Climate change: the battle for public opinion

Climate change is here to stay. In fact we are ‘locked in’ - destined as it were - to observe at least a certain level of warming over the next ten years. But this is by no means a doomsday prediction or a submission that future developments are beyond our control. It simply means the challenge has evolved. And so too has public opinion; but just not as you’d first expect.

With warming of the climate system pronounced as ‘unequivocal’ throughout the scientific community it is in stark contrast that only 26 per cent of UK nationals currently acknowledge climate change to be primarily attributable to human activities. Exposed in a BBC poll of over 1000 individuals, these findings are more worryingly overshadowed by a 10 per cent increase in those unwilling to accept the progression of climate change in any shape or form. The sad truth, this figure now stands at a quarter of all Brits.

Two well-explored avenues are commonly used to explain this vast discrepancy between public and scientific opinion. The first is short and sweet with the basic line of argument as follows - wouldn’t it just be easier if it weren’t happening? Al Gore was right; there is no better word to describe climate change than as inconvenient.

And it’s true, there is nothing harder or that politicians hate more than the difficult task of inciting behavioural change within a fickle populus. Just think of the numerous campaigns exhorting the benefits of wearing a seatbelt, avoiding binge drinking, eating at least five fruit and vegetables a day and so on. And do we? As someone with a future career intrinsically linked to the need to substantially ramp up efforts to mitigate climate change, even I have to admit that on occasion that standby button can look mighty tempting.

The second justification for low public acceptance is the acute miss match between the artillery placed at the disposal of scientists and politicians. Differences in the motivations and methods by which scientists and politicians communicate climate change coupled with the media’s desire to provide a ‘balanced’ argument has given rise to an arena in which the opinions of the likes of Sarah Palin and Nigel Lawson are unduly granted equal weight to research conducted by the scientific community.

It is by no means the case that the ideas of science and politics are incompatible. However it is the blows fired between these fields that have, until now, attracted the greatest attention and have to date held the most significant bearing on public opinion. An example? The infamous Glaciergate springs to mind. In 2009 the media claimed to have finally triumphed in ‘catching out’ those pesky scientists! But did they really?

For those unfamiliar with the Glaciergate news story, an exceptional example of when the repercussions of an ‘exposé' carried consequences of far greater significance than those detailed within the exposé itself, here's a quick recap. Glaciergate refers to two sentences of text, published in the leading review of scientific research on climate change (the IPCC AR4 Report), that warn of the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers by as soon as 2035.

As with any large text the report is condensed into an executive summary in which the Glaciergate text was not featured. The controversy held by the text stems from its citation as research conducted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The press were correct in condoning the inclusion of non-scientific research within the review. However, realistically - and more importantly - the level of influence held by the questioned text amidst a report roughly the size of three yellow pages is minimal. The greatest cost attributable to Glaciergate? An unnecessary and unwarranted loss of public confidence.

The level of disparity in public and scientific belief apparent in current climate change debates is uncommon yet not unheard of. In fact the battle for climate change acceptance is often likened to that witnessed during the advancement of scientific knowledge concerning tobacco related health issues. And in fact this isn’t a half bad analogy.

So where do the similarities between tobacco and a high-carbon economy begin and end? The main reason for this unlikely comparison returns us again to the battle field for public opinion. Having been brought up with the hard-hitting and unquestioned mantra that smoking is ‘bad for you’, I was surprised to discover that the link between smoking and lung cancer was first conceived as early as 1950. Why, in the fight for public awareness towards the dangers of smoking, has it taken a massive 60 years for science and politicians to succeed in replacing outright denial with the prestigious title of common knowledge?

And differences? By far the biggest difference between smoking and climate change is time. Will the advancement of climate change permit a further 70 years' worth of breathing space in which to replace highly tractable beliefs with unwavering public acceptance? Sadly, the answer is no.