From Mike Hulme, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
I agree with your editorial “We have been warned” that climate change has emerged as a much more complex phenomenon than can be understood and solved by science alone (4 November, p 18). But I very much doubt that the language of economics alone, even the version used in the UK’s Stern report, will yield the transformation of society you seek.
The idea of climate change reaches much deeper than simply the economic balance sheet. Differences in ideology, religion, psychology, governance and materialist aspirations all lie in wait to place obstacles in the way of any globally engineered pathway towards a serene climate. We will do what we can, and will try and do more, but climate change will not be “solved”.
From Mark Petrie
To state that scientists have largely failed to get their case across about the urgent need to tackle global warming is offensive. Over the past year the momentum of change in attitude to global warming has been impressive, with no world leader now openly dismissing the science in its entirety. The Stern report has helped push the argument into the economic arena, and it is certainly the highest-profile report of its kind and a further sign of the gathering momentum.
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The report would, however, carry no weight without the acceptance of the preceding scientific work. Your editorial seems to suggest that maybe the scientists should have been making economic arguments from the start. The only reason that politicians have been able to avoid global warming for as long as they have, is that they could question the science, and therefore the subsequent economic implications. It is entirely unreasonable to suggest an economic perspective at an earlier stage would have moved politicians to act.
Brisbane, Australia
Norwich, Norfolk, UK
