Setting the agenda on climate change

This week, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen will set the agenda on global warming. But scandal has hit. Scientists at the University of East Anglia have been accused of faking facts to back up the storyline that temperatures are rising. If this is true, those scientists will have discredited not only themselves, but the entire field of research. Critics are asking: What if the talk of climate change is all wrong? Is the agenda on global warming going to be based on facts, or are facts just getting in the way of the agenda?

Policy-makers can't be 100 per cent sure that global warming is occurring. The real question, therefore, is: What risks are associated with acting on the issue of climate change if it turns out not to be an issue? Author Greg Craven lays out the choices: Should global warming be a false alarm, the green agenda will use up resources the world might have needed for other ends. But if global warming is not a false alarm, we will have to deal with environmental, social, economic and political catastrophes, a far greater risk to humanity than wasting money by going green. So when faced with uncertainty about our future, the only acceptable choice is action, he says.

Boost your verb power to join the debate on climate change policy in two steps:

Step 1: Download and read Mike Pilewski's article, "A new climate of cooperation", from Spotlight 12/2009.

Step 2: Do the exercise based on the article on the next page. Good luck!

Anne Hodgson