If Scientists Were To Speak Truth Unto Power And Tell Governments That If They Didn't Act Immediately...

[sandyRoe]

...to deal with global warming the world would be poisoned, and uninhabitable, within the lifetimes of our grandchildren, would the messenger be shot?

[jim360]

More likely just ignored, as they largely have been for the last thirty-odd years. But then, if scientists said that the world would be "poisoned... within the lifetimes of our grandchildren", that is at least a massive exaggeration and, even if true, not something scientists can actually say with certainty anyway.

The most truthful position is something along these lines:

"there have been noticeable changes in the average global temperature in recent years, and consequently in weather patterns. This can be largely attributed to human activity -- through the burning of fossil fuels, major deforestation, large-scale farming of eg rice, cattle, etc. That attribution is by now firmly established as something that is having a significant effect beyond what expected as a result of any natural processes. Hence, while what will follow in the future is far from certain, it's not unreasonable to expect that the changes will only be more severe if we do not curb the activities that are driving those changes."

This is not really very dramatic-sounding, though, and so is more easy to ignore. Which is perhaps why on occasion, advocates for responding to climate change tend to exaggerate things -- eg by implying that the world will be (virtually) uninhabitable within a century or so.

[VHG]

The world does not have one "super" government that can make rules that the whole world will accept.

It has hundreds of "small" governments, with each country trying to make as much money as it can to keep their population as rich as they can.

Sadly I think mankind is on a stupid downward spiral with over population, pollution, global warming etc. and nobody is willing to do anything about it.

Luckily I wont be around to see the "mess" in 100 or 200 years time when man finally destroy the planet.

We are supposed to be the most intelligent species on earth but I think we are the stupidest.

[Old_Geezer]

Ah, but is that the truth, or are you just trying to make it sound a fact before using it in your question ?

[Zacs-Master]

Governments often fund scientists. It would be a bit of a silly thing to do.

[Svejk]

jim360 /// More likely just ignored, as they largely have been for the last thirty-odd years.///
Are you having a laugh?
/// "there have been noticeable changes in the average global temperature in recent years ///
Except the last 18 years, which try as they might to alter the data, refuses to fit in with their predictions.

[jim360]

I think it is fair to say that, on the whole, the response of governments to the requests of scientists to make this or that change to policy have been ignored. Sure, plenty of people come out to make soundbites, but apart from token gestures little of this has translated into actual action. In developing countries, this is because they would rather have a growing economy (usually, sadly, reliant on using oil and gas as fuels) as opposed to a "green" one. In already-developed countries, such as the US, the oil lobbies are too powerful to be ignored for long, and so overall not nearly as much has changed as some in the green lobby would have liked. Perhaps this is a good thing, since some people in the green lobby also have a tendency to reject any reasonable alternative to fossil fuels as well. Wind turbines killing birds, tidal power wrecking marine ecosystems, and now Nuclear falling out of favour in a big way since the disaster at Fukushima (when one of the strongest earthquakes ever was too much for anyway obsolete technology).

With respect to the last 18 years of data, the figures are still in some dispute I believe but even if you accept the position that the average temperature has remained essentially flat since about 2000, that also means that most of the last 15-odd years are still the hottest on record -- and we are still pumping in record levels of greenhouse gases. If the temperature isn't rising accordingly then that suggests only that the system isn't as simple as a linear response. Which I don't expect anyone seriously thought anyway. Or, if they did, then they were being rather naive. It should be obvious that the Earth is too complex a system for the temperature-dependence of greenhouse gas emissions to be linear over arbitrary timescales.

[jim360]

Something I should have added to my previous post: in fairness to policymakers, it is part of their job to take more than science into account. That they haven't done everything that was demanded of them by the climate science community is sad (if you trust the science that's been done in the field) but not wholly unreasonable.

[sandyRoe]

My question was hypothetical rather than being based on anything that we're hearing now. I don't think they'd shoot the messenger, but, to use Jim360s first 4 words, 'more likely just ignored...'.