The Copenhagen Climate Summit is seen by many to be mankind's last chance to make serious cuts in carbon emissions to save civilisation on the planet. DENISE CARTER talks to scientists, internationally, nationally and locally, to find out their views

Try to stop an ocean liner; it’s only moving 2km an hour towards your wharf, but if you try to stop it, you can’t because of the sheer momentum," says Professor William Rees, creator of the ecological footprint used to measure human demand on Earth, and which is a predecessor to the carbon footprint.

"You cannot wait until danger has been reached."

Scientists are not optimistic about the outlook of the planet. They may be hopeful for a positive outcome in Copenhagen but some fear it may already be too late.

Prof Rees of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, says climate change models released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have been too conservative.

"There are a number of indicators that suggest the models, incomplete as they are, and as influenced as they are by the need to be conservative because we don’t want to panic people, have actually been too conservative," he says.

"The actual climate change that is being observed exceeds the worst-case scenario projected.

"If that is the case and these trends continue, then even if we implement all the policy options that have been put on the table by all governments, we will still see global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases exceed 650 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent, and should we get there, we have roughly a 50 per cent probability of a four-degree Celsius increase in the global temperature or higher."

A mean global temperature hike of four degrees would be catastrophic. Most of Australia would be uninhabitable and given over to desert, as would India, most of China, the southern part of the US and much of Africa.

"If this is accompanied by a 1 or 2cm rise in sea level, we’ll see the displacement from coastal communities of another 200 to 300 million people," Prof Rees says.

An article in The Guardian newspaper in the UK on November 27 cited a report that said by the end of the century the mean world temperature could rise by 6C.

If you’re considering flinging this article aside or flicking through to cinema listings, that’s not entirely surprising.

There’s a psychology to climate change that makes not only the public feel overwhelmed but its worldwide leaders too.

Dr Susie Burke, senior researcher and psychologist for The Australian Psychological Society’s psychology in the public interest branch, explains how our nature is contributing to our inaction.

"How we understand and feel and how we respond has an incredible impact on the degree to which we are able to mitigate against disaster," Dr Burke says.

"The biggest problem with climate change is it’s frightening, also it’s uncertain if and when certain degrees of temperature will be reached and what the impact will be, so people tend to avoid it or do nothing," she says.

Our self-defence mechanism manifests in different ways.

"We become desensitised, we rationalise it. We say, ‘not in our lifetime’, we justify it by saying we deserve our lifestyle, distract ourselves with work problems and celebrity culture, are sceptical, or displace the problem saying something like, ‘what’s the point of doing anything if China and India don’t?’."

When it comes to the bigger picture, as a species we don’t cut it. "We have limited processing ability. We tend to respond to the here and now and for sure.

"It’s easy to pay attention to the immediate and put off something that is distant in time and place."

The trick is to understand our natural behaviour so we can change it. Dr Burke says we need to stay optimistic and to avoid cherry-picking what we want to hear.

"Cherry-picking is tempting when people are overwhelmed."

One of the biggest issues for scientists worrying about climate change is the fossil fuel industry that funds the anti-climate change lobby, which is said to cherry pick data for public consumption.

"People who don’t know the data is inadequate and not representative then believe they are being lied to by the IPCC or NASA," Professor Rees says.

"We’ve simply got to realise that what we’re seeing here is an ideological battle, yes, but it’s also a battle between very powerful vested corporate interests and the much wider public interest."

This moral debate has been confused recently by hackers into the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Britain with emails being released online suggesting some scientists are suppressing information.

Dr Mike Raupach, a climate scientist with the CSIRO and co-chair of the Global Carbon Project, says from the emails he has seen they are merely "the robust discourse of science".

Dr Raupach is currently writing a paper about the vulnerability of the earth’s carbon cycles that may increase the levels of climate change.

"A good example is the melting of Arctic ice," he says.

The melting of ice, well under way, creates more water to absorb heat, and organic carbon is released from permafrost, causing even more warming.

Dr Raupach says it can be depressing and frustrating working in climate change.

"The message seems to be very clear at the moment, that’s not to say that it’s certain, there’s a lot of uncertainty ranging from whether it’s going to be bad to bloody awful," he says. "But it doesn’t include, ‘she’ll be right’."

Runaway or abrupt climate change is a common fear among scientists.

Dr Andrew Glikson is an Earth and paleoclimate scientist from Australian National University’s Climate Change Institute, who has been studying the history of the earth for 40 years.

"Climate change has its own momentum; the responses of the oceans, the atmosphere, the ice sheets, it really goes into a loop," he says.

There is also a time lag, so much of the CO2 already in the system is yet to be released from the oceans and the earth.

Climate change is non-linear, says Dr Glikson, which means greenhouse gases will not rise consistently but could shoot up suddenly. "In the history of atmosphere and oceans, there are a lot of jumps," he says. "This experiment we are doing with the earth has not been done before."

"The big danger is methane from permafrost, sediment and peat bogs," he says. (Professor Rees states methane is 20-24 times more powerful than CO2 and its release will be "a tipping point from which there is no return").

Dr Glikson says scientists are looking at ways to mitigate climate change from reforestation to combusting organic matter and burying it in the soil.

Geoengineering methods (manipulation of the earth’s climate) are being considered which, he says, "seem like the stuff of science fiction".

They include injecting sulphur into the stratosphere to mask CO2, and putting mirrors and aluminium foil into space, both of which are expensive and dangerous.

Professor Glikson has a pessimistic view of where the world stands going forward to Copenhagen. "If there was a will there would have been hope," Dr Glikson says. "We gave the first warnings 20 years ago, and we could have had a transition from fossil fuels to at least a mixed economy using solar, wind and geothermal – there was a window of opportunity," he says.

Like Professor Rees, he is frustrated by nay-sayers.

"There is an undercurrent of anti-scientific sentiment," he says, at odds with people’s usual appreciation of scientific inventions, such as cures for diseases and scientific progress.

Dr Glikson says he finds it heartbreaking to present the evidence to young people at ANU.

"It’s their future. It’s not a theory. It’s happening now."

The Victorian bushfires, drought and problems with the Murray Darling and Great Barrier Reef, he sees, as just the beginning. With no magic wand or proven method to halt climate change, Dr Glikson’s biggest fear is that with some methane it could take off.

"We’re just crossing our fingers. I wish to God it was wrong."

Walk on Warming in Cairns starts at 8.30am on December 12 on the Esplanade opposite Cairns Base Hospital. For details visit the CAFNEC website  or Ph: 4032 1746.

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