Swimming against the tide.

Twice today I encountered two very different examples of people swimming against the tide.

Walking through the Convention Centre I encountered the Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. Here’s one person who won’t be too fussed about the carbon emissions of his flight over here. His argument: humans are not causing climate change. He handed me a flyer for what he calls a daily ‘science briefing’ he is holding. Today’s was entitled, “The IPCC’s Scientific Fraud”.

Here’s a guy who spends a lot of time and energy disputing the science of human-induced climate change; disputing the findings of the world’s pre-eminent scientific body on the issue – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If you want to be really generous you could say he’s got guts for coming to a place where he won’t find a warm audience. If you want to be less generous you could say he’s a nutter. I’ll let you work it out.

But whatever you think of him, it’s hard not to see him as swimming against a huge tide of scientific evidence that has stimulated massive public concern and, we hope, unstoppable political momentum. Can’t say I was desperate to make the short bike ride in the baking sun to listen to him.

On a very different note, I spent some time at the alternative NGO conference that is taking place just down the road from the main convention centre. A diversity of activists from across the world has gathered to share experiences and discuss campaigning, including indigenous peoples’ groups, small farmers and many others.

They are not only at the sharp end of climate change – like the Inuit people whose livelihood is threatened by warming in the arctic – they are also at the sharp end of some of the dodgy ‘solutions’ that are being peddled in the name of tackling climate change. These are the people who get kicked off their land in order to grow biofuels. These are the people whose rights get ignored when huge tree planting schemes are undertaken. But they are swimming against a tide of donor cash and ‘carbon finance’ projects that are sold as being environmentally beneficial.

After campaigning on environment and development issues for over a decade, I know what its like to swim against the tide. Can’t say I’ve got much sympathy for the Viscount. The campaigners on the other hand deserve all the support they can get.