By Paul Bisson
THE bridge to France has finally been built. You’ve packed your family into the car for a week in Brittany and are about to set off when bad news hits; an early section of the bridge has been declared unstable, and could collapse into the English Channel at any moment.
Or has it? For while 97 of the Island’s 100 bridge experts are warning that the structure is likely to collapse if you attempt to cross it, three of them are convinced that it’s perfectly safe. So safe, in fact, that one of them has taken out a full-page advert in the local newspaper extolling just how unbelievably safe the bridge is. Bestest bridge ever, apparently.
So what’s the plan? Heed the dire warnings of the 97%, or trust the opinions of our trio of ardent dissenters? Chop chop; the kids are complaining. Brittany calls. It’s decision time.
Are you going to drive your family across that bridge or not?
I probably wouldn’t, but then that’s just me. Call me old-fashioned, but I generally defer to collective expertise when building a picture of reality. The scientific method based upon empirical measurement, controlled experimentation and a shared consensus is, in my view, a good thing. Michael Gove may have had enough of experts, but not me. I love ’em.
Take the wholly separate issue of climate science, for instance. Multiple independent studies have found that 97% or more of actively publishing climate scientists agree that current global warming is primarily human-caused. The major scientific bodies – Nasa, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Met Office, the Royal Society, the American Meteorological Society, and virtually every national academy of science worldwide – all formally endorse this position. As you might have guessed, I’m inclined to believe them.
Of course (as with our totally unrelated bridge scenario) there are those who dispute this massive consensus, remaining ardent in their assertions that manmade climate change is all some great communist con dreamt up to scam us all. You might catch them arguing that carbon dioxide is essential for life (like water, unless you’re drowning), that the near-perfect tracking of global temperature rises with increased CO2 emissions over decades is just a crazy old coincidence, that claims of increased extreme weather events over the past 50 years – as tracked by Nasa, NOAA and other expert-padded acronyms – are just a load of hot air. The World Meteorological Organisation claims that climate and weather-related disasters have surged five-fold in the past half-century, do they? Yeah, right. That’s about as likely as a 40˚C English summer, or a tornado in St Clement.
(Made up your mind about that bridge yet, by the way? We going for it? The kids are starting to kick off in the back.)
Chief among those leading the way in climate change denialism – for some unknown reason – are representatives of the oil and gas lobby. They can even be spotted locally, encouraging Jersey to turn its back on global efforts to stave off climate catastrophe (insert hysterical laughter emoji) and embrace fossil fuels in all their forms.
You’ve got to give them credit for their stamina. It’s been 50 years now since scientists at ExxonMobil warned of the danger posed by CO2 emissions and predicted the near-exact warming levels we’ve witnessed since; 40 since the US administration under George Bush Sr pledged to tackle the dangers of manmade climate change and Margaret Thatcher took aim at the “global heat trap” leading us towards “climatic instability”; 30 since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate”.
And yet, through all this time, our friends in the fossil fuel industry have managed to keep the oil-soaked rag burning, gaslighting us (literally) into the belief that what we are witnessing in real time – globally, locally – is not happening. Or is just the world being worldly. Or something.
That the recycling programmes, the repair cafés, the decarbonisation efforts, the focus on sustainability education and all that climate jazz is all a big fat waste of time. That Jersey has nothing to offer the wider world in terms of environmental leadership, has no stake in international efforts to reduce warming and bears no responsibility for its own emissions and the example it could be setting as a small, self-governing island jurisdiction.
They’d have us believe that, after having now briefly breached the predicted 1.5˚C increase above pre-industrial baseline in 2024 (we did it, Exxon!) the best option for humanity now is to abandon our efforts to rein in greenhouse emissions altogether. That our kids and future generations had best just buckle up as we continue to burn, baby, burn. Yes, there are important debates to be had about economic fairness as we strive for net-zero, but to deny that manmade climate change is even a problem? That’s a bridge too far, surely.
Speaking of which, the guy in the SUV behind you is honking his horn. Your partner’s got their head in their hands. The kids are crying. Brittany awaits, if you can just make it over this thing without it collapsing.
To recap. 100 bridge experts, of which 97 are adamant that you and your family are set to end wheels-up in the Channel, and three who say you’ll be fine (you’ve got a folded up copy of their newspaper advert in your pocket. They’ve got a public meeting planned, too).
Fingers on the steering wheel. Foot perched on the pedal.
What’s it going to be?
Paul Bisson is a writer, educator and musician.
