ARTICLES
Climate Policy is a Fiendish Problem for Governments – Time for
an Independent Authority with Real Powers
By Peter C. Doherty
Climate policy is a fiendish problem for governments - time for an independent authority
with real powers
From global epidemics to global economic markets to the global
climate, understanding complex systems calls for solid data and
sophisticated maths. My advice to young scientists contemplating
a career in research is: “If you’re good at maths, keep it up!”
have been involved, there is increasing concern, and even fear,
about the consequences of ever-climbing greenhouse gas levels
in the atmosphere.
The Growing Climate Problem
I’m no mathematician – my research career has focused largely
on the complexities of infection and immunity. But as recently
retired Board Chair of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate
System Science, I’ve been greatly informed by close contact with
mathematically trained meteorologists, oceanographers and other
researchers, who analyse the massive and growing avalanche of
climate data arriving from weather stations, satellites, and remote
submersibles such as Argo floats.
Following the thinking of the late Tony McMichael, a Canberra-
based medical epidemiologist who began studying lead
poisoning and then went on to become a primary author on the
health section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s
five-yearly Assessment Reports, I have come to regard human-
induced global warming as similar in nature to the problem of
toxic lead poisoning.
My perception, based on a long experience of science and
scientists, is that these are outstanding researchers of impeccable
integrity. Just like heavy metal toxicity, the problems caused by atmospheric
greenhouse gases are cumulative, progressive, and ultimately
irreversible, at least on a meaningful human timescale.
Among both the climate research community and the medically
oriented environmental groups such as the Climate and Health
Alliance and Doctors for the Environment Australia with which I Regrettably, this consciousness has not yet seeped through to
enough members of the Australian political class. The same lack
of engagement characterises current national politics in Russia
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 67 NO 3