Some of you remember I posted a few days ago about a new Australian report ‘Climate Code Red‘. The authors, David Spratt and Philip Sutton, wrote me an email today asking for feedback. With their permission, I am posting it here in the hope of getting comments from our wonderful IGHIH community. They write:
“Climate Code Red has been very warmly received (no pun intended) and we have now accepted an offer from a publisher to rewrite it in a book rather than a report form so that it may be published in mid-2008 as a paperback book, with the intention of also finding an international market. We are now in a process of starting to revise and update the text. And here’s our request. We would love feedback (good, bad, but especially constructively critical) about the current version so we can incorporate it into the book version.
Have we got matters of fact wrong? Are there unclear formulations? Is their evidence for topics we have covered that would add to the line of argument?
One area we are really interested in expanding is section 3.3, which talks about the culture of low expectations in climate public policy development, and in the climate advocacy industry. There has been a lot of response to the “blocker’s table” on page 49 which summarised the cycle and circle of self-censorship. This section has elicited the largest (and most favourable) response, so we would like to explore it more. Is the practice of only advocating what it is judged that the listener wants to hear (that is, incremental advocacy that rarely deals with big picture needs and imperatives) as widespread as we perceive it to be? Is it as common outside Australia as we see it to be here?
Why do some climate professionals (in the sciences, government, industry and advocacy) say in private that things are pretty grim and imply the need for strong action now, and then in public and in advocacy to government and industry really tone it down and only tell half the story?
Why do people tell us that we are right in saying that the rapid Arctic ice-sheet loss changes everything about the necessary speed and depth of action, but when talking or advising the elites barely mention the issue or say it’s only a “possibility” rather than all but inevitable? How can we understand such processes?
Your comments by 25 February would be most welcome”.
Thank you,
David Spratt and Philip Sutton
info@carbonequity.info
(Anna’s note: post your comments on this site unless you want them to be confidential, in which case just email Dave and Philip).
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I’ll send one piece of feedback….more praise than constructive criticism for now.
I read a LOT of climate stuff, and this is to my mind the most important publication I’ve read on the issues in the past 9 months (since I read Larry Lohman’s “Carbon Trading: a critical conversation on privitization and power”).
Although I appreciate their organizing efforts, I’ve been very concerned about the 80% by 2050 message that Step it Up and 1 Sky have been pushing so hard for a while now, and this seriously validates those fears.
It’s time to ask: what if the “big ask” is actually B.S.?
I just wrote 1 Sky and told them they had some explaining to do.
I’ll post their reply (assuming it comes while this thread is still up)…