If I was an evil Oil Tycoon and I wanted to put out a disinformation campaign to quell climate alarm, I would think about it for a bit and then come to the conclusion that I don’t need to come up with one, because the general discourse on climate change is already doing my job for me.
I would then sit back and smoke a cigar, probably shipped by plane from thousands of miles away.
The three pillars of the climate change evidence most frequently discussed (I am happy to be corrected if people think there are others) are Global Temparature Anomaly, Artic/Antarctic Sea Ice extent and Sea Level Rise.
The problem with these issues, is that only scientists care about them. Let’s take them one by one.
Global Temperature Anomaly
This is the one we base all our agreements and policies on. Limiting the world to 1.5C warming, but it might be 2C, 3C etc.
To a scientist, it goes something like this. “Oh My God! at 1.2C we exit the temperature range of the Holocene, which is the era that covers the history of human existence!”
To a member of the public? “Well, the temperature when I wake up in the morning can be more than 10C less than at the middle of the day, so 1.5C is….well…not much is it.”
When people’s seasonal and even daily experience of temperature involves variations of an order of magnitude above our global temperature anomaly, why are we surprised that this gains little traction? You can change the numbers into colours and stitch them into a scarf, but the numbers aren’t any different.
Never mind, we have two others.
Polar Sea Ice Extent
To a scientist who studies sea ice all their life, the lack of sea ice is alarming. It means that the Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight diminishes and ocean currents will be disrupted.
To a member of the public. Well, they don’t live in the Arctic do they. it’s a shame for the Polar Bears and all that, but it’s not something that’s going to impact anyone’s life is it?
But all is not lost, that’s just the beginning, the melting glacial ice leads to…
Sea Level Rise
This sounds serious. we could all die from flooding. So what is that level of sea level rise? 1m by 2100? Or is it 1.5m? – (Scientists, be sure not to make any rash claims and adopt a cautious assessment)
I lived by the sea for most of my life. Whenever I am at a beach I look at it, I imagine another metre on top of it and I say, well, it’s not going to have anyone running for the hills is it? There are not that many places in the world where that level of sea rise makes a drastic difference. And while it could be argued that it affects 100’s of millions, the point is that it doesn’t affect everyone. 250M sounds like a lot but is only 3.5%. If you are going to pitch a climate message about global catastrophe, then it’s everyone you want involved.
Unfortunately this also generally involves getting the public to care about people other than themselves. Often brown people, who don’t feature highly in the regards of the rich white west.
So my inner fossil fuel CEO is deighted that we talk about these three things all the time, because no-one cares about them.
So what would my oily self not want us to talk about? What would actually gain some traction with the public?
If I were in charge of a public information campaign to promote climate action I would focus on the following, in order.
- Food Security. Climate Change affects crop yields, we are not going to have anything to eat! That’s serious and with global supply chains, unlike sea level rise, it won’t matter where you live, everyone will be impacted. The only thing that will ptotect you against declining food production will be the military and buying power of the country you live in. (You wouldn’t, for example, want to leave a large trading block off the back of a dodgy referendum)
- Extreme weather – Flooding and Fire. While you are waiting to die of starvation your house might be washed away or burnt to the ground. The liveable space shrinks. Fancy retiring to the Gulf Coast? Or a quaint English village? I have a feeling that houses on high ground are going to get expensive. It is noticeable that scientists and meteorologists (they are also scientists) have often gone out of their way to say that no one weather event can be definitively attributed to climate change (Thanks for the help)
- Water Shortage. You won’t have anything to drink! Glacial water supplies many countries with drinking water. When the moutain ice melts, you won’t have anything to drink. Feel like joining a protest yet?
- Migration. If there is one thing that should engage climate deniers it is migrants. There is a (unhealthy) correlation between climate deniers and right wing anti-immigrant sentiments. And with the middle lattitudes being burnt to a crisp, there’s going to be millions of them!
- Food security. I have already mentioned this, but people do really like to eat.
Having spent the last the last thirty years sending out the same message on sea ice, and small temperature diffierences and expecting different results, madness according to Einstein, we could start focus messaging on the above impacts, or we can carry on talking about things no-one cares about.
It’s not like there is anything at stake…