Thoughts on the IPCC report…
In recent days the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued their 2013 report concluding that they are 95% certain that humans have caused most (by which they mean pretty much all) of the global warming in the last sixty years. What’s more, 97% of climate experts and peer-reviewed climate science studies agree.
If Environmental Health said you were 95% likely to get food poisoning from your local restaurant, would you still eat there? Probably not. And yet some people still persist in the belief that the science about climate change is not certain enough to convince them of the need for change. And why? Surely because it’s easier than taking responsibility, easier than changing behaviour and easier than facing our part in the harm climate change will do – is already doing – around the world to current and future generations. And of course, it’s political too.
95% certainty is good enough to convince me that we need to make some changes. And if the 3% of doubters turn out to be right, I’ll take that chance because what harm will have been done? So, if you want to work with your community to make some changes, you’re in the right place. We think it’s best to start making those changes sooner rather than later, when they’ll be forced on us through necessity. When you look at it that way, we’re all Transitioning, whether consciously or not.