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The current situation


Action on climate change is not going well
- advice that radical change
- Paris Agreement to limit climat echange i.e. phase out fossil fuels
- but global emissions ... and developed countries...
- in the UK Labout Govenment has

How should responsible citizens respond

1. Assess importance
Conclusion:
Climate change is a serious threat to our civilisation.

2. what target

3. How?
means urgent radical action:

4 what about individual countries

5. What does this mean in annual cuts
c20%

6. Comparison with current plans
knowledge of importance poor
knowledge of timescale poor
UK Governmenmt plans not in line
media
business
campaigners

7 why such a large gap
seems cognitive biases

8 A plan
Fresh start based on fiar carbon budget



beofe 20.11 =============


We should by now be well on the way to ending use of fossil fuels, but

We should have

We haven't even agreed and disseminated the science. Instead:

This has the characteristics of psychological denial, and is present across society.

The denial is perpetuated by various cognitive biases across society.

If we want to tackle climate change we need to



Before 18 Nov ============================

A Labour Government has just frozen fuel duty and committed to billions of pounds into technological 'solutions' to climate change.

It is a disaster.

We need to decide what is going wrong.

A major problem in the process of decision making is that almost everyone is understating the urgency of climate action, and advocating inadequate policies, i.e. is on the spectrum of climate denial. It's not very different from the 'white moderates' that Martin Luther King complained about.

This applies to

There's little or no attention within groups to whether their policies advocated are consistent with the IPCC and consistent with other groups - there's little or no peer review scrutiny.

It's a tragic situation.

Before 17 Nov ============================

Duty of a scientist is to look at policy proposals and at the science of the problem and actions that are needed, and judge whether the policy proposal and associated messaging are consistent with the actions that are needed.

There are many policy initiatuves from climate campaigners. Most are not in line with the IPCC's statements of what's needed. It's the duty of scientists to explain the choices.

Q & A
Q: Project A has wide support from experts
A: So have Projects B, C, D... (different sets of experts), but they are mutually inconsistent and all contradict and undermine the IPCC's messaging

Q: Project A is the only one / best of its type
A: So are many of Projects B, C, D...

Q: You have to be realistic
A: That's what the proponents of Projects B, C, D.. are saying


Before 16 Nov ============================

"Are you supporting the CAN Bill?" is the wrong question. It should be a general question of "what should decent people do about the climate?" or a specific question of "how should decent people view the CAN Bill?".


What measures should we support on aviation:

Approach A:
If we ask people, the proportion of people in favour steadily falls. So politicians act on those at the top of the list.

Approach B:
Ask which are in line with the Paris Agreement? The answer is we need to end all leisure flights.





First published: 14 Nov 2024
Last updated: 20 Nov 2024