Despite the attention given to climate change sceptics, the overwhelming majority of scientific evidence supports those sounding the alarm – including the IPCC
Emperor Hu Hai of the Qin dynasty in ancient China had an aide killed when he tried to tell the emperor his power was ebbing away. There was an uprising against his brutal reign. It's one of history's earlier known examples of shooting the messenger. No one likes uncomfortable news and we can go to extraordinary lengths to avoid or suppress it.
When it comes to conveying messages about climate change all kinds of things can happen to the messengers, few of them pleasant. As a Greenpeace activist you might have a Russian gun shoved in your face at sea. Concerned members of the British public worried about fracking might experience violent arrest. Scientists presenting the world with an extraordinary consensus on climatic upheaval find themselves subjected by the media to a standard of evidence that it would be unthinkable to apply to, say, economists.
These are the whistleblowers who provide essential but unwelcome feedback on why a system is failing.
The 95% certainty given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on human-driven warming sits oddly against the recent Oxford University study that found that around 80% of media stories on climate change focus on uncertainties.
The day before publication of the summary of the IPCC report, the BBC website centred a long story on views of climate sceptics. As news websites go, the BBC's is among most used and influential globally.
However well journalistically intended, stories like that helped make scepticism a dominant narrative in reporting. On the day of publication of the IPCC findings, the opening questions from interviewers were often about the certainty of the science – with scepticism the unspoken or explicit reference point.
To non-expert (ie most) viewers and readers, the creation of apparent balance between two positions communicates that there are two strongly held views that you might equally choose between.
Minor past errors in IPCC reports, which bore no relation to the fundamental mechanisms and reality of global warming, were repeatedly raised in such a way that implied they questioned the very basis of the science. This would be odd because understanding of the basic chemistry of warming hasn't changed for well over a century. But unless this point is clarified explicitly – and typically it isn't – an extraordinary scientific consensus can appear to be mere opinion, something you can take or leave. Inaction moulders in such equivocation.
Where the economy – the thing driving climate upheaval – is concerned, reporting follows a very different logic. Economics is a far, far messier business than climate science. Projections from the most deferentially treated organisations are commonly wildly, not mildly, at odds with subsequent reality.
However, critical voices in economics with a far stronger claim to be listened to given the experience of the past few years are substantially marginalised. Research by Cardiff University, and supported by the BBC Trust, revealed a striking imbalance (other research shows bias reaching deep into the academic literature).
After the financial crisis of 2008, the people turned to by flagship media programmes to enlighten the public on what had happened were, hugely disproportionately, commentators from the very sectors whose deep self-deception allowed the crisis to happen in the first place. Instead of whistleblowers, these were the yes men. They are messengers who don't get shot, perhaps because their messages are not meant to discomfort, but to reassure us that business as usual can continue.
But when something is wrong, however uncomfortable, you have to walk towards it. Here is a point on which to finish that will likely win me few friends. The Labour party under Ed Miliband – one of the few politicians who really understood climate change – has been seeking an issue to strengthen its challenge to the coalition. It settled on the cost of living in general, and energy prices in particular. In calling for a freeze on energy prices it won almost universal plaudits and seemed to reverse the party's fortunes.
But what was good short-term politics is a bad longer-term survival strategy. Fossil fuels are locked into our power generation system, and keeping high-carbon electricity cheap is about the worst thing you can do for climate change. As even the UN's high commissioner for human rights said recently, the great challenge is to keep the carbon in the ground.
As for Emperor Hu Hai – killing the messengers who brought bad news didn't help. Before long, reality rose up and amid chaos he was forced into suicide. It's time to listen.
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