When Gordon Brown spoke of ‘catastrophe’ yesterday, he wasn’t talking about his premiership or worrying about the UK under a Tory government. Brown has always been rather quiet on climate change. His government hasn’t, but he has. We’ve always had the impression that he went along with the greening of New Labour a tad reluctantly. It’s as if he thought there were more pressing matters, even if he wasn’t quite sure what they were. PM warns of climate ‘catastrophe’ But even some climate scientists who are definitely not in the sceptical camp are concerned about such language: Which would seem like a good moment to remember the cautionary words of climate scientist Mike Hulme: The language of catastrophe is not the language of science. It will not be visible in next year’s global assessment from the world authority of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[Note: AR4]. To state that climate change will be “catastrophic” hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science. It's of course Mike Hulme who coined the term 'climate porn' to describe the kind of exaggeration that Mr Brown is engaging in. |
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