24 | NewScientist | 27 February 2010

WHAT is it like being a climate scientist at the moment? Not much fun. Its a bit like your next-door neighbour being accused of a crime and everyone in the city you live in, including yourself, being told they are under suspicion as well. Accusations about lack of integrity, deceit and bias are flying thick and fast.

To most climate scientists, these accusations seem deeply unfair: mistakes may have been made, but it is wrong to condemn the whole of climate science as incompetent, corrupt or worse.

Do climate scientists have a cause, or a battle to win, as some of our critics seem to imply? I dont think so. I am not an

The scientific method is also being questioned. Some say the funders of climate research only support work that sets out to prove that global warming is caused by humans. And peer review, as a means of quality control for proposals and findings, has been criticised as merely a way of giving the nod to those in the clique and keeping out those who are not.

But take a look at the facts. Competition for research funding is fierce. For example, my organisation, the UKs Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), supports less than a quarter of proposals submitted to it. And science by its nature is

questioning and sceptical. These factors are reflected in the highly critical way in which scientists review each others research proposals, probing and vigorously challenging assumptions. To minimise the potential for group-think or bias among reviewers, we cast the net as widely as possible. Our decision-making panels do not have fixed membership but vary from year to year.

Peer review of research findings is similarly rigorous and sceptical. The system is not perfect, but its the best one we have.

What of the research itself? One way to think of climate science is as an attempt to test the hypothesis that the warming we have observed over the past 50 years and more is caused mainly by greenhouse gases dumped into the atmosphere by humans. This hypothesis was formulated because is has been known since the 19th century that certain gases in the atmosphere warm the climate, and that humans have been adding more of these gases into the atmosphere.

Climate scientists have been trying to find evidence that would disprove this hypothesis for the past 40 years or more. So far they have failed.

We still do not discount the possibility that the hypothesis is wrong. There are other ways in which the climate can warm over such a period of time. This is why scientists are trying to assess the significance of all the ways in which the observed global warming could be occurring. I cannot stress enough that scepticism and challenge of

Keep calm and carry onClimate scientists are looking pretty beleaguered right now. Alan Thorpe knows what it feels like from the inside

OPINION

Alan Thorpe is head of the Natural

Environment Research Council, which

funds much of the UKs climate science.

He is a meteorologist with 30 years

research experience

environmentalist but rather an environmental scientist. The distinction is crucial: science is about the accumulation of knowledge, not fighting causes.

Journalists often say that scientists should go on the offensive to win the battle on climate change, but I disagree. The only battle that scientists should try to win is for airtime, to be able to present and debate our knowledge with society at large. We must ensure that this knowledge is available for others policy-makers and the public to decide what actions to take, but it is not the climate scientists role to comment on what policy decisions should be taken.

NE

RC

27 February 2010 | NewScientist | 25

this kind are fundamental aspects of the way that climate science is carried out.

It is incumbent on those who claim that the science is flawed to bring forward a body of peer-reviewed evidence that shows the hypothesis is false. So far they have failed to do so. I dont think that it exists.

Of course, our understanding of climate change still has many uncertainties in it, but were not covering them up. Scientists have made huge advances developing rigorous ways to not only predict how that climate will change, but also to estimate the size of the uncertainty in that prediction. It is not easy to communicate why the uncertainty is there and how big it is, and we have to get much better at that. But research continues to reduce uncertainty, including new NERC programmes on glaciers, ocean circulation and acidification, the water cycle and the role of the biosphere.

Perhaps the most astonishing allegation we face is that climate science is a grand conspiracy of thousands of scientists in many countries. I am absolutely convinced that it is not. I dont think you could organise one on this scale amongst scientists, even if you wanted to.

Like it or not, the weight of evidence is such that we must conclude that human activity is almost certainly the cause of the recent global warming. It would be perverse to conclude otherwise.

Climate science will go on. No doubt mistakes will be made along the way; scientists are human beings with failings like anyone else. But society is surely able to factor this into its assessment of climate science without throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I dont think you could organise a conspiracy on such a scale, even if you wanted to

Comment on these stories at www.NewScientist.com/opinion

You are best known for your travels in

search of cannibals. What made you turn

your attention to the great apes?

On my trips to Africa I kept seeing the effects of

logging, poaching and the charcoal trade. Forests

are becoming like deserts and the numbers of

apes are plunging. I passionately wanted to bring

their plight to the notice of people who might be

able to do something to save them. So I set myself

a quest to see all the species and subspecies

of great apes in the wild. I especially wanted to

see the Cross river gorilla, a subspecies of the

western gorilla . There are only 300 left and

no reporter had ever visited them before.

Some of the places you travelled to

are notorious trouble spots, yet you

still went. Why?

Looking at captive apes doesnt tell you much

about them. In the wild, each subspecies of ape

has its own culture and behaviour. Its the great

apes bad luck that their habitats are in some of

the most violent, corrupt places on earth. But if

you are going to report a war you have to go and

see for yourself, and if you are going to report on

great apes you have to do the same.

You were charged by a half-tonne silverback

gorilla. How did you react?

Id been told that if you stay put, drop to your

knees and put some leaves in your mouth, they

generally arent going to beat you up so I did just

that. If you run you could provoke a chase and

then they might bite a chunk out of your neck.

Forest elephants are scarier: its amazing how fast

an overweight middle-aged city-dweller can move

when threatened by an angry elephant.

Did you have any other potentially

deadly encounters?

Not with the apes. Bonobos arent violent, the

orang-utans were wonderful and the chimps

were only violent towards each other. But you are

always in danger from other humans. In the Central

African Republic we came across a camp used by

poachers the fire still warm, their sleeping mats

One minute with

Paul Raffaele

stacked in a pile. That was terrifying because we

didnt know how close they were. They have AK-47

rifles and large-bore shotguns to kill elephants,

and you never know how they will react when

you cross paths. But remember, the guys trying

to protect great apes have to face this every day.

In the end you never saw a Cross river gorilla

in the wild. Were you disappointed?

They were there I heard a male thump his chest

in warning but they didnt show themselves.

Im happy about that. Im pleased that they hate

humans and kept out of our way. That improves

their chances of survival.

Can the great apes be saved?

The only way to guarantee there will be some

left in the wild in 50 years is to have pockets of

heavily defended habitat with anti-poaching

patrols at least as well armed as the poachers.

The impetus and the funding must come from

western governments and they must ensure

that it goes where it is needed.

Interview by Stephanie Pain

While visiting all the species of great apes left in the wild, Australias celebrated adventure writer had a few close shaves

PROFILE

Paul Raffaele, an Australian journalist, has

visited some of the worlds most dangerous

wilds. He describes his quest to see all the great

apes in his new book Among the Great Apes