Robinson: Science and Climate Justice

Mary Robinson delivered a lecture on Climate Justice at UCC's Centre for Global Development this week in which she encouraged citizens to put pressure on world leaders to take the issue of climate change seriously.

The former Irish President and and former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights also took the opportunity to highlight the recent Young Scientist Exhibition as a way of energising young people about science and technology.

Speaking of these young scientists she said, "They are the ones who will be the decisions makers, mothers, fathers and leaders in 2050 when the impacts of climate change are being acutely felt. They didn’t cause the problem, we who came before are responsible for that, but the burden of dealing with it will fall squarely on their shoulders".

Robinson also highlighted the news that NUI Maynooth's Combat Diseases of Poverty Consortium are to organise a young scientists exhibition in Tanzania: "Students there have an even more immediate need to understand the impacts of climate change and to find solutions to the problems it creates. Schools, universities and colleges need to equip students from Cork to Dar es Salaam with the skills they will need to navigate their way through an ever changing world."

"get young people energized and involved in science and technology – so that they can shape the world of 2050 and make it a better place to live" Now President of the Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice (MRFCJ), Robinson was enthusiastic about upcoming science events in 2012. "In May the World Congress on Water, Climate and Energy takes place in Dublin and in July, Dublin will be the City of Science hosting Europe’s largest science conference, the Euroscience Open Forum. A programme of science-related events and activities are being held throughout the year across the island of Ireland to showcase the latest advances in science and technology and to stimulate and provoke public interest, excitement and debate about science and technology. I hope this can build on the work of the Young Scientist Exhibition to get young people energized and involved in science and technology – so that they can shape the world of 2050 and make it a better place to live."

Mary Robinson went on to outline her views on climate justice subsequent to the COP17 meeting at Durban in December. "Make no mistake about it", she said "we ignore the threat posed by climate change at out peril".

Of the meeting in Durban she said there was a noticeable lack of urgency within the negotiations to begin with: "In the first week I was struck by the complete lack of urgency in the formal negotiations, contrasting with the real urgency being voiced on the street, by scientists and by organisations representing the most vulnerable communities from all over the world."

"Ireland has the potential to make a significant contribution in this area" One of the key outcomes Robinson noted in her speech was the beginnings of bringing the issues of food security and agriculture into the work of the COP.

"In 2012 Parties will consider how best to support a process to address the impacts of climate change on food security and the role of climate smart agriculture in finding ways to grow food under changing climatic conditions while safeguarding the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Ireland has the potential to make a significant contribution in this area drawing on domestic agriculture expertise and our international work on food and nutrition security."

Robinson said that the door was now open for a new international and inclusive legally binding agreement on climate change. "[Durban] was not the breakthrough needed to solve the problem now, but no one really expected that. Neither was it a failure; in fact it lays down a clear challenge to all the countries of the world – and particularly those responsible for the worst emissions – to get their act together before it is too late."


You can read the full text of Mary Robinson's speech here (pdf).

Image: Mary Robinson speaking at UCC (Image: Tomas Tyner, UCC)

Don't trust this blog

This blog, I think, is well written and edited. I think that each post I produce is based on solid evidence and often, it is based on one or more peer-reviewed papers which are particularly newsworthy. Nevertheless, you can't trust it.

Try as I might to be totally balanced, this is just my representation of scientific news stories and peer-reviewed work.

I suppose what I'm saying is that my blog, like all other blogs, is not a replacement for peer-reviewed literature and the blogosphere is not an alternative to peer-reviewed scientific journals.

As a scientist, I recognise that the peer-review system works. Of course, there are problems with it and a few high-profile cases where it seems to have failed us, but overall it has stood the test of time. The British Government has recently announced a review of peer-review, but I would be confident that it will be shown to be the best method at our disposal to verify scientific findings.

Unfortunately, it would seem that some commentators feel that peer-review is definitely old hat and that a new system is needed. Of course, I'm talking about James Delingpole.

In a recent interview with Paul Nurse, for the BBC programme Horizon, Delingpole argued for the use of what he called 'peer-to-peer' review.

As you'll see from the video clip of the interview below, Nurse first made an analogy between accepting the consensus scientific viewpoint on the treatment of cancer and accepting the consensus scientific view of climate change. Writing in The Telegraph, Delingpole, a well known climate change sceptic, subsequently described this analogy as "shabby, dishonest and patently false".

"The consensus on climate change; and the consensus on medical care", says Delingpole, "bear no similarity whatsoever". You can judge for yourself whether the analogy  makes sense or not.

Having been flummoxed by Nurse's astute line of reasoning, he was subsequently asked about his use (or not) of peer-reviewed climate change literature.

"One of the main things to have emerged from the climategate emails was that the peer-review process has been, perhaps irredeemably corrupted" replied Delingpole.

"What I believe in now...is a process called peer-to-peer review. The internet is changing everything. What it means is that ideas which were previously only able to be circultated in the seats of academe, in papers read by a few people can now be instantly read on the internet and assessed by thousands and thousands of other scientists; people of scientific backgrounds and people like me who haven't got scientific backgrounds but are interested."

What he's talking about of course is the blogosphere. Now, as keen as I am on this whole blogging lark, I do not believe that the ability to switch on a computer and type entitles anyone (including myself) to begin to interpret scientific data for which we are wholly unqualified. Sure, we can have opinions and ideas about the findings but, as the old adage goes,"we are not entitled to our own facts".

Delingpole however seems to have no time to even begin to interpret the data correctly:

"It is not my job to sit down and read peer-reviewed papers because  I simply haven't got the time, I haven't  the scientific expertise. What I rely on is people who have got the time and the expertise to do it and write about it  and interpret it. I am an interpreter of interpretations."

All well and good, and it's to his credit I suppose, that he admits that his opinions are not based on the real, original data. However, if he is to interpret the data (or the interpretations of the data... you know what I mean) then he must interpret all of the data and that means the overwhelming volume of research that points  to a global warming phenomenon caused by human interventions.

I may blog, but blogs are not real science. You can trust me on that!

Act of Man or Act of God?

I survived the Cork floods 2009!

After a valiant effort to get to work this morning, I had to turn back due to the unprecedented levels of water around the western suburbs of Cork City.Prolonged levels of rain in the last week or so, combined with the relaease of water from Innascarra dam and high tides in Cork harbour led to some of the worst flooding in years in the City.

The Mercy hospital was forced to implement its emergency plan in the early hours of Friday morning. This meant patients on lower floors were moved to higher floors in the complex which sits beside the River Lee. Nearby, University College Cork bore the brunt of the floods with their iconic Glucksman Gallery, the newly opened Western Gateway Building (pictured) and the research-active Tyndal Centre were all under water along with many of UCC's low-lying buildings and student accomodation.

With flooding in Galway, Fermoy, Bandon and Clonakilty, it begs the question why such flooding is becoming so prevalent. The immediate conclusion which seems to be jumped at is the involvment of 'climate change' or 'global warming' in these flooding events.

There's no doubt that the result of climate change will be wetter conditions in this country along with an increase in the rate and intensity of severe weather conditions such as we faced in the last few days.That being said, I don't believe for a moment that the current events are directly related to climate change.

Flooding events are relatively common in this country and they have been recorded for centuries. It is the extent and intensity of development which has now brought us closer to flood plains which, by their nature are prone to flooding.

For example, the Glucksman Gallery and Gateway Building in UCC, which are currently under water, were built on land which were well known to flood regularly. For that reason, flood defences were in-built to the buildings. Despite this, I hear that the flood defences in the Gateway building (open just a few short months) were entirely overwhelmed.

Just this week, engineers have warned that Cork and Dublin could be 'uninhabitable'in the next century. In their report- 'Ireland at Risk', the Irish Academy of Engineers (IAE) said that flooding events of a magnitude only experience currently every 100 years, could occur every 5 years.

IAE president, Michael Hayden points to Hurricane Katrina in the US "for an example of how climate change coupled with poor planning and zoning decisions can lead to social and economic disaster”. “If we move now, significant economic benefits will accrue”, according to Michael Hayden, “but it we do ‘too little too late’ we risk social and economic disaster”.

With reports like this coming think and fast and the area of climate change about to to come into sharp focus with the Copenhagan Conference in December, it's inevitable that such flooding events that we are seeing now will be blamed on climate change. In the future, I have no doubt that climate change will cause increases in these types of events, there is less evidence that these meterological events are currently global warming related.

Nonetheless, the importance of fighting climate change has become a relevant issue for many strands of society.

Former US president Al Gore has been at the forefront in publicising the need for action on climate change since his award winnin documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' in 2006. In his latest book 'Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis' the climate campaigner says that laying out the facts is just not enough and he has begun to appeal to peoples moral and religiois duty to protect the planet.

Speaking in a recent Newsweek interview, Gore described his work with religious organisations who were eager to contribute to the fight against climate change: "I've done a Christian [-based] training program; I have a Muslim training program and a Jewish training program coming up, also a Hindu program coming up. I trained 200 Christian ministers and lay leaders here in Nashville in a version of the slide show that is filled with scriptural references. It's probably my favourite version, but I don't use it very often because it can come off as proselytising."

In Ireland, the Catholic Bishop's Conference have just issued a pastoral reflection on climate change which has been made available on their website and in catholic churches throughout the country.

'The Cry of the Earth' talks of climate change as being "one of the most critical issues of our time" and having consequences "for the future of every person and every form of life on the earth."

The publication also quotes Pope Benedict as saying that an shift in mentality "can lead to the adoption of new lifestyles in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine consumer choices, savings and investments."

In a time when science and religion often clash unnecesarily, it's good to see all strands of society pulling in the same direction. One thing's for sure, those effected by this most recent flood are surely cursing this particular 'act of god'.