The Magic of Martin Rees

 

The Magic of Martin Rees Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, Astronomer Royal, and Master of Trinity College Cambridge has been described as a ‘scientific magician, a man who leaves you wondering where he got his ideas from”. Last Tuesday Martin presented the first of the 2010 Reith annual radio lectures series on significant contemporary issues.

 

  The topic for this year’s lectures is described as “the challenges and threats man faces as he starts his journey through the rest of the 21st century…  it demonstrates that we’re in danger of “destroying the book of life before we’ve read it.” The first lecture raised some crucial questions about the best way to communicate and apply science in the 21st. century. It can help our group think through how to understand and communicate information about scientific evidence including risk assessment. I am  really looking forward to the second lecture 'Surviving the Century' which will take place on Tuesday 8th June at 9.00 am on BBC Radio 4. For this lecture, Martin Rees will focus on climate change, population explosion and food shortages. As a growing transition group, we are working closely with our local community on interesting energy efficiency and food and gardening projects and increasingly finding out more about the resources we have as a community.  It is also important that we continue to raise awareness about climate change and peak oil, based on the best scientific evidence.  Like us, Martin Rees takes the view that people learn best through consultation and dialogue and is keen to engage us all in scientific discussions with the experts.  I would like to take up just one of the many points raised by Martin Rees, a point that was also discussed with David Spiegelhalter  (Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University) during the first lecture. How good are we at risk perception and at making decisions about risk?   This is a question that keeps coming up in my mind when I discuss the risk of anthropogenic (man made) climate change with friends or with members of our local community and try to work out the best way to present this information. One of the difficulties we face is making decisions that are based on statistical probabilities rather than certainty.  Science is rarely able to offer us certainties says Martin Rees but politicians and most people find it hard to accept or justify decisions based on a balance of probabilities. The problem is particular difficult with high impact, low probability situations like pandemics. If we invest quite a lot of money in stocking up vaccines for a pandemic that does not happen, people are going to perceive it as scientists ‘crying wolf’ and are less likely to want to invest in preventative measures the next time round. However, had a pandemic like swine flu happened, the consequences would have been devastating, with millions of people dying and we would have been glad to have taken precautionary measures.   As Rees said  “Many of the things we should worry about have a less than 50 percent probability, and you could take the view we don’t take any precautions if the chance is less than 50 percent. But that’s not the attitude we take when getting fire insurance for our house; and many people are aware that you do insure against things which have a much less than 50 percent chance of probability, and therefore in those contexts people accept that they are likely to waste their money because what they’re insuring against won’t happen. And it seems to me that that was entirely analogous to what was done in stocking up the vaccine (for swine flu). The chance might have been less than 50 percent, but if you multiply the probability by the consequences it was not necessarily foolish. I don’t have enough expert knowledge in that particular case, but there are surely many cases when there’s much less than 50 percent chance of something happening but, nonetheless, it is worth a major investment to guard against it.” When we talk about climate change, we have a similar situation to deal with.  The potential dangers of greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) on climate change are certainly high impact with the extinction of life on earth as we know it being the worse case scenario  but can we work out the probability of runaway climate change happening if we do not reduce greenhouse gases emissions now? Martin Rees certainly takes the risk very seriously: “There's no denying where science has recently had the most contentious policy impact, and where the stakes are highest: climate change. It will feature, along with other global threats, in my second lecture, but I'll venture some comments today too. As regards the science, there is, in my inexpert view, one decisive measurement: the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than it’s been for a million years, and is rising, mainly because of the burning of fossil fuels. This finding isn’t controversial. And straightforward chemistry tells us the measured carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere will trigger a long-term warming, superimposed on all the other complicated effects that make climate fluctuate. The predicted rate of warming, however, is uncertain - depending on the  poorly-understood 'feedback ' from water vapour and clouds, which themselves affect the blanketing. Nevertheless, even the existing uncertain science convinces me that the threat of disruptive climate change is serious enough to justify its priority on the agenda of this country and others.” So, can we assess the risk caused by GHG emissions and how do we manage the risk? A good brief for this is covered in the Advertising Standards Authority adjucation on the Department of Energy and climate Change (DECC)  "Bedtime Story" TV ads and associated nursery rhyme broadcasted in 2009 – 2010. People complained that the ads were political and distressing and should not have been broadcasted. The response by the DECC makes interesting reading (see http://www.asa.org.uk/Complaints-and-ASA-action/Adjudications/2010/3/Department-of-Energy-and-Climate-Change/TF_ADJ_48225.aspx) Among other things, it provides very good arguments for the high probability of anthropogenic climate change and its consequences. See below: “We noted the fourth IPCC Report (2007) contained a section on the scientific calculation of likely certainty regarding predicted changes in climate based on current trends, and that specific language was used in the report to indicate degrees of both quantitative and qualitative certainty. The report explained that, where the term "very high confidence" was used, that meant there was, based on statistical analysis of the data in aggregated papers by climate scientists world-wide, a nine out of ten probability that the finding was correct. The report stated "There is very high confidence that the global average net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming ...” The IPCC report explained that "warming of the climate is unequivocal" and continued "Global GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times, with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important anthropogenic GHG ... Changes in the atmospheric concentrations of GHGs ... alter the energy balance of the climate system and are drivers of climate change.,, Global increases in CO2 concentrations are primarily due to fossil fuel use ...". We considered that, based on the IPCC analysis, the claim "Scientists said it [climate change] was being caused by too much CO2, which went up into the sky when the grown-ups used energy" was unlikely to mislead.” “The joint statement said "Year on year the evidence is growing that damaging climate and weather events - potentially intensified by global warming - are already happening and beginning to affect society and ecosystems. This includes: In the UK, heavier daily rainfall leading to local flooding such as in the summer of 2007; increased risk of summer heat waves such as the summers of 2003 across the UK and Europe; around the world, increasing incidence of extreme weather events with unprecedented levels of damage to society and infrastructure ... Sea level rises leading to dangerous exposure for populations ... These emerging signals are consistent with what we expect from our projections, giving us confidence in the science and models that underpin them. In the absence of action to mitigate climate change, we can expect much larger changes in the coming decades than we have seen so far". So, do we have a case for trying to reduce greenhouse gases emissions? When we assess the case for anthropogenic climate change, we see that we have a high probability of a high impact event happening, so the risk assessment is of the highest possible kind, scoring very high both on probability of being responsible for climate change (9/10) and impact (the severe consequences of not doing anything about GHG emissions) It is up to us to decide on risk management. Martin Rees indicates that none of the really important questions facing us in the 21st. century were given any mention in the 2010 UK political elections and yet, these questions will have a far more significant impact on our lives that the debates politicians engaged with.  We must, for instance, confront widely-held anxiety about genetics, brain science, artificial intelligence, population explosion and climate change... so, your comments and ideas will be very welcome. Michele :-) You can find out more information about these interactive lectures on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00slvqc  and tomorrow (Tuesday 8th. June) participate in a live debate about his lectures between 8.30 and 10am at  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/2010/06/reith_2010_scientific_citizen.html or by sending email to thereithlectures [at] bbc [dot] co [dot] uk or ‘tweeting’ by using the hashtag #reith. You can also replay the resulting conversations and subscribe to the Reith 2010 podcast and read the transcript from the lecture at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00729d9 Scroll down, and on the right-hand side under the banner 'links' you will see the link to the first transcript. All transcripts will appear after each lecture has been broadcasted.

 

 

With regard to risk Submitted by alister on 7 June 2010 - 2:47pm.

The United States Joint Forces Command have produced a document the "Joint Operating Environment 2010" (JOE2010) which is intended to

provide a perspective on future trends, shocks, contexts and implications for future joint force commanders and other leaders and professionals in the national security field.

It has sections on climate change and food amongst many others and has been discussed in a recent Guardian article.

It aslo has a section on energy and discusses peak oil. World crude oil production is around 75 MBD (million barrels per day) at present. In the energy summary it states

By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 MBD

This is what Richard Branson and the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security are talking about (as discussed here) when they talk about social, political and economic life in the UK being destabilised within 5 years as a result of the energy crunch. Imagine how people will react if there is petrol rationing with less petrol available year-on-year? How will people react when natural gas prices reach distressed levels as discussed by Ian Marchant, CEO of Scottish and Southern Energy on the video on this webpage?

The JOE2010 also states that

Another potential effect of an energy crunch could be a prolonged U.S. recession ...

Gross domestic product (GDP) is closely correlated to energy use and our economic model demands growth to remain stable. Given that our most important energy source is about to enter terminal decline, it is evident that GDP will follow and a prolonged depression will result.

Tackling climate change requires us to cut our energy use and our carbon emissions. Tackling peak oil requires a similar response, but in addition we should be aware of the wider economic, social and political turmoil that is likely to come with it.