Climate Change - a political problem or a personal problem?

At a seminar on Wednesday the question was raised of whether climate change was a personal problem or a political problem.  Once discussed further, the conclusion was reached that, in simple terms, four things needed to happen to limit climatic change:

1. Electricity needs to become decarbonised
By either using renewable energy sources, such as solar panels or wind turbines, or nuclear power generation, main grid electricity production needs to not create carbon dioxide.

2. Transport needs to become decarbonised
For ground transportation this essentially means everything becoming electric, rather than using petrol or diesel.  For aviation, this is a bit more complicated because of the concentrated energy supply required, but sustainably-produced biofuels would do the job (biofuels are plants grown especially for burning - when alive the plant takes in carbon dioxide, which is then given out again when that plant material is burnt, thus making the fuel carbon neutral over a short time scale).

3. Domestic heating needs to become decarbonised
Gas boilers, which heat many homes around the UK, all give out carbon dioxide.  Although each boiler produces a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide, so it is not cost-effective to install carbon-capture devices on each boiler, together the emissions add up to a large amount.  In order to decarbonise this source, domestic heating would need to become electric.

4. Industrial carbon-rich processes need to become decarbonised
Some industrial processes, such as cement creation, produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.  Banning the creation of these products is not realistic as they are so widely used within society.  However, installing "carbon capture" onto industrial plants is an option.  The "carbon capture" technique filters the emissions from the industrial plants, removing the carbon dioxide which can then either be stored underground in giant reservoirs, or be used in other processes.

These four points are all simplifications, but the technologies do exist to make them a reality, although some of the technologies do require further research to make them more effective.  So if the technologies do exist, why haven't we already deployed them, thus preventing carbon emissions and potentially saving the world?  It all comes back to cost.  Where is the money going to come from, and who is going to pay? (For further discussion on this please read my previous post on the topic)  This means climate change is a political problem, rather than a personal problem, or does it?

In democracies such as the UK, the people have control over the government (although it doesn't always feel like it!).  We, as a nation, have voted in our government and have the power to make our voices heard so that the government will do as we wish.  We, as a nation, also have purchasing power, so we have control of the markets.  This makes climate change a personal problem.

There is no simple solution for climate change.  'Business as usual' is much easier to justify and the carry out, compared to a radical shake-up of the market and the established way of doing things, but that is what combating climate change requires.  If we don't change how our global society operates now on our terms, nature will change how we operate instead, on more unpredictable terms.

The UK Government is talking about cutting the green energy taxation to reduce household fuel bills which have risen by around 10% this winter.  However that rise is due to rises in the wholesale price of gas - a price which is only predicted to rise in coming years - rather than due to hikes in green energy taxation.  By reducing the green energy taxation, less money will be available to move the UK away from its dependence upon oil and gas, further exposing the public to fluctuations and rises in fuel prices in future years.  As your winter fuel bill increases because gas becomes more expensive, but investment in other "green" energy sources has reduced thus limiting their market, is climate change now a political or personal problem?

Uncertainty and confidence

The word 'uncertainty' to most people means that something is not known and/or unlikely, for example, "I'm uncertain if it is going to rain today" or "I'm uncertain if I passed that test".

The word 'uncertainty' to a scientist is a measure of how sure we are of an outcome.  For example: "A single squirt of cheese will be 3cm long, within a 5% level of uncertainty".  That means that we are 95% certain that the length of the squirt of cheese will be 3cm long, but there is a 5% chance that the cheese could be longer or shorter than 3cm.

Confidence is another word which can be confused when crossing between science and popular media.  In popular media if someone says that they are confident that something is going to happen, that means they think there is a very high likelihood that it will.  However, in science, confidence is merely the level of certainty and this can range from being very certain something will happen to being very uncertain, depending upon the level of confidence (usually expressed as a percentage or as a range of results expected within a likelihood).

Graphs in science often indicate the "95% confidence boundaries" for each data point.  These are the range within which 95% of results will fall - sometimes the confidence boundaries are very large, and sometimes very narrow depending upon the data available.  This indicates to other scientists how precise the average, stated figure is.  For example, if the mean (average) squirt of cheese was 5cm long from one type of packaging, and the range of measurements within the 95% confidence boundary was from 4.8cm to 5.2cm, then there it is very likely that the next squirt of cheese from that packaging will also be around 5cm long (presuming an endless supply of cheese).  However, if another type of packaging also has a mean squirt of cheese 5cm long, but the range of measurements within the 95% confidence boundary was from 0.2cm to 9.8cm, it becomes much harder to predict the length of the next squirt of cheese, and it is important to record this degree of variation for any test results.

These different definitions for two commonly-used words (uncertainty and confidence) can cause confusion when translating science to a more general audience and it is this confusion that many refuters of science focus on when making their arguments about the invalidity of results.  All natural systems inherently contain some level of uncertainty when studied by scientists due to their high levels of complexity.  Predictions for the future, such as climatic models studying climate change, produce scenarios with varying levels of certainty, and changes in the parameters which feed into the model, such as the amount of fossil fuels burnt, affects which output scenario becomes more likely as time progresses.

It is important that scientists, policy makers, journalists and members of the public all "talk the same talk" when discussing data to avoid misunderstanding between the different parties.  Scientists will never be "certain" of a fact, there will always be a level of uncertainty due to the complexity of nature and the impossible task of accounting for every possible factor which may affect the outcome.  But that does not mean that they are uncertain enough to warrant being ignored, or the problem left until it becomes unmanagable.

Sorry for the delay

Sorry for the delay in posting the next instalment of the blog.  Life, including fieldwork, has got in the way, but there will be a new article posted tomorrow for your enjoyment.

Thanks for reading this blog

Naomi