Bill McKibben: Do the Math

This week Bill McKibben of 350.org is touring New Zealand and was interviewed by Kim Hill on Radio New Zealand on Saturday.

Don't get me wrong. Bill McKibben has been one of the main voices for bringing climate change to the attention of the public.

However, I have some reservations about 350.org that I wrote about in THIS ARTICLE.

Nothing makes me any more comfortable about the message being brought by McKibben from hearing this interview. If anything, it confirms my suspicions.

Basically he is saying the same as what he has been saying since I first heard him, which is basically the situation is pretty dire and unless we do something about our emissions then we will have some pretty bad consequences.

Everything is still in the future.

When is the recognition going to come that inaction has led to a situation where so many greenhouse gasses have been released that global warming has probably become irreversable (if we collapse the world industrial economy NOW, not just stop burning fossil fuels) and have released some self-reinforcing, non-linear feedbacks.

Essentially we are at the start of runaway global warming.

No time for solar energy, petitioning a reasonable (sic) government to make changes.

I never heard Mr. McKibben make reference to any of these feedbacks.

The feeling that I am left with is that Mr McKibben relies for funding of his 350.org on some very rich sponsors who would not be very interested in his communicating the true state of affairs.

Then there is a certain degree of understandable denial in most of us – who wants to allow the idea of near-term extinction?

But when it comes from someone with the influence of Bill McKibben it becomes dangerous.

Bill McKibben: doing the maths

PS

Last week I sent a letter to Radio New Zealand about their science programme on climate change.

I received a very nice response from Veronika Meduna, the producer in which she more or less says that Radio New Zealand is is only interested in a parochial coverage of global warming – something that, if I read correctly between the lines, she is not comfortable with.

Many thanks for your email – and my apologies if the profile of Generation Zero was offensive to you.

I completely agree with you that events in the Arctic demonstrate most forcefully what is happening with the world’s climate system. However, our brief for the programme is to have a New Zealand connection, so we usually look towards Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, simply because that’s where polar scientists who are based here tend to do their research.

Having said that, we will increase our coverage of climate change science in the lead-up to

the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 5^th assessment report in October (the release starts with the Working Group 1 report on the science of climate change, followed by the two reports on mitigation and adaptation next year). Within that coverage you will also find a number of international scientists and climate change campaigners – for example, Bill McKibben will talk to Kim Hill tomorrow morning and will also be on our show the following week. I’d personally like to have Jim Hansen on the show, too. Apart from our coverage on air, we’ve also been using our website (www.radionz.co.nz/ourchangingworld) and social media to alert our listeners and followers to other coverage, including some of the links you’ve provided below.

Given New Zealand’s particular profile of greenhouse gas emissions, some of our on-air coverage will remain ‘parochial’, but leading up to the IPPC report, we’ll be picking up some more global topics as well. I hope you’ll tune in again and let us know what you think.

Many thanks again for your feedback,

Best wishes

Veronika (Meduna)