BBC Horizon - Global Warming

A lot of the stuff in this blogg is prompted by a sense that we don't take sufficient account of our animal instincts, the effect of our genes, when examining or explaining human baehaviour.

For example. "Horizon" on BBC last Monday night, 24 Jan, wondered why so many people don't accept the scientific consensus that global warming is a real and man-made phenomenen, and what is the role of the media in this.

The main message that I got from the program was how far scientists seem to be disconnected from the reality of human behaviour.

The challenge for scientists is not to convince people that global warming is real. It is to convince people that it is worth a considerable personal cost to do something about it - the sort of cost that they were not prepared to bear, for example, to support the UK textile, coal or car industries or even their local shop.

And when people don't want to do something that they "ought" to do, the usual reaction is to create a justification for their behaviour. In this case they can justify inaction by questioning the science. We can see this all around us. Trades Unions argue that safety will be compromised because it is more acceptable than demanding more pay. Employers claim the need to keep wages down and working hours up to be competitive when they really want an excuse for even more profit.

I'm sure the majority of scientists genuinely believe that global warming will lead to a crisis and believe we should all be helping to do something about it. But surely this expectation flies in the face of experience.

Like every other species humans have always been delighted to rape the planet for their personal betterment without regard for the future. Unfortunately, because humans have intelligence, they are better at it than the other species. If we didn't want everything "now" there would be no basis for the banking industry. We see all around us that people (including, I suspect, the scientists when they are not being scientists) are only interested in buying whatever is cheapest even if it means the loss of UK jobs, the loss of their local shop, or the devastation of other species.

The Horizon program wondered why so many people are unwilling to accept the consensus on global warming even though each of them would be quite happy to accept the medical consensus about how to treat his/her serious illness. I can't understand why the program makers used this example. To my mind it just illustrates the enormous difference between people's attitudes to things that have an immediate impact on their welfare and other things that are distant and intangible.

So HOW can supposedly intelligent scientists expect people to have any interest in paying now to solve a problem that will impact on future generations, probably in far-off places?

As far as I know scientists are not saying that global warming will destroy planet earth or wipe out the human species. Even if the public was convinced that global warming will cause a few wars or famines I suspect most people would be content to believe it will all affect someone else.

And finally ... the program made no attempt to consider whether all this scientific consensus is, as much as anything, driven by the genes of scientists who want secure employment and to have their work admired by their peers - just like ordinary people. This is an unusual subject for scientists. Because of its political implications it is not the same as trying to develop a new type of semi-conductor or a better way to carry out surgery. In "normal" science there is no merit in being on either side of the debate - it is just science. Also "normal" science is usually done with much smaller scientific teams. Anyone pushing a substantially different hypothesis is, in effect, challenging the reputations of a very large group of experts.