Greetings, I woke up this morning to this long train of GEP emails on Copenhagen and "climategate", all of which make interesting if now divergent readings. I thought I'd add a comment to Myanna's, DG's, Mat and Suzi's thread about East Anglia and the email fiasco as I have some personal experience with this matter that casts it in a somewhat different light and raises important questions that go beyond the science debate. As it happened, I made several visits to EAU between 2001 and 2005 as part of my effort to get inside of the EU climate policymaking process during my tenure with California's Resources Agency. As it happened, I struck up a friendship with Tim O'Riodan - true scholar and gentleman - who generously introduced me to Phil Jones and the other scientists working at the Climate Research Unit. As has been generally true with most scientists with whom I have worked over the years, they were affable and enthusiastic about sharing their research. Yet, as time went on something less flatering began to emerge.
I think the problem crystalized in my mind during a conversation that I had with Tim in his office in 2002, which coincided with California's energy crisis and the emerging role of Enron in manipulating the Western power grid to run up the price of electricity. To my horror, Tim began extolling the "green" credentials of Kenneth Lay and opined that he would be an excellent point around which climate policymaking could be formed in the U.S. Of course, he was oblivious as to the corporate Ken Lay and his criminal activities onbehalf of Enron, which then suggested that Tim had a sadly limited view of the world of real politics notwithstanding his many, many years of writing about the politics of EU climate policy. From that point forward, I began to look at the EAU and its role in British climate policymaking differently, eventually coming to see how Tim has built that program as the flagship U.K. climate research centre that it now is as an extension of the U.K. government and not in any sense as an independent research entity. Hence, the problem, as Nietzsche observed, is that developing relationships with power shifts control to the centre of power, even while developing an illusion of power at the margins. For Tim and the CRU, this meant that a certain hubris developed around their science knowledge and relationships with policymakers, leading to the sad attacks on those, such as Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen, who were not sufficiently enthusiastic about their views and program. This problem, however, is not CRU's alone, as I had similar experiences with other government associated programs in the U.S. and Europe, and witnessed other instances of personal and professional attacks on climate scientists and policy analysts who dared raised questions or expressed reservations about the substance and/or direction of climate policymaking. The problem with the CRU emails is much deeper than the evidence they provide of disputes within climate science: they represent a pattern of isolation and arrogance that developed as CRU and EAU moved inside the policymaking process. Knowing some of the participants and retaining at least one friendship at CRU, I know they are deeply troubled by what has happened, and at least a few of them recognize how it came to be. What was lost there over the years - humility for what they didn't know and respect for those with whom they had honest disagreements, is always at risk when the politics of policymaking intrudes into careers and creates hierarchies of power. I have worked long enough (forty years) in community politics to know that publics high and low, rich and poor, implicitly understand this problem, even when they don't know the details, and their skepicism about climate science, which in any case varies from culture to culture for a variety of reasons, reflects their exclusion from it. Best regards Darrell Whitman Davis, California ----- Original Message ----- From: Myanna Lahsen To: [email protected] Cc: Wallace, Richard ; Global Environmental Politics Education ListServe Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 3:07 AM Subject: Re: Climategate Impacts Dear all, In response to DG Webster's comment: "If we all believed the same thing, then when we are wrong we will be very very wrong. When there are many different beliefs, it's more likely that some will be right, but less likely that we'll all act together based on that person's position. Thus, as frustrating as the stolen e-mails, the climate negotiations, and the differences of opinion may be to the list, these are symptoms of a profound aspect of human--and non-human--existence: variation is key to our survival. That it could also be the source of our downfall is ironic, but not inevitable." The notion of societal strength through diversity of perspectives is a common one in anthropology, and an important one, also in climate science and associated politics. I personally do not conflate the categories of "climate skeptics" and "climate deniers," as many commentators and even scholars do; there are very honest and earnest skeptics whose interpretations get muffled by that, and they may indeed know part of the puzzle - see the third of the articles listed below for an example of that. So it is important to not alienate these scientists through use of such language. Others may rightly be called deniers. A key point I want to make in response to you, DG, is the importance of attending to power inequities. There is a need to analyze, expose and seek to transform the political and economic systems that give such power to the voice of a few, in particular those I indeed would call the "deniers." In other words, recognition of strength through diversity should not result in laissez-faire - in a position which overlooks the financial and political machinery that explains why climate skepticism is so strong in the US compared to other countries. I have developed this argument in the first of the articles listed below. I appreciate Susi's rejection of the term "ClimateGate"; those of us who generally support the IPCC and are concerned about global warming should seek not to use it, as its mere use places the IPCC scientists in the position of accused and guilty by association. Having analyzed US climate politics since the mid 1990s, this hacked email incident is yet another instance of carefully crafted theater, similar to that which was been crafted in the wake of the releases of IPCC reports. The second of the references below is a careful analysis of one such incident. Only with hindsight did the key IPCC scientist involved also himself recognize that he was but an unwilling actor in a staged event, which started at a hearing in US Congress. It seems to me that the important role for concerned analysts is to seek ways to inform decision-makers and publics (those who are disposed to listen and think, anyhow; the rest are a lost cause) about both the limits and the strenghts of peer-reviewed science; we need to develop a more critical understanding of what science can and cannot do, getting rid of the erroneous "scientific fundamentalism" that exists in US culture (cf. Chris Toumey's book, Conjuring Science) without throwing the baby out with the bath water - that is, while salvaging and strengthening recognition of the importance of peer-reviewed science. Again, see the first reference for my attempt to do that. The second article serves the same purpose to the extent that it shows, in careful detailed analysis, that the distortions and biases that prevail on the anti-environmental side is much, much greater than those that exist on the other side, and also in large measure disingenuous. A key point, however, is that this kind of analysis needs to get outside of the academy. My own article is a case in point. It's difficult to do that, in current academic incentive structures and an age of sound bites...which gets us to the problem of the political economy and orientation of current educational and media structures. By contrast to the work of most academics, the theatrics of the anti-climate forces and associated scientists are supported by the expensive services of top public relations firms. Cheers, Myanna -- Myanna Lahsen, Associate Researcher Center for Earth System Science, The National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Av. dos Astronautas, 1.758 - Jd. Granja São José dos Campos, SP 12227-010 Brazil Telephone: Direct tel. number: +55 12 3945-7133; Secretary +55 12 3945 7126 / 3945-7127 Fax: +55 12 3945-7126 ---------------------- Lahsen, Myanna. “Technocracy, Democracy, and U.S. Climate Politics: The Need for Demarcations” Article published in Science, Technology, and Human Values Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 137-169. Electronically available at: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1892-2005.50.pdf Ulrich Beck and other theorists of reflexive modernization are allies in the general projectto reduce technocracy and elitism by rendering decision making more democratic and robust. However, this study of U.S. climate politics reveals complexities and obstaclesto the sort of democratized decision making envisioned by such theorists. Since theearly 1990s, the U.S. public has been subjected to numerous media-driven campaigns toshape understandings of this widely perceived threat. Political interests have instigatedan important part of these campaigns, frequently resorting to ethically problematic tacticsto undermine attempts at policy action designed to avert or reduce the threat. The disproportionate influence of such interests suggests the need for a more level political playing field characterized by more equalized access to power and influence. Lahsen, Myanna. “The Detection and Attribution of Conspiracies: The Controversy Over Chapter 8” in George E. Marcus (ed.), Paranoia Within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation, U. of Chicago Press, 1999. Available at: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1893-1999.21.pdf ----------------------------------------- For those who are interested, this final article below shows the existence of climate change skepticism in the mainstream scientific community, a factor many analysts don't want to recognize. It also shows climate modeling as a socio-cultural process which also cannot be considered separate from its political context, and why some scientists may be critical of some of the tendencies in the mainstream science thatunderpins concern about climate change. Lahsen, Myanna. “Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution Around Climate Models” Article published in Social Studies of Science 35 (December 2005), pp. 895-922. Electronically available at: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1891-2005.49.pdf This paper discusses the distribution of certainty around General Circulation Models (GCMs) – computer models used to project possible global climatic changes due to human emissions of greenhouse gases. It calls for a multi-dimensional and dynamic conceptualization of how uncertainty is distributed around this technology. Processes and dynamics associated with GCM modeling challenge the common assumption in science studies and beyond that producers of a given technology and its products are the best judges of their accuracy. Drawing on participant observation and interviews with climate modelers and the atmospheric scientists with whom they interact, the study analyzers the political dimensions of how modelers talk and think about their models, suggesting that modelers sometimes are less able than some users to identify shortcomings of their models.
