A Changing Media Climate?

Following on from the last post, looking at some of the other press reports (the Guardian, Bloomberg, the Times) in conjunction with the Telegraph article mentioned earlier, shows a strange trend – they all take a reasonable or even sympathetic angle on the protest. The Times is probably the most surprising, with a well-balanced and even – gasp – interesting article on how more “mainstream” NGOs are now considering non-violent direct action to be a reasonable tactic in the face of environmental destruction and climate chaos.

A big chunk of the credit for this must go to the volunteers on the Climate Camp media team who’ve spent the week talking to journalists and newsdesks to ensure that our side of the story gets across. But perhaps – just perhaps – this more sympathetic tone reflects the fact that the public mood has changed in our favour, and that activists standing up for the climate and for social justice can no longer be written off so easily?

Well, maybe. Just don’t read the Express. But then, when isn’t that good advice?

Anarchists and Eco-Warriors

From last night’s Evening Standard:

Thousands of green campaigners are planning to cause massive disruption at Heathrow airport.

‘Eco-warriors’ say they will set up a Greenham Common-style protest camp near the perimeter fence.

They intend to use it as a base to disrupt flights at the peak of the tourist season in an attempt to focus attention on climate change and global warming.

At a secret meeting in London at the weekend, protesters said they would occupy land around Heathrow between 14 to 21 August.

From there they will threaten the boundary and attempt to cause havoc inside the airport - or at least tie up hundreds of police.

The (lack of) Standard’s parent paper, the Daily Mail, unsurprisingly carries a very similar article.

Ah, those lazy right-wing journalistic standards we know and love. Anyone who’s disillusioned with what passes for a political system in this country and sick of the three major parties’ utter inability to grasp the urgency of the climate change issue, and who therefore decides to take a stand in the name of our common future is clearly an anarchist-eco-hippy-tree-munching-lentil-loving-mud-warrior and must be DESTROYED.

Sigh.

Luckily, the Climate Camp media team are darned sorted and well-organised, and through well-prepared press releases and media appearances have so far mostly succeeded in managing this sort of dross and putting out the real story of what the Camp is actually about. A quick web search reveals a good selection of much more balanced articles with significantly less mouth-foaming – it’s all rather refreshing, really. Even the Telegraph has a surprisingly friendly take on things.

I thought I’d try to do my bit to help, so last night I wrote the following response to post in the Comments section of the Standard and the Mail articles:

“The direct action mentioned in the above article will be happening as part of the Camp for Climate Action – see www.climatecamp.org.uk. The camp will be a 10-day event encompassing practical low-impact living, education and training as well as direct action.

“As already announced on the website, the aim of the action is not to target passengers, but to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities. In the interests of public safety there will be no attempt to blockade runways.

“The meeting last weekend was not “secret”, but was advertised widely and free for anyone to attend. This are an open, non-hierarchical movement of people from a wide range of ages and backgrounds, united by the belief that we need to take action, as citizens, to avert climate catastrophe. Labelling everyone involved in the action as “anarchists” and “eco-warriors” is inaccurate and fails to represent the diversity of the people involved; anyone reading this now could walk into the camp and be a part of it, or take action where they live and be a part of the same growing movement for climate sanity.

“Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors will be undone by the government’s proposals for massive growth in air travel. Government and business have already shown that they are unwilling or unable to act with the urgency required to avert disastrous climate change. It’s time to take things into our own hands – please visit www.climatecamp.org.uk and learn more about how you can get involved and make a difference.”

Clearly this was far too long, but it made me feel better. Other members of the excellent Climate Camp networking team then took up the baton, wrote a shorter, punchier response and actually got the Standard to post a good chunk of it in the (moderated) Comments under the Standard article (though there's no sign of it on the Mail site yet).

Only a small thing, but indicative of the hundreds of small but potent actions that are being carried out every day in the build-up to the Climate Camp. As a huge, sprawling, disparate collective who are organising - in a non-hierarchical way - a massive, high-profile and hopefully very effective action camp, I find it really encouraging that these smaller details are still being picked up on. Of course, this assumes that we're on the case with the big things too...ahhh, of course we are.

This is a great thing to be a part of. If you're reading this, you should join in too. Get yourself over to the Climate Camp website and find out how to get involved!

Dx

The Festival Of The Summer

HOT NEWS. See below, then visit www.climatecamp.org.uk to find out more and get involved. Hope to see you at the camp!

Danny x

PRESS RELEASE

2007 location announced!
Camp for Climate Action comes to Heathrow this summer: 14th – 21st August

Aviation is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, and all our efforts to tackle climate change in other sectors are undone by the massive growth in air travel. Holding the camp at Heathrow aims to highlight the lunacy of the government's airport expansion plans, target industry giants profiteering from the climate crisis, and raise awareness of the need to fly less. The camp will also support local residents in their long-term struggle against the building of a third runway and the destruction of their communities.

There will be a day of mass direct action aiming to disrupt the activities of the airport and the aviation industry, but in the interests of public safety there will be no attempt to blockade runways.

Although the location is different, the philosophy of the camp remains the same: to be a place for the burgeoning network of people taking radical action on climate change around the country to come together for a week of low-impact living, education, debate, networking, strategising, celebration, and direct action. The camp will feature over 100 workshops covering topics such as climate change impacts, carbon offsetting, biofuels, peak oil, permaculture, practical renewables, campaign strategy, skills for direct action, and much more. Run without leaders by everyone who comes along, it will be a working ecological village using renewable energy, composting waste and sourcing food locally.

It all comes down to us, now. We are the last generation that can do anything about climate change. In 20 or 30 years' time, should we not change our ways, we'll be committed to emissions increases that will see forests burn, soils decay, oceans rise, and millions of people die. If we don't get this issue right, so much else is lost too.

We still have time, but not for long. Make it count.

Slammed

I’m slightly dazed. I’m a bit confused. But I’m also Hammer & Tongue Poetry Slam Champion 2006/7!

Yup. Last night, I somehow emerged triumphant from Oxford’s infamous annual live poetry showdown using a poem about consumerism and the environment, and a poem about pigeons bent on world domination. I couldn’t tell you the exact scores but it must have been pretty ruddy close – the other contenders were all excellent (particularly Sian Robins-Grace, who came in second place), plus I think I scared the judges a bit by adopting an (admittedly rather disturbing) high-pitched freak-voice for parts of the performance. I should probably have given them some warning, but of course that’s far less fun. Heh.

Poetry slams are weird things – each poet performs a short piece, then the judges (who are 5 random audience members at H&T) hold up scorecards to show what they think. This makes the whole thing pretty unpredictable, as you can probably imagine; excellent poems can get low scores if they’re not immediate enough in their impact, and poems you wouldn’t think much of written down can capture the crowd if they’re performed with enough panache. Poetry slams are great fun, but are probably best thought of as a way of raising the profile of live poetry and getting more people involved (it worked for me), rather than an objective method of finding the “best” poets.

All of which means that although I did put a lot of time and effort into writing and practicing the poems, I wouldn’t have won without a big fat dollop of good luck as well, and so I shouldn’t let it go to my head. Despite all of this, though, I can’t help feeling REALLY EXCITED, especially coz the poem “Don’t Buy It” – which is my attempt to challenge the warm fluffy myth of “ethical” consumerism – got the highest score of the evening. Hurrah - people are up for a bit of politics in their poetry, based on this totally representative sample of people who live in Oxford and go to performance poetry competitions!

I’d better call a halt to all this shameless self-congratulation, but if anyone’s actually interested in my poetry here are some ways that you can see/hear it:

• Buy the book and CD “This Poem Is Sponsored By…” from Corporate Watch for only seven pounds – it includes “Don’t Buy It” and loads of great political poetry from an amazing selection of poets.
  
• Contact Hammer & Tongue for information on their forthcoming CD “OxTongue”, featuring performances by Oxford-based poets (including me).
• Come to one of my upcoming performances: the Christian Aid climate change poetry event in Oxford on May 15^th, the Corporate Watch book launch as part of Acoustic Night in Bristol on June 18^th, or (hopefully) the Poetry & Words tent at the Glastonbury Festival!
• Go to my lonely, barren new MySpace page (which I’m still in two minds about because of the Murdoch connection).
• Send me an email at dannychivers [at] wildmail.com and I’ll keep you updated on future gigs and things.

Enough of this. I’ll try to do a proper post again soon about exciting important things like the Climate Camp and suchlike (OK, I'm getting overexcited about this whole embedded link thing now).

Best,

Danny

And Only Two Months Later...

...I've finally got round to posting my summary thoughts on the World Social Forum! See below if you're interested.

In other news, the Hammer & Tongue poetry slam final (1st May) is hurtling towards me and filling me with some apprehension but mostly with excitement. All I need to do is gather up the various bits of scrawled-on paper from around my bedroom and somehow transform their contents into punchy three-minute performance poetry nuggets (because everyone loves a punchy nugget). I need to do this quite soon. Well, very soon. In between all of these other things I'm meant to be doing. Ah, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'm currently being haunted by the pigeons of the past, they seem determined to claw their way into a poem somewhere...we'll see what happens.

Anyway. I'd best get on with some research I'm doing for the Camp For Climate Action (which I can't recommend enough to you all - come along, it's going to be amazing).

Best,

Danny

P.S. So far, according to my helpful web-counter/stalking service, over 440 different people have read my Global Warming Swindle post. Which does make me feel glad that I put it up here, although I have a sneaking feeling that more than 440 people watched the programme, so I still have some way to go yet...

************************************************************************************

Perspectives From The World Social Forum (WSF)

At the end of January I represented People and Planet at the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. The WSF is an incredible global gathering of grassroots activists and social movements, with the emphasis firmly on people and groups from the Global South who are struggling against injustice and environmental destruction in their own communities.

This year, around 60,000 people came to the Forum, and I had the privilege of meeting – and attending workshops, discussions and rallies with – a range of incredible activists from around the world. I wrote the following summary with People and Planet campaigners in mind, so it focuses particularly on the issues P&P is currently working on - climate change, extractive industry, trade, and AIDS/HIV; however, I hope that it might be of interest and use to anyone - not just P&P campaigners - who wants to hear more about the perspectives of Southern activists on these vital global justice and environmental issues.The Big Issues
Although thousands of different groups staged hundreds of meetings over the four days of the WSF, certain issues kept coming up again and again. These included:



Free Trade Agreements

There was enormous concern over the damage caused to the lives and livelihoods of the poor by unfair trade rules, with especial focus on EPAs (European Partnership Agreements). As the World Trade Organisation’s own efforts to install more and more unfair trade rules seem to have stalled, individual states and groups of states have started coming up with bilateral agreements of their own, with EPAs between Europe and Africa being the most high-profile and pernicious example. A new campaign is building around this issue...

Debt Repudiation

When it comes to snappy slogans, “Repudiate Now!” isn’t going to go down in campaign-soundbite history. But despite the awkwardness of the phrase, the concept behind it could represent the next major step in the campaign around “Third World” debt. Southern activists – particularly the Jubilee South coalition – were rallying hundreds of groups at the WSF behind the concept of debt non-repayment (which is what repudiation means). Tired of all the posturing from wealthy governments, and the tiny crumbs of debt relief (with strings attached – if you can imagine crumbs with strings attached to them) offered so far, Southern activists have changed their direction of attack and are instead demanding that the governments of poor indebted countries simply refuse to hand over their repayments. If they are successful, then the implications for the economies and banks of wealthy countries – many of which are propped up by international debt – could be enormous. If nothing else, this could be a way for the poorer countries to hold the rich ones to ransom and demand serious changes to anything from trade rules to Structural Adjustment to access to medicines and technology.

Extractive Industries

Some people are calling it “the new scramble for Africa” – but it isn’t only affecting African nations. People all over the world are finding their lands, local environments and ways of life threatened by a growing hunger for resources from the high-tech throwaway cultures of the wealthier countries, as well as from the breakneck (but uneven) development of countries like China, India, and Brazil. I met activists from across the globe who are struggling against rapacious mining and drilling corporations as well as corrupt governments in the battle over land, health, and the environment – and sometimes winning. There are surprising success stories out there that we rarely hear about – with the Ogoni women’s non-violent campaign against Shell’s gas flaring in Nigeria being just one example.

Biofuels and Carbon Offsets

This goes hand-in-hand with the issue of extraction, as it involves struggles over land rights and the environment, and links into climate change. I met campaigners from Brazil who were almost spitting blood in their rage about their agricultural land being turned over to growing sugar cane for ethanol production (“feeding cars instead of hungry bellies”), and Indonesians who had watched rainforest being razed to the ground to create palm oil plantations (thus contributing more to climate change than the petrol they’re meant to replace). I also heard the stories of people from Latin America who’d been promised income from carbon offsetting plantations and had instead been locked into financially crippling legal agreements to oversee unproductive stands of dying trees, planted in the wrong place in the wrong climate. When I asked the Indian activist and academic Dr Vandana Shiva what UK campaigners should be focusing on, she said “BP and Shell want to remove Indian farmers from their land and replace them with biofuel plantations”. Meanwhile, as several Southern activists pointed out, fossil fuel extraction continues apace – biofuels seem to be supplementing, not replacing, oil, coal and gas…

HIV and AIDS Independence

One of the most inspiring meetings I attended took place in a room packed with (mostly African) AIDS activists. They were there to share their experiences, forge alliances, and put forward their ideas for action. Their tone was almost unanimous: they were sick of having to rely on donations from wealthy countries – often channelled through corrupt governments – to provide the care and treatment that their communities so desperately needed. They were full of suggestions for raising the money themselves, tackling corruption and finding ways to take control of this issue into their own hands. I asked what campaigners in the North could do to support them; I was told that the best thing the North could do would be to stop screwing over their economies with unfair trade rules, privatising their healthcare through the IMF, supporting corrupt regimes and using intellectual property regimes to keep the price of AIDS treatment too high. In other words, although they conceded that right now they are dependent on money from organisations such as the Global Fund, they were more interested in trying to remove the barriers that are preventing them from developing their own healthcare and treatment programmes in the longer term, rather than just calling for more donations.

Plenty More

I wasn’t able to go to everything! But campaigners for labour rights, gender equality, gay/lesbian rights, corporate accountability and a whole host of other issues were very much in attendance. For a flavour of all this – and for the story of the local Kenyans who stormed the event after they couldn’t afford the entry fee – see my earlier posts from the Forum itself.

The Other Issue

Climate change, however, was not on the agenda – or at least, it was only being explicitly discussed in a handful of sessions. Yes, that surprised me too at first, until I realised that the majority of Southern activists are spending their time dealing with more immediate and pressing issues, and that the great majority of the research into climate change science and policy is still restricted to the wealthier countries. I did meet a number of activists who were very well-informed and inspiring, but they were very much the exception. As things transpired, I ended up standing up myself in front of the Assembly of Social Movements at the end of the Forum, and trying to remind everyone (in hopefully not too nervous and garbled a way) that climate change is not just an environmental issue, but an issue of global justice – a position that is becoming increasingly popular amongst those Southern movements and governments who are becoming vocal on climate change.

Some Campaign-Related Thoughts

Following on from all of that, here are some of the conclusions I personally drew from all of this (although you’re obviously free to disagree!):

• There is an enormous amount of amazing and inspiring activism going on all over the world that we rarely hear about. It might help us if we try to remind ourselves that we are not alone in this country, or even in the English-speaking world – there are so many people out there whom we could work together with, and learn a lot from. If anyone working on any of the above issues wants to be put in touch with the relevant Southern activists I met at the Forum please let me know - it is vital that we continue to build these links.

• Although making links with Southern activists around the stand-alone issue of climate change may be difficult, there is real potential for forming alliances around the related issues of fossil fuel extraction, access to energy, biofuels, land-grabbing carbon offset projects, and the concept of climate justice (everyone has the right to develop, and the countries that have got rich by polluting the shared atmosphere have a responsibility to provide clean technology to the rest of the world). We have a lot of potential allies out there who are struggling right now with these various impacts of our global fossil fuel addiction, and who ultimately share our goals.

• Many of the issues relating to poverty, uneven development, inequality, health and the environment which are affecting people across the world are either being directly caused or massively exacerbated by international rules on trade, investment and debt. These are issues where Northern governments – and thus, potentially, Northern activists – currently have far more direct power to influence things than people in the South (with some exceptions, such as the possibility of debt non-repayment); however, the voices of Southern activists must be included in this debate if we are to find equitable solutions. Finding ways to tackle these root causes will be very difficult and require global networking and alliances, but could potentially have enormous effects.

• Many influential people in developing countries were educated in the North. Many people who are currently international students at UK Universities will go on to play very significant roles in their home countries. Could student activists in the UK be doing more to work together with international students on these issues?

Some different perspectives:

Jess and Adam’s new Internationalist blogs

A more critical viewpoint from Firoze Manji of Pambazuka News

...and another one from Kathambi Kinoti, with a particular focus on the involvement of women at the Forum.

OK, Now I'm Cross

Right. That’s it. So many people have now asked me about that wretched “Great Global Warming Swindle” documentary that was on Channel 4 the other week that I’ve decided to write this response, to hopefully clear it all up once and for all.

I should say first that if you’ve never heard of the programme, didn’t see it, or aren’t bothered about it in the least – hooray! The fewer people that were exposed to this bunkum, the better. Feel free to stop reading this rant and go back to your happy, Durkin-free life (Martin Durkin is the name of the director of this - I hesitate to use the word - “documentary”). If, however, you did see it, and it annoyed, confused or disturbed you, or people you know keep asking you awkward questions about it, or even if it confirmed your own beliefs about climate change being a huge conspiracy by evil power-crazed lefty greenies, then hopefully this article may be of help to you.

The problem with this sort of TV programme is that if you’re not familiar with the details of the science behind climate change, a lot of the claims it makes can sound quite convincing, especially when they’re gravely pronounced by a bunch of people with scientific-sounding titles and accompanied by lots of dramatic music and images. Well, as someone who has spent a lot of time studying climate change science and policy I can cheerfully state that the entire programme is a mish-mash of discredited theories, faulty data, fringe opinions presented as facts, some reputable science being horribly misrepresented, and some moderately bonkers conspiracy theories. For those who are particularly interested, I’ve written a summary (below) of what’s wrong with each of the programme’s main claims, along with some links to places with more detailed dissections of these issues. I hope it’s helpful.

One of the most annoying things about this programme was that there was nothing new in it. Far from being an exciting new expose of the flaws in climate science, it was a hurled-together collection of theories which have already been studied in-depth by climate scientists – in peer-reviewed journals - and found to have insufficient evidence to support them. Far from being ignored or “suppressed”, these theories have been seriously examined and found not to stack up. On the other hand, they are great at boosting the TV ratings. Whoopee.

Of course we can’t be 100% sure about human-induced climate change. We can’t be 100% sure about anything. Of course science isn’t something pure and objective – politics affects science and science affects politics. But the only way that anyone’s made any progress (in science/knowledge/whatever you want to call it) is by testing out different theories and going with the one that fits most of the evidence. After over a century of study, the evidence for human-induced climate change is overwhelming, and the consequences if we do not act fast could be catastrophic for most of the population of the planet. If someone collected together a handful of rogue scientists who claimed that tobacco doesn’t cause cancer, or that unsafe sex doesn’t increase the risk of getting AIDS (these people do exist) and made a stirring documentary about their struggle to bring the truth to the world, it would be staggeringly irresponsible – but not as irresponsible as “The Great Global Warming Swindle”.

Phew. Rant over. I feel a lot better now. See below if you’re interested in more details about the science and the conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, in the interests of balance, I thought I’d better include the film-maker’s response to all of these criticisms. When Dr Armand Leroi from Imperial College London wrote to Martin Durkin to complain about the distorted science presented in the programme, Durkin replied with the following, one-line response:

“You're a big daft cock.”

Thanks Martin, that makes things much clearer.

Detailed Responses To The Main Claims Made By The Programme

Claim 1: “Global warming is caused by increased cloud cover due to sun-induced cosmic radiation, not by CO₂ at all. So nerrh.”

The relationship between the activity of the sun and the warming of the globe is clearly crucial, and has been the subject of an enormous amount of research. It is given special attention in the latest report by the IPCC (which is of course an enormous international committee of the world’s most respected climate scientists), which concludes that yes, changes in sun activity has had a small effect on global temperature rises, but that the great majority of the impact was from human-produced greenhouse gases.

The specific claim made in the programme – that cosmic rays from sun activity is producing extra clouds that are warming the planet – relies on a single scientific paper by Henrik Svensmark, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society earlier this year. This paper presents an apparent correlation between cosmic radiation and low-level cloud cover, which is an interesting suggestion and probably worthy of further study but absolutely does not somehow “prove” that sun activity is BEHIND ALL GLOBAL WARMING EVER, as suggested by the TV programme. Even if there turns out to be a decent amount of evidence for this theory (which would go against Svensmark’s track record of putting forward theories about the climate that quickly get disproved, as detailed by George Monbiot in his recent Guardian article), there would also have to be evidence that changes in low-level cloud cover are actually responsible for all of the current and historical global warming, and that solar activity was the main driver of these changes. Svensmark’s paper does not present any such evidence - although you wouldn’t guess that from the TV programme. It’s a bit like saying “I’ve just seen a small boy pull a leaf off that tree. Small boys can clearly have an impact on the number of leaves on trees. This means that all the leaves must fall off the trees in autumn because millions of small boys are pulling them off, probably on their way back to school after the holidays.” You’d need to collect a lot more evidence – and find good reasons to discount all of the evidence for the prevailing theory about why the leaves come off the trees – before making that sort of claim.

Most of the “alternative” theories of global warming fall into this category of one-or-two-papers-by-fringe-scientists-looking-for-attention-that-usually -get-disproved-or-become-redundant-soon-afterwards. The article by Monbiot (aka The Omnibot) gives more examples of this, in relation to other claims made in the programme about solar activity and discrepancies in the temperature data (which all relies on research that’s already been shown to be wrong). One of the few scientists whose work hasn’t been discredited - who appeared on the programme talking about the possible impacts of global warming on the ocean – was Professor Carl Wunsch, who has since written a very angry complaint to Channel 4 about how badly he and his work were misrepresented through very selective quotation by the film-makers…

More Links About Claim 1:

More information on solar activity and climate change (with further links)

George Monbiot sinking his teeth into some bad science and growling like the little terrier he is

A detailed scientific dissection of Svensmark’s cosmic rays/cloud cover paper by a proper hardcore scientist (warning: climate science geeks and masochists only):

If you want to know the journal references for some academic articles that go into more detail on some of these issues, I can send them (dannychivers (at) wildmail (dot) com), but seriously: you probably don’t want them.

“Claim 2: “But look! Look at these graphs! First off, global temperature FELL between 1940 and 1970! Second off, when the climate changed in prehistoric times, the warming came first, then the CO₂ rose afterwards! Get out of that one Mr Bond – mwoahahahaaaa...”

First off, global warming DID plateau for a bit between the 40s and the 70s, due to the now widely-recognised phenomenon of “global dimming” – a type of industrial pollutant called sulphate aerosols were partially blocking the sun’s rays. This lasted for a while until the ongoing build-up of greenhouse gases – combined, ironically enough, with a reduction in sulphate aerosol pollution – eventually swamped the dimming effect and temperatures began to show an overall increase once more. Global temperatures, on average, DIDN’T fall during this period, although the way the graph was displayed on the programme made it look like they did. See here for some more accurate temperature graphs for this period (go on, you know you want to).

As for the second point – well, this is another one of those claims where, if you’re not familiar with the science, it can sound pretty damning. Even though it would mean that somehow, every climate expert in the world had missed this really obvious fact up until now, resulting in the slapping of thousands of foreheads and an enormous chorus of “d’oh!” as scientists around the world realised their foolish error on watching Channel 4’s ground-breaking Durkumentary – despite this rather unlikely scenario, the whole warming-before-CO₂-on-the-graph thing is pretty hard to explain, right? Right?

Well, no, actually, it’s not hard to explain at all - it’s already been explained, plenty of times, and is now a standard part of the general consensus on how global warming works. For example, there’s a nice explanation of it – from 2004 – right here.

Durkin and his merry gang of contrarians have shamelessly picked out just a few specific examples of when the Earth has warmed up in the past – the warmings at the end of ice ages – and ignored all of the rest of the historical temperature data. They’ve then somehow forgotten to mention that these specific examples of warming were probably triggered by events such as increased solar activity, changes in ocean circulation or long-term variations in the Earth’s orbit. This initial short-term warming led to the gradual release of vast amounts of CO₂ from soils and oceans, which, in an excellent example of a positive feedback loop, created a greenhouse effect which led to more warming and thus the release of more CO₂ and so on until the whole climate had changed completely; it then took thousands of years of plant and algae growth to absorb the CO₂ and thus get the temperature down again. So in these examples, which each consisted of about 5000 years of warming, other factors accounted for about the first 800 years of warming; the following 4200 years were then due mainly to CO₂ levels.

There hasn’t been enough solar activity or oceanic circulation change over the last 100 years to account for all of the warming we’re seeing, and the Earth isn’t at one of the hot bits of its cycle, so those things can’t explain the current bout of climate change. However, we have put an enormous amount of CO₂ into the atmosphere in that time period. Even without all of the graphs showing a correlation between CO₂ and recent temperature rises, it’s not hard to follow this one to its logical conclusion. Unless you’re distracted by your own shrieks of glee at getting a programme commissioned by Channel 4 even though the other environmental documentary you did for them was so flawed and misleading that Channel 4 had to make an on-air public apology…

Further explanation and links to scientific articles about global cooling and the 800-year lag, as well as other misleading points from the programme can be found here.

Claim 3: “But of course climate scientists exaggerate the risks of global warming – it’s a great way for them to get more funding!”

Let me just say: Errr….what? If funding was all that climate scientists were after, then you’d expect them to be flocking to where the REAL money is: climate change denial. Some of the wealthiest institutions in the world – large corporations such as Exxon who rely on burning fossil fuels to maintain their ridiculous profits – are desperately flinging money at anyone with a couple of science A-Levels who’s prepared to stand up and say climate change isn’t happening, or isn’t caused by humans. In fact, considering the enormous rewards available from the hideously wealthy global fossil fuel industry and all of its offshoots, it’s extraordinary that there aren’t more climate change denying scientists out there – people like John Christy, Paul Reiter, Richard Lindzen, Paul Driessen, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels, Fred Singer and Tim Ball, who are all linked to American right-wing institutes and think-tanks funded by Exxon. Wait, hang on – those eight scientists were all featured on The Great Global Warming Swindle. That means that the majority of the scientists on the programme have links with Exxon. Goodness me, who ever would have thought it?

You know, I’m actually rather impressed with how many scientists have maintained their integrity on this one, turned their back on the wealth and gone with the scientific evidence instead – that climate change is happening, and that greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and deforestation are behind it.

Claim 4: “The whole climate change thing only ever took off coz Thatcher wanted to screw over the miners and build nuclear power stations and so funded lots of research into why coal is, like, bad.”

What? Are you suggesting that a politician cynically promoted a particular issue not because they cared about it but because it suited their purposes at the time? Surely not! What a shocking revelation, etc, etc.

This story tells us something about the cynicism of politicians. It tells us nothing about the science of climate change. It also ignores the incredible, tireless efforts of thousands of scientists and millions of grassroots campaigners who have fought tooth and nail for twenty years to get the issue of climate change back on the agenda after Maggie’s brief dalliance with it. It’s a crude and oversimplistic interpretation of history, created to suit a particular political position and, d’you know what, it makes me a bit cross.

Claim 5: “It’s all a conspiracy by bitter Marxists and attention-seeking greenies with an anti-development agenda, and propped up by a huge climate change industry full of people who owe their jobs to climate change being real…”

Oh good grief. Where to begin? How to argue with people whose world-view is so twisted and bizarre?

I guess it all comes down to which of the following two scenarios seems more feasible to you:

1) The lifestyles we enjoy in the wealthy world are built on fossil fuels. The suggestion that we need enormous changes to our societies, economies and the way we live our lives – even if many of these changes might actually be positive in the long run – is actually quite a scary concept and so we shouldn’t be surprised if many people don’t want to believe it, and if many politicians shy away from taking the tough actions needed to avert climate disaster. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the world’s wealthiest – and most powerful - corporations, countries, and individuals have been built on the idea that we can just go on consuming the Earth’s resources as if they were infinite, and exploiting the poor and the powerless as if their lives were of little value. Climate change is the biggest challenge yet to these ideas and so, whether through self-preservation, self-delusion, or just the cold logic of the unrestrained capitalist market, there is huge opposition to action on climate change from the world’s most powerful institutions. Against this background, a rapidly growing number of people in both the poor and the rich world have realised how drastic the change in our societies need to be, and are trying to sound some very unwelcome alarm bells. In the UK, their voices are finally beginning to be heard; “TGGWS” is part of a backlash against these voices, and stems from a convenient coming-together of sensationalist attention-seeking film-makers, a ratings-chasing TV channel and a light smattering of misguided and/or corporate-sponsored scientists.

2) The Green Lobby are a terrifying new force within our society who want you to live in a log hut and eat mud. They’re all just trying to get rich, which is why they spend so much time on voluntary campaigning and why so many of them avoid well-paid corporate jobs to work for small organisations instead. They also hate poor people. What do you mean, some of the world’s leading environmentalists are from the Global South, that the poor are usually the first to suffer from environmental disaster, that poverty and environmental destruction usually have the same roots within the global economic system and that this sophisticated and complex relationship has been well appreciated by the great majority of environmental activists for a very long time? I can’t be arsed with all this, I’m off for a drive. Is there anything good on Channel 4 tonight?

Yet More Links:

An excellent guide to dealing with “climate sceptics”.

Paul Kingsnorth’s rather vicious but amusing imaginary reconstructions of how the programme got made and what happened afterwards.

Marcus Brigstocke getting delightfully cross about it all on the Friday 16^th edition of The Now Show (about 18 minutes in).

Global Yawning

Hey all,

Are you, like me, unbelievably bored with having to counter all the same dull arguments from the anti-human-induced-climate-change brigade every time there's another over-sensationalised Channel 4 documentary featuring the remaining handful of contrarians who make their living spouting this nonsense? Just in case you are, this is my favourite website for dealing with it:

http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics

Every misinformed argument about solar flares, water vapour, advancing ice, and historical warming cycles is countered in a clear, friendly way, then chopped up into little bits and thrown into a volcano (it explains about volcanic CO2 emissions as well). It's a little US-focused, but has good references and further reading for everything. It's pretty user-friendly, so sometimes I just send people straight there rather than spend ages trying to explain things myself.

Then, if you need to cheer yourself up after all of that, you can always have a look at this climate change solution from local Oxfordshire genius Noel Hodson:

http://www.noelhodson.com/index_files/cremation-savetheplanetFEB07.xls

The best thing is, he seems to be serious. The only flaw I can see in his otherwise perfect plan is: what happens if there’s a mass outbreak of zombies that can only be destroyed by fire? That would release all of that carbon that would otherwise be locked up safely in those corpses FOREVER. Hence my new campaign: "Invest In Zombie-Freezing Technology NOW".

In other news: I'm now in a band. It's quite exciting. Plus, the desperate attempts to write more poetry are getting increasingly fevered as the date of the Hammer and Tongue poetry slam final approaches...

Dx

PS There's a giraffe sanctuary in Nairobi. You can feed the giraffes. I probably don't need to explain just how great that is.