George Marshall is an environmentalist working for a campaign organisation called Rising Tide. He believes that uncertainties are being used as an excuse for not acting to prevent global warming and that there is far more certainty about climate change than there is about many other aspects of science on which policy decisions are routinely made.

The science of climate change is full of uncertainty – why should we act on something we’re not sure about?
The first public relations act has been to play on that uncertainty to suggest that the science is inconclusive, we are not yet in a position when we can take action. It hasn’t been to deny the science, it has merely been to say that there is too much uncertainty. Actually the fact is that there is a great deal more certainty around about climate change than there is about almost any other aspect of science as it affects government policy, there’s far more certainty around climate change than there is for example around BSE, there’s far more certainty around climate change than there is around public health aspects in which government routinely makes decisions.

The scientists are telling us, and this we can be confident of, that there is a lag time of at least 50 years between greenhouse gas emissions and their long-term climatic impact, putting up increasing quantities of gases and what those effects are on the climate. There are sceptics, people from think tanks, people from the libertarian right and so on who argue strongly against a precautionary principle, on the basis that we should seek to adapt. They are very powerful vested interests that are seeking to take hold of arguments generally as a means of not investing in the changes that we need in society. They’re seeking to have it both ways: they’re seeking to say first of all, we don’t know for certain that climate change exists; secondly, if it does exist, we should be seeking to adapt to it.

The fact is that we are, in the words of the IPCC, conducting a vast experiment in the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. We cannot afford to wait for 50 years to have the complete science, if we continue to experiment with changing the composition of gases in the atmosphere we will producing substantial changes in the world’s climate. And whether we can say with 100% confidence that we know what those changes are or what causes them, it is clearly an experiment of extreme recklessness that we have no right to carry out. We have no right or justification to argue to future generations or to the people around the world who may well be affected by that action that we were waiting in order to achieve a full scientific understanding of what we were doing.

How would you respond to those who see a powerful Green lobby merely acting to serve their own interests by scaring people about global warming?
Many people actually greatly over-exaggerate the power of environmental organisations. In reality their power is only as powerful as the ideas that they spread and they stand with, it’s only as powerful as the science that they argue for. No environmental organisation has ever achieved any results where there hasn’t been a level of scientific support or political will or general public support to achieve those changes. So we’re foolish if we think that say Greenpeace can produce a change on its own, it can only catalyse a change.

What kind of changes do you think people need to make to stop global warming?
I don’t think environmentalists can say ‘this is what we want to see done’, other than to say that climate has to put at the top of the agenda in all aspects of social activity. Individuals need to be considering in all ways what their personal impact is on the world’s climate, governments need to be asking that question of every aspect of governmental policy, and we need to set very stringent goals for our emissions.

The problem we have in communicating climate change is that people diffuse responsibility both of being a cause of climate change and being a possible solution to it. That the problem seems so huge and that they seem such a small part of the cause and the solution to it that they are reluctant to take any personal action whatsoever. They prefer to think that this thing doesn’t exist and that they can just simply get on with their lives. The challenge for enabling people to engage in climate change is therefore to break down some of the barriers that prevent personal action, it’s to connect people to their personal role in this problem, the role that their lifestyle and the role that their professional working activity plays in this. The next thing is to persuade people that personally they can make a difference, both in terms of their own lifestyle choices but also in terms of political mobilisation. We need to get people to come together and mobilise collectively for political, social and economic change.

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