turkey prepares action plan on climate change
AFP
The Turkish government is preparing an action plan of measures to combat the fallout of global warming, focusing mainly on economising water.
…”Under the current scenarios, the Mediterranean region will be one of the worst affected by global warming and Turkey is part of this region,” [Minister of Environment Osman Pepe] said Tuesday.
(6 Feb 2007)
Emissions of key greenhouse gas stabilise
Catherine Brahic, New Scientist
Levels of the second most important greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere have levelled off, report atmospheric chemists.
They caution that although this is good news, it does not mean that methane levels will not rise again and that “carbon dioxide remains the 800-pound gorilla” of climate change.
(Nov 2006)
Mentioned in relation to a question by Khebab at The Oil Drum: Does anybody know why the concentration of Methane in the atmosphere is going down?. More discussion follows at TOD link. -BA
