Climate Change and the Discipline of Uncertainty
A disaster naturally creates a demand for answers.
After the catastrophic collapse of ice and rock in Nepal’s Himalayas, one question quickly emerged: was climate change responsible?
There is a temptation to answer immediately. Climate change is real. The planet is warming. Glaciers are retreating.
The Himalayas are undergoing profound environmental change. Surely, then, the connection is obvious.
But science asks us to be more careful.
We do not yet know whether climate change caused this particular disaster. We may never be able to establish a simple line of causation. Mountain systems are extraordinarily complex. Ice, rock, geology, water, temperature, permafrost and the physical structure of a slope interact in ways that can make the precise cause of an individual collapse extremely difficult to determine.
That uncertainty matters.
But so does what we already know.
The Himalayan region is warming. Glaciers are losing mass. Frozen ground is changing. Ice that once supported steep mountain slopes is retreating, while meltwater can penetrate fractures in rock. Permafrost, which can help bind unstable rock formations together, is also becoming more vulnerable as temperatures rise.
The important distinction, therefore, is between cause and risk.
We cannot responsibly say, on present evidence, that climate change caused one particular mountain to collapse.
We can say that climate change is altering the conditions within which such events occur.
This distinction may appear small, but it is fundamental to an informed public discussion.
Climate change does not need to be the sole cause of every flood, wildfire, heatwave, drought or landslide for it to represent an extraordinary global threat. Its significance lies partly in the way it changes probabilities, intensifies vulnerabilities and moves natural systems beyond conditions to which societies have adapted over generations.
An event could have occurred in the past and still become more likely in a warming world.
Heatwaves existed before industrialisation. Floods existed. Glaciers advanced and retreated. Mountains collapsed.
The existence of earlier events does not tell us whether their frequency, intensity or surrounding conditions are changing.
This is particularly important in the Himalayas.
Mountain communities, roads, bridges, hydropower facilities and settlements were developed within environmental conditions that were assumed to possess a degree of continuity. As temperatures rise and glaciers retreat, some of those assumptions become less reliable.
The landscape itself is changing.
That should shift our attention from an argument about whether climate change can be blamed for one particular tragedy to a more useful question:
How should societies prepare for risks in an environment that is no longer as stable as it once appeared?
This question leads us beyond climate science.
A natural hazard becomes a human catastrophe partly because of where and how people live. Communities concentrated along narrow river valleys, infrastructure constructed in exposed areas, limited monitoring and insufficient warning systems can dramatically increase the consequences of an extreme event.
Reducing vulnerability therefore matters as much as understanding causation.
Better monitoring of glaciers and unstable mountain slopes can save lives. So can early-warning systems, stronger emergency planning, careful decisions about where infrastructure is built and greater investment in communities already exposed to environmental hazards.
Adaptation is not an alternative to reducing emissions.
We need both.
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions limits how far these environmental systems are pushed from the conditions within which human societies developed. Adaptation recognises that significant change is already occurring and that communities need protection from its consequences.
There is also a broader lesson here about how we communicate climate change.
Public debate increasingly rewards certainty.
One side may present every disaster as direct evidence of climate change. Another may seize upon any scientific uncertainty as evidence that climate change is irrelevant.
Neither approach serves us well.
Science is strongest when it is able to say both “we know” and “we do not yet know.”
Those statements are not contradictory.
We may not know precisely why one section of one Himalayan mountain collapsed on one particular morning. But we do know that the climatic conditions surrounding glaciers and high-altitude environments are changing significantly.
Acknowledging uncertainty about the first does not require uncertainty about the second.
Indeed, responsible action does not depend upon perfect knowledge.
We make decisions throughout our lives without knowing exactly what will happen. Governments design buildings for earthquakes that may never occur. Communities prepare for floods whose precise timing cannot be predicted. Doctors respond to risk factors before illness becomes certain.
Climate risk should be approached with the same maturity.
The question is not whether we can predict every disaster or attribute every event with absolute confidence.
The question is whether we understand enough to recognise a changing risk and act responsibly.
In the Himalayas, the evidence of change is increasingly difficult to ignore. Temperatures are rising. Glaciers are retreating. Ice is disappearing from landscapes where it has shaped physical and human life for generations.
Every additional degree of warming, and every fraction of a degree, matters.
The tragedy in Nepal should therefore teach us something more valuable than the search for an immediate verdict.
Uncertainty is not ignorance.
Caution is not denial.
And scientific restraint is not an argument for inaction.
Sometimes the most responsible response begins precisely by recognising the limits of what we know, while acting decisively on what we already understand.
- Celia Paule writes on social, ethical and public-policy questions, with a particular interest in justice, rights and the challenges facing contemporary societies.