John Stone

Why we should all take "ClimateGate seriously

By John Stone

Recently, in an incident referred to in the media as "ClimateGate", the computer systems at the University of East Anglia in the UK were illegally broken into and e-mail exchanges involving scientists at the Climate Research Unit were posted on the Internet. For once the allusion to the Watergate burglary seems appropriate. This incident occurred just before the high profile Copenhagen climate change meetings. Selected extracts of the e-mails were used by some in the denier community to sow doubt on the scientific basis for the threat of climate change.

Although this incident showed that scientists are human after all and subject to the occasional frustrations, the fundamental scientific basis for the threat of climate change has not been undermined. Indeed the Copenhagen conference showed clearly that, with a few exceptions such as Canada, the threat of climate change is now central to the political agendas of many countries.

Furthermore, green growth is now the prevailing economic model of our time. Countries from both developed and developing worlds have announced low-carbon economic plans and are moving forward. The idea that addressing climate change is good for business has become generally well accepted by many governments as well as industry.

The threat of climate change and, even more so, how we respond must be built on solid scientific evidence. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has played a significant role in building awareness of climate change and providing governments with accessible assessments of the science. This has been achieved through the scientific integrity of the researchers concerned as well as the open and transparent procedures of the IPCC. However, as Copenhagen showed, this has clearly not been sufficient — the necessary action is still lacking and time is seriously running out.

Lessons from climategate

There are lessons from "ClimateGate" for public science — which is the substance and process of advancing and communicating science that has unavoidable implications for society, the economy and the environment. The issue of climate change provides some encouraging examples. It was scientists in the mid-1980's that warned of the dangers of further increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases through our profligate burning of fossil fuels. The climate science community has since made a huge contribution with its research efforts, time and expertise to the IPCC process.

There has also been a crucial involvement of governments in overseeing the IPCC enterprise and importantly reviewing the draft outputs. The value of this is that, in the end, the reports are owned by governments as well as the scientific community. In other words no government which has been involved in the process can legitimately ignore the science and its implications for public policy.

"A crucial challenge for researchers over the next few years will be to ensure that public communication of the results of climate change research — whether formally or in the blogosphere — is robust in every sense: making the results comprehensible, and even vivid, yet rigorous; doing full justice to the uncertainties; maintaining such standards in the face of misinformation and propaganda; and responding promptly to the unexpected."

— Nature Magazine, December 24, 2009

But scientists must not be complacent, for while polling results indicate that the general public is aware of the issue there are also signs that they do not always understand the scientific basis of the threat. One hears expressions of concern in terms of belief rather that knowledge. Indeed, there is evidence that most people do not understand how science is conducted and what are its norms. Furthermore, we cannot take scientific authority for granted; we are being challenged to demonstrate our objectivity and thoroughness in order to secure public trust. As Mike Hulme and Jerome Ravetz argued in a recent BBC on-line article, we are being forced to make science more democratic.

What is to be done in Canada? One could argue that we have never had a well informed national debate on climate change in this country. This would not replace the normal peer-review of reproducible observations and tested hypotheses within the scientific community. Rather the purpose of a national debate would be to provide a open forum for scientists to share with the public their understanding of the scientific basis for the threat of climate change, achieve an acceptance that we are very much a part of the problem and to develop a consensus and engagement involving all sectors of society on how best to address it.

national debate required

Such a national debate clearly has to engage the broad scientific community. I am sure many climate scientists would be willing to be involved. Many recognize that they have a social responsibility. They have not stayed in their academic towers as is demonstrably evident from the participation in the IPCC and other assessments and their occasional efforts to speak to politicians and the media. But the debate importantly has to go beyond the science that defines the problem to the science that can help in designing solutions.

If such a national debate can be organized in Canada then perhaps the public would have a better appreciation of how science is done, the importance of research as well as an ownership of the science and a stimulation to act. Something good and lasting would then have come out of "Climategate".

John Stone is a retired public servant who managed the federal climate research program and served on the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is now an adjunct research professor at Carleton University.