With huge quantities of information, much of which is conflicting, one the biggest challenges is knowing who, and what, to believe. In order to make informed decisions that will lead to the best outcome, we must attempt to uncover the truth. This is simply to explain our beliefs, and the reasons why…
Who We Believe…
There are two conflicting mainstream narratives:
It makes sense that people, organisations, industries and governments benefitting from significant short term profits would use questionable tactics to sow doubt around change. There is a strong short-term incentive to do so and there are plenty of examples throughout history of corporations and other institutions prioritising profit at the expense of other things (e.g. the Tobacco Industry & Health).
The narrative that large numbers of scientists would get together to unnecessarily sound the alarm, doesn't make much sense to us. Why would they want to tell the world something nobody wants to hear and create powerful enemies if there wasn't good reason? We think they are genuinely trying to help us because we can't think of another motivating factor that seems credible.
It also seems incredibly unlikely that 197 countries (some of which are largely reliant on fossil fuels) would sign up to something like the Paris Agreement, and formally acknowledge that 1.5 degrees of warming is a sensible target, if there wasn't a fairly unanimous agreement that going above it would be really bad news.
Who We Believe…
There are two conflicting mainstream narratives:
- Delay/Denial - many people, organisations, industries and governments are downplaying the severity/urgency of this issue and billions of dollars have been spent on propaganda designed to seed doubt and delay the transition away from fossil fuels.
- Alarmism - most scientists/environmental groups are making exaggerated claims and spreading unnecessary alarm about the dangers of climate change.
It makes sense that people, organisations, industries and governments benefitting from significant short term profits would use questionable tactics to sow doubt around change. There is a strong short-term incentive to do so and there are plenty of examples throughout history of corporations and other institutions prioritising profit at the expense of other things (e.g. the Tobacco Industry & Health).
The narrative that large numbers of scientists would get together to unnecessarily sound the alarm, doesn't make much sense to us. Why would they want to tell the world something nobody wants to hear and create powerful enemies if there wasn't good reason? We think they are genuinely trying to help us because we can't think of another motivating factor that seems credible.
It also seems incredibly unlikely that 197 countries (some of which are largely reliant on fossil fuels) would sign up to something like the Paris Agreement, and formally acknowledge that 1.5 degrees of warming is a sensible target, if there wasn't a fairly unanimous agreement that going above it would be really bad news.
What We Believe…
Unless we’ve been drastically misled, nearly all scientists agree on the fundamentals of this issue. They are:
The planet is warming and the climate is changing...
We can physically see/feel the change around us (almost yearly) - more extreme weather (warmer conditions, heavier rainfall etc.). We have seen instances of this from all around the world (Australian Wildfires & Germany’s Record Flooding etc.).
Humans are causing the warming by releasing more greenhouse gases...
At any given second there are millions of cars, hundreds of thousands of planes, trains, boats, and factories releasing gases into the atmosphere (if you look out of a plane window, or watch clips of the planet at night from space, you can start to appreciate the full scale of this). Over decades and centuries, it makes sense to us that this accumulation would have an impact. We know these gases are largely released from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Climate change is not good news...
Stability and balance is nearly always beneficial for wildlife and ecosystems. It seems logical that changing the conditions for life on Earth will not be a good thing for the species that have evolved to thrive in those stable conditions… including us. On top of this, there is mounting evidence already that the costs of climate change are far outweighing the benefits.
For our full summary on the science behind climate change see here.
Ultimately, we believe the IPCC provides a more reliable source of information than the media or politicians (who are rarely experts on the topic) and given the three fundamentals above (that we can be virtually certain of) we should do everything we reasonably can to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere. If the IPCC, representing the best of the scientific community, strongly advises we should stay below 1.5 degrees of warming, then we believe it’s in our best interest to do so (as a priority).
If you’d like to know more about the IPCC and why we use them as our main source of information in regards to climate science, then see this useful summary. More on their review process is here.
Unless we’ve been drastically misled, nearly all scientists agree on the fundamentals of this issue. They are:
The planet is warming and the climate is changing...
We can physically see/feel the change around us (almost yearly) - more extreme weather (warmer conditions, heavier rainfall etc.). We have seen instances of this from all around the world (Australian Wildfires & Germany’s Record Flooding etc.).
Humans are causing the warming by releasing more greenhouse gases...
At any given second there are millions of cars, hundreds of thousands of planes, trains, boats, and factories releasing gases into the atmosphere (if you look out of a plane window, or watch clips of the planet at night from space, you can start to appreciate the full scale of this). Over decades and centuries, it makes sense to us that this accumulation would have an impact. We know these gases are largely released from the combustion of fossil fuels.
Climate change is not good news...
Stability and balance is nearly always beneficial for wildlife and ecosystems. It seems logical that changing the conditions for life on Earth will not be a good thing for the species that have evolved to thrive in those stable conditions… including us. On top of this, there is mounting evidence already that the costs of climate change are far outweighing the benefits.
For our full summary on the science behind climate change see here.
Ultimately, we believe the IPCC provides a more reliable source of information than the media or politicians (who are rarely experts on the topic) and given the three fundamentals above (that we can be virtually certain of) we should do everything we reasonably can to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being added to the atmosphere. If the IPCC, representing the best of the scientific community, strongly advises we should stay below 1.5 degrees of warming, then we believe it’s in our best interest to do so (as a priority).
If you’d like to know more about the IPCC and why we use them as our main source of information in regards to climate science, then see this useful summary. More on their review process is here.