When it comes to the climate crisis, we are frequently told to ‘listen to the scientists’. Indeed, the importance of understanding climate science was emphasized when the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) published its Summary for Policy Makers for the Synthesis of its Sixth Assessment Report. The report states that humans are causing climate change, that the consequences are already serious, and those consequences are going to get worse, much worse.
The report is written for ‘policy makers’. However, they will only adopt the right policies if they perceive a demand from constituents and voters. Therefore, the report also needs to speak to the general public. But the public response to scientific reports such as these has been tepid. Why? Why does the general public treat reports such as this as being so unimportant?
There are many possible answers to the above question. Here are just a few thoughts.
Readability
The report — like all IPCC reports — is written by scientists for scientists. Its language is very difficult to follow for all but climate specialists.
The following is a quotation from another IPCC report.
In model pathways with no or limited overshoot of 1.5°C, global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030 (40–60% interquartile range), reaching net zero around 2050 (2045–2055 interquartile range).
<my emphasis>
This is an important quotation because it provided the basis for the ‘Net Zero by 2050’ meme that has been adopted by many organizations. Yet it is written at the 24th grade reading level. The journal Bloomberg Green described it as being ‘clunky and jargon-filled’. In other words, it is unreadable.
So, one reason for the lack of communication may be that scientists are writing for one another, not for the public, or even for policy makers, in spite of the fact that they say they are.
Preaching to the Choir (Three Choirs, Actually)
Another reason for the report’s lack of impact may be to do with the fact that most people have already made up their minds when it comes to climate change. Broadly speaking, most people are in one of three groups.
First, there are the activists. For them, this report told them nothing new. It confirms their existing world view.
Then there are the deniers. They will deny that the climate is changing, or else they are firm in their belief that ‘something will come up’. Once more, this report is not going to change anything.
In the middle are most people. They see climate change as being just one problem among many, and one that is much less urgent than their day to day concerns. These people are already swamped with too much to do. Why should they take time out to read this report, particularly since the language is so technical?
No Easy Solutions
Another reason for people’s lack of interest in the IPCC report, and climate issues in general, is that they recognize — at least intuitively — that there are no easy solutions. Anyone who seriously looks into climate issues comes to an understanding that we have left it too late to avert serious consequences while maintaining our current first world lifestyle. This means that the future is going to involve sacrifice — either voluntary or forced — and few people want to enter that space.
Climate change is not an event, it is a process. It is already too late to change what has already happened, as we see in the following chart.
The chart shows human emissions of carbon dioxide/CO2 in billions of metric tons per annum, starting in the year 1950. The chart further tells us that we have only 27 years left to achieve ‘Net Zero by 2050’. This is not a realistic goal.
Maybe people are skipping over IPCC reports because they are not fools, and they don’t want to face reality of seriously tackling climate change.
Understand Physical Realities
We are working on a book Faith in a Changing Climate. In it we tentatively, cautiously and respectfully offer three guidelines to the faith community. The first guideline is,
Understand physical realities.
People of faith have a very important — maybe a vital — role to play in the coming years. But first they need to be realistic. The industrial revolution started 300 years ago, yet now we are talking about achieving an equally radical industrial transformation in just 30 years while maintaining a first-world lifestyle.
Organizations such as the IPCC are unwilling to communicate this reality ― they continue to say that we have sufficient time to address climate change, even though most people intuitively understand that this is not possible.