The changing climate 

Still sceptical about climate change? On 23 May Professor Sir Ghillean Prance comes to Peterborough Cathedral to explain why biologists are increasingly alarmed by the evidence of climate change that they see. Toby Venables talked to him... 

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR TALK AT PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL… 
I think the people who are most aware of climate change are biologists, because we see the effects of changes happening on organisms, whether it’s plants flowering earlier at Kew than they did twenty years ago, or birds migrating at different times, plants moving up mountains because the lowlands are getting warmer… I travel quite a lot, and I see these effects all over the world. If it was in one place, we might just think it was a local change in weather, but it’s too widespread for that. I’m going to concentrate on the biological evidence, but obviously you can’t ignore the physical ones, such as fiercer storms, and droughts in places that have never had them before, and so on.

YOU HAVE SPENT TIME AMONG TRIBES IN THE AMAZON WHO DEPEND COMPLETELY ON THEIR IMMEDIATE ENVIRONMENT. PRESUMABLY, FOR THEM, EVEN SMALL CHANGES COULD HAVE POTENTIALLY DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES? 
That is absolutely true, and some of the indigenous peoples – the Guarani, in particular, who I worked with in Argentina are noticing these effects, because that is an area in which the drought is increasing. I’ll be talking about that a little bit in my talk, too.

IS THERE MORE OF A PROBLEM OF PERCEPTION IN THE FIRST WORLD, IN THAT WE ARE ABLE TO INSULATE OURSELVES FROM SOME OF THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE? 
It is particularly the case for us in Great Britain, because it is one of the areas that is least affected by climate change, compared with other parts of the world where you get very severed storms, droughts and other changes in weather patterns. The models show that we get off very lightly, mainly seeing the effects of changes in the times of flowering, the migration of birds, and things like that. But it is not seriously affecting our agriculture, as it is in other places.

WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THOSE WHO STILL DENY THAT CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL?
The evidence is so clear now… I just show what is actually happening. The number of disbelievers is getting very small in the UK. It’s mainly in places such as the Bible Belt of the USA where there area lot of disbelievers still. Some of the original disbelievers were in churches, which is why I like to speak in them!

IN SOME QUARTERS, THERE SEEMS TO PERSIST THE IDEA THAT FAITH AND SCIENCE ARE NECESSARILY AT ODDS WITH ONE ANOTHER… 
I don’t accept that. There is a growing compatibility, with more and more people trying to work out both, and I am very definitely one of those. There’s a growing number of Christians who see that taking care of creation is part of the Biblical responsibility.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO CLAIM CLIMATE CHANGE IS JUST PART OF A NATURAL CYCLE? 
We know about that, and there certainly are natural changes in climate – ice ages, and so on. But we also know the effects of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere, and there is no doubt that this climate change is man made. You can’t go on increasing carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere without causing an effect on climate – it is absolutely proven experimentally. There really is such strong evidence for it. 

Sir Ghillean Prance: The biological evidence for climate change 
Saturday 23 May, 7.30pm Peterborough Cathedral
Sir Ghillean Prance was Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew until his retirement in 1999. He is an expert on the flora of the Amazon rain forests and has lived with at least sixteen Indian tribes in the Amazon. He was Scientific Director of the Eden Project in Cornwall (1999-2013) and is a Visiting Professor at Reading University. He is also a Trustee of A Rocha, the international Christian environmental organization. His talk will be followed by a question and answer session. The event is co-hosted by Peterborough Cathedral and the Peterborough Eco-Faith Network. It is part of the Peterborough Green Festival (organised by Peterborough Environment City Trust). Free entry. No ticket needed.
Peterborough Cathedral: www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk
Peterborough Environment City Trust: www.pect.org.uk
Peterborough Eco-Faith Network: www.cticp.org.uk

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