Four questions for climate change protesters

I am all in favour of young people taking an interest in the future of the planet - or indeed of anyone else doing so.

And the balance of evidence suggests that human activity is contributing to climate change - note that I didn't say "global warming" because that is too simplistic an expression - and that under the precautionary principle we should be looking to see how we can reduce our impact on the world's environment.

But the issues are far too complex, and the record of climate change prediction models too patchy, to allow any orthodox view about the world's climate to be given a quasi-religious status free from any challenge.

Note that when I say we should allow challenge and debate I mean exactly that, and am absolutely not in any way shape or form endorsing those who try to dismiss the very serious evidence that we need to worry about our environment as the product of some kind of hoax or conspiracy.

Between those to whom "anthropogenic" (human driven) climate change is an article of faith and those who ask any questions about their view are on a par with those who deny the Nazi holocaust, and those who would dismiss any evidence for climate change as a plot to sabotage the West, there is a large area of ground for debate and constructive discussion for those who want to see evidence-based policies.

And whether you are sixteen or a hundred and six, if you go on television to advance policies to protect the environment, you should expect to face constructive but challenging questions on whether those are the right policies. That isn't bullying it's actually a mark of respect and shows that you have not been patronised.

In that context Ross Clark in the Spectator asks four questions which could have been put to Greta Thunberg when she was interviewed on the Today programme. I thought they were good questions: they were as follows:

1. "Do you really think it is possible to eliminate carbon emissions by 2025 – the target of Extinction Rebellion, whose aims you have endorsed – without crashing the global economy? That wouldn’t just mean the end of air travel, which you personally shun, it would mean the end of your favoured high speed rail travel, too. While great efforts have been made to switch to renewables, we do not yet even nearly have the technology to turn to a fully fossil-free world and to pretend that we do so is fanciful. "
2. "If governments are supposedly ignoring the science, how do you explain, then, that those same governments set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) more than 30 years ago specifically to advise them on climate change – and have continued to seek its advice ever since, most recently asking it what would need to be done to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 celsius?" 
3. "You want a general strike, but why do you think workers will want to join one when your demands would mean an end to many of their jobs? It is one thing for schoolchildren to go on strike – taking a day off is always very exciting for them. You might have a harder job convincing industrial workers whose jobs and living standards ultimately depend on the cheap source of energy which you want to take away. I know campaigners keep going on about ‘green jobs’ but it is no consolation creating 1,000 jobs in green energy, or whatever, if your unrealistic carbon reduction targets are going to destroy 100,000 jobs in heavy industry. How are you going to convince those employed in the latter to join your strike?" 
4. "You said this morning that you think you can see the issues more clearly because you see things in black and white. But isn’t that the problem? There are great complexities in how to balance economic and environmental needs. The idea that the issue of climate change can be reduced to two choices – environmental destruction or purity – is nonsense. What we need to solve climate change is people who can see the issue in a rich spectrum of colours, not black and white, wouldn’t you say?"