Climate debate has moved on

Just as climate science has moved on enormously since the first computer models in the seventies, the informed debate has also moved on. Twenty years ago it was commonly framed as “is climate change real?” With the work of the IPCC this moved on to “Is climate change man-made?” The most highly resourced opponent of this view was the Global Climate Coalition — made up of big oil, motor and other industries. The coalition struggled to maintain unity with the publication of the second IPCC report and cracks appeared when BP withdrew, heralded by Lord Browne’s landmark Stanford speech in 1997, and promptly followed by the exit of other major players and the coalition being disbanded. The sceptics then moved on to “OK, it’s real and man-made but it’s not that bad and there are higher priorities”. The most prominent advocate for this position has been Bjorn Lomborg. His position recently collapsed having been exposed as rhetorical and statistical trickery.

Unfortunately it is easy to appear convincing as a sceptic. It is even more unfortunate that they are given so much uncritical coverage in the media. The numerous myths about climate change such as “Global warming stopped in 1998” have been comprehensively debunked in the scientific journals and a summary can be found by Googling “New Scientist climate myths”. The scientific approach looks at long-term trends. These show that, since the first IPCC report, global warming has followed the most pessimistic scenario that they articulated. The scientific consensus is that man-made climate change is real and its implications will be somewhere between serious and catastrophic.

Building designers are uniquely powerful in their potential to mitigate climate change and, in our opinion, this is part of what it means to be contemporary. By all means have a debate but we need to make it an informed one.

To say that there is still serious doubt about anthropogenic climate change is unscientific, irresponsible and at least 10 years out of date.

Michael Pawlyn, Exploration Architecture

Co-signatories:

Chris Bannister, director, Hopkins Architects;
Martin Bates, director, Broadway Malyan;
Rab Bennetts, director, Bennetts Associates Architects;
Justin Bere, director, bere:architects;
Rory Bergin, head of Sustainability & Innovation, HTA Architects;
Bill Bordass, Usable Buildings Trust;
Frances Bradshaw, Anne Thorne Architects Partnership;
Andy von Bradsky, chairman PRP Architects;
Paddy Conaghan, partner, Hoare Lea;
Tim Day, Bree Day;
Frank Duffy, founder, DEGW;
Andy Ford, director research to reality, Fulcrum Consulting;
Ian Goodfellow, partner, Penoyre & Prasad;
Bill Gething, Sustainability & Architecture;
Dave Hampton, The Carbon Coach;
Paul Hicking, principal technician, Stephen George & Partners;
Judit Kimpian, head of sustainability and advanced modelling, Aedas;
Richard Lorch, editor, Building Research & Information;
Mike Murray, Director, i to i solutions;
Robin Nicholson, Senior Member Edward Cullinan Architects, Cabe commissioner;
Adam Poole, Engineering Relations;
G Doug Smith, principal director, TP Bennett;
Lynne Sullivan, partner, sustainableBYdesign;
Jerry Tate, director, Jerry Tate Architects;
Gary Taylor, partner, Sidell Gibson Architects;
Steve Tompkins, director, Haworth Tompkins