Change does not equal catastrophe

It seems that some climate scientists are becoming upset by the equating of climate change and climate catastrophe by campaigners and the British government. Mike Hulme, the director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has written an article to this effect on the BBC website. He says: “I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric.”

Hulme goes on to point out that Tony Blair has already warned that the world faces the prospect of “crossing a catastrophic tipping point”. In apparent despair Hulme then asks:

“Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science’s predictions?”