Subject:  Viridian Note 00008:  The Science Press on Global Warming

Key concepts:  global warming, Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol, United Nations Framework 
Convention on Climate Change, scientific rhetoric

Attention Conservation Notice:  infested with scientific 
and political jargon; writers' original language 
apparently not English even though they are English;
is over 1,000 words long

Source:  NATURE Vol. 395, 22 October 1998, page 741

Links: www.nature.com


Reading the science press on the subject of global warming 
is often a surreal experience.  With the exception of a 
few loose-cannon cranks, the scientific community 
simply accepts global warming as established fact, much as 
if it were (a) relativity or (b) evolution.  In other 
words, they (a) assume no one can truly understand it 
without skills in nine-dimensional tensor calculus, and 
(b) they're very wary of knee-jerk Neanderthals with 
a theocratic objection to the whole idea.

    Scientific writing has a long and exquisitely 
developed tradition.  As an act of communication, it is 
very badly designed.  Scientific papers tend to be written 
by large committees of authors.  Passive voice and third-
person construction drain the prose of all vigor.  
Choking smoke-screens of  jargon defend the institutional 
interests of specialized knowledge guilds.  No science 
article can ever resist the urge to cram in a squinchy, 
ugly, reader-hostile, graph or table.

    But when you add a diplomatic or political spin to the 
mess, science writing goes into airless contortions.  An 
excellent example can be found in a recent issue of NATURE 
magazine.

    Many people have asked me why I think the arts should 
tackle the Greenhouse Effect. I think that Notes 00008 and 
00009 will make it clear just how badly the sciences are 
handling the job.  (At least, it would be clear if their 
prose were readable.)

    I have cut some of this "Commentary" article, 
including two semi-legible graph tables projecting 
climate trends toward the year 2050.  But I want  the 
authors to have their fair say, in their own chosen 
rhetoric; nothing of genuine interest and relevance has 
been omitted here.  They are scientific experts with 
impeccable credentials, published in a highly prestigious 
journal; they deserve to be heard.

    First, I will let them speak for themselves.  Then, in 
the following Note, I will take the liberty of speaking 
for them, in a rather more forthright fashion.

NATURE Vol. 395, 22 October 1998, page 741

"Adapting to the inevitable"

     "Greenhouse-gas emissions targets to be discussed in 
Buenos Aires next month will have little effect on the 
potential impacts of climate change.  We should be 
exploring ways of adapting to impacts, some of which are 
inevitable."

By Martin Perry, Nigel Arnell, Mike Hulme, Robert Nicholls 
and Matthew Livermore  (Martin Perry and Matthew Livermore 
are at the Jackson Environment Institute, University 
College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6HA, UK.  Nigel 
Arnell is in the Department of Geography, University of 
Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.  Mike Hulme is at 
the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, 
Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.  Robert Nicholls is at the Flood 
Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, Enfield EN3 
4SF, UK.  They are lead authors of the IPCC.)

     "In Kyoto last December, at the third conference of 
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 
targets were agreed for reduction in greenhouse-gas 
emissions.  On 2 November in Buenos Aires, negotiators 
will reconvene at the framework convention's fourth 
conference to agree the mechanisms and a timetable for 
implementation.  We shall be hearing a good deal about 
trading permits, compliance and enforcement in the weeks 
to come.  But in reality, the control of global warming 
achieved is very limited.

     "The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement to a 5.2 percent 
reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by about 2010 
(relative to 1990), and constant emissions thereafter.  
But these targets only relate to the so-called annex 1 
countries (38 industrialized nations).  These countries 
together account for about 57 percent of present global 
carbon emissions, but will produce only about 25 percent 
of the emissions growth over the next 20 years.  Most 
future growth in emissions is expected to occur in the 
fast-developing regions of Asia and Latin America, which 
are not signatories to the framework convention.

     "As a consequence, the Kyoto target itself does 
relatively little to combat the rate of climate change.   
The warming expected by 2050, without any deliberate 
mitigation, is estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on 
Climate Change (IPCC) at 1.4 degrees C with respect to the 
1961-90 average.  About 0.25 degrees C of this has already 
been realized by the 1990s.  Our model prediction suggests 
that fully implemented Kyoto targets would reduce this 
global warming by 2050 by only about 0.05 degrees C.  Even 
more radical targets, such as a 20 percent reduction in 
greenhouse-gas emissions from annex 1 countries, would 
reduce it by only a further 0.1 degrees C by 2050.

    "These minor reductions in the expected warming mean 
that the projected impacts of change are barely affected.  
The global number of people put at increased risk of 
hunger, water shortage or coastal flooding during storms 
as a result of projected climate changes is hardly touched 
by the targets under discussion in Buenos Aires, even if 
full implementation of the targets is agreed there.  (...) 

    "The convention calls on signatories to take action to 
safeguard food security, ecosystems and sustainable 
development from dangerous levels of climate change.  But 
the current target does not do this.  This does not mean 
that we should despair, but it emphasizes two things.  
First, Kyoto and Buenos Aires are only the first steps in 
a process that must involve much greater reduction in 
emissions and also, crucially, the participation of 
developing countries.  (...) Second, mitigation by 
reducing greenhouse-gas emissions cannot be the entire 
response to the threat of climate change.  Given the long 
history of past emissions and the inertia of the climate 
system, we will experience a substantial amount of further 
climate change even if we make huge cuts.

   "We should, therefore, be thinking seriously about how 
we can best adapt to climate change.  (...)  Adaptation 
has received very little attention  compared with 
mitigation.  That may be partly because to admit the need 
to adapt sounds defeatist to negotiators, and also because 
adaptation seems more complicated than mitigation 
(emission sources are relatively few, but the array of 
adaptations is vast).  Yet to ignore mitigation is both 
unrealistic and perilous.  

   (...) "About 640 million people are at risk of hunger 
now.  Poverty is the root cause, but much of the year-to-
year variability is due to drought.  By droughtproofing 
those are risk now we could secure their present livelihod 
and reduce the impact of future climate change.  There are 
many kinds of such 'win-win' solutions that serve both our 
present and future needs, such as increasing irrigation 
efficiency, breeding more drought-resistant crops and 
developing buffer stocks of food.

    (...)

     "There is a risk that negotiators have lost sight of 
the ultimate objective of the convention which is to avoid 
dangerous levels of climate change.  Current mitigation 
targets will not achieve this and should not be mistaken 
for effective climate management. "

Bruce Sterling (bruces@well.com)