In the Shift

The other week I went to a seminar by Jerry Ravetz where there was an unnerving degree of consensus that the International Panel on Climate Change and the UEA’s work on climate change had been ‘discredited’, and that the belief in anthropogenic climate change was ‘unravelling’ because ‘so much of the science was unsound.’

The paper has been posted elsewhere so I won’t go into it here. But its insights were built on the premise that there was a huge scientific conspiracy that had excluded anyone who didn’t buy into the narrative of climate change. This is the angle on climate change that some opponents to the very idea of man-made change have been taking for years. A couple of years ago it seemed to be on the wane, and certainly in my own education programmes for business it was becoming less and less necessary to justify the climate change science.

Phew, what a relief!  Or so I thought.

Sometime last year, just when it seemed Christopher Monckton and Melanie Phillips were the last holdouts of climate change denial, the world lurched once again. In the space of a few years climate change scientists have gone from radical outsiders to elitist insiders, and the climate change denial movement is bizarrely able to present itself as a bastion of rebellion and free thinking. I say bizarre not only because historically the money for climate change denial science has come from dubious sources, but because there really isn’t a cohesive denial ‘movement’.

There are a lot of people with gripes and disagreements about different aspects of the science, government policy, the economics and so on.  But they don’t share a lot in common – not even schadenfraude.  Take a look at the Spectator special on climate change in December 2009: the experts they had lined up are as disparate a bunch as you could imagine  They can’t even agree on the absence of climate change. The only certainty in all the pieces came from the Spectator editorial itself and a banker. Now it’s happening again with Matt Ridley’s front cover story in the 6 February issue .

Now, there are some legitimate questions, and the scientists haven’t showered themselves in glory in their response which in a previous blog I characterised as their ‘Monsanto moment.’ On reflection, it might better be thought of as a MMR moment when – reflecting the public’s fear about the health impacts of a vaccine based on what turned out to be discredited research – public response and scientific evidence parted company.

Except this is more than legitimate doubt in a particular vaccine generated by seemingly credible research.

The ‘global warming meltdown’ (as the Spectator labels it) is the equivalent of the MMR study leading to a total breakdown in trust in Western medicine.

Now, I happen to believe this is a disaster because climate change and the challenges of sustainability are real, and ignoring this is not a good thing for humanity. But even if I didn’t believe that, I’d say there is enough evidence out there to warrant sensible responses.

Instead, what I see are parts of the media (and academia and other parts of society that help shape opinion) getting far too immersed in their own mythologies. There was a moment when climate change science appeared to have shaken these myths at least enough to make reasoned debate something desirable. Now, the great mythical narratives have returned.

So why my heading to this piece? Remember Peter Rankilor? In March 2009 he was jailed for multiple sexual offences against childfren.

• The Times described him as a civil engineering expert (21/3/09).
• The New Civil Engineer showed a bit more sophisticated understanding about his professional expertise, and called him a world-renowned authority on the design and application of geotextiles,geomembranes and geosynthetics.
• The Daily Telegraph called him ‘a respected climate change scientist’. (23/3/09)

Peter Rankilor sounds an unpleasant person. But the Telegraph wasn’t talking about Rankilor, was it? It was constructing a story that fit its own grand mythical narrative that those who study climate change (unless they doubt the reality of it) are to be feared and abused.

There is nothing in the article to suggest Rankilor was a climate change scientist in any way, manner, shape or form. In fact, the text says his world-renown was as a leading expert in geosynthetics which has a fair bit to do with civil engineering but not a lot to do with climate change.  But nonetheless the Telegraph saw fit to mention Rankilor’s climate change expertise twice in its headline, even if later on the only substantiation was that he lectured in Institute of Civil Engineering courses that had climate change as a component (maybe because if flooding increases or rivers alter civil engineers might want a bit of advanced warning).

Not content with linking climate change and padeophilia, the Telegraph also added the description ‘multi-millionaire’ to Rankilor’s claims to infamy. Given that the Telegraph is owned by the billionaire Barclay brothers, multi-millionaire could be an attempt to salvage Rankilor’s reputation (“a wrong’un on kids and climate but came up to muster on the earnings front”). Or maybe it was an insult – ‘god, if the man hadn’t messed around with children and dodgy science he could have earned some real money.’

I don’t know, you’ll have to ask the Telegraph’s sub-editor about that one. But the latest twist in the climate change debate promises much more insinuation, name-calling and bile, all of which will be amunition for someone to avoid the transformation that is required.

PS Monsanto moment?  MMR moment? No, this is our Tiger Woods moment.  But more of that next time.