Danwei interviews Jonathan Watts: "Copenhagen will shape our lives for years to come"

Hmmm. No mention of Climategate. Softball.

Thon, What's your Climategate question? I guess Alice did not ask me because I have no inside or first-hand information about that subject, but happy to share opinions.

Mr. Watts,

Do you believe that the scientific basis behind global warming is accurate?

The US and EU are hypocrites.

The EU does not need China's permission to cut their own emissions. If they're truly concern about global warming and truly want to cut emissions by 80%, then do it. Otherwise, they're just hypocrites. Lead by example. And stop blaming others.

The Climategate developments suggest that the "science" behind the IPCC report is incompetent, partisan and even fraudulent, and the scandal continues to grow. It's much, much more than "a few stolen emails", and it may eventually kill the whole AGW thesis.

The unequivocal message behind both your interview or your photo-project is uncritical acceptance of AGW and of the "necessity" of Copenhagen-style remedies.

I have two big problems with this. First is the standard skeptic argument that the mooted remedies - increased government control and a huge tax in the form of cap-and-trade - is economically disastrous (which, of course, is why the BASIC nations won't touch it) for no provable gain. 'Nuff said.

Second, and more directly connected with your article, is that big serious environmental problems exist, unconnected with climate change, and that our chasing around after AGW marsh-gas diverts attention and resources from these problems.

Let's get specific. Take the Liuzhou floods. The entire tenor of your article invites us to assign blame to AGW, yet your own caption reveals that there were bigger floods in 1988 and 1996. Big rivers in mountainous terrain will flood like hell from time to time. C'est la vie. The way to tackle that problem is to spend money on flood-control measures that actually address the problem (which is happening right now, with the building of a large dam upstream of Liuzhou). Even if it emerges that flood frequency and severity at Liuzhou is increasing (is it? - suppose you actually commit yourself and say so) the cause is as likely to be deforestation of the catchment area. This is a known major cause of increased flooding in the Ganges-Brahmaputra catchment, so I'd bet money that the Pearl River catchment has at least some measure of the same problem. That problem will not be as vigorously addressed as it could be if people like you weren't pushing the AGW malarkey and diverting resources into the exchequers of governments, where they will be used for voter-bribes, not environmental alleviation.

Now, let's go to Bangladesh. Poor old Azizul Islam, in your report, is getting it tough. But he lives in the Ganges Delta, which is a big, largely uncontrollable natural system. It's in its ungovernable nature to erode away existing islands and build up new ones, more or less at random. It has done for a few million years, and will go right on doing it, AGW be damned. The Independent made an eedjit of itself a little while ago by claiming an eroding island in the delta as the "first island lost to AGW-related sea-level rise". In fact, it was just the Ganges doing what the Ganges does. Global sea-level rise in the last century was 18 cm, not nearly enough to kill an island. It's also likely that the Delta is being isostatically depressed by the weight of deposited sediment, contributing an unequivocally non-AGW-related component to sea-level changes. So it's entirely unclear that Azizul's tribulations are down to AGW. But anybody reading your stuff wouldn't come away with that.

The Climategate mess is increasingly undermining the "settled science" of AGW heterodoxy. Stricter parsing of the Vaseline-lens type of stuff we see here quite often reveals that the problem isn't climate-change-related at all. This means the real problems like air pollution, soil erosion and deforestation will get a little more of the attention they deserve.

Copenhagen was a great victory, not a defeat.

The problem is always the rich not changing or altering their lifestyles, and then wanting to deny anyone else the chance to become rich (and hence powerful) like them.

Anonymous (9:17am)

Reluctantly, yes.
Climate science is incomplete, political, fashionable and, for some, an almost religious matter of faith.

But in the past 18 months I have spoken to many of China's leading authorities on climatology, glaciology, oceanology, river management, zoology and desertification.

They tell me the climate is changing and the planet warming. Most of them believe human activity is at least partly responsible. As a matter of precaution, they concur mankind should reduce heat-trapping gases.

Chinese scientists take a cautious view on climate change compared to much of the West. But, even here there is wide acceptance that the balance of risk has shifted past the point where action is necessary.

The money quote from a very diplomatic response by JW:

"Three European negotiators confirmed to me that Chinese negotiators not only blocked targets for themselves, but also a target proposed by Angela Merkel for developed nations to trim emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

I found that disturbing and perplexing. Was China doing this because it will be a developed nation by mid-century? I would like to hear China's explanation, but its delegates have been very quiet since the end of the conference."

Indeed.

"Three European negotiators confirmed to me that Chinese negotiators not only blocked targets for themselves.......", sounds to me like the usual game of ganging up on China, by the West.
To say that the summit was hijacked by China is to imply that only the USA and Europe has the right to call the shots.
Where was the self righteous Mark Lynas when the USA rejected Kyoto.

Thon and Anonymous (9:17am)
First of all, apologies. As is probably obvious, I posted my first reply about climate science (the one beginning, "Reluctantly, yes") anonymously by mistake.

Thon, in reply to your more detailed second post, I partially accept your point that mitigating GHGs could be ruinously expensive, but what about the costs of inaction?

I wholeheartedly agree that an overemphasis on climate change risks missing wider and more pressing environmental problems. As I wrote in the original Q&A above, the carbon issue is a symptom not a cause of a wider malaise.

On the specific complaint that the climate frontline interactive uncritically accepts the science, I disagree. The stories make clear that other factors are involved. Climate change tends to accelerate and intensify existing problems and the consequences of over-development. That's not just my view, or an NGOs view, of even just the IPCC view, it is also that of the majority of the Chinese scientists I spoke to and the people on the ground. Most of these groups had nothing to do with Climategate.

I hope we are all wrong. Life would be a lot easier if we ignored scientists' advice (not every scientist to be sure, but the vast majority of those I have spoken to) about the impact of carbon dioxide and other GHGs.
But we have dug and sucked billions of tonnes of carbon out of the ground that took millions of years to accumulate and, over just a couple of hundred years, we have pumped it into the air. To assume that makes no difference to the climate strikes me as irresponsible.

Hung, I think you are right about ganging up on China and sour grapes. But, if China accepts the need to keep warming withing two degrees, why is it so reluctant to set a 2050 goal and why did it prevent other countries from doing so?

Watts: On the specific complaint that the climate frontline interactive uncritically accepts the science, I disagree.

Yeah, right. Show me one single sentence in your work that could in any way be construed as questioning the AGW orthodoxy.

Watts: The stories make clear that other factors are involved.

I didn't catch any "other factors" in your Liuzhou piece. I would have expected something about deforestation, for instance. Maybe I missed it. We get plenty of sob-stuff, and a few anecdotal assertions from you and some of the subjects that "floods are getting worse", coming "in shorter, sharper bursts". The only two bits of actual data I can discover (Yang Gengbao: "This was the biggest flood after the ones in 1988 and 1996" and Wu Chunfeng: "The three worst floods have come in the past ten years") flat out contradict each other. Sure, you've spoken to Chinese scientists (tip: speak to the engineers next time) and they've told you what you wanted to hear. Jones of the CRU was a big-cheese scientist, and he'd have told you what you wanted to hear, if you'd asked him. Right now, after Climategate, I understand he's a gardener.

I'm disinclined to believe from your anecdotal reportage that Liuzhou's sorrows are the result of AGW. Weather, as you warmies are always quick to remind the denser sort of sceptics who point to record-breaking cold snaps as evidence against GW, isn't climate. You would have checked the data out with those friendly Chinese scientists before you wrote this stuff, right? So you should have no trouble citing the science. Point me to the numbers - rainfall, flood frequency and intensity in the Pearl River catchment - that provide evidence that (a) floods are getting worse over time and (b) AGW is part of the problem.

The Bangladesh item is even better. There certainly is "another factor" at work - the intractable problem of river erosion, not sea-level rise. You lead no evidence that AGW is involved; you just quote the puzzled Azizul: "I have heard of climate change. I think it means increasing water and increasing heat." and leave it at that. Risible.

I've the inclination, but sadly not the time, as the Leaning Tower of Pisa observed to Big Ben, to fisk various other items in your piece. I'll just say that the pic of the droopy Australian cocky complaining about the drought is one for the ages.

Three cheers to Thon Brocket for such a set of incisive animadversions upon Herr Watts. (In fairness to Watts, I think he can't have expected to be read by such intellectual gladiators.) I will keep reading comments section of Danwei in the hope of reading more such contributions, whether from Thon's or similarly vigorous and rigorous minds. I applaud Watts for replying, though I'm afraid he'll have to let Brocket get the last word.

Thon,

Thanks for the new insult. I have never been called one of the "warmies" before.
But perhaps I should be relieved not to be called a "droopy cocky". I'm not sure what that is, but it doesn't sound flattering.

On Liuzhou, you probably lost your wager. Deforestation was a big factor in past Chinese floods. But the 1998 nationwide logging ban - though far from perfect - is generally seen as a success. The tree planting since then is mostly monoculture, but that's another problem as is China's outsourcing of its deforestation problem to Siberia, Indonesia, etc.

Well done for fisking a contradiction between a rivershack dweller and a mahjong parlour employee. People tend to remember things differently, but these two pension aged people were consistent in claiming the three worst floods of their lives have come in the past couple of decades. Is this the ultimate proof of climate change? No. Does it claim to be? No. But it does tally with what I have read of the science. The Beijing Climate Centre told me the intensity and frequency of extreme precipitation is increasing south of the Yangtze, which includes Guangxi. Greenpeace issued a report on 16 June citing similar trends in neighbour Guangdong. The IPCC says floods and extreme weather events will increase across the globe as temperatures rise.

All in all, your criticism misses the point that this series is intended to be primarily anecdotal. There are plenty of other articles on climate science in the Guardian and elsewhere. This series considers the views of individuals in the most vulnerable regions so, sure, they sometimes sound emotional and, no, they don't have all the statistics to hand. But why shouldn't their voices also be heard?

I did not go to Bangladesh. As mentioned above, I joined the photographers for only a part of the trip. The overview of the trip (including mention of the disputed science) is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/12/climate-change-braschler-fischer

Though the comments of poor old Azizul seem "risible" to you, I have heard far less precise summaries of what is happening to Bangladesh and the planet than "increasing heat and increasing water". We can question the extent of man's impact, but there is no doubt the world is warming and that the ice-caps and glaciers are melting. Those pesky scientists tell me the extra heat and moisure affect weather patterns and ecosystems, which in turn accelerates erosion, drought and other existing trends. Can you prove the contrary?

The world faces serious environmental problems as a result of overpopulation, overconsumption and mismanagement of resources. Why should the climate be any more immune than the rivers, the soil, the forests and the air?

Azizul, Yang and Wu and the others feel they are vulnerable, regardless of whether the change is manmade or not. The United Nation's leading experts say people like this are on the frontline.

Given your stance as an anti-warmy (does that make you a coolie?), you may dismiss them or me as part of a global climategate conspiracy or just plain wrong. But what makes you think engineers have a clearer picture of the climate than climatologists, glaciologists, other scientists - or for that matter people who live in vulnerable areas? Why do you focus exclusively on the need for adaptation (symptoms) rather than mitigation (causes)? Might it be because you are an engineer? In fact, who are you Thon Brocket? Your arguments would be more compelling if you fully declared your background and interest.

Rhadamanthus, thanks for adding to my vocabulary. Animadversion sounds a lot grander than fisking, though I guess Milton's intention was the same. I don't expect to have the last word in this exchange. Challenging orthodoxy is important. I live in hope that a climate sceptic will one day convince me not to feel guilty about burning carbon. Not there yet.

4 cheers to Mr. Watts for a robust reply, especially as I admit that I myself had nothing to contribute but a long-winded synonym for criticism or censure.

Mr. Watts,

Thank you very much for replying to my question above. In order to understand man-made global warming more, I've been doing a lot of reading recently on this subject. I came upon an interesting speech, which was given in 2005 by the writer Michael Crichton. It's entitled "The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming." From his research on global warming, he provides some intriguing evidences against it. What would a person who believes in man-made global say about the points that Michael Crichton made in his speech? How would he refute Mr. Crichton’s points? Thank you in advance.

The link to his speech is here.