Sir David King Interview: Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
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You must be an observer of the effectiveness of these policies across different countries. I'm curious, what perturbations do you think will be necessary for a place like the United States? Will a catastrophe like [Hurricane] Katrina, which may or not be the direct result of global warming, be a wake-up call, which will then move the political class, or will it be the market that makes this decision -- the market together with the emerging international consensus which you're describing?
Those are two major driving forces, but I would just throw in, as well, one of the British driving forces has been the Association of British Insurers, the insurance companies, looking at the risks to populations and to the built environment from these disasters and the impact of climate change on them. The insurers know better than most exactly what the cost is to them.
So, we do have the market, and it's interesting to see the reaction of the New York and Chicago Stock Exchange to this new commodity trading. We have popular opinion and I believe that's critical. And finally, you do have the wish of governments to be seen to be leading. In our case, the prime minister was very happy to take a leading role on this issue. We, in the rest of the world, frankly tend to look to the United States to take a leading role on issues of this kind. You're a leading science- and technology-driven nation, and it would be good to go back to a position where the United States was in the lead. I'm very pleased that Governor Schwarzenegger has announced that California will reduce emissions by 80 percent by 2050. This is the only time I'm going to say I'm happy to see that Britain is in second place.
What about the newcomers to the international economy: China, India, Brazil? This community of emerging consensus is going to have to make a deal with them. What will the bargain look like? Because clearly, the argument on the other side can be, "Well, we haven't had a chance to develop yet. Why should we tie our hands just as we're about to take off and our economies are going to take off and provide economic benefits to huge populations that have been in poverty?"
The two biggest nations, China and India, each with a population of over a billion, are also the most rapidly developing economies. India, it's 7 percent or 8 percent per annum, China even close to 10 percent per annum growth rate. And that growth is fueling the demand for fossil fuels and energy. We clearly have to take this on board, which is precisely why the British prime minister invited the heads of those two states, together with the other rapidly developing economies, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa, to the meeting he was presiding over in Gleneagles, the G8. It was to embrace them in the discussion about climate change that he invited them to the Gleneagles meeting.
If we look ahead, our position is that the developed world has to show leadership. We have to show that we can handle the problem, and then when we turn to the developing world, recognizing their need to develop their economies, we need to persuade them also that it's going to be in their interest to deal with the climate change problem. But in doing so, we again have to show leadership by engaging in technology transfer. So, as we develop these alternatives to fossil fuels or carbon capture and storage, we need a very simple process of technology transfer into those rapidly developing countries so they can leapfrog. They don't have to go through the process of development as we have ourselves.
I hear you saying that what will lead us to a future in which some of these problems are solved is that the evidence of science through politics has an impact on values, generally, both nationally and internationally, to change our definition of success, prosperity, and achievement. Is that a fair assessment?
I think it is. At the moment, we've developed our economies in such a way that we've all come to treat energy as barely costing us anything. Culturally, the most important change that we need to make is to treat energy as a precious commodity. Energy efficiency gains are actually relatively easy to make. In Britain, the way we plan to handle our 60 percent reduction is quite a large dependence on improvements in the efficiency with which we use energy. It's an attitude of mind, but of course, the attitude of mind is considerably helped by proper economic processes. So, we are not just relying on people switching off the lights as they leave a room, but it's not bad if people do that as a continual cultural reminder.
The key to all the things that we've been talking about, science's contribution to government, changing the world so we can ensure the future of coming generations, is built on the public's trust in science. On your Office of Technology website you have posted a brilliant speech by your prime minister on science and society. He says, "We need, therefore, a robust, engaging dialogue with the public, we need to re-establish trust and confidence in the way that science can demonstrate new opportunities and offer new solutions." But he also raises this issue of the trust in science, that science provides evidence and sometimes the values that we hold, the prejudices, want to dismiss what science to say out of hand. Talk a little about that because that is a problem, if not in your country, then definitely in our country.
It is a problem in our country, and it's interesting how the problem manifests itself in totally different ways. The two example of this are on the one hand, genetic and modified foodstuffs, and on the other hand, attitudes to therapeutic cloning.
With genetically modified food stuffs, in the UK and in Europe generally there was an enormous concern about whether or not genetically modified foodstuffs would actually turn out to be unhealthy for us to consume, whether or not they would be poor for our environment if we allowed farmers to grow them. That concern was heightened by the BAC crisis, because for the first time here we had people eating what they considered to be perfectly healthy meat and yet suddenly faced with a risk associated with variant CJD. The actual outcome is a death [but only] something like 130 people in the UK have died from variant CJD to date. But when this broke out, the expectation was that most of us who had eaten hamburgers from British beef over that period were running the risk of getting it. So, it was a massive issue in the United Kingdom. And now, here were scientists coming along genetically modifying stuff, and [people] were saying, "Well, remember what happened to BAC." That was the linkage that was made that didn't exist here [in the U.S.], but it did lead to a serious mistrust in the scientific community, so when the scientific community came forward with all the evidence backing the GM foods that had been allowed through our rather detailed regulatory process, the public were not prepared to accept it. And so today you will not walk into a supermarket and find any GM foodstuffs on the shelves. The public have determined, not the government, that this is the case.
Then you get the case of therapeutic cloning. There, a very important thing emerges as a difference. With GM foods people were saying, "What's the advantage to me? Why should I have GM corn when I can take non-GM corn instead? I don't have to take any risk at all." In the case of therapeutic cloning the public saw, "Here's a potential advantage to me. If I do get Alzheimer's in my old age, it's quite possible that in the future, through the therapies developing through this process, I may be able to get treated. Or if I'm in an accident and have a spinal injury, perhaps they will be able to develop mechanisms for rebuilding my spine." Those were the issues of discussion, and we had in the House of Commons and the House of Lords what I think were the most intelligent debates on this issue, the cloning issue, that we've had for years. It was an open debate, no whips used, and the decision went very soundly, much to many people's surprise, in favor of allowing therapeutic cloning under a closely regulated process.
So, I think in the end, people are looking at scientific advance to give them advantage, and then they're relatively happy with it. If they don't see the personal advantage to themselves but only to the private sector, to the company producing the GM foods, much more skeptical.
It sounds like at the heart of all these issues we've talked about is better public education, maybe even in the universities, about science and its implication, especially for that part of the university community that does not become scientists. It sounds like as an educator, one might have to think about that so that we don't have to depend on a sophisticated and subtle prime minister to make these changes, that it becomes part of the general dialogue.
Our analysis only goes part of that way. We have shown in various interactions with public groups that actually sometimes when people are better informed about the science, they become more skeptical. So, it doesn't always play through in that way. In fact, the way we're beginning to tackle this now, and I'm not saying we have all the answers, of course, is to engage the public in debates on open issues of the future, the direction science is going in. We're trying to scan the horizon for the next GM or the next cloning debate in advance, so that the scientific community can work, knowing what concerns the public have in advance, and try to take that into account. They're setting up communication between the public on the one hand and scientists on the other. Now the scientists will say, "But I'm in a better position to talk about the safety of what I'm producing." But the public is the consumer and we have to respect that.
What is the public looking for in terms of the risks they're prepared to take? With cell phones we discovered that when the government put out a warning message that there may be problems associated with long-term usage of cell phones, particularly, we said, by children under the age of 12, actually the public didn't worry too much about it. The reason is, it turns out, the public are much more interested in the added convenience to themselves from the cell phones. On the other hand, the masts that produce that convenience -- every time planning permission is [requested] to place a mast near somebody's house, they object, because there's no personal advantage to them in having it just there.
The public are consumers, an important part to this whole debate, and we're trying to engage with that process.
One final question. If students were to watch this interview, how would you advise them to prepare for the future, their future, our future, both as a scientist and somebody who watches government work as it uses science?
Let me interpret your question in this way. My view is that as we move through this century, the biggest challenge to science is no longer, "How do we generate a wealthier population through technological development, how do we develop a healthier population?" We've done extremely well on those, and we'll continue to develop them. The real problem is we're going to reach a population by 2050 on this planet of nine billion people. The reason we're going to do that is because science has created all these capabilities for us to live long, happy, healthy lives, and therefore to raise the population level.
The new challenge for science, and it's a terrific one, is how do we manage to live on this planet with improved wealth creation for everyone, but at the same time with very limited resources? In other words, this century, the big challenge for young people is bringing the best science and technology into the sustainability debate. We have to tackle questions around producing drugs, for example, with much less wastage of solvents. We have to produce the high-tech advantages that society wants with much less wastage of energy in the production process. These are the real challenges we're faced with. So, I think addressing that problem with young people will also, by the way, address society's needs, and so we begin to come back into trust of the public.
With that note of hope, Sir David, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to be with us here today. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.
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