The climate has been telling us that the prime theories, models, expectations and agendas have been wrong, at least in part
Professor Jem Bendell PhD, is an independent researcher and coordinator of the Metacrisis Meetings Initiative.
“The scientists didn’t predict this level of warming,” said my friend, an environmental campaigner. As we live on opposite sides of the planet, we often exchange audio messages. This time I replayed her voicenote, as it got me thinking. “When people criticise the IPCC” she said, “I don’t know who to believe. Are they being reckless or smart? People like you have been criticised for thinking you know better, like a one-man IPCC. People want certainty, not to feel like they need to study things for themselves.”
Her dilemma is understandable. The science of climate change has long been presented as settled enough to underpin decisive action. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which she was referring to, has played an important role in that confidence. Yet the dramatic rise in global temperatures over the past two years – outpacing the projections of even the most pessimistic scenarios from people like myself – has unsettled both experts and activists. The IPCC’s assessment in 2021 anticipated that this year, 2025, would be 1.2C above pre-industrial average temperatures, in their worst case scenario. Yet at the time of writing, the past 12 months average at 1.52C above the pre-industrial. The World Meteorological Organisation is now reporting it is likely (>70%) that the next 5 years will average over 1.5C, which is widely understood as around which climate change begins to become really dangerous for ecosystems and societies, particularly due to amplifying feedbacks.
At such a time, it is helpful to remember that science is a dialogue with nature. For these past two years, the climate has been telling us that the prime theories, models, expectations and agendas have been wrong, at least in part. That’s leading some people to ask why that has happened, as well as what they should be focusing on in future. It’s why I returned to the climate conversation ahead of the summit in Brazil, with an interview with the Climate Emergency Forum.
Doing science well
It’s important to say at the outset that asking difficult questions of scientific consensus is not a denial of science, but, when well-informed, can be its lifeblood. That’s because the scientific method depends on the continual testing of assumptions, and the readiness to refine models as understanding evolves. Cautious questioning of mainstream paradigms, while still grounded in evidence, is how scientific progress occurs. And for those of us who care deeply about the planet, that spirit of inquiry is essential, because the findings then shape where we focus our collective effort.
I share my analysis on the climate and on climate science, not as a climatologist, but as someone with skills in research analysis. That means I can study an area of scholarship that is new for me, and look into the methodologies and framings it uses. I don’t just read the conclusions, but look into why the research questions are asked and how a field has developed. And I do that as I am curious about what is most relevant for understanding an area of life. My 2018 paper on Deep Adaptation was the result of such work. Looking back, I was right to claim that climate change was accelerating. I concluded that by focusing on the satellite data on sea level rise, which was already accelerating. Mainstream climatology was not stating it at the time. Unfortunately, I was also right to conclude that it was inevitable we would pass 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures.
Outsiders who undertake research analysis to reach novel conclusions can annoy some experts within a field, as well as those who prefer to defer to authority. They accuse us of cherry-picking data and findings, when what some of us are doing is actually significance-picking out of a wide thicket of studies. They sometimes augment their criticism with the claim that few professional climatologists have agreed with the more alarmist research analysts – a view which ignores the many scientists who have publicly stated similar concerns. It’s helpful to remember that climatologists are typically experts in subfields, such as ocean circulation or glacier dynamics, and aren’t necessarily supported with the cross-disciplinary capability and aptitude required to assess other parts of the climate system. That professional caution may help keep their claims rigorous, but it also means few are willing to investigate, and then break with, the overall paradigm. Instead, the loudest climatologists in the media have been those most aligned to the mainstream story produced by the IPCC, which is that current anthropogenic climate change is primarily caused by carbon dioxide emissions and will be mitigated if we cut those emissions.
While off-the-record doubts circulate about whether the models fully capture what’s happening in our changing world, most public discourse remains anchored in the IPCC’s frameworks. And yet, as the message from my campaigner friend shows, this isn’t just an academic concern. The IPCC’s assessments shape what environmentalists work on, what philanthropists fund, and, one might hope, how some governments respond. So if the models and reports systematically omit or sideline certain processes, that has real-world consequences for strategy.
To understand this better, it helps to look at how the IPCC operates. Its reports don’t conduct new research; they synthesise existing peer-reviewed literature. Conclusions are expressed with varying levels of confidence, based on the amount and quality of evidence and the degree of agreement among studies. A process that’s been studied extensively, with converging results, earns “high confidence”. If research is sparse or findings are inconsistent, it is labelled “low confidence”. We should not conclude “low confidence” means the process is unimportant – only that it’s poorly understood. And the quantity of research on any given process reflects institutional dynamics: what gets funded, what’s easy to model, and what fits the dominant paradigm. A process that’s difficult to formalise mathematically may attract little funding precisely because it’s hard to model. And because the IPCC assessments favour what’s most studied, some complex processes can be sidelined. I have concluded that this process has massive implications for the climate and environment movements, worldwide, as I’ll now explain.
Beyond carbon-centrism
As the climate warms beyond past projections, more of us are beginning to question whether climatology has been prioritising what can be quantified over what might be crucial. We are not suggesting that scientists are wilfully neglecting reality but that the machinery of climate science, shaped by its computational methods, funding structures, and consensus mechanisms, has been filtering out phenomena that could be highly salient to life on Earth.
One casualty has been the family of ‘biohydrological’ processes that link living systems to weather and climate. Forests, for example, don’t just absorb carbon; they generate vast fluxes of moisture and organic compounds that seed clouds and influence rainfall patterns over continental scales. Similarly, ocean phytoplankton release aerosols that help form clouds over both oceans and land, affecting both albedo and precipitation. These feedbacks are real, observed, and immensely complex — yet they remain only partially represented in mainstream climate models. When processes like these are under-researched, they rarely appear in IPCC assessments. Therefore, what might be the most decisive elements of the Earth system are those least visible in the scientific consensus.
Since I took a year off from my paid profession, 7 years ago, to study climatology, I thought I was aware of what was most salient, and not just deferring to consensus or authority. However, looking back at my 2018 paper on Deep Adaptation, what I didn’t realise is that my attention to ecological systems was limited to carbon gases with only a little consideration of other factors such as the loss of the reflective power of ice. Over the years I have become more aware of the biohydrological processes influencing the climate. Knowing that I have a following amongst climate activists, I thought it important to publicly update my analysis of the situation, and wrote an essay on it, called The Dangers of Climate Dogma.
A wider agenda on climate
For environmental movements, the implications are huge. If our strategic choices – where to invest, what to advocate, what to regulate, and how urgently to prepare – rest on a framework that systematically excludes crucial dynamics, then we become ineffective for our espoused values and goals. To recognise that large forests and healthy oceans are at the heart of the climate agenda doesn’t mean that carbon emissions aren’t important to reduce and draw down. Nor does it mean we face a safer situation. Instead, it means we have a wider agenda to work on, and with urgency.
Worryingly, there are risks from sticking with a carbon-centred view of climate change. That is illustrated by statements from some scientists that forests aren’t very important to consider, as their carbon sequestration role is limited, thereby dismissing the broader contributions of large forests to cooling the planet (aside from their other value, and intrinsic worth). Such confusion can lead to people being less interested in preserving the rainforest than in mining the metals under the trees to enable more electric vehicles and appliances in our lives. This is the ‘fake green fairytale’ that has hijacked environmentalism and could further heat the planet in the short term while ‘excusing’ the destruction of wilderness.
We need to remind people that there is a space between blind faith in the IPCC and reckless contrarianism — a space where genuine scientific curiosity lives. Many of us, even outside formal climatology, can engage in careful research analysis if we give ourselves the time and humility to learn. It’s why I replied to my campaigner friend as follows:
“I know that some people believe that their respect for scientific authority means they should dismiss non-institutional researchers, even if our analysis turns out to be closer to reality. But they need to try harder — genuine respect for science lies in curiosity, not compliance. Science is not a priesthood. We don’t need robes to download a paper. It’s a form of respect for climatology to participate in the conversation, not to turn it into scripture. That requires the drive to know, the humility to learn, the patience to read, and the courage to question. Asking daring questions and finding awkward conclusions is not arrogance; it is an allegiance to the scientific spirit. So anyone suggesting we are arrogant or reckless is just gossiping as a distraction.”
Despite the last couple of years of weather changes, many environmentalists will go back to climatologists to “tell the truth” on climate. Some will be concerned that they will listen to the wrong information. Others will fear being shamed in the way I have been, often by people who are economically embedded in a conservative environmental agenda that imagines a profitable transition to an electric wonderland. This is why more of us with a grasp of the relevant science need to speak out. It is why I recently gave an interview with the Climate Emergency Forum.
I hope we will begin to see more leaders within the global environmental movement taking the time to reconsider the evidence and shift the paradigm on climate. If they do, then we could see more emphasis on protecting the world’s large forests, reforesting their edges, and helping them to cope with an already-changing climate. We could see bolder action on the pollution of the oceans, as well as experiments to help restore phytoplankton levels. Other ideas on remedies to our climate tragedy will undoubtedly emerge if millions of us broaden our focus. Because the risks of inaction are so high for all of humanity and the risks of action so low, we should not delay those actions due to the desire for more consensus in the research. That approach is known as post-normal science in ‘risk management’ settings, which my co-author Rupert Read wrote about in the first chapter of the edited collection on Deep Adaptation.
“I just want to know what’s really happening,” was how my campaigning friend ended her voicenote. That impulse to understand, not to win an argument, is where my hope lies. Climate science, like the climate itself, is a living system. It evolves when people dare to look again, beyond habits, dogmas, or the fear of being shamed. It is why when we next meet a climatologist, we can invite them to focus on what recent temperature changes might mean, by asking them “what is the climate telling us”? Whether an awakening to a broader understanding of our climate, with a focus on protecting and regenerating nature, will happen in time to have an impact, is still to be seen.
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