Essay by Eric Worrall
Poor you guys, Halloween was a week ago.
Why scientists use the word scary in the climate crisis
Former BBC environmental analyst Roger Harrabin has spent his career speaking to scientists. Now they’re telling him they’re scared of what they’re seeing
Roger Harrabin Monday, November 7, 2022 19.30 AEDT
Back in the 1980s, when climate research began to really take off, scientists were desperate to keep their credibility as they unraveled the potentially dire consequences of the phenomenon. “new” of global warming. Most journalists tiptoe around the topic because no one wants to ruin their reputation by scaring. But as science becomes increasingly overwhelming, researchers have brought their conclusions to the face of policymakers.
An increasing number of scientists are openly admitting that they fear recent extreme climate events, such as floods in Pakistan and West Africa, droughts and heat waves in Europe and east Africa, and melting ice at the poles.
…
For example, the heat phenomenon in the Canadian town of Lytton creates a “dome” of trapped heat increase the temperature to 49.6C. Wildfires raged and the town was razed. I informed one of the leading members of the Royal Society, Professor Brian Hoskins, but at first he didn’t believe me. Then he said, “Oh my god, that’s really scary.”
Scientists are also frustrated by the limitations of their knowledge. Professor Richard Allan, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said: “Climate change will only get worse. A global increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius will be much worse than it is now. But when you go down to the local scale, we get more extreme points than what the models can’t capture. That includes droughts and local-scale floods. Those are events that are hard to imagine. “
…
Serious? Is this the trillion dollar disaster they warned us about? A terribly hot day in a town in Canada?
49.9C (121F) is hot, but totally survivable. I used to work in temperatures hotter than 49.9C. One particularly hot day, the temperature in the factory reached 55C (131F). There were clouds of steam flying around the floor of the workshop, from leaking hydraulic hot presses. Management brought us drinks every 5 minutes, but we kept working. We never stop – we have bills to pay.
I feel sorry for those who lost their homes in the Lytton fire – but in Australia we learned the hard way, it’s much more effective to protect yourself from bushfires by clearing the area around your home, than to invest in wind turbines. I know this is a confusing concept for some politicians and climate scientists, but fire needs something to burn. No combustibles, no fire. Especially the pines filled with highly flammable resin that I see in all the pictures of Canada.
Related
