Hawke's Bay Today (Hastings, New Zealand), April 14, 2007

EDITORIAL: IF CLIMATE'S CHANGING SO MUST WE

[Rachel's introduction: "Doubt (formalised in the precautionary principle) should move us in a sensible direction. There is no question that making our 'carbon footprint' smaller will have the happy consequence of being kind to the environment, even if it cannot be established conclusively it will change the weather."]

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, which featured in a report in Wednesday's Hawke's Bay Today, not surprisingly contains much more bad news than good for New Zealand. It will be boomtime for apples in the Bay, but tough times for kiwifruit. There will be retreating glaciers in the south but hordes of Aussies will be here to play in snow they can no longer find at home.

There will be an increase in farm production in the short term, but offset by more droughts and forest fires, along with pestilence and rising tides that threaten coastal communities. Even dengue fever is possibile as temperatures soar to tropical levels. It's enough of an apocalyptic vision to satisfy any "end is nigh" miserabilist.

The latest predictions of doom have been challenged by sceptics, spearheaded by Augie Auer. Last week he was involved in a war of the weathermen when he castigated Jim Salinger (lead author of the New Zealand and Australian chapter in the IPCC report) for attributing the recent Northland floods to climate change. Dr Auer says the report lacks rigour and that nothing in it advances the scientific understanding of climate change.

The conflict about what's happening and who, or what, is to blame will continue.

The original IPCC report says it is "very likely" global warming of the past few decades is the result of human activity. But the report also says it is only "likely" current global temperatures are the highest in the past 1300 years. It then becomes a question of faith when laypeople (who, by removing the question marks manage to shut down discussion) can assert such facts when a collaboration by more than 2000 scientists can only come up with "likely" or "very likely".

Nevertheless, doubt (formalised in the precautionary principle) should move us in a sensible direction. There is no question that making our "carbon footprint" smaller will have the happy consequence of being kind to the environment, even if it cannot be established conclusively it will change the weather.

In a variant of "Pascal's wager" in arguing the logic of believing in the hereafter (also known as the umbrella principle -- that it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it) there is good sense in preparing for the effects of climate change.

The debate is no longer just about the environment. As one commentator has said, the issue is now about economics, culture, and ideology and about policy solutions.

The issue, then -- given that agreement about climate change is more political than scientific -- is whether governments should dictate solutions or whether they should be left to the markets.

A recent poll showed most New Zealanders were aware of the potential harm of global warning but were sick of the doom-laden predictions. They want to hear the answers. And those answers have to go way beyond using low-energy lightbulbs and avoiding use of the dishwasher -- or just sitting at home worrying in the dark and cold.

For those solutions we need to embrace the possibilities in the powers of human invention. Rather than expend effort and money fruitlessly pushing back the sun, we need to strike out and find ways to make the most of what nature (with, perhaps, our help) deals us.

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