You can see why, if one believed in divine intervention, it would be tempting to conclude that the great freeze of past weeks was a message rather than an unfortunate piece of timing.
Since many of those who are sceptical about the whole climate-change thesis, particularly in the US, may also be in the divine-intervention camp, the impact of this unusually chilly December and January should not be underestimated.
And the Americans suffered at least as much as we did. During a stopover in Miami just after the New Year, at a time when large numbers of elderly sun-seekers migrate to Florida for climatic relief, I found biting winds and newspapers full of how the citrus crop had been destroyed and tropical fish frozen in their tanks.
Whatever the theological considerations, the certainty is that the presumption of global warming – and all the policies that flow from it – is going to be an even harder sell for politicians around the world than it was a few months ago.
Sensing the danger, environmentalists like George Monbiot in the Guardian rushed to assure their anxious readership that “weather is not the same as climate, and single events are not the same as trends”. They are, of course, right, but it is a distinction that has not always been made in the past when more convenient short-term evidence was pointing in the other direction.
It all started in Copenhagen, which had its coldest spell for 20 years just when the world’s leaders were descending upon the place to agree solemn measures to combat global warming. The fact that they did not agree to very much may not have been unrelated to the temperatures outside.
Such responses may be irrational, but should not be underestimated as a political reality. Increasingly, the measures required to counter global warming are going to require international action, legislation and very large costs, which will only be deliverable on the basis of public support. The more doubt is cast on the basic thesis, the more difficult it will be to maintain the necessary consensus.
Obama’s America provides the most immediate illustration of that reality. Nobody can doubt that this president’s good intentions on tackling his country’s carbon profligacy are honourable and very different from those of his predecessor. But delivery is proving difficult, and the loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts will make it more difficult to get tough legislation through Congress.
The American lobby against measures to combat big cuts in emissions is far stronger and more influential than anything we are used to. It embraces major corporations, such as Exxon, and the coal interests, including the financier Warren Buffett, as well as a plethora of right-wing media commentators. Since his defeat by Obama, John McCain has reversed his support for cap-and-trade measures.
For this unsavoury coalition, the events of recent weeks have been like manna from heaven, and they now see a realistic prospect of blocking Obama’s attempts at carbon-reduction legislation. Already, his inability to guarantee that the US would deliver this domestic action undermined the president’s position in Copenhagen, contributing to the failure to secure a significant agreement.
But while the UK’s consensus around the need for a carbon-reduction agenda remains relatively unscathed, there are warning signs here, too.
In particular, the stupidity of academics at East Anglia University in falsifying evidence in order to strengthen the climate-change case has had a disproportionate impact on the credibility of the overall case – and that was before the cold spell.
The latest exposure of bogus information to bolster the climate-change claims – and obtain large amounts of research money at the same time – is potentially even more damaging. For the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to have advanced headline-grabbing fabrications about the Himalayan glaciers for this purpose is truly shocking.
On all fronts, the message is surely, “beware of zealots”. The public will only go along with the costs and behavioural changes that are being asked of them if they can truly believe in the proposition on which they are based.
Extreme demands based on alarmist claims will play into the hands of those who essentially want to see no change. Throw in a few weeks of big freeze and the “end of the world is nigh” message begins to sound a bit over the top even to the basically well disposed.
The other lesson of the recent cold spell was that we really do need a balanced energy policy. We can’t over-depend on either imported gas or renewables, neither of which can be relied upon in the kind of conditions that we experienced in December and January. It was coal and nuclear that were needed to keep the lights on and the wheels of industry turning.
If the proper lesson is learned, then the chill start to the year will have served a useful purpose. And the lesson must be that delivering a sensible energy policy involves a sense of proportion more than the sound of rhetoric.
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