Bill Giles O.B.E
Former BBC Senior Weatherman
This should be done in conjunction with The World Meteorological Organisation where new funding must be found to cope with years of neglect now that the subject of the affects of rapid climate change are top of the agenda in many countries of the world. The old adage is even truer today that “ It is no use doing the best forecast (of days or even centuries ahead) if you cannot communicated it to the ordinary person”. After all they are the ones who will make any mitigation work, not national governments, no matter what they might legislate. So we come to the problem of communicating this message out to the legislators both at International, National and Local level through the media.
It is not in doubt by anyone of note that the Earth is warming up with, globally, the warmest eleven years that we have been able to measure occurring in the last 12 years, in fact there is some justification to say that the last decade could well have been the warmest in the last 500 years or even the last 1300 years. The message has to be kept simple for the journalists who, by and large, only want scare stories and sound bites, and also for the politicians who fund most of the research (although increasing amounts are being funded by the large multi-nationals, some of whom have a vested interest in keeping the status quo). We need to push on quickly to train scientists, especially broadcast meteorologists, to get the ever-changing messages across in a sensible and simple way.
The Earth’s climate continually changes from warm periods to cold and back to warm again so we shouldn’t be surprised that the climate we see ourselves in now is different to that experienced by even our parents and grandparents, but we need to mitigate the likely affects of this rapid change rather than put our heads in the sand and say “ don’t worry it’s all to do with the Sun and it will right itself ” because if it isn’t, by the time we realise it will be far too late.
We inherited a beautiful lush green planet and if we make a mistake with this one we will pass on to future generations a brown barren landscape.
It is not in doubt by anyone of note that the Earth is warming up with, globally, the warmest eleven years that we have been able to measure occurring in the last 12 years, in fact there is some justification to say that the last decade could well have been the warmest in the last 500 years or even the last 1300 years. The message has to be kept simple for the journalists who, by and large, only want scare stories and sound bites, and also for the politicians who fund most of the research (although increasing amounts are being funded by the large multi-
The Earth’s climate continually changes from warm periods to cold and back to warm again so we shouldn’t be surprised that the climate we see ourselves in now is different to that experienced by even our parents and grandparents, but we need to mitigate the likely affects of this rapid change rather than put our heads in the sand and say “ don’t worry it’s all to do with the Sun and it will right itself ” because if it isn’t, by the time we realise it will be far too late.
We inherited a beautiful lush green planet and if we make a mistake with this one we will pass on to future generations a brown barren landscape.
