date: Tue, 5 Feb 2002 11:32:28 -0000 from: "Simon Torok" subject: Draft reply to emma to: "mike" To: e.hedderwick@nmsi.ac.uk Dear Emma, Apologies for my late reply but I hope you can incorporate my suggestions into the panel text. In general, I should point out that I am not entirely comfortable with the sensationalist language used. I would state things differently, but I do understand that the role of this text is to draw people in with striking comments. The one part of text that I feel is too sensational is under 'How will climate change affect the world'. Antenna states that six billion people are at mortal risk: this is certainly not the case. While a percentage of the world's population will be in danger, it is not 100% of the population. In addition, this implies that there will be no positive impacts. This leads to my next point: that the panel text does not mention that some people (and countries) may experience benefits as a result of climate change. I think this needs to be mentioned somewhere as it is one of the reasons that the problem of taking action is so difficult to solve. I would also like to see the SOC Ocean Mooring quote changed: it implies that there is a 50/50 chance of being either hot or cold in Britain as a result of climate change. Warmer weather is pretty much guaranteed here: it is certainly highly unlikely to cool down in Britain over the next 100 years. To discuss cooling gives the wrong message. I feel that opening the panel with a comment like 'You can't escape it' is also the wrong message. I don't know what punchy line you could use, but the message should be that we can influence the climate, that if we get involved our actions can make a difference, and that we need to do something about it to avoid the most dangerous consequences of climate change. Finally, I would like to agree with Simon Torok's comments sent to you already, to emphasise the points he has raised. In particular, I feel a mention of surprises in the system needs to be made to highlight the high-risk nature of playing with a complex system that we do not completely understand, which could lead to large changes that we cannot predict. Yours sincerely, Mike.