1997 World Meteorological Day Address
Dr Zillman, Senator Macdonald, friends and colleagues:
To say that it is an honour to have been asked to deliver the 1997 World Meteorological Day address understates the pleasure with which I regard this distinction. It enables me to record the respect I have for the Bureau of Meteorology which has become one of the most esteemed institutions of its kind in the world. Perhaps my main reason for accepting Dr Zillman's invitation is the opportunity it gives me to highlight some environmental perceptions of the future and to comment on them from a personal perspective.
The Bureau began before the advents of either computers or satellites but not too early to benefit from the scientific objectivity inculcated by the considerable scientific talent infused into the subject during World War 2, 1939-1946.
From these early years, one perception above all others has stayed with the Bureau: the importance of critical objectivity for genuine progress in understanding.
In this address I attempt to apply such objectivity in the form of realism to the impact of human existence on the environment, and I will begin by commenting critically on conceptions of sustainable development. Many of these observations are not original, some were featured in the recent ABC Radio National series "Open Learning", in which sustainable development was considered under the title "Chasing the Rainbow", but they are seldom openly discussed. This will lead naturally to general remarks on population pressures. To some extent I shall trespass on ground covered by Barry Jones in his 1992 World Meteorological Day address but my review will be from a somewhat different perspective. Finally, in this context, it will be relevant to comment on two specific topics: the 1997 World Meteorological Day theme of Weather and Water in Cities, because urbanisation is a characteristic of population increase; and Global Warming and climate change, because it is strongly related to world population demands and because recent procedural developments are having an impact on the reputation of climate science.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Pronouncements from government sources in most countries characteristically contain two types of exhortation that sit uneasily together. On the one hand we are urged to foster increased economic development in order to provide improved employment prospects and the disposable wealth required for social objectives. On the other hand we are counselled to mend our profligate ways in order to achieve ecological sustainability. Indeed the use of the word "sustainable" has become rather hackneyed, and with it the appealing ideal of sustainable development.
Throughout modern history people have wanted to believe that a better society and organisation can exist and be created. Betterment means not only that the socio-economic system could be more equitable in a humanitarian sense but also that it should be able to resolve the problem of a developing society and a deteriorating environment. Quality of life is what we are all concerned about. Yet the idea that "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" begs the question of what is possible. As an imprecise ambition sustainable development provides fertile ground for idealists and gives scope to well-meaning evangelists who seek to impose or encourage ethical changes in the way of the world. Of course it also attracts those who can use the concept to sell their wares or justify their activities.
Over the past two decades an emerging awareness of environmental degradation has placed it high on the political agenda in many countries. This has had the desirable effect of achieving for the environment a relatively higher priority than before in the allocation of government funding. Unfortunately it has also sometimes meant that truth, rather than according with fact or a rational analysis of the situation, has become what people can be persuaded to believe by constant repetition from various pressure groups. One such persuasion is that a clear path to sustainable development exists and is obvious to those with acumen. Five years ago Barry Jones ended his address by referring to Pascal's wager as an argument for "taking action to avert disaster"; yet he failed to mention the implicit assumption that a solution exists which allows such action with no adverse consequences. I will argue later that, in the case of global warming, the advocated cure may be worse than the presumed disease.
A major plank in the platforms of those directing us to this path is the Precautionary Principle -- as a means to help stop the rot of environmental degradation. This principle advocates that, when faced with any agricultural, industrial, mining or tourist development proposal, regulators should anticipate environmental harm and act to ensure that such harm doesn't occur. Innocuous enough perhaps. Indeed it looks very much like a moral imperative: no rational person could advocate deliberate environmental degradation, and ideally we should leave the world a better place for human habitation than when we entered it. But things are not that simple. In a highly interactive society there are competing moral imperatives, or at least desired objectives, including issues like the rights to life, food and comfort, maintaining standards of living, and international and intergenerational equity. While some of these suffer from the perspective of moral values fashioned in a past era when scope for expansion was perceived as infinite, the conflicts are no less real. Yet, to achieve them, paradoxically boldness has been replaced by timidity.
In his thought provoking monograph "Don't Panic, Panic" subtitled "The use and abuse of science to create fear", the late John Farrands begins "In our time we have created the most unnecessarily fearful generation of humankind ever to have populated the earth". He didn't cite the Precautionary principle, yet he might have done because it appears to reflect a fear for the future and a timorous view of the relationship between humanity and the environment. It infers that almost any developmental activity affecting the environment has a latent tendency to do more harm than good and that societal benefit can no longer justify further environmental alteration. The principle is often associated with the maxim "lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for taking no action". Yet this is a redundant statement given the rationally sceptical perspective that certainty of knowledge is unattainable. Both the principle and the maxim are arguments used to justify the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
It is now well known that the term sustainable development was coined in the 1987 Brundtland Report "Our common future", and defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". Indeed this term has received ubiquitous usage, often without the user thinking about what it really means or about the viability of that concept. The possible, even likely, mutual inconsistency of the two parts of the definition certainly seems to have escaped those who drafted it. But any rational criticism has been swamped by the powerful dawning awareness of an increasingly obvious deterioration in our physical and biological environment and, because people are becoming a little frightened, of the political potency of the concept in terms of votes. Where the political climate has fostered the profile of special interest groups this has given "the environmental movement" unprecedented influence.
Somewhat improbably it was the 19th Century anarchist Michael Bakunin who expressed concern about "the tyranny of the minority over the majority -- in the name of the many and the supreme wisdom of the few"; yet this is the direction in which unfettered trepidation might take us. In his 1990 prize-winning Quadrant essay "The class that cried Wolf" Sev Sternhell asserts that "Greenies use scientific data like lawyers, to make a case; and not like scientists, to discover what is the case"; he decries exaggeration and distortion. Hard words perhaps, but whether one subscribes to these criticisms or not it is apparent that some components of modern environmental attitudes are characterised by apprehension with which changes associated with any developmental activity are regarded, the fervour with which views are held, and the prediction of a calamitous future -- unless some specified action is undertaken. Yet these are not new features in intellectual debate. On apprehension, in 1873 John Stewart Mill, no less, expressed foreboding -- for statistical reasons -- that the world was running out of beautiful melodies, and that Mozart and Weber had skimmed what was left of the cream. Hardly were the words off his pen than Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Strauss etc. proved him wrong. Beware of those who stray outside their field! On fervour, in 1958 Bertrand Russell rather mischievously suggested that an opinion needed to be held fervently only if it were doubtful or demonstrably false. Beware of ardent rhetoric! And on prediction, in 1968 Karl Popper, after noting that the general public expect every genuine scholar to be a prophet, somewhat tongue-in-cheek said "Soothsaying should be kept where it belongs -- in the fairground. Whether a prediction becomes true or not is not a matter of method, wisdom or intuition; it is purely a matter of chance". Beware of false prophets!
The sustainable development advocacy is occurring at a time of more rapid escalation in human numbers than ever before, when it is at last being appreciated that there is a limit to many available resources, and when a decline in disposable wealth in most developed countries has been obvious for a decade or more. Clearly it is relevant to question whether a truly equitable re-adjustment can be achieved without a vast reduction in the quality of life for many and without the emergence of internecine conflict of the type which is now afflicting the republics of the old socialist union and many other locations. Such a question is generally avoided by social scientists who tend to annex the issue of environmental degradation as part of a moral crusade.
In 1992 "Beyond the limits" was published. It is the 20 year sequel to "Limits to growth", sponsored by The Club of Rome, and is a document likely to induce mixed feelings in the reader. No one of us could do other than laud the moral principles upon which its recipe for meeting the needs of the poor, for equity and for sustainable development is based. But the balance between altruism and selfishness in the statistics of human behaviour, as distinct from individual compassion and personal character, is not likely to change. One does not have to be a misanthrope to recognise that average human behaviour on a one to one basis accords with a different standard of morality than it does on a tribe to tribe or a nation to nation basis.
For these reasons, even if theoretically possible, there must be some doubt whether the wider concept of sustainable development as defined is achievable. This may be why the honourable intentions voiced at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro have been echoed by subsequent conferences (on Population in Cairo, 1994; Women's issues, Beijing, 1995; Habitat, Istanbul, 1996) and the Social Summit, Copenhagen, 1996 without the ambitious resource transfers from "rich" to "poor" nations outlined in Agenda 21 being effected. A significant feature of UNCED was a noticeable avoidance of reference to, let alone discussion of, the world population problem. The difficulties became obvious at Cairo where virtually no headway was made in tackling the ideological impediments to attempts to control the rate of world population increase.
PEOPLE
Since the Essay on Population by the Englishman Thomas Malthus in 1803 the carrying capacity of the planet has at various times been a topic of debate. The essence of Malthus's notion was that, if population numbers continue to increase geometrically whereas food production increases arithmetically, at some time widespread famine must ensue. A few years ago Paul Ehrlick and collaborators excited widespread concern with books entitled "The population bomb" (1968) and "The population explosion" (1990). However, sceptics have delighted in noting the downwardly adjusted population predictions in the second book and between this and recent United Nations estimates of world population (currently nearing 6 billion). They also criticise the simplicity of some of the modelling assumptions in "Limits to growth" and argue that inadequate allowance was made for technological and agricultural improvements which dramatically increased yields in the so-called "green revolution". And yet the current world population estimate and the rate of increase of nearly one billion every 10 years are not so far from the estimates made in "Limits to growth" 25 years ago. The "time of doubling" estimated for 1995 by the World Bank "World Population Projections" is 12 years, and probably at its lowest, but numbers are not expected to stabilise, at between 11 and 12 billion, until well into the 22nd Century.
The deleterious effects of such pressures on the quality of life are to be seen not only in the famines of Ethiopia or Somalia and the endemic water shortages in much of Africa, in the rural saturation of much of China, in the suffocating atmospheres of Mexico City, Sofia, Teheran or Taipei, in the pathetic overcrowding of Calcutta or in the squalor of Sao Paulo. They are a major component too in events such as traffic jams in London, breakdowns of city services in New York, overloading of the sewerage system in Sydney, the inadequacy of infrastructure in most countries and the increased urbanisation everywhere.
Environmental threats due directly to increasing population and development expectations can be perceived as ranging from the more acute to the more chronic: from water deficiencies and waste disposal contamination of land, water and air, through decreased biodiversity and perhaps climate change, to reduction in non-renewable resources. Warfare and disease could be included in this categorisation because they are exacerbated in many parts of the world by too many people for too few desired and available resources. To many people in developing countries "development" means "catching up with the rich countries"; hence their concerns that international requirements to clean up their environment, prevent further degradation and limit their use of fossil fuels would impose impediments to their growth and prosperity. The logic seems sound.
Realistic attempts to address national aspects of population increase were considered at the Australian Academy of Science Symposium "Population 2040: Australia's choice", held in April 1994. There, particular concern was expressed about the possible doubling or tripling of the size of Melbourne and Sydney, the need to service them and their impact on surrounding regions. The full complexity was considered in "Australia's population 'carrying capacity' ", the 1994 Report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee for Long Term Strategies. The political difficulties are indicated by what Doug Cocks in his book "People policy" calls "the Committee's somewhat confused report which manages to avoid making any recommendations". Cocks himself argues that a much better case exists for a policy aimed at stabilising Australia's population in a generation or so than for the current tacit policy of doubling the size within a few generations. Urban quality of life emerges from his analysis as the single most important issue in the population debate -- although I suspect this is not as important as the consequences of such a policy on employment and wealth: commerce and industry on which these depend rely upon the demands of an expanding society.
However desirable ecologically they may be, the prospects of any significant medium term change in population trends are not large. Nationally this is illustrated by a recent call for action to develop a population policy for Australia, but at the same time the adverse social consequences of containing population are given more weight than the adverse environmental consequences of not doing so. Internationally it would be naive to believe that carrying capacity is high on the priority list of many underprivileged and warring factions already actively engaged in survival activities that degrade the environment in one way or another. For such groups, maintaining current existence is more urgent than any thoughts of the viability of future generations.
Realism has been defined as the application of thinking to wishing. Clearly when planning for the future it is necessary for these plans to be based on realism not wishful thinking. In any case it would be more honest to admit that until world population and associated expectations stabilise, environmental damage control is a more realistic aim than ecologically sustainable development (ESD). Indeed, on the national scene, if Australia's population is not to be stabilised in the medium term, environmental damage control together with improved efficiency and conservation of resources, is the main thrust of the principles set out in 1992 by the 9 government sponsored ESD working groups.
Meteorology is involved in many responses to the problem of increasing numbers of people and a decrease in the quality of their environment. I would like to comment on two such responses: the first, servicing cities, is based on realism but the second, coping with climate change, is in dire danger of being overwhelmed by wishful thinking.
CITIES
In Australia 60% of people live in the five largest cities, and the 1994 forecast of the Australian Bureau of Statistics is that most future immigrants will settle in capital cities and that the drift away from inland centres will continue. Such a changing distribution is similar to the world-wide population shift from rural to urban areas. Recognising the implications of increased urbanisation the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has chosen "Weather and Water in Cities" as the theme for the 1997 World Meteorological Day. Topics that fall under this heading include precision forecasting, extreme weather, the urban heat island and flood forecasting, but two that are particularly relevant to my theme are urban air pollution and water supply.
Perhaps the most widespread problem in urban meteorology concerns the structure and behaviour of the lower atmosphere and its effect on atmospheric pollution. This has been extensively studied in Australia partly because of the role of this part of the atmosphere in affecting the hydrological cycle and agriculture. Also, our country has a sparse population and, even in the more densely settled areas, is characterised by relatively discrete areas of industrial development. This has provided opportunities to study plumes from individual and conglomerate sources. A third feature of Australia is that most population centres are near the coast, and there has been a particular interest in the fate of waste emissions into the atmosphere under sea breeze conditions.
Meteorological conditions associated with photochemical smog have been studied in most of our major cities, and the success of these studies as a basis for improved regulations and forecasts is due in no small part to strong collaboration between scientists and engineers from Federal and State Governments and Industry. This collaboration continues in the current National Inquiry into Urban Air Pollution being organised by the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. The numerical modelling component of this work now has the ability to simulate likely ground level concentrations of pollutants from contemplated emissions sources not yet in existence, incorporating realistic topography. It has emerged as an invaluable planning facility, has been adopted by many overseas agencies and is a central facet of several overseas consultancies won by Australian consortia.
Regarding fresh water demand, assuming world population figures of 5.3 billion in 1990 and 10.0 billion in 2050 it has been estimated that in 1990 335 million people (6% of world population, in 28 countries) suffered water stress or scarcity, mostly in Arabia and Africa. In 2050 this will rise to 4,400 million people (44% of world population, in 58 countries), with India and China now in the list. Despite the drawing down of ground water resources in some countries, including Australia, this worsening is almost entirely due to population increase. Transporting water more than 100 km is extremely expensive, thus the inexorable urbanisation throughout the world exacerbates the problem. Ironically water engineers are partly responsible for the problem: the introduction of water supply and sewage treatment technology in the 19th and 20th centuries accelerated the population increase.
CLIMATE
Although scientific uncertainties remain, the Greenhouse debate has now firmly moved to the response phase. Indeed this has become obvious from the hectic activity within Government and Industry preparing for the latest in the round of negotiations for the sequence of meetings of the Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. I believe that climate scientists need to take a long hard look at just why, internationally, policymaking has so effectively pre-empted science.
In the decade following 1985, with surprising speed catastrophic climate change assertions by the media and those on the periphery of the science became widely accepted. Where reference was later made to the consensus set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), formed by WMO and UNEP in 1987, the focus was always on the upper bounds of possible climate change, and caveats tended to be ignored. Some 30 years ago the eminent US meteorologist Joe Smagorinsky, unhappy at what he regarded as the precipitate utilisation of numerical weather prediction in operational weather forecasting, coined the phrase "an inadequate framework has been pressed into premature servitude"! This is a much more relevant lament about global warming than was the case for weather forecasting.
In the 1970s and early 1980s the Joint Organising Committee of the WMO/ICSU Global Atmsopheric Research Programme focussed first on the science of weather and second on the science of climate. These were exciting times. Meteorologists had cause to be proud of improvements to numerical weather analysis and prediction that resulted from the combined observational and modelling undertaken in the 1979 Global Weather Experiment. Equally impressive was the subsequent application of climate models to study the sensitivity of results to variations in some of the controlling influences, notably atmospheric composition. This paved the way for rapidly organised collaboration between meteorologists, oceanographers, atmospheric chemists, biologists, etc., and the well informed reviews that provided input to the IPCC consensus. Within a short time initial industry scepticism about aspects of both model results inferring climate change due to increasing levels of Greenhouse gases and observational studies of global surface temperature trends was largely dispelled.
But something has gone wrong. Whether we like it or not the rapport that many of us have tried to establish between industry and science has been disturbed by the way in which the 1995 up-date of IPCC consensus on climate change was handled. Background information and the first draft of documentation was provided by hundreds of scientists around the world who had met to contribute the results of their research and their interpretation of it. An executive group took on the responsibility of editing the detailed material, preparing Summary findings and publishing both. Unfortunately the end products from this process have been severely criticised from within the ranks of both science and industry. The seriousness of these criticisms can be gauged from the headline "A major deception on global warming" in the editorial columns of The Wall Street Journal (12 June 1996). In this, Frederick Seitz, President of the Marshall Institute and a past President of the United States Academy of Science, questioned the objectivity of the IPCC report and in particular its "on balance" attribution that human influence was already evident in the observed small global average temperature trends over the past 50 years. These concerns were peremptorily rejected as right wing prejudices by the United States delegation at Geneva and of course by the IPCC principals. But it may have been unwise for them to have been so dismissive. Alarm bells were ringing while the report was being compiled. Immediately after a late stage international meeting in Madrid, November 1995, to consider the scientific component of the update, several national delegations specifically expressed misgivings at the way in which the procedures were being used to bypass the background documentation that had already been prepared by grass roots scientists throughout the world. And later, at conferences in Rome and Geneva, industry was disconcerted at the precedence given to the points of view of the zealous environmental lobby.
Most informed scientists believe that Seitz was wrong to impugn the integrity of certain individuals involved in the final editing of this very large project but many share his irritation at what they see as examples of bias and exaggeration in the final Policymakers' Summaries. Study of the report by "IPCC watchers" associated with major world industry associations has revealed examples of changes to the earlier wording of the Summary for Policymakers for Working Group I (Science), the effect being, they aver, to "scientifically cleanse" the final report of equivocations and caveats in the background documentation. The World Energy Council cites evidence also of scientific bias, technical weakness and political influence in the Policymakers' Summaries for Working Groups II (Impacts) and III (Strategies). The credibility of the IPCC would seem to have suffered. Perhaps the most potentially damaging and controversial assertion is in the Synthesis of the 1995 IPCC Assessment which states "the risk of aggregate net damage due to climate change, consideration of risk aversion and the precautionary approach provide a rationale for actions beyond 'no regrets' ". This is an unwise statement when no assessment has been made of the net long term damage from either climate change or, importantly, from major emission reduction strategies.
Action aimed at stifling informed dissent in favour of a cult opinion is bad practice. Because I am personally worried about what might be regarded as international endeavours to dilute objective criticism and establish a "scientifically correct" view on global warming, I consulted six senior overseas professionals who at one time or another had played a major role in international meteorology. None of them is closely connected with industry. Five of the replies expressed equal or greater concern about what one called "first guessing the science" and another called "exaggeration and unjustified alarm". Only one felt that such criticisms were misplaced -- because, he said, of the political support this had obtained for the science!
Already an enormous amount of time and money has been spent on international policy response negotiations. Yet it is not generally appreciated that a rational consideration of why we need to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions rests on a sequence of four assumptions:
- that the greenhouse gas -- climate change scientific theory is valid, and that global warming and other climate changes will be induced by higher gas concentrations,
- that any such climate change is necessarily a net detriment to our well-being,
- that realistically we can achieve a sufficient world-wide reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to effect a stabilisation of gas concentrations in the atmosphere and thus limit any climate change that would otherwise occur,
- that the total cost to society of such a reduction is less than the cost of adapting to the climate change.
If even one of these is untrue then the chain of argument justifying a policy of greenhouse gas emission reduction is broken. It is not appropriate to consider them here; although I will say that while, with important qualifications, the first assumption (science) is likely to be broadly correct , the second (impacts) is indeterminate and the third and fourth (strategies to cope) are probably incorrect.
A critical and thorough objective analysis of the need, possibility and effectiveness of major world-wide emission reductions is called for, along the lines of the above analysis -- before we get into more trouble than we are already in. Well perhaps not we older scientists; the crunch will come in a decade or so if some of the rashly formed predictions of dramatic climate change are revealed to be flawed. When scapegoats are sought science will not be ignored.
There is an element of hypocrisy in the current negotiations preparing for Conferences of Parties (COPs) to the FCCC. National delegations seem to be more concerned with setting new targets at the Kyoto COP in December 1997 than in meeting old ones. At the Geneva COP in 1996 information gleaned from various sources suggests that far from stabilising concentrations, it is probable that even emissions will not be stabilised by the year 2000, an increase of magnitude 10% above 1990 levels among the developed nations is more likely. Developing nations will considerably exceed this. (The net result is a rate of increase similar to that of world population.) Intentions regarding legally binding targets are hedged by caveats, and while there is much debate about "equitable burden sharing" and "differentiation" (taking into account the different social and economic circumstances of individual nations), few countries regard this as other than a means to reduce their share.
At the most recent meeting in Bonn, March 1997, European Union (EU) environment ministers appear to have agreed to differentiation between European countries but it is nor clear whether this is accepted also for countries outside. But many inconsistencies exist in the European position, and while a 15% emission reduction target by 2010 is being advanced (already rejected as unrealistic by Australia), one senior official is said to have conceded that agreement at Kyoto of even a 10% target is far from likely at the moment.
Draconian policies of emission reduction are being seriously considered by some countries with scant regard to their effectiveness in retarding climate change and minimal understanding of their total downstream socio-economic consequences. However, at the Bonn meeting, the United Mine Workers of America declared that such policies would reduce economic growth and impact on rich and poor alike. The union echoed opinions that without definite emission reduction commitments from non-OECD countries it is impossible to point to any environmental benefit that might result from a one-sided emission reduction agreement covering only a fraction of future Greenhouse gas emitters. Similar views have been expressed by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
Clearly uncertainties in both the science and impacts of climate change are not being balanced against the full costs of mitigation strategies. It is not rational to advocate a policy without first obtaining convincing estimates of what its total effect is likely to be. The objective of the Framework Convention on Climate Change is to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions sufficient to stabilise concentrations or to reduce significantly their rate of increase within a credible time frame. But there is an obvious possibility that this objective is unnecessary, unachievable and undesirable. It should be a matter of some concern that these doubts are not openly discussed.
When danger threatens, intelligent people have four possible courses of action: to ignore it, to prevent it, to ameliorate it and to prepare to adapt to it. In this case we are not ignoring it, cannot prevent it and our options for the amelioration are severely limited. It appears therefore that planned adaptation should be the central policy; for this, science will be even more important because of the requirement to predict what it is we need to adapt to. An eminently sensible approach appears to have been adopted by the Australian Government: questioning the feasibility of targets, working to resolve the uncertainties on all fronts and assessing the consequences of policies before adopting them. It is clearly time to change from wishful thinking to realism when planning for the future.
