Don’t exaggerate climate dangers, scientists warn

Leading climate change experts have warned of the ‘Hollywoodisation’ of global warning and criticised American scientists for exaggerating the message of global warming.

Professors Paul Hardaker and Chris Collier of the Royal Meteorolgical Society said scientists, campaign groups, politicians and the media were all guilty of making out that catastrophic events were likely when this could not be proved.

They also criticised the tendency to say individual extreme events – such as the Birmingham typhoon and the Boscastle floods – were evidence of climate change.
They singled out for criticism a report last month by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which said intensification of droughts, heatwaves, floods, wild fires and storms were ‘early warning signs of even more devastating damage to come’. ‘It’s certainly a very strong statement,’ said Collier, warning that it was a bit too early to ‘make the blanket assumption that all extreme weather events are increasing.’

Media reporting of the recent study written by the UN International Panel on Climate Change, was also criticised, especially for the use of words such as ‘catastrophic’, ‘terrifying’ and ‘devastating’ that were not in the report.

‘Campaigners, media and some scientists seem to be appealing to fear in order to generate a sense of urgency,’ said Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia and a contributor to yesterday’s report. ‘If they want to engage the public in responding to climate change, this is unreliable at best and counterproductive at worst.’

The report by Hardaker, Collier and other climate experts, ‘Making Sense of the Weather and Climate’, was launched at a conference in Oxford organised by the charity Sense About Science.

The authors said they firmly believe global warming is happening and man-made emissions of greenhouse gases are a significant cause.

Observer