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Geographical

ISSN: 0016 741X

04 | March 2014

Gathering evidence

When I irst became editor of Geographical, I resisted running stories about global warming and climate change. At the time, I rather foolishly assumed that the debate was over, that everyone was in agreement that anthropogenic climate change was a reality and that the only remaining question was how we could best avoid its worst consequences.

Now, almost a decade on, the ‘debate’ still rages. Climate change denial is rife. My country of origin, Australia, has a new prime minister by the name of Tony Abbott, who has been quoted in the past as saying that: ‘The argument [behind climate change] is absolute crap.’ Here in the UK, several Tory MPs have expressed doubts (and worse) about the science of climate change and it’s far from clear whether the government sees the issue as worthy of more than passing attention.

But it’s obvious that time is running out. The science is telling us that there’s a limit to the amount of carbon dioxide that we can pump into the atmosphere if we’re to avoid ‘catastrophic’ climate change and we’re set to reach that limit soon.

And yet it seems as though climate change is generally considered to be something that we’ll have to worry about in the future. Where’s the sense of urgency?

In this special issue of Geographical, we’ve gathered together evidence from all over the world that climate change is already a reality. Some of the evidence is, perhaps, ambiguous, some it may well prove controversial, some of the systems involved are complex and their responses to the addition of heat are di icult to nail down, but I hope that taken together, the material herein will serve as a warning of what’s to come.

C O N T R I B U T O R S

Regular contributor Mark Rowe, who covers several areas in this issue (pages eight, 14, 24 and 52), says he’s frustrated that climate change deniers still have ‘such a disproportionate voice in the media’. ‘I expected my interviewees to couch some points in nuanced terms, to hedge their bets,’ he says. ‘But it was striking that the people best qualified to talk about climate change are no longer prepared to qualify their views – to them, it’s utterly unambiguous’

Psychologist Professor Stephan Lewandowsky writes about why denial of anthropogenic climate change is still a popular position, despite the supporting data (page 64). He says that his research into denial has made him more skeptical about his own thought processes. ‘I constantly check whether my opinions are unduly influenced by my world views, and whether I’m overlooking inconvenient data,’ he says

‘Working on this feature made me think again about my own consumption,’ says Hazel Southam, who writes about the effect of climate change on agriculture (page 58). ‘The more I’ve learnt about climate change, the more I’ve changed how I live. I absolutely believe that we can – and must – make a difference as individuals. I’ve reported on four G8 summits and seen that although politicians drag their feet on this issue, they are swayed by public pressure’

On the cover: Hurricane Sandy (NASA); melting icebergs, Greenland (Henk Meijer/Alamy); flooding in a Belarus village (Viktor Drachev/ AFP/Getty Images); cracked earth, Namibia (Shutterstock)

March 2014 | UK£4.50

Geographical www.geographical.co.uk

MAGAZINE OF THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY (WITH I BG)

Climate change Here... Now...

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04/02/2014 15:48