361: “This is civilisation changing stuff”: Is AMOC the hardest climate story to tell?
Europe plunged into a deep freeze. Life as we know it upended. The 2004 film ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ gave a generation of terrified journalists an impossible task: how do you communicate the counter intuitive threat of dramatically colder winters caused by global warming? David Shukman was one of them.
About this episode
This week, Tom Rivett-Carnac is joined by the veteran BBC Science Editor and author of the upcoming ‘The Response’, to explore the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC: the vast system of currents that helps regulate weather, rainfall and temperature across the Atlantic and far beyond. Recent research suggests it may be weakening faster than previously understood - with potentially profound consequences for food systems, ecosystems and global stability.They speak with Dr Willem Huiskamp of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who explains what AMOC does, and what a much weaker system could mean in practice. Then Tom and David reflect on the harder questions. How do we communicate a risk this vast and uncertain without paralysing people or losing them entirely? Are we socially and politically prepared for -50C winters in parts of Europe? And are we even capable of responding to a threat that may unfold over decades rather than across news cycles and political terms?
Learn More:
🌊 Discover more about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and why scientists are watching it closely
🔎 Read the latest paper referenced in this episode, which projects an approximate 50% weakening of AMOC by the end of the century
📘 Check out David’s book, The Response, which will be published by Witness Books on 7th May
🎤 Leave us your voice notes and questions for upcoming episodes on SpeakPipe
Join the conversation:
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Or get in touch with us via this form.
Producer: Ben Weaver-Hincks
Edited by: Miles Martignoni
Planning: Caitlin Hanrahan
Exec Producer: Ellie Clifford
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Full Transcript
Transcript generated by AI. While we aim for accuracy, errors may still occur. Please refer to the episode’s audio for the definitive version
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Hello, and welcome to Outrage and Optimism. I'm Tom Rivett-Carnac.
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David Shukman (guest): And I'm David Shukman.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And we have come together to discuss the recent news that the AMOC, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circuit...
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David Shukman (guest): Can I jump in? It's circulation. It's circulation, not circuits.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Okay, thank you. I've been calling it circuit for ages. Thank you, yeah. And that's that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation may be weakening faster than previously thought.
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David Shukman (guest): It's horrible.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify: It's horrible. It is horrible. It's horrible.
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David Shukman (guest): It's horrible.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: David, this is a serious one.
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David Shukman (guest): I've avoided saying it actually.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And you're a science communicator. This is a tough topic, but I'm glad to be here with you. It's lovely to see you. We've been friends for a long time. And great to have you on the show and talk about this. Now, before we go any further, you have a book coming out and people should know about the book. It's brilliant. So I'm going to give you a moment, please, to tell us about the book.
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David Shukman (guest): Very kind of you. It's called The Response, A Story of Fire and Flood in Britain's New World of Extremes. And it basically reflects how utterly shocked I am at how totally unprepared the country is for extremes of weather we're seeing now, let alone those to come. And I try to give voice to people who you don't normally hear from in relation to climate change, firefighters, drainage experts, IT consultants, people, you know, as I say, don't normally feature. And it's a way of trying to bring home to perhaps a different audience, the severity of climate impacts.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Links are all in the show notes, encourage people to pick up the book or to listen to the audiobook, which is available as well. But David and I are going to do something. I mean, I don't know if we can quite describe it as fun because we're talking about AMOC, but maybe we can because we're going to do this together. But something a little bit different where in a minute, I'm going to invite Dr. Willem Huiskamp onto the podcast. He's the working group leader at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He works on oceanography, paleoclimate change, the marine carbon cycle, and he knows an enormous amount about AMOC and how it's changing and what the impacts will be. David will join me for that interview and we'll listen in and maybe hop in with a question or two, and then afterwards we will have a discussion, a reflection about what we've learned and what it means for the world. So maybe without further ado, we should go to Willem. Willem, so welcome to Outrage and Optimism. It's wonderful to talk to you. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us. And what we're going to talk about today is AMOC, or the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which is something that everybody probably feels they know a little bit about, because it does creep into the media with a certain degree of regularity, although not always explained and not always contextualized. So we're going to start there. People confuse it with the jet stream, but it's different. So explain in what way it's different and what is it?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Yeah, hi, and thanks for having me. It's great to be here, actually. You're right. Most people aren't aware of what this is, and they do get it confused with the Gulf Stream, for example. So you've named it there, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation. It is what it says on the tin. It's a series of ocean currents in the Atlantic. Meridional just means that it flows north to south, and overturning implies that it has both a surface component and a deep ocean component. And so if you want it in a nutshell, you have these warm salty waters flowing northward on the surface of the ocean. And then in the sub-polar North Atlantic, and when I mean sub-polar, I say like around the southern tip of Greenland, south of Iceland, west of the UK, this region. The water reaches this part of the ocean. It cools. All that heat is given off to the atmosphere. And as a result, cooler water is denser than warmer water, of course. And this water in the wintertime becomes dense enough that it is now heavier than the water underneath it. And what happens then is a process we call convection. And this just involves this dense surface water sinking into the ocean, becoming what we call North Atlantic Deepwater. Again, very creative name. And this then constitutes the return flow to the south. And in a nutshell, that's the AMOC.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So that's very helpful. So that cooling and then becoming denser and sinking, that's basically the engine, is it, that like pulls this whole stream of water north?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Exactly.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: From sort of the Caribbean area. Yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): So I mean, it's an enormous heat engine, you can think of it. It transports an enormous amount of heat from both the tropics and even the southern hemisphere into the northern hemisphere. And this release of heat to the atmosphere and subsequent pulling of that heat by the northern hemisphere westerlies across Europe is what gives us such a mild continental climate here, as opposed to, for example, the same latitude in Canada. So in Ontario, for example, you have this sub-Arctic climate state where it's much colder and arguably a much less pleasant place to live.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Right. And so it affects Europe. Does it affect other parts of the world as well, the AMOC?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Yes, absolutely. So, I mean, I just mentioned that it's this enormous heat engine, right? This heat being transported northwards, as some of your listeners might know, that the atmosphere is heated from below. And this kind of determines where all these large-scale atmospheric circulations exist as well. So, if the AMOC changes, not only does the temperature in Europe change, but also where these dominant rainfall patterns exist.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So, I want to get into you. There's been some recent research that has suggested that the AMOC is slowing much more substantially than previously had been assessed. And I want to get into that in a minute. But just before we do, what would a world with a weaker AMOC look like? I realize that's a huge question, and the consequences of that are vast. But just give us a couple of, make it real for listeners. If we did see a substantial weakening of the AMOC, in what way would that affect us?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Well, again, I will focus here again on temperature and rainfall, because these I think are the two big ones that we would be concerned with, for example, here in Europe. So, if the AMOC were to weaken substantially, even in a world with two degrees of global warming, you would see a dramatic cooling in the sub-polar North Atlantic, which makes sense, right? This heat is no longer coming from the tropics and the southern hemisphere. It's staying down there. And what that means is, for example, in wintertime, you could have winter extremes of up to negative 50 degrees in places like Oslo. And even London, which is quite a bit further south, would see temperatures of negative 20. So these cold extremes would become much, much, much more severe. Complementing that, you would also see a shift in rainfall. In the broad scale, continental Europe and the UK would become much, much drier. So your summers would be drier. There would be an increase in drought. And some recent studies have shown that a full shutdown could mean the end of large-scale arable farming in the United Kingdom. So the consequences are really serious.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: But why? Because, I mean, Canada, you know, you talk about places in Canada that are comparable. You know, they get very hot, they get very cold. You know, if you go into sort of northern Alberta or something, but they still grow a lot of wheat. I mean, is there not an adaptation pathway where you still have agriculture that adapts to something different or am I misunderstanding it?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): There may be a pathway, but I think the point is that this is a circulation pattern that has remained largely unchanged for thousands of years. And human society has developed and evolved in such a way that we are used to a stable climate regime like this. So for example, yes, you could still farm, but maybe you have to do it somewhere else because that rainfall is no longer falling where it used to.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah, pretty disastrous for the insects and the birds as well.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Absolutely. I mean, this does not even touch the impacts on natural ecosystems. I'm speaking here purely in terms of the impacts on human society. But of course, many of these changes would occur on a time scale that is far too fast for these ecosystems to adapt.
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David Shukman (guest): Willem, I'm wondering if I can jump in. When you go through that litany of all these terrible things that will happen, if the circulation slows down or shuts down, actually what's it like for you? I mean, I know you're probably rather tenured to the horror that you're conveying, but what's it actually like for you just to run through those things, the crop failures and the lack of rain and the minus, what did you say in London?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): These extreme winter temperatures. I can only speak for myself in this respect. I mean...
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David Shukman (guest): Yeah, yeah. No, it's a personal question. Yeah.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): It is a personal question. So I think I, like many scientists, we have our brain split into two parts. One we turn on when we come to work in the morning, and that looks at all this like data on a monitor, for example. And then there's the other aspect when you take that and you process it and you think, oh, okay, that means that these trees where I live, maybe they will all die. I mean, for example, where I live in Potsdam, we have these big, beautiful UNESCO World Heritage Protected Parks. And many of the trees here are all slowly dying due to the changes in the hydrological cycle, due to climate change. This is not related to AMOC, but just as an example. And so this is like the personal impact. And somehow you have to keep these two separate, I think, to avoid going crazy.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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David Shukman (guest): Because I think a lot of people do feel a sense of despair, don't they, Tom? I think everybody's, yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Oh, absolutely. I think for myself, it's a mix of despair and unbridled fury. It's like yo-yoing between the two.
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David Shukman (guest): You're on the right path. Yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): I do like the name, by the way.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Unbridled fury has a lot of energy in it.
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David Shukman (guest): That's good.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: We're going to need that. So help us understand this latest research. Because I've been around in the climate space for a couple of decades, and this seemed like it was a remote possibility, and it seemed it was a bit more likely, and now it seems like it's not unlikely. So what has been changing in the research, and what does the latest data tell us?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Right. So I have to take a quick step back there and say that this latest research, what it did was it took this large group of state-of-the-art models, it examined which of them performed best when it came to the observational period that we have, which I should add is very short, unfortunately. This is why so much of this uncertainty exists. And based on the models which had the lowest biases over this observed period, it said, okay, now let's see how these models that perform well over a period that we do understand, let's see how they simulate an AMOC slowing. And as it happens, those are the models which happen to have an AMOC that slows down sooner and has a larger slowdown. So for example, from their study, these models, if you take all of them together and you don't filter for the performance, they show about a 32% to 37% reduction by 2100 in the AMOC. And that's under a moderate warming scenario. But if you filter for only the ones that perform well, then you get a 51% slowdown in the AMOC by 2100. Or even up to 60%. It's saying that perhaps we should be more concerned than we currently are. There's a greater chance of a greater decline in the AMOC by the end of the century.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And presumably, like so much else in the climate system, you get to a certain point and then it takes a very long time to get there. And then suddenly it happens all at once. I mean, in terms of like, if you get to a 60% shutdown, do you reach a certain point where the whole thing just stops? Because presumably, there's a critical mass level of cooling, or is it more linear than that?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): It's complex. I mean, it goes without saying. But one thing that's difficult about the ocean is that it has an enormous amount of inertia, right? So we could have already crossed that tipping point in, for example, two or three decades' time, but it may take another 100 years to play out.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I see.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): So for example, the measurements we have of the AMOC presently from our direct observations, it usually varies around 16 to 18 sverdrupp. And for your listeners, that means 1 million cubic meters per second. So this is a lot of water. It's a volume transport. And we have this Dutch colleague who's been publishing a lot of this lately, and he said, it could be possible that even if you only go down from 16 down to 12, that could already be the tipping point. And it may just take another century for it to then slowly wind down.
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David Shukman (guest): Willem, there are some beautiful animations, I think, done by NASA or NOAA, of the sort of myriad ocean currents sort of flowing beautifully around the Atlantic. And obviously, you see the principal ones. And I'm just, you mentioned we've got quite a short time series of observations here. And I'm just in the back of my mind is the thought that this is, and you talked about this, a highly complex system. It's not just the Gulf Stream bringing the warm water north. I mean, is it possible that as the research continues, further corrections to the understanding might be made, that one might find that things aren't quite as bad as we think they are right now? Is that possible?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): I would never say never, because of course, as a scientist, you have to remain skeptical, right? But I think there are very, very simple physical principles that make us quite confident about certain things. So is it possible that it will not slow down as much as we feared, or that it may take longer, giving us more time to adapt or prevent this slowing of the AMOC? Yes, that's possible. But there are certain things that we know on a first-order basis have to be true, and that is that if, through surface warming, you warm the waters in the area where this deep water is formed, or, for example, you add extra freshwater from the melting of Greenland, this makes the water less dense. And that is the fundamental mechanism for North Atlantic deep water formation. So if you mess with this, then you will mess with the AMOC. And there's nothing about this that I think will change going forward.
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David Shukman (guest): And that messing, I know that in the coverage, which I guess will come up, you know, you see the word collapse, AMOC is, or shutting down. And then we're talking now, I think, about slowing down or reducing. I mean, I think getting this language precisely right really matters. What are you talking about? Are you talking about shutdown, in other words, the thing stops? Or slowing down big enough to have the effect that with all those terrible things you talked about?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): So, in some ways, there's a distinction without a difference. But I agree that I think we as scientists have to do better in terms of calibrating our language to mean very specific things. So it's my opinion, for example, that we should not use terms like collapse unless we are very specifically referring to a rapid decrease in the AMOC. Because this is what is in people's head when they think collapse. They think something falling over. Whereas if you look at some of these model projections, yes, it eventually shuts down. And again, the word shutdown, we mean here, for example, less than six-sphere drop. It's slightly arbitrary, but that's what it is. So as these models approach a shutdown, in many cases, it's not rapid. It's a very slow, gradual decrease to the point of stabilization.
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David Shukman (guest): I mean, I think Tom and we were both scarred from COP26 on the row over phasing out and phasing down cold weeks. I mean, it comes down to, I think, being really clear about what words we're using is so important.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, I mean, there's the clarity of scientists, but then there's also this is one of the few things in climate change that excites the kind of if it bleeds, it leads part of the media where they can sort of like provide some kind of scare tactics and it all gets sort of put out as this frightening moment of collapse. Of course, it doesn't really engender much agency in people. I was looking at this report a while ago and you've just highlighted it in this conversation about the impact this would have on nature in the UK, for example, and it's one small part of the impact it would have overall on the world. But I live in the part of the UK where there's a lot of reform voters and they love nothing more than their garden birds. They're spending their whole time feeding these garden birds that are probably in a sort of ticking process towards a fundamentally changed environment and it's not connecting to other parts of their world where they're thinking about the political choices, the personal choices that are making that more likely. There's a fundamental disconnect and I mean, God bless you, Willem, for taking responsibility about the language scientists are using and we should focus on that. But there's something really fundamental going on where people are unable to really cognize this massive change. Have you got any thoughts as a scientist on how we knit those things back together for people?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): I mean, yeah, you could do another podcast just on this topic, I think. And I know a lot of people who work in climate communication, who could talk your ear off about such things. From my perspective, whatever we communicate to the public, if we want to give them agency, we have to bring the impacts down to their level. And I think that's about as simply as you can put it. And a quick example I can give might be in California, in the US. So, you have a gradual warming there, a gradual increase in droughts. The average conservative may not be really concerned about this, they may not believe you. What they do notice is when the insurance companies lift their premiums. And in particular, in some areas of the US now, where insurance companies are saying, look, our models say that we can no longer remain solvent in this area, we are leaving. And suddenly, all these people are realizing, oh, wow, this is actually really serious. Like, I cannot afford to insure my home anymore. So this is directly impacting me. Even if maybe the most serious impacts haven't hit you yet, but the insurance companies have priced that in. So that's one way of communicating to people that, you know, these will have a direct impact on you.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: A potential effect.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): And so I think we have to make a better effort at contacting stakeholders, at members of the public, and finding out how these people might be impacted by these shifts and making them aware of this so that they can then, on their own behalf, lobby policymakers.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): I want to say, like, regarding the media coverage, I think the media do it.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Oh, here we go.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): Careful. I think the media coverage on individual studies is very good. But I think one of the consequences on this is that the public can get information whiplash, right?
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): So an article will say, this new study says this, and they'll think, well, hang on a minute, didn't the last study say that? Like, these numbers are different. Why is this all changing? So what we are missing are longer form deep dives. And I think that there's a couple of forms that could take from my perspective. Again, one is an inconvenient truth style film, which for me in particular was very formative in terms of getting me into this field. I think the information space is changing very rapidly. If you look at certain climate content creators, such as Simon Clarke or Climate Atom or Climate Town, I don't know if you've heard of any of these but they are all brilliant. They have really found their niche and they're doing amazing work. We just need some way of taking all these different studies and having someone lay it out in plain language and give them an overview that we scientists have because we're looking at it every day, but the general public is completely lacking.
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David Shukman (guest): But Willem, when you talk to friends or family and they say, well, what on earth can I do? And the answer obviously isn't better recycling or buy a solar panel. What do you say, actually?
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): So that's kind of a funny question because you might be able to tell I'm from Australia, right? So for much of the last decade, we've been in the grips of a very conservative government that have done everything they can to prevent climate action. So what I used to say is the best thing you can do is vote, right? And if you feel like you have a bit more energy and a bit more time, then you can start advocating for other people to vote a certain way in line with climate action. And then if you want to take it a step further, you can, for example, cut out flying. If you don't have to fly, don't fly. There are a lot of little steps you can take where the perfect is the enemy of the good. The idea is that doing little bits, doing anything is better than doing nothing, right? Even though you don't feel like you have much of an impact individually. I think a good comparison is that Australia as a country very often said like, look, we are a small country, our emissions on a global scale are minuscule. It doesn't matter what we do. We can ride it out. We can sell more fossil fuels for another decade. But if you look at global emissions and you break it down, it's like, yes, China, very big, big impact. The US, also very big. But if you add up all these smaller nations that contribute just like one percent, half a percent, they make up almost 40 percent of the total. So if every country or in this metaphor, every individual kind of just says, well, somebody else will take care of it, then nothing gets done.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. Willem, thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thank you for all your amazing work in this area. I'm looking forward to staying in touch and learning more as no doubt the science in this will deepen, as David indicated, hopefully get better. But if the last 20 years or anything to go by, it may get worse as well. So we'll keep an eye on it. And thank you for your help in talking to you today.
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Dr. Willem Huiskamp (guest, Potsdam Institute): You're very welcome. It was a pleasure. Cheers, Willem. Bye.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: All right, David. The heaviness of this topic is made light by the fact that we get to do it together, but we need to get into the difficult things, which is, which is that, I mean, this is. It's tough to come at this, isn't it? I mean, this is civilization changing stuff that we're sort of all cheerfully, broadly, a little bit obliquely aware of and sort of cheerfully ignoring as we go on focusing on our day to day lives. And it's sometimes I find it's the micro things that make a difference. You sort of think, well, maybe we'll just lose all the birds in Western Europe as it gets to minus 50. And, you know, I mean, they're not micro, but it's the details that you sort of think about living through that hit you emotionally. How are you after that, Chuck?
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David Shukman (guest): Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I'm always struck by, you know, someone like Willem just reciting this list of really terrible things that will happen if this current system shuts down, which is why I asked what it's like for him personally. And I thought he was fascinating about, and so often scientists say this, that they divide their heads, maybe head and heart. And he was obviously deeply moved by climate change affecting the trees in Potsdam where he lives.
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah.
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David Shukman (guest): And I think has transferred that to concern about AMOC. You know, this is a uniquely, I don't know about uniquely, it's in a category of really hard to communicate climate issues. I mean, I'm still traumatized from 22 years ago. Do you remember the thriller, The Day After Tomorrow?
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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I do, yeah, very well.
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David Shukman (guest): Dennis Quaid is this climate scientist, and he's trying to warn the world.
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Movie clip (The Day After Tomorrow): They've asked me to feed it into my paleoclimate model to track the next set of events.
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David Shukman (guest): Hold on, Jack, are you suggesting these weather anomalies are going to continue?
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Movie clip (The Day After Tomorrow): Not just continue, get worse. I think we're on the verge of a major climate shift.
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David Shukman (guest): Yeah, all that kind of, but he's trying to warn the world that global warming, the burning of fossil fuels will shut down. And he just talks about the Gulf Stream. I don't think you hear the acronym AMOC in that. And you know, there's a legendary moment at some UN meeting where a minister says, well, hang on.
00:25:20.300 --> 00:25:21.440
Movie clip (The Day After Tomorrow): I'm confused. I thought you were talking about global warming, not an ice age. Yes, it is a paradox, but global warming can trigger a cooling trend.
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David Shukman (guest): And I had that, I lived that, standing at the desk in the BBC newsroom with the 6 o'clock news team. After this movie, and we were preparing to do a story. And I was the guy who had been coming to the 6 o'clock news team for the past year with global warming stories about heat and what higher temperatures would mean. And here I was saying, you know, I said, there's this global warming thing, but actually Britain's going to get colder. It was a kind of stunned silence and glazed eyes. And I was sort of digging myself into an ever deeper hole and I was not really explaining this very well. And one of the producers said, well, what do you want to put in this report then? And so we dug out pictures of snow drifts and cars stuck in snow. And I'm thinking, what is the viewer going to make of this? I mean, I'm quite confused. And I read all about it and interviewed scientists. And there you are on a primetime television news program hoping people are going to kind of guess it. I think it's in its own unique hellish category. And I still feel scarred.
00:26:43.920 --> 00:26:46.860
Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's in a hellish category because, as you say, it's counterintuitive. It goes against what people think. It goes against the timeframes. Because actually, now you're saying this long-term incremental thing that sort of feels linear, a few degrees warmer, a few more millimetres of sea level rise every year, suddenly there could be this big shift, and then it gets colder, and what does that really mean? And I just think people switch off. And they look at that and think, well, that looks really frightening. I can't really think about that, because it's too big to think about. I don't really understand it anyway. So I will sort of just go back to ignoring it.
00:27:16.820 --> 00:27:38.720
David Shukman (guest): And I think there's a risk that it's a wonderful gift to fossil fuel interests, because for decades, there's been this line we've heard time and again, which actually Trump repeated at his speech at the UN last September, which is, oh, these scientists, first of all, they said that we're going to have global cooling with another ice age. Then they said it was going to be global warming, and that never happens. And now they call it climate change. And you heard oil industry people, leading figures, use that line over years. Basically, these scientists can't make up their minds. Therefore, they can't be trusted. And you lob in, tactically, the nuclear weapon of uncertainty, which means something scientifically, but they're using it to mean something different. But these guys don't know what they're talking about. And I think there is a grave danger of people being so confused. I thought you were saying we were getting warmer. Whatever. I mean, I think there was a way through.
00:28:17.980 --> 00:28:18.320
Tom Rivett-Carnac: All right. So that's good. So I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you said that.
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David Shukman (guest): All right.
00:28:22.600 --> 00:28:31.420
Tom Rivett-Carnac: So David, you have as much experience and insight into both the way you communicate these things and also the way institutions respond to them, right? Because actually, you know, we've seen institutions shift in the media landscape. We've seen people really struggle to understand these things. And people are somewhat more educated about climate change than they once were. Not enough. It's not leading to real action. What are the pathways at this point? Because I mean, it's going to be sort of unfathomable in years to come that we were so close to these fundamental, civilization-changing things. And we sort of just couldn't... No one really worked out how to talk about it. Talk me through those pathways.
00:29:01.020 --> 00:29:01.920
David Shukman (guest): Well, okay. Well, I think number one language. Yeah. I mean, I just don't think anyone communicating anything about this topic should use the acronym AMOC. I mean, it sounds like some ghastly monster from the deep, or something. Which I suppose it is. Or a disease. But actually, you know, it's a horrible acronym describing a really complicated ocean system. Which is, and I think Willem reflected this, you know, it's well understood, but I don't think he would say totally understood. And I think also add to that the time frame. I mean, I looked at the paper that triggered all this recent batch of coverages. As far as I can see, there was a bit of a focus on the 2090s. And I think Willem himself said, you know, we don't know whether there's a tipping point and then a very slow sort of response, or whether it's sort of, you know, it's unlikely to be like overnight, the whole thing shuts down. And I think that that came out pretty clearly. So I think it doesn't put it into long grass, but it means I think there's no point panicking about it now, is I guess where I think we'd be. But I think many of the things we need to do anyway, and we've got a lot on our plates without AMOC. I mean, you know, it's getting hotter, you know, rainfall is getting heavier, there are more heat waves, more wildfires, and all the rest of it. And I think there's a lot to get on with now. And many of the things that will, I think, better protect ourselves, make us more resilient to extremes we're experiencing in the present tense, and the next coming two years, will actually put us in better shape for what comes down the track. I mean, to take the incredibly boring example of insulating our leaky homes. I mean, if you get that right now, and then Willem's rights and all the others, and there are these freezing British winters, we'll be in better shape. So I think it's about focusing on what's possible. I should just slip in here if I may. I've actually got a book coming out next week. You do. It talks about resilience. Various friends said, I hope you're going to tackle AMOC. No, I don't mention AMOC because I'm focusing on the near term. I genuinely believe if we can get the near term right, if people can be better protected, more resilient, individuals, communities, government seizing this, which they're not, and joining up all the different arms of government to put us in a safer position, we'll be in a better state. Actually, people might be in a better state to understand the implications of AMOC down the track. It's a long answer.
00:31:33.320 --> 00:31:34.000
Tom Rivett-Carnac: No, it's great. I'm so glad you've done that. The resilience issue is so important and it's the place that people can really speak to. The book is great. I would really encourage people to find the book for you. Do you narrate the audio book version?
00:31:45.760 --> 00:31:46.480
David Shukman (guest): Yes, I did. Did you know? That was quite an experience. Three days in a little cubicle. I thought I was going crazy wondering who wrote this stuff, but it was me.
00:31:54.120 --> 00:31:54.660
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Okay, great. I would recommend that book. I want to come back to the communication bit before we part. We've got a few more minutes, but let's think a little bit about what a world with a much weakened AMOC would look like. Because this is the piece that I think is a challenge. Of course, we've talked a bit about agriculture. We've talked about human impacts and homes and things. But there would also be a massive impact on migration. There would be a huge impact on how we're able to find the sources of energy to heat and cool things. We would have prepared for a world that is one thing, and then it would fundamentally look different. I mean, what's your view of how endurable that world would be for anything approaching the civilisation we currently have?
00:32:35.900 --> 00:32:44.080
David Shukman (guest): I mean, really, really horrible, because it seems to me from what Willem and others are saying, you've got these different effects in different parts of the world. While North West Europe has these horrible winters, it has these incredibly dry summers, with the implication for growing crops. We didn't get into other parts of the world, actually. I just realised, I meant to ask and forgot to, if the heat that's currently coming North doesn't and stays South, what happens to those countries?
00:33:04.860 --> 00:33:09.020
Tom Rivett-Carnac: I remember reading that, and actually the heat builds up much more in those parts of the world.
00:33:09.020 --> 00:33:17.560
David Shukman (guest): I mean, that's a horrible thought on top of presumably the global warming we're worried for anyway. So that's another whole package. I genuinely think because, okay, if you were a policy maker, and it's going to be at national government level, or UN level, or whatever, actually have you got enough to go on right now? I mean, do we know enough about 2090s? We know that we got to get off fossil fuels, because it's increasing the risk of this thing shutting down. But actually, other than that, what do we actually know is going to happen that we can plan for? If you think about it at a local level, I mean, should a local authority in England invest in snowplows now? I mean, they're preparing for a warmer world, that they may be thinking about awnings in city center streets or more drinking fountains for hotter conditions, worse heat waves or better drains to deal with downpours. I mean, should they actually devote money they haven't got to snowplows? Well, I think the answer is no, not now. I think we have to make ourselves more resilient to what we know categorically is coming our way, because we can see it and live it right now. And keep a really sharp eye on what the likes of Willem are telling us. And then maybe in a few decades time we'll be in a much better position to prepare for what's coming.
00:34:36.380 --> 00:34:37.140
Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's a good point.
00:34:37.140 --> 00:34:40.160
David Shukman (guest): On the way shutting off the fossil fuel tap wherever we can.
00:34:40.520 --> 00:34:40.980
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. I mean, it's such a good point because it is far enough away for it not to be part of any near-term planning cycles. There's a crowd in a lot of uncertainty. So therefore, inevitably we sort of dismiss it. You've spent decades trying to get the institution of the BBC and the audience of the BBC to listen and understand. What have you learned in that journey that might be relevant here?
00:35:05.780 --> 00:35:10.040
David Shukman (guest): I think keep it simple without oversimplifying. And that can be explored. People could write books on that actually. But that comes down to language and in particular, not just the avoiding of acronyms, but the choice of words that resonate. Whenever possible, bring it down to the personal. I mean, this is a big thing for me, which I actually do try to bring out in the book, is less polar bear and more flood-troubled door. Or less talk about graphs and more about whether your kitchen extension is bearable in a heat wave. Yeah. Really bring it down to the individual level. I think that's absolutely, absolutely key. And actually, editors like that as well. And because I think audiences seem to receive that kind of thing. Well, it's why, by the way, stories about plastic pollution, I think, resonated with audience because they could see it, touch it. They use the objects, they're recognizable, unlike this invisible carbon dioxide. So I think that there's a lesson in that actually, which I think is bringing things down to the nitty-gritty, to the everyday and the pragmatic as much as possible. That also applies, I think, to policy makers. I mean, to be really as clear as possible and to kind of road test everything that's said in public to try to make sure that it's intelligible to people. I think we've entered an age where a lot of language is alienating and concepts are too, and I think that can be avoided.
00:36:32.960 --> 00:36:33.380
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. I think there's a... I really like that point, but I also think there's maybe a little trap in it as well, because with the plastics, you bring it down to the personal level and it makes it meaningful, but also you can clean up your area. You can walk around your village and pick up the plastic or whatever else. But the trouble sometimes, particularly with something as big as AMOC, is you communicate it down to the local personal level and you also then widen this gap between agency and concern. So your sense of agency reduces and you can end up feeling more desperate by knowing something on the personal level and how it's going to affect you.
00:37:07.740 --> 00:37:08.560
David Shukman (guest): I think that's right. I mean, actually, it was interesting what Willem was saying about actually every little helps. And I think if the best thing we can do is to continue whatever can happen to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible, then anything that as individuals we can do to achieve that is valuable. So I think there is agency in that because suddenly, unlike 10 years ago, the non-fossil fuel alternatives are way more plausible. I mean, electric cars having the same price as petrol and diesel cars now, solar panels crashing in price, and batteries, and all of this stuff, which we all talked about 10, 15 years ago.
00:37:48.940 --> 00:37:49.500
Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's happened. It was happening around us. Right.
00:37:51.060 --> 00:37:55.480
David Shukman (guest): And it's attractive for non-climate reasons. But it definitely means that if you're motivated by climate and terrified of AMOC, actually, it might provide another incentive to try to go as zero carbon as you possibly can.
00:38:05.420 --> 00:38:06.100
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah, 100%.
00:38:06.980 --> 00:38:15.000
David Shukman (guest): I'm just wondering, actually, in your experience in sort of negotiating corridors of power behind the scenes at the Paris Agreement or whatever, did this come up? Or was it also in the category of being, can we avoid talking about that? Because there's so much else to get on with.
00:38:22.040 --> 00:38:23.460
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think the answer is here and there, but not in any systematic or systemic way. I remember, and it's often, you know, the small islands or the very progressive countries that have a finger on the pulse of the science much more. And in sort of like consultation groups or even in plenaries, they would maybe raise the issue of the AMOC shutdown and the impact that would have both on Northern Europe and on the tropics and use it as a reason to try to push for more ambition. But it was never sort of like, there's this thing and we need to reverse engineer policy to avoid this thing happening. It was, here's another reason why we should go down the road that we're trying to get you to go down around 1.5 or 2 degrees or something. What I've never seen, and it's fascinating when you think about it this way, I've never seen any group of countries get together and say, we know that there is an existential threat that could happen, not instantly, but over a period of decades, that is less than a century away. I mean, my grandma died a couple of years ago, she was 100 years old, the lifespan of one very long-lived human that is going to fundamentally affect everything about the way our world functions, from security to food to social economics, nature, everything. And I think we're sort of missing a piece of institutional architecture that maybe is built off the back of that science, that can maybe look at it, not to try and negotiate, but to just try and advance common understanding at senior policy maker level, where you would come together, maybe under some existing formulation, and sort of really look at that and say, well, let's talk about the military consequences, let's talk about the migratory consequences. And because if you did that, then you would sort of bring it into reality because you would be beginning to really analyze what those consequences might be. Unless I've missed something fundamental, and I don't think I have, I don't think that's happening anywhere, which is astonishing.
00:40:25.160 --> 00:40:33.740
David Shukman (guest): Yeah, I mean, I think I'm picturing, at the very least, a gathering of countries of Northwest Europe to assess what this means. But here's the kicker, I think, and it goes back to what we talked about before. Until there's more certainty about this, or until the range of uncertainty is narrowed, I don't know if you're going to get policy makers who face so many challenges right now. I mean, we always say that newsrooms are absolutely obsessed with the new, the immediate over the long term, which is true. The same applies to politicians. I don't know, on the basis of this last paper, would you get environment ministers? Would you get other ministers from all the countries of Northwest Europe? Defense or whatever it is, food security, whatever, to get together. I don't know that they would judge the science to be clear enough yet. But I may be wrong, but maybe that's a road we should go down.
00:41:22.540 --> 00:41:30.480
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, but essentially, at the moment, the big debate in the UK and in so much of the world is around 2.5% of GDP going on defense spending. Lord knows that seems like a very sensible idea looking at the world we're in. So the UK is going from one and a half to two and a half, an extra 30 or 40 billion pounds a year they're trying to find. I mean, okay, it may be possible we'll end up in a conflict with Russia at some point. I mean, I've heard strategic assessments that in the next 50 years at some point, maybe sooner, maybe later, nobody knows, but everybody's hoping to avoid it through the nuclear deterrent. We pretty much know that some version of this thing is going to happen and it's going to be unfolding over a timeframe that is of course longer than that. I see why we're not doing it, but it nevertheless, I just wish we lived in a world that could put its arms around that properly because it's going to seem bonkers.
00:42:15.580 --> 00:42:20.380
David Shukman (guest): It seems to me that the same applies to the resilience that we talked about. I mean, in my investigation, I was repeatedly appalled at how different arms of government completely unjoined up about problems which actually are relatively solvable. I mean, what do you do about wildfires burning houses in Britain? What do you do about downpours drowning people in basements? I mean, there are things we can do, but even for those, you find, I don't know whether it's ministers don't engage or from the top, there's no sense of achieving a collective outcome or urgency. That adaptation and resilience to bundle them two together, have always, it seems to me, been for different reasons slightly ignored politically. I suppose you haven't got a big project and a ribbon to cut if you're a minister. I mean, it's kind of more mundane and boring.
00:43:13.140 --> 00:43:15.500
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Well, damming the Bering Strait, that's what they're thinking of doing, isn't it? Putting a dam across the Bering Strait. I mean, you have a big ribbon for that, couldn't you?
00:43:18.980 --> 00:43:19.540
David Shukman (guest): That's right. A big ribbon. Yeah, and also you might have to hire some pigs to fly across through the sky. I can't see that ever happening. But yeah, I mean, look, maybe fanciful ideas. It plans to dam the channel out there and protect the northern seaboard from storm surges in the North Sea. No, I mean, I just think there are lots of these things that are very, very hard for politicians to grasp, unwilling or unable, or there's too much on, or it's too mundane, or it doesn't make sense. And I'm not surprised there hasn't been a meeting of the kind you describe. I mean, maybe within NATO, maybe within the European Union. Maybe this, isn't there this gathering, the European countries plus the UK that happens? Is it twice a year or something? I mean, which is a great innovation. Maybe it should be on the agenda there, but I bet it won't be. I think it's still too far off.
00:44:10.600 --> 00:44:16.960
Tom Rivett-Carnac: I mean, like so many of these things, it takes one very well-connected person who decides they're going to spend the next 10 years making that happen, right? And then they're really going to drive it forward. And sometimes that's what makes the difference.
00:44:21.080 --> 00:44:25.000
David Shukman (guest): And we don't, there's no, there's no equivalent of, let's say, Jane Goodall.
00:44:25.380 --> 00:44:25.600
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Right.
00:44:25.600 --> 00:44:28.040
David Shukman (guest): To kind of make that case for AMOC, is there? Or is there? Or an Attenborough, or, you know. I mean, I was raised on the wonderful undersea documentaries of Jacques Cousteau. I mean, you know, if you're thinking of oceans, I mean, you know, who would make the case? Well, there's no one in the position who could, who couldn't.
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:42.700
Tom Rivett-Carnac: No.
00:44:42.740 --> 00:44:46.780
David Shukman (guest): I mean, well, we could ask Willem, but I don't know whether he'd want the role, you know. But Dennis Quaid, bring him back from The Day After Tomorrow. Yeah.
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:56.140
Tom Rivett-Carnac: David, this has been a really thank you for coming on and talking about this.
00:44:56.140 --> 00:44:56.640
David Shukman (guest): It's great fun.
00:44:56.960 --> 00:45:01.100
Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's really lovely to see you and just congratulations on the book, apart from the else. All the links will be in the show notes. It's amazing you've done that.
00:45:03.600 --> 00:45:04.360
David Shukman (guest): You're very kind. Thank you.
00:45:04.720 --> 00:45:08.260
Tom Rivett-Carnac: Encourage people to get the book and hopefully we'll have you back on soon. Always a pleasure to chat to you and thanks for your insights.
00:45:10.380 --> 00:45:11.080
David Shukman (guest): Lovely. Not at all. Lovely.
