Articles at The Conversation seem to be a never-ending source of loony ideas pushed by academic idealogues. The latest in this procession of the damned is a particularly strange offering from climate scientist Professor Chris Rapley of the UCL. As far as I can see, his argument goes as follows:
Firstly, opinions on long-term climate actions such as Net Zero are increasingly embroiled in what Rapley refers to as a ‘culture war’, dominated by divisive political partisanship. The danger of this is that if the right wing of the political spectrum ever seizes power through the ballot box, then decisions might then be taken that are disapproved of by the likes of Professor Rapley. This would, of course, be undemocratic, because culture wars don’t appear to have anything to do with democracy as far as the good professor is concerned.
Secondly, this sort of thing is already happening in America. Fortunately, however, in the UK we have structures in place that can prevent it. Prime amongst these is the Climate Change Committee (CCC), and the legal enshrining of Net Zero commitments in the form of the Climate Change Act (CCA). Also, here in the UK there is overwhelming support for Net Zero amongst the public — or so says Professor Rapley.
So, protection of the CCC as an “essential democratic structure” is an essentially democratic thing to do, if only because Net Zero enjoys the support of the great British public. This is contrasted with the prospect of treating such infrastructure “as party-political tools”. Put succinctly: protecting Net Zero through the unelected CCC is the democratic thing to do, but wanting to get rid of the CCC and CCA as a result of a ballot box count is just culture war politicking.
It seems to me extraordinary that anyone could refer to the CCC and CCA as part of essential democratic infrastructure when they were created as part of a governance restructuring specifically intended to avoid a so-called “governance trap” in which (to quote the Research Excellence Framework) “the UK government was failing to act decisively because it feared punishment at the ballot box if bold but unpopular long-term climate measures were adopted”.
It should not require pointing out that democratic governance starts at the ballot box, not with unelected bureaucrats paid to spank politicians’ bottoms. Furthermore, it seems odd that Professor Rapley should see fit to emphasise how popular the “long-term climate measures” are with the electorate, whilst at the same time claiming how important it is to retain structures (the CCC and the CCA) that only exist because proponents of such measures did not feel confident that ballot box support could be relied upon. The CCC is the antithesis of democratic infrastructure and only in the world of climate action apologism can something created specifically to circumvent ballot box democracy be lauded as a democratic necessity.
I’m not going to waste any more time on this one.
Climate Scepticism 
I see Robin’s commented there.
As John says, it is a strange kind of popular policy that needs protecting from the ballot box. The author says:
Well then, a party promising to dismantle Net Zero is not going to get elected, is it? More likely is that the author can see that the game is up. It’s going to be a while before this nonsense can be got rid of. But it is inevitable that it will go in the end.
As to that “remarkably resilient” support itself, the author really did not accurately portray the public’s mood. Support is for the abstract, not the specific:
Link to the polling.
This is akin to the old polls that gave people a list of options for “tackling climate change” and they predominantly picked “plant more trees” rather than all the measures that might affect them personally.
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Thank you, John, for drawing our attention to a truly bizarre article. I thinkThe Conversation is in danger of out-Guardianing the Guardian.
A couple of snippets from the Conversation piece:
It’s good to find an admission that scientists are as political as the electorate. Perhaps the mask has slipped – no longer do the scientists claim to reveal scientific truth while leaving politicians (elected by the people) to decide on the appropriate policy response. Now scientists seem to believe they have the right to move beyond “the science” and dictate the policy, insulating it from those pesky voters.
The idea that researchers and scientists know best how to spend our money is finely exemplified here:
Then there’s the author’s idea of “building cross-party spaces where moderate voices can cooperate.“
They are the moderates, the sensible people. It’s those who disagree with them who are the extremists. The problem with that analysis is that it seeks to exclude democracy. People like the author believe that climate change policies/net zero policies must somehow be protected from the effects of democracy. The language is disingenuous at best, yet I fear the author genuinely believes he has expressed some sort of eternal truth or Holy Writ:
It beggars belief. Unlected institutions have to defend democracy against….democracy (how convenient to be able to persuade oneself that inconvenient and disagreeable general election results can be dismissed as “short-term political shocks”.
You’re right not to waste any more time on this one.
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I don’t doubt that opinion polls indicate substantial support for Net Zero. After all, there’s endless propaganda from most of the MSM explaining that we’re all gonna fry unless we stop emitting CO2. But if you ask people how much money they’d personally be prepared to spend achieving Net Zero, the answer is usually around £50, per year. Explain that Net Zero is going to cost every household tens of thousands, and support melts away.
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The latest Ipsos poll shows globally people have many other concerns of higher priority than CO2 hysteria:
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Mark beat me to it, but liked this partial quote –
“Unlike in the US, where climate policy and its execution has depended heavily on executive action, the UK’s approach relies on durable institutions and long-term planning – a form of democratic immune system against short-term political shocks.” – bold mine.
Wonder what “political shocks” he may be thinking about? I can guess.
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To my better judgement, I read further. From the “newly launched Council for the Future, chaired by former Conservative environment secretary Lord Deben”. blurb extract –
“We are thrilled to announce the establishment of the ‘Council for the Future’. Co-founded by CEE Director Professor Mette High and Greener Vision CEO Claire Haigh, the vision for the council is to provide a high-level inter-sectional advisory board for parliamentarians on issues around climate, energy and sustainability.
We are at a critical point in our struggle to tackle the climate and nature crises. The 10 hottest years in measured history have been in the last decade. Seven out of nine planetary boundaries have been breached. The window to avoid irreversible climate impacts and biodiversity loss is rapidly closing.
At the same time, the growth in renewables has repeatedly surpassed expectations, often by record-breaking margins in terms of capacity and speed. The green economy is the fastest growing sector globally behind only the tech sector. We have all the solutions we need to tackle the climate crisis. Moreover, the clean energy transition has the potential to bring many wide-ranging social, economic and environmental benefits.”
Stopped reading any further.
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It sounds like a neutral forum to debate policy, or whatever the professor called it!
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I’m afraid that Professor Rapley’s attitude is typical of an intellectual elite that believes an essential element of democracy is its prerogative to decide what should and should not be decidable at the ballot box. It is for this reason that they can support egregiously anti-democratic structures whilst claiming to defend democracy. This blind spot would not be possible were it not for their unshakable confidence in their own judgement.
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Professor Rapley posted the following in response to comments received – comments that he deemed to be off-topic:
I’m getting pretty fed up of reading about the ‘culture-war dynamic’. Rather than being a redirection, Net Zero scepticism gets to the nub of the issue, since it is challenging the legitimacy of the ‘institutional resilience’ that Rapley seems so pleased to see. He says that the debate “can be held constructively within the institutions that exist” but how constructive can one expect such debate to be when the institutions exist to de-legitimise Net Zero scepticism and to rob it of its democratic traction? Dismissing sceptical commentary on his article as being “an example of the culture-war dynamic the article is warning against” only serves to exemplify the censorious position he chooses to support.
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I note that Chris Rapley is the founder of the UCL Climate Action Unit (CAU), which describes itself as “a group of experts in neuroscience, science communication and facilitation”. I am in the process of examining their website to get a feel for what they are really about, and, to be honest, they just look like your average bunch of thought-scientists who think their background provides them with the insights necessary to overcome the irrational failure of others to agree with them. I note in particular the following:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/climate-action-unit/sites/climate_action_unit/files/communicating_climate_risk_-_a_handbook.pdf
This handbook (yes, yet another bloody handbook) provides advice based upon the metaphor of the elephant rider, in which the rider (the rational thinker) sits astride an elephant (the emotional brain). The message is that “For people to ‘get’ climate risk, you have to connect to their Elephant.”
I’ve covered this metaphor myself here:
https://cliscep.com/2025/02/05/the-elephant-in-the-room-2/
In the above article I point out that there seems to be no recognition amongst these people that they are themselves riders of an elephant, and that, as much as anything, it is their own elephant that has determined their own perception of climate risk. So, it isn’t a case of causing people to ‘get’ climate risk; it is a case of causing others to ‘get’ your own elephant. Those are quite different things.
The rest of the CAU handbook seems dedicated to encouraging the exclusive use of worst-case scenarios for the communication of climate risk. No doubt, they had RCP8.5 very much in mind. I recently asked on this website “Who the hell put the psychologists in charge?”:
https://cliscep.com/2026/04/29/who-the-hell-put-the-psychologists-in-charge/
Well, amongst others, it turns out it was Professor Rapley.
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Strangely enough, I had completely forgotten that Chris Rapley had been a target of Cliscep interest some time ago, as Geoff Chambers had a run-in with him due to his ‘scientific advisor’ role on the BBC programme “Climate Change – The Facts“. This is detailed in Geoff’s article “Cliscep v. the BBC: Round 1“:
https://cliscep.com/2019/04/26/cliscep-v-the-bbc-round-1/
Also, I had been aware of Rapley after coming across the following quote, where he argued against targeting sceptics as deniers. This was because:
“…those who are the target have successfully associated it with holocaust denial and hence tagged it as pejorative and insulting.”
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-changes-to-guardian-style-guide-on-reporting-of-climate-change/
This claim that no one is making the Holocaust association but the sceptics themselves is not a misunderstanding. It is simply a lie, because I cannot believe that the likes of Rapley are not fully aware that the Holocaust denier association was clearly made by the sceptics’ critics rather than it being an invention of the sceptics. For example:
http://www.populartechnology.net/2014/02/skeptics-smeared-as-holocaust-deniers.html
The facts? What would Rapley know about that?
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Rapley used to pontificate from BAS:
https://www.bas.ac.uk/news/west-antarctic-ice-sheet-waking-the-sleeping-giant/ 19 February, 2006
“Only five years ago, Antarctica was characterised as a slumbering giant in terms of climate change. I would argue that this is now an awakened giant and we should take notice.”
He then became Director of the Science Museum from 2007-2010. In 2021 he resigned from the Advisory Board:
https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2021/10/chris-rapley-resigns-from-science-museum-advisory-board-over-oil-sponsorship/
“Scientist Chris Rapley, who led the Science Museum from 2007 to 2010, has stepped down from the institution’s advisory board over its stance on oil and gas sponsorship.
After being contacted by activists from the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN), Rapley – now professor of climate science at UCL – wrote back last week to tell them that he had decided to resign from the board.
Rapley’s decision marks a turnaround from his tenure as director, when he oversaw and defended a sponsorship deal with Shell to fund the museum’s Atmosphere Gallery.”
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Bit O/T – but thinking about Rapley & “over its stance on oil and gas sponsorship” made me wonder.
If I was young again, I would have loved to study geological science & how the earth works, but that was not an option for a thicko like me, so of to work I went at 16 (1973).
My point being, where are the UK jobs now if I had/was been lucky enough to get qualified ?
PS – Alan is maybe best placed to answer that, but has been missing for a while. Hope he’s OK.
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