Speeches—Global Warming
'You can't fight City Hall'
6.6.08
Superwinds: Plan Ahead Now, Institute of Physics, London
‘You can’t fight City Hall’ as the saying goes. But there’s a time when
you have to even if the odds are stacked against you. And that’s when
you believe people’s lives could be at risk if you don’t. And the advent
of superwinds is just one of those occasions.
Preventing disaster is obviously a complex challenge at the best of
times. It involves reducing exposure—it involves improving communication
of the risks—it involves better education about those risks to the community.
But more than anything, it involves potential threats that might lead
to disaster being recognised—being evaluated—and being understood. And
this is one reason we have organised this conference today.
Apparently there are 3000 or so active or potentially active volcanoes
in the world but only a few are monitored for obviously reasons. You
can’t cover everything! But at the GWA we believe the risk of London
being hit by an extra-tropic cyclone or tornado is now great enough
for it be monitored more closely and for certain other steps to be taken.
And I suppose this is where City Hall comes in!
And this point I would like to thank some of the Emergency Planning
Officers who are here today Andrew Meek from Haringey, Kofi Danso and
Joseph McFarland from Hounslow, David Kerry from Kensington and Chelsea,
Laura Watson from Hackney, Paul Waxman from Southwark Rowena Proctor
from Emergency Planning at the London Fire Brigade for taking the time
to join in with his event.
At the Global Warming Alliance we believe that there
should be improved communication about what to do in such an occurrence
of an extra tropic cyclone for the public. I conducted a survey recently
and as you would expect the word cyclone was barely related to by people
in the street. Interestingly enough, most members of the public I spoke
with had noticed changing conditions and many expressed concern that
they wouldn’t have a clue what to do if they were in the path of such
a storm. They were all reliant on news from the government, the television,
the web. It has become a ‘look it up on the net’ society. If it’s not
there, it’s not going to happen, according to them.
Improving communication doesn’t just save lives, it also projects an
incalculable feeling of goodwill and a range of other positive emotions
just as the freezing of communication in disasters does directly the
opposite. We could take the international shock over the poor handling
of Hurricane Katrina by the American authorities as one example of ‘let
down’ but also the way in which China – which was receiving appalling
press just a couple of months ago when the Olympic torch was being carried
around streets just nearby to here—underwent a complete image transformation
over their recent tragedy. They came across as sensitive, caring. I
think almost overnight a lot of people had a very different view of
Chinese people—looked at them in a different way as a result of how
their authorities reacted to disaster. With climate change being such
an interdependent problem nations are viewing one another in this way
more so then at any other time.
Communication of those risks pays off. I recall some years ago having a bizarre conversation on whether or not education was a waste of time when footballers were making so much more money than doctors—pay attention in class. In Maikhao beach in northern Phuket 10 year old Tilly Smith had studied tsunami in geography and recognised the warning signs of the receding ocean. She and her parents warned others on the beach, which was evacuated safely. John Chroston, a biology teacher from Scotland, also recognised these signs at Kamala Bay north of Phuket, taking a busload of holidaymakers and locals to safety on higher ground. Not that it’s always the answer. Our own headteacher who taught both our children perished that day along with her whole family. She was on the beach at Kaho Lak at the time.
So we know that education does play an important role in saving lives and because of what we’ve been discussing today we—at the Global Warming Alliance for example—would like to see a return to labelling and projecting the isobar readings on BBC weather forecasts to acquaint people with what they mean in terms of weather. People are interested in what is affecting them and at present the potentially high risk situations pass completely over most peoples heads and there’s no way they can work it out for themselves.
We accept sometimes Government warnings aren’t enough. A week before Nargis the Burmese Government apparently received warning of the cyclone and its location and still failed to act for a myriad of reasons. Of course there is the classic story of the inconvenient voice: The Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004—Kerry Sieh, the geologist who was so concerned at the lack of government education about the potential risk from a quake that he paid for the printing and distribution of leaflets to warn threatened communities, but to little avail. There is no doubt that lives would have been saved had communications been better in that case. Not just after the event. And then that’s another matter. In the Asian Tsunami for example the Swedish Government were badly criticised over their insensitive handling of the Asian Tsunami as many ministers were on Christmas holidays at the time – Sweden lost more of its nationals than any other European country in that particular disaster.
However, I would like to end on a positive note—always
nice to do, and particularly on a Friday afternoon. The speakers today
have talked about the danger of strong winds today. But wind is not
just a horror story for this country. In the past seven years wind harvesting
has been the fasting growing sector of the sustainable energy industry.
I spoke with Brian Hurley last week—the founding scientist of AirTricity—one
of the business success stories of Ireland—there is a representative
here today from Airtricity who I know will be happy to explain the marvels
of wind and how important it is to our future. As Peter Madigan of the
British Wind Energy Association tells me that ‘Germany looks jealousy
on our wind’ and my younger daughter came home from school the other
day and announced proudly that she had been taught we are now the windiest
country on earth. On Brian’s behalf I would like to add that wind turbines—which
stop operating in high winds—and which have had their share of bad press
recently. They are on average very safe and those that have collapsed
in high gusts are a very small percentage of the total turbines in action
across the world. Of course the wind industry is on the whole doing
a great job in sustainable energy production to help counter the problems
of climate change due to anthropogenic global warming.
'The Reality
of Climate Change: An Inconvenient Truth or A Convenient Lie?'
11.05.08
London Aware, Barbican, London
In August of last year a 15 year old girl in Portland, Maine—in the
US—became an overnight celebrity—not like Paris Hilton, with a sex video,
but because she set up a global warming sceptic website. It wasn’t until
she posted a critique of Al Gore—the former vice president—and Jim Henson,
one of NASA’s top climate scientists—that her site really took off.
Every sceptic was promoting it. For the people who don’t believe in
man-made global warming this was a terrific public relations coup.
Here was a school student debunking the mainstream scientific view on
global warming, rubbishing their views. It was a terrific story and
the teenager, Kirsten Byrnes was immediately feted and flattered by
the large number global warming deniers—from senators to the general
public. In fact so good was this story for getting space that—since
then—there have been a plethora of essay competitions run in schools
to encourage other young scientists to follow the same line. I understand
that since then she’s formed a science foundation for supporters to
donate funds towards her further education—and I’m sure that was welcome
news to her parents as it would be to any facing the cost of expensive
college schooling in the States or anywhere for that matter.
Apparently many of the points that she raised have been dealt with before,
but that wasn’t the point of my story. It turned out that her stepfather—a
global warming sceptic—had encouraged her. This is a story about proving
you beliefs. How you can swing or turn or read data differently. However
what this story highlighted—and why I believe it’s important to what
we’re discussing today–The Reality of Climate Change: An inconvenient
Truth or Convenient Lie—is this.When you have to decide—like in any
debate—which side you favour—for example, global warming and you don’t
have the time, or the experience or access to view the facts for yourself,
how do you decid?. Who do you believe? In the case of Kristen Byrnes—it’s
likely you’re swayed by the opinions of those nearest and dearest to
you. Anybody in PR, market research, even scientific research will confirm
that obviously we’re more inclined towards that which supports our beliefs—promotes
our products—which is why surveys, statistics, figures can often be
manipulated.
So global warming. Is it happening at all? And if so, is it our fault?
Can we do anything about it? Or is just a fantastic hoax?
For those of you who are relatively new to the subject— as some here
are today—I’ll just sum up what I know. There are on one hand the global
warming sceptics. What do they believe? Basically that climate change
is just part of a natural climate cycle; that the greenhouse effect
is natural, in fact that CO2 is good for the planet because it enriches
vegetation. This is generalised obviously. Sceptics tend to believe
man’s contribution is insignificant and that basically global warming
is driven by solar activity. Some believe the whole affair is an anti-rich
conspiracy, bringing on an economic collapse—they don’t believe the
planet is warming at all. Maybe they’re working in that sector, selling
oil, or gas, large cars—not all, but some—not all sceptics are funded
by oil companies! Some people just don’t like the look of wind turbines.
Some think that ‘their scientists’ have been pressured into ‘believing
global warming’. For example there’s been substantially more investment
into research (and I personally believe for good reason) to prove man-made
global warming than otherwise—many other reasons for the sceptical lobby
but those are just some of them.
The other side—the activists—believe we are influencing climate change—and
we need to act very quickly indeed to reverse our damage. They believe
so passionately. However, this group of people are divided amongst themselves
as to how to do that. There are groups who are for and against say nuclear
technology, bio-fuels, solar panels, wind, population control et cetera.
Some think there should be no planes or cars on the planet at all. We
should all live in caves again. It’s a great mix of opinions. That’s
the other side.
However, what is for sure is that these two sides are pretty angry with
one another. One says ‘you’re trying to destroy the planet’ physically,
the other says ‘you’re trying to destroy the planet’ economically. Scientists
on both sides have been harassed—intimidated into keeping quiet about
their views. So that’s pretty even Steven. Both sides push their points.
And campaigners like myself know that both sides have become pretty
aggressive towards opposing views.
But just for the record the last survey—last month
in fact— before this speech—and again I’m not sure who actually funded
this particularly research—apparently 97% of scientists believe global
temperatures have increased and 84 % of those personally believe that
it is human-induced.
Just a bit on the Hot Women Campaign which I know has been the subject
of great interest! This campaign began really because of that very question
‘An Inconvenient Truth or a Convenient Lie.’ And I will explain. Firstly,
why women? It occurred to me that if CO2 emissions were the problem
and needed controlling not only were we over 50 per cent of the population,
but also we were the nesters, the home lovers—we were the ones responsible
for much of the creature comforts that emit this CO2. Apparenlty modern
women—women in the western world—now make up or influence something
like 80 per cent of all decisions on consumer goods, even cars, holidays.
They buy the food, cook it, run the washing machines. They also influence
the majority of fast fashion that ends up in land fill every week, every
month. But I’d also noticed for myself that a tide of scepticism had
crept back amongst the public. So I decided to conduct my own little
survey.
I knew that women were concerned—they had to be—about global warming,
and yet so many of them were suddenly not doing anything and even ‘turning
sceptic’. Why were they not changing their life styles, cutting back
etc? The reasons I found: (amongst many)—they were suddenly frightened
by the financial implications—big time—fighting global warming was costing
a lot of extra financial worry: they didn’t like being patronised as
they saw it by ‘greenies’; they didn’t like the guilt, the alarmist
techniques. Alarming works inititally but can backfire.
Also many of them – what we call light greens if not very, very light greens—didn’t identify with earth mothers at all, found them rather too aggressive, didn’t agree with their politics, didn’t want tot turn vegan, things like that, but mostly and overwhelming what I established was that there was another reason why many women who were concerned and would like to be more involved with ‘saving the planet’ were avoiding the issue was this——Unlike celebrities, politicians, campaigners—who are used to being criticised publicly, could not survive professionally if they did, the average person does not enjoy—in fact is terrified of being labelled—called—particularly in public, in the street, at school —a fraud, a liar, a hypocrite. If you admit you’re concerned about man-made global warming that can happen.
If for example they did run a four by four, or wanted to take their family to Thailand or their husband had a job in a ‘bad’ industry—working as a pilot like mine for example, they couldn’t join that side as I saw it. Someone would turn around and say, ‘you’re a hypocrite, you’re driving a big car, you’re using a hair dryer, you’re going on a flight?’ Most people are terrified of attack like that. They would rather avoid it at all costs. Therefore it was far easier for them to absorb the sceptical lobb – it’s not man made–or blame China— than make changes in their own lives. And this is what we need. We need public cooperation.
I completely sympathised with these women because I know there are enough daily pressures on women as it is–to look good, to be good mothers, nurturers, good business women, great politicians. The last thing they wanted to do was to invite more trouble into their lives. And therefore I thought if I could set up a campaign which would take that concern off them it might work. And it would be a campaign that would allow women–—light greens as we call them today—to be able to take advantage of a time in history when they could get off the bandwagon of the commercial, the social pressures—to reassess the way they want to live their life.
The basis of it to me was beauty books magazines telling women ‘you have to drink 8 litres of water a day to keep your skin beautiful’—that’s sort of thing. How can it be that make a woman beautiful when somewhere in the world a child doesn’t get 8 litres a month to drink. It didn’t make sense. I wanted women to think these things out for themselves. Leadership models are changing in tune with our need to conserve—what’s been hot, the thinking behind it over the last twenty odd years is not longer hot. Hot Women was designed for exactly that—to get the message out into the mainstream, the women who weren’t environmentally aware normally, the women who shop—about global warming. And before the sceptical lobby got to them with their more seductive message of 'it's ok. Nothing's happening.
We need your support in reducing carbon emissions and
supporting sustainable technology. As I said earlier in the year about
Hot Women, ‘more than a billion women around the world want to emulate
western women’s lifestyles and are rapidly acquiring the material ability
to do so. It is therefore vital that in our leadership we display some
reserve and responsibility in our spending so that the world’s finite
resources will be available for our children, their children and their
children’s children .And that really sums up the campaign for me.
Let’s turn an inconvenient truth into a convenient truth and make the
very best of what we have to do ahead of us.
