This is a guest post by Roddy Campbell.
There’s been a good thread at CaS on alarmism and doom, what I like to call awarmism, with commenters batting back and forward on whether predicting doom and disaster, as Bill McKibben of 350.org does, helps or hinders the CO2 message.
It got me thinking, and then I read this piece at Climate Progress today by Veron, on coral reefs. It’s very good, very informative on the mass bleaching link with warming, and the upcoming acidification threat. I know nothing about coral reefs; I enjoyed reading it.
But why did it leave me …. well …. unmoved to action? What is it about ‘climate alarmism’ that is sometimes so…well…rebarbative? Is it that we ‘deniers’ just block our ears and chant ‘Heard it all before’ loudly as soon as someone says anything that might hint at taking away our 4x4, or suggest that ‘guvment’ should ‘do something about it’? Is it that simple?
Veron describes the threat as the coming 6th Mass Extinction, but is sensibly conscious that his readers will hear alarmism:
'You may well feel that dire predictions about anything almost always turn out to be exaggerations. You may think there may be something in it to worry about, but it won’t be as bad as doomsayers like me are predicting.'
Yes, that’s more or less what I thought as I started to read, so he is aware of the possible reaction to what he is about to say, and the way he says it. But what does he then do? What is it about the post itself that doesn't 'work', that I find off-putting, almost untrustworthy?
It's the language. Here are some sentences and phrases:
'Unless we change the way we live, the Earth’s coral reefs will be utterly destroyed within our children’s lifetimes.'
'...nothing comes close to the devastation waiting in the wings at the moment.'
'..here I am today, humbled to have spent the most productive scientific years of my life around the rich wonders of the underwater world, and utterly convinced that they will not be there for our children’s children to enjoy unless we drastically change our priorities and the way we live.'
'... my increasing concern for the plight of reefs in the face of global temperature changes...'
' ....my profound interests in geology, palaeontology, and oceanography'
'... the big picture that gradually emerged from my integration of these disparate disciplines left me shocked to the core.'
'In a long period of deep personal anguish....'
'......coral reefs can indeed be utterly trashed in the lifetime of today’s children.'
'.... the only corals not affected by mass bleaching by 2050 will be those hiding in refuges away from em sunlight...'
'What were once thriving coral gardens that supported the greatest biodiversity of the marine realm will become red-black bacterial slime, and they will stay that way.'
'How many of us wish to explain to our children and children’s children that the predictions were there but we wanted confirmation?'
'Coral reefs speak unambiguously about climate change.'
'Reefs are the ocean’s canaries and we must hear their call. This call is not just for themselves, for the other great ecosystems of the ocean stand behind reefs like a row of dominoes. If coral reefs fail, the rest will follow in rapid succession, and the Sixth Mass Extinction will be upon us — and will be of our making.'
Don't get me wrong, it's a good piece, good content, in between these anthropomorphic and emotive sentences is good stuff. But, for me anyway, articles describing coral reefs as the canaries of the ocean and blackmailing me with images of my reproving children's children with rickets start 3 - 0 down with a man sent off. Sorry. Maybe that just makes me a bastard. :-) More seriously, I think there is an issue in trusting someone suffering ‘deep personal anguish’ over an issue – it is likely, surely, that there is a decent risk of advocacy taking priority over truth when and if they clash? I also mistrust anyone with too high an adjective count; when I write something I go through it several times, each time removing any adjectives I find that add nothing to the sense of the writing, and substituting emotive verbs and nouns with less emotive synonyms. I feel that whatever small sense I may be communicating will then come through more clearly. Why does something have to be ‘utterly trashed’? Why children squared, as in children’s children? How many times can we really be ‘shocked to the core’ before we lose all ability to sense? This dislike of mine applies on a 360 basis – whenever Steve McIntyre refers to the ‘hapless’ Muir Russell he loses me just a little bit too.