Don’t let glacier howler cloud bigger picture

Climate change is not a religion: that’s why we can admit error
Mark Lynas

Warning: I am about to make a damaging and embarrassing admission on climate change. Here goes. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is not the Bible. Its statements are not gospel. They are subject to revision in the light of new evidence or the discovery of inaccuracies.
That is why climate change is science, not religion. Nothing is settled and sacred; all is subject to constant revision.
The IPCC’s mistake on the Himalayan glaciers is embarrassing, not just because it is wrong, but because it is so obviously wrong. The warning that these immense ice-fields could be gone by 2035 always struck me as absurd — the Himalayas contain the highest peaks in the world, and the ice that clads their upper slopes is the greatest mass of frozen water outside of the poles. The glaciers may be in rapid decline, but they aren’t going to disappear in 30, or even a hundred, years.
That doesn’t mean that this is a non-issue, merely that the likely rates of glacial retreat are improperly understood. There is a desperate need for quality research on Himalayan glaciers, given their vital importance to major rivers that sustain millions of people in Asia. The IPCC included the erroneous 2035 figure probably because there was no serious research to rely on.
So what lessons can be learnt? No one has a monopoly on truth, not even earnest environmentalists. But nor does one mistake invalidate an enormous body of knowledge, gathered over many years by hundreds of experts, which paints a picture of a planet endangered by continuing emissions of greenhouse gases. The IPCC process is rare evidence that our species really is intelligent; that it can marshal and assess vast quantities of data — and act on the results.
We learn from mistakes, not successes; in science this is especially true. The politicised debate around climate science, while it can be poisonous, should at least keep researchers on their toes. Nothing is worse for scientific progress than lots of experts sitting around constantly agreeing with one another.
The sceptics would be more useful though if they were truly sceptical, challenging evidence and examining it rigorously. Instead, most believe any new theory, however implausible, that allows them to ignore the reality of climate change. This is denial, not scepticism. Challenge the “facts” presented by the green lobby; but don’t reject the overall conclusions of the IPCC — the most important joint scientific body ever established — just because they are ideologically inconvenient.
Mark Lynas is the author of Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet