Climate change agnosticism, John Howard and some inconvenient truths

The fact that temperature rises appear trivial on the span of a human lifetime (though not over a couple of hundred years or over geological time) is itself a problem. It encourages us to ignore the issue and to focus only on the immediate future. The short term inevitably dominates our discourse, our policy and our planning, rather than the possibility of serious environmental problems occurring decades hence. And as individuals we are more likely to worry about our job security or our children's performances at school right now than about something that appears distant from our day-to-day lives and impossible for us individually to influence.

All this makes the economy and education policy seem more important than the future of the world. And politicians have difficulty in dealing with concerns that are not immediate or that they cannot address readily.

We already know that some low-lying parts of the world are in trouble from another irrefutable trend - the rise in sea levels, averaging 0.2 metres since the late 19th century - which is presumably related to the observed melting of ice sheets and glaciers resulting from rising temperatures. These things too are incontrovertible, though some glaciers have actually grown larger. The fact that sea levels are not rising everywhere or at the same rate does not deny the overall tendency any more than a pause in the trend towards higher temperatures denies the longer-term reality experienced so far.

Other elements of Howard's thinking need to be questioned as well. He said that his "instinct" tells him that predictions of climate catastrophe are exaggerated. That is a truly stunning statement. If we are to rebut science, we should be using the tools of science. Evidence-free alternatives based on nothing more than gut feel are of no value. If a doctor tells us we have cancer, do we dismiss his diagnosis, without evidence, because we 'believe' him to be wrong? That would be a triumph of hope over sense.

Beliefs, faiths and preferences are legitimate in many areas of life: we may 'believe in' a god, have a particular philosophical orientation or prefer rugby union to rugby league. But 'beliefs' are not helpful in diagnosing environmental trends or forecasting the future. Howard is "situating the appreciation": he believes without rational justification that no catastrophe is on the cards. So the trends already seen must not be thought of as having momentum in case they portend that very catastrophe. This is arguing backwards from a preference and it must be exposed.

His mode of thinking is common amongst climate change sceptics and deniers. It is seen, for example, in the insistence of some that the 'pause' in temperature rises over the last few years (for which there are several potential explanations, including a decline in solar output) means that warming is no longer occurring. This is akin to Howard's point that, because there have been big bush fires in our past, as there are now, climate change has no bearing on trends in fire behaviour past, present or future. All that matters is variability.

Howard also argues that politicians should not be intimidated or browbeaten. Quite so. But they should listen to evidence, query the methods used in providing it and weigh it up - without prejudice, preconception or bias. Politicians are practised in dealing with lobbying. Howard's government provided subsidies to car manufacturers who periodically threaten to abandon Australia if their efforts are not subsidised. Is this 'intimidation'? Of course it is! It is also part of the industry's normal modus operandi, and dealing with such things is integral to the operation of government.

A sensible society considers where it might be going. It plans for its future, both the short term and the long, by soberly evaluating its strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities it might exploit and the threats it faces. It does not work from the basis of weak logic, the selective plucking of evidence or the unreasoning denial and denigration of expert opinion.

John Howard does not perceive the bigger picture. He is not serving us well here.