Op-Ed Contributors

Factual factors in weird weather

By John E. Coulter (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-06 08:02

But beyond science, there are vested interests either riding the science bandwagon to win subsidies and avoid penalties, or receiving research grants. Besides, political debates on climate change in some countries have little to do with facts. Bloggers put any spin they wish on the subject - from prophesying fire and brimstone to conmen selling tickets for a seat on an ark.

In a TV commercial for CNN, long since removed, a reporter in Jerusalem stood on a hill and described the coming of Christ. He then reflected: I would love to be here to cover the Second Coming. The irony is that Christ is quoted in Luke as saying that even the angels don't know when God will end the world.

Before the drama surrounding 2012, weather was the most innocuous subject of conversation, consciously chosen to avoid sensitive subjects. "Nice day - do you think it may rain tomorrow ?" Now the subject of abnormal events and possible disasters - of rising seas, for example - is a hot topic. And with modern media technologies, news flashes from the spot, and satellite photographs, we may forget that most of the weather is still normal, and enjoyable. We get the impression that natural disasters are on the rise because the media know they are a good sell and have the technology to deliver into to our living room.

Five millennia ago, sorcerers and shamans would toss tortoise shells on the ground and forecast the weather according to the way they lay on the ground. Emperors hung on to the results because bad harvests or floods implied they had lost the "mandate of heaven".

Even today, we can get forecasts wrong, and the global carbon and water cycles in the sea and air (El Nino, etc) have not yet been fully understood. But not using the science we have means we are as superstitious as the ancient sorcerers. A photograph of the Earth taken from space reminds us that we live on a spaceship in a vacuum and we have the technology to damage the place we live in - the fragile biosphere which, compared to the size of the Earth, is as thin as apple skin.

Garret Hardin has described private selfishness and public environmental recklessness well in his 1968 classic essay, The Tragedy of the Commons. Spaceship Earth is (and has always been) our common heritage. From leaders to ordinary folk need to realize that.

By writing Scientific Outlook on Development into its Constitution in 2007, China has already changed its development paradigm in order to address the problems of the environment and climate change.

The author is an Australian research scholar collaborating with government, academic and commercial institutions in China.

(China Daily 05/06/2010 page9)

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