BBC News - Climate models yield confidence question

Bangladesh, August 2007

Grand statements about climate change impacts are all very well for scientists - a global average temperature rise of so many degrees Celsius, a global change in precipitation of such-and-such percent.

But no-one lives on the global average. We all have a home - and what might be very useful, be you a farmer or a city-dweller, would be some precise indications of what the future holds for your farm, your street, your village.

It's precisely what many people here at the UN climate talks are worrying about. [...]

As a policymaker, as a business leader, as a citizen, would you make decisions on the basis of these models?

Full article at bbc.co.uk

No, I would not make decisions on the basis of these models, but I'm glad the models are being made, as their descendants *will*, at some point, be able to give accurate predictions for local areas. Without these models we'll never reach that point, and as we get closer to it we need also to be taking steps to ensure that as those models come into play they remain in public hands, for public use, not sequestered in government and corporate laboratories and used to direct and manipulate the populace.

Posted via email from Moments of Awareness