[Sustain] Interview: Why IPCC Warming Reports Are Too Optimistic

[Eric Brooks]

I disagree for many reasons. Among these are;

1) The weak warnings of the IPCC are convincing the general public that 
the most serious results of global warming are going to happen after 
their children's lifetimes, mostly to people in the global south, and 
will only result in a few feet of sea level rise in about a thousand 
years. This pushes the crisis so far beyond people's immediate lives 
that they will be able to rationalize not taking any serious action. 
(They will instead put their hopes in totally destructive and 
technophilic neo-liberal responses like clean coal, carbon 
sequestration, carbon credits, hydrogen, hybrids, nuclear power, 
atmospheric and orbital mitigation, and biofuels.) However, if the 
general public realizes that the climate crisis could result in extreme 
consequences to their own lives, and possibly tens of meters of sea 
level rise in a matter of a couple of decades, they will be forced to 
face reality and act. We must remember that this is not an either or 
question. The sooner and more dramatically we respond, the better our 
results will be. The public has shown time and time again that it will 
not make dramatic change unless it recognizes immediate danger. So 
letting people know that their own children will live in a virtual hell 
unless we take immediate drastic measures, will get them motivated 
enough to allow us to at least meet the IPCC's warnings, if not our own.

2) The IPCC process was totally undermined by very heavy handed 
political maneuvering, which drastically toned down the process and 
results. To accept those results would be a clear signal to those that 
demolished the process, that they got away with it and should continue 
to engage in such manipulation. (This is exactly why Kyoto should have 
been soundly rejected -instead of foolishly embraced- by the 
environmental movement.)

3) Rachel Caron's 'Silent Spring' was extremely alarming and depressing. 
Did its dramatic truths cause paralysis. Absolutely not. On the 
contrary, it triggered the massively successful world wide environmental 
movement.

4) In my own case, I know the full depth of the problem and I am not 
pessimistic at all. Seeing the whole scope of the thing, I also see that 
we have an excellent chance of averting a major crisis if we 
dramatically reorganize our global civic infrastructure and energy use 
now. However, we have no chance of doing so, if a sufficiently alarmed 
public is not convinced to join us right away.

The public does the right thing when it has the best information. 
(Jefferson recognised this long ago.) When give half truths however, it 
tends to dangerous apathy, and reliance on hopes that around the corner 
technologies will solve our problems.

Knowing the real danger, is the first critical step to doing something 
about it.

peace

Eric

Jeanne wrote:
> I presume you have read the post by Gelbspan, which says about what 
> you are saying.  Don't you think that pushing this extremely 
> depressing point of view makes people want to give up?  I would prefer 
> to go with the IPCC recommendations - which we will probably not reach 
> anyway - rather than argue about how hopeless it is.
>
> Here's the link to the Gelbspan, if anyone has missed it.
>
> http://www.energybulletin.net/38315.html
>
> Jeanne
>
> Eric Brooks wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I just discovered a really good audio interview with coral reef 
>> scientist Thomas Goreau on reefs and global warming, in which he also 
>> details why the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) reports on 
>> the predicted severity of human caused global warming are far too 
>> optimistic and that the problem will be much worse, more quickly, than 
>> the IPCC predicts.
>>
>> The entire two hour interview is important and I recommend listening to 
>> the entire program; however if you just want to hear the section 
>> critiquing the IPCC go to the 32 minute mark of the first hour of the 
>> program.
>>
>> The first hour is at:
>>
>> http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25824&nav=& <http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25824&nav=&>
>>
>> The second hour is at:
>>
>> http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25825&nav=& <http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=25825&nav=&>
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Eric
>>
>>   
>
> -- 
> Jeanne Rosenmeier
> 415 751-0901
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>
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-- 
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara

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