I had the pleasure of hearing Stephen Schneider, climatologist at Stanford University and lead officer of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), at the Ecocity World Summit. He spent the bulk of his short talk decrying the public pushback on climate change. The system science of climate change is such a technically complex issue that he finds is easiest to communicate by using metaphors.
The fact that the media keeps reporting that the “jury’s still out” on climate change means that they think there are standards of evidence. With a criminal trial, the jury bases their findings on the probability beyond a reasonable doubt, and with a civil trial it deals with the preponderance of evidence. In either case, there’s overwhelming proof that humans are responsible for the last 50 years of warming.
Schneider went on to explain that science is a community enterprise. While there is “so much nonsense out there” in terms of climate change skeptics, the preponderance of evidence means the science is settled. The number of systems impacted in a serious way is demonstrated. For instance, the increasing hurricane intensity directly relate to the increase of ocean temperature.
Schneider says that we’re attempting to improve our quality of life for too many people too quickly by using the cheapest possible technology. We need to change the basis of how we improve the quality of our technology, leapfrogging to high technology as soon as possible. Cities are critical to the solution because they have so many opportunities for efficiency.
Schneider feels that we can only solve the problem by incentivizing business. Tax breaks, alternative transportation, etc. all matter. He said we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of leadership, as good ideas generate a thousand copycats.
Learn more about what Schneider says we should be doing on his website.
