The magazine of the european research area European Commission Copenhagen, a missed chance?

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eu No. 63 | APRIL 2010 

19

SPECIAL REPORT

 

CLIM

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CLIMATE SCEPTICISM

certainty in science, but the climate models are 

not mere statistical extrapolations, contrary to 

what some people claim.” Based on well-

established physical, chemical and biological 

laws, the models must first be able to simulate 

the present climate. The next stage is to check 

that they are also able to reproduce climates 

of the past. “That allows us to validate the 

tool against climate observations dating back 

hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of 

thousands of years, carried out using ice cores 

in particular. We can then use the models 

not  to predict the future climate, which is 

impossible, but to make projections.” To judge 

from the models, these projections vary great-

ly depending on the future greenhouse gas 

emission scenarios.  

Martin Durkin’s documentary The Great 

Global Warming Swindle presents scientists 

who left the IPCC due to their disagreement 

with the projections of the reports submitted 

to the political decision-makers. Climatology 

experts who turn their backs on their col-

leagues are indeed likely to sow doubts. 

“Despite being a group of intergovernmental 

experts, the process of drawing up the reports 

is very independent. The authors write 

the texts on the basis of scientific literature 

and they are submitted to three cycles of 

rereading, by experts and by governments.” 

Each comment regarding a line or paragraph 

is noted in a table and the authors subse-

quently indicate their response to them. 

Rereaders then check that the authors have 

given an honest appraisal of each comment. 

In the interests of transparency the tables are 

accessible to everybody at the IPCC site.   

“A report represents the work of hundreds 

of authors and then about 2 500 experts are 

involved in the rereadings. That at a given 

moment some will be unhappy – and this has 

nothing to do with them being good scientists 

or not – as they are unable to gain acceptance 

for their own ideas without them being chal-

lenged by certain aspects of the literature or 

by the comments of others, is inevitable.”   

When the debate gets heated…

A falling out among experts? In any event, 

the debate has at times been surprisingly 

vicious. Some sceptics talk of the ‘blinkered 

thinking’ of the IPCC while they themselves are 

sometimes described as ‘negationists’ or ‘revi-

sionists’. The way certain media and many blogs 

have dramatised the controversy has also helped 

create a Manichaean vision of the situation as if 

it were essentially a matter of faith. In the face 

of such loud and discordant voices the general 

public no longer knows how to take the current 

hot and cold climatology debate – forgetting 

perhaps also that doubt is an inextricable part 

of the search for truth. “All scientists have the 

duty to be sceptic. I do not see why some 

should have the monopoly on scepticism.”   

The economic, political and social implica-

tions are of course monumental. If the influ-

ence of human activities on climate are 

negligible then a great deal of effort risks being 

made for nothing – although those who are 

seeking alternatives to the inevitable exhaus-

tion of fossil fuels remain vital for our energy 

future. If, on the other hand, the anthropic fac-

tor is in the process of permanently upsetting 

a fragile natural balance, to do nothing to ease 

the burden and prepare for the consequences 

would amount to guilty negligence in regard 

to future generations.