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The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy

Alarmist Scientist: ‘dramatic shocking surprising climate event’ needed to jolt public into action

From Andrew Revkin of New York Times:

Excerpt: In an email exchange, I asked Dr. Somerville what he thought was needed in order to spark the changes the letter seeks. He responded, “I think a dramatic shocking surprising climate event that is unambiguously due to global warming may be the only thing that motivates people and governments. Maybe a big chunk of ice sheet destabilizing and producing a significant sudden sea level rise. Unfortunately, then it may be too late, because it’s essentially irreversible; you can’t cool the world enough to make the ice re-form quickly.”

The Road from Climate Science to Climate Advocacy

By Andrew C. Revkin
Dr. Richard C. J. Somerville (Credit: Sylvia Bal Somerville)

Richard C. J. Somerville, a climatologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography near San Diego, is one of a growing array of scientists who have chosen to move beyond studying heat transfer and cloud physics and take on the role of activist: prodding society to move aggressively to cut greenhouse gases.

It is a sticky position, and comes with risks, not the least of which is the potential for opponents of gas restrictions to raise questions about a scientist-advocate’s objectivity back in the research world. But Dr. Somerville, who has also contributed to several reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the risks that attend further silence, in the face of ever-growing emissions of heat-trapping gases, are far greater.

Last month, he attended the climate-treaty talks in Bali as part of a small delegation representing 200 scientists who signed a declaration pressing negotiators to commit to preventing the global temperature from rising much more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit above where it is now (roughly 59 degrees).

He has just written a column for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explaining why this group of researchers chose this course, and what they feel needs to happen next. His column is online here.

This was the declaration:

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities. The amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere now far exceeds the natural range of the past 650,000 years, and it is rising very quickly due to human activity. If this trend is not halted soon, many millions of people will be at risk from extreme events such as heat waves, drought, floods and storms, our coasts and cities will be threatened by rising sea levels, and many ecosystems, plants and animal species will be in serious danger of extinction.

The next round of focused negotiations for a new global climate treaty (within the 1992 UNFCCC process) needs to begin in December 2007 and be completed by 2009. The prime goal of this new regime must be to limit global warming to no more than 2 ºC above the pre-industrial temperature, a limit that has already been formally adopted by the European Union and a number of other countries.

Based on current scientific understanding, this requires that global greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced by at least 50% below their 1990 levels by the year 2050. In the long run, greenhouse gas concentrations need to be stabilised at a level well below 450 ppm (parts per million; measured in CO2-equivalent concentration). In order to stay below 2 ºC, global emissions must peak and decline in the next 10 to 15 years, so there is no time to lose.

As scientists, we urge the negotiators to reach an agreement that takes these targets as a minimum requirement for a fair and effective global climate agreement.

In an email exchange, I asked Dr. Somerville what he thought was needed in order to spark the changes the letter seeks. He responded, “I think a dramatic shocking surprising climate event that is unambiguously due to global warming may be the only thing that motivates people and governments. Maybe a big chunk of ice sheet destabilizing and producing a significant sudden sea level rise. Unfortunately, then it may be too late, because it’s essentially irreversible; you can’t cool the world enough to make the ice re-form quickly.”

I followed up this way: “Was the declaration more a way for scientists at least to say, ‘Look we’ve done everything we can do?’”

“Maybe, for some,” Dr. Somerville responded. “It’s hard to say. We wordsmithed the Bali declaration and then just invited some good scientists to sign. They didn’t get a chance to explain why they did or did not decide to sign. Some did not sign, because they thought even deeper emissions cuts are needed. Some could not sign, because their jobs did not allow them to make public policy statements (some civil servants in other countries are in this category). It is very tough in general to get scientists to make policy advocacy statements. It goes against the grain. They are more comfortable just doing research. Some scientists are opposed to any scientist doing any form of policy advocacy. Most are politically naive, I should think. I certainly am.”

“For me, and maybe for many, I think that ‘going public’ and making a statement as an individual, who is also a climate expert, is simply a next logical step,” Dr. Somerville said. “After all, many politicians have said that scientists should be heard from more. As long as we are always at pains to make clear that we are speaking only as individuals, not on behalf of our employers or other organizations, then I think we are just behaving as good citizens.”

He concluded: “It’s certainly true too that many of us are disappointed and frustrated that the climate negotiations have produced so little so far. I am. The negotiators often seem to me to have forgotten the basic reason why these meetings exist. The science is not very visible at the negotiations. Unless the negotiations can find the political will to agree on enforceable and meaningful (= large) cuts in emissions, the climate is going to degrade. That’s just a fact.”

Other scientists disagree with this kind of activism, most notably Susan Solomon, who was the co-leader of the 2007 I.P.C.C. assessment of climate trends. In an email exchange on the general issue of scientists and policy debate last weekend (just before she flew to Antarctica), she said: “If we as scientists go beyond what we know into our personal opinions and values, we begin to engage in the same sort of personal speculation masquerading as authoritative that we dislike when it is done by the skeptics.”

Do scientists have a special obligation to be neutral when it comes to the implications of their findings for society more broadly? Is it possible to advocate for a particular course in climate policy and not have that color how you do your scientific research, or how you communicate it?