The Climate Change Dilemma

Imagine you’re the president of a great nation. That means you are responsible for the welfare of millions of people. On the "dangers to watch" board, it’s been written about greenhouse gases. We have been releasing them in the atmosphere for so many decades that they are beginning to alter the climate. Now, how big these changes will be is something you don't know, and a quick check in the internet doesn't solve it. The variety of answers you find is crazy.

While on the one side they tell you that every living being is going to die in twenty years, on the other side they tell you that it is all a lie. In both cases, nothing smells quite right.

The first group seems to be exaggerating a bit and those opposing seem to be very defensive: But, hey, you wouldn't know who is right either. After all, it is you who are looking for answers.

So, in a world in which we have democratized to spread both the truths and the lies, where the false and the true coexist in harmony, who can you trust? Can you trust this article?

Every day, we all face this situation in many ways. The first is to take as truth what best fits your ideology and ignore the rest. In any case, nothing guarantees that you are right, you have only chosen the most comfortable truth for you.

Another way is to follow in the word of a person you trust, someone influential in your way of thinking, be it your partner, a writer or an instagrammer you like. But however influential they may be, it does’nt mean they have the absolute truth. They are people like you and me: They may be choosing the confortable truth or, worse, someone has bought their truth.

So, if I want to know what happens with climate change, what do I do? Common sense: don’t trust just anyone, pay attention to someone who knows about the subject: an expert.

If you’re having a huge headache don’t look for help in PewdiePie’s channel, or asking your brother-in-law, you must go with an expert in health sciences, a doctor.

The same way, if you have a doubt about the weather, consult with someone who works on the subject every day and knows all its details. It is their job, they get paid to do it. They are called scientists.

In any case: if I'm honest, even if you get access to a self-proclaimed expert on climate change, the truth is that you still have a risk of being deceived. Scientists are also corruptible human beings. As much as they know, they can also be individually influenced.

What do we do against this? Well, if you suspect your doctor may be wrong, ask for a second opinion. Go see another doctor. Actually, if you consult several and most of them say the same, you have a very solid truth in front of you. Moreover, if you could know what a Justice League of thousands of doctors around the world thinks, the answer would be the best truth you can get on this planet.

Well, what if I told you that something like this already exists and they’re working on the Climate Change?

In 1988, world leaders realized that they needed a reliable answer. This triggered the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. The objective of the IPCC is not to investigate climate change, but rather to review all published research and synthesize conclusions in well-chewed summaries for the consumption of anyone: the IPCC reports.

In addition to being written by experts (who do the work voluntarily) these texts are reviewed by other experts. They are not perfect (nothing in this life is), but the scientific community agrees that it is the best we have.

Some might think that perhaps the hundreds of IPCC scientists are manipulated in a certain direction. Oil companies say they exaggerate. Some activists say they are too conservative. But the truth is that, to prevent this from happening, the IPCC gives the choice of its scientists to governments around the world.

And while some countries are quite annoyed by climate change, there are others who would be delighted if the issue disappeared. Everyone has their interests and yet the conclusions of the IPCC are overwhelming. These reports are published more or less every seven years, but occasionally they produce special reports.

The average temperature of the Earth has increased over one degree since 1800. The rise to 1.5 degrees is already inevitable. In 2015, 195 countries ratified the Paris Agreement in which they pledged that this increase does not approach two degrees. To give politicians perspective, the scientific community has been studying the differences between these two scenarios. And although much remains to be clarified, what we know has been reflected in this special IPCC report. In the next articles we will build around this report. What you will see here will not be our opinions and in each statement made we'll make very clear the level of confidence that the IPCC has. Today we have been paving the ground, but hold on because in the next few weeks we will talk about how the temperature rise will change things, a lot. Maybe too much.

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