IPCC urges Obama to raise awareness of science behind climate change

[struggle4progress]

Rajendra Pachauri says US president should push for improving public's understanding of man-made global warming
Severin Carrell, Scotland correspondent
Thursday 28 February 2013 10.09 EST

... Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that one of the president's priorities should be "awareness creation" on the public's understanding of the science underpinning man-made global warming.

The IPCC has come under some of the most intense attacks it has faced from heavily funded climate sceptic groups in the US, where industry-funded lobbing groups, Republicans and some Democrat politicians have resisted federal action on energy policy and climate.

Pachauri also welcomed Obama's pledge to tackle climate change in his second term: "I was particularly encouraged by the president's state of the union address, where he highlighted what we should really be listening too, in terms of the voice of science.," he said after a speech at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh

"I have always believed if you want action in the field of climate change, it has to be driven by an understanding, an application of what science has told us, what the IPCC has been telling us. So from that point of view, I think what President Obama said was particularly heartening" ...

[silverweb]

1. Absolutely necessary.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]I believe that the biggest problem we have to overcome first in solving this problem is widespread ignorance.

The fossil fuel industries have been very successful in masking the depth and breadth of their effects on the environment and the climate. People need to be jarred out of their complacency -- perhaps rudely -- and quickly, thoroughly educated. Only that will spur enough motivation to attain critical mass of public opinion, forcing governments to act.

Not an enviable task, but a very necessary one. Anything else is way too little way too late.

[frazzled]

2. True, but it won't make any difference if ...

the Republicans succeed in their attempt to strip our federal budget down to the point it can be drowned in a bathtub.

The point of this sequester crisis is that things like scientific research and development will not be funded. So even if the President makes people aware of the science, we will be hard pressed to do anything about it ... either on the scientific end or on the legislative end. Do you really think the Republicans will agree to a carbon tax even if every American comes to understand and believe the science?

So to me, the first priority is getting the economic situation in order, so that the government can actually act on such issues.

[silverweb]

3. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]"Do you really think the Republicans will agree to a carbon tax even if every American comes to understand and believe the science?" The reTHUGs' industry masters will fight like cornered wolverines, of course. But that party is already losing membership and support like an arterial hemorrhage.

People are getting wise to the lies and the hypocrisy. They'll catch on to the science, too, as they realize it threatens their way of life and their very lives.

We have to push our advantage now and keep the momentum. The economic situation and altering the climate change trajectory are strongly linked, as you so correctly point out, but they're not at all incompatible.

President Clinton has said for years that switching from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources would make people rich and industry leaders should embrace the change. It's the industry dinosaurs, who currently profit off decomposed dinosaur remains, who refuse to adapt to science and climate reality, and who threaten us all.

Presented properly, people will understand the connection. President Obama is our current, very adept Explainer-in-Chief. Team him with that other superb President/Explainer-in-Chief Clinton in a sustained, concerted, relentless effort to dispel the ignorance and it will work.

It has to.