ClimatePolicy

If Lady Chatterley’s Lover, then … :

The first paragraph of Sheila Jasanoff’s book, The Fifth Branch, starts

“Scientific advisory committees occupy a curiously sheltered position in the landscape of American regulatory politics. In an era of bitter ideological confrontations, their role in policymaking has gone largely unobserved and unchallenged. …” (1990, The Fifth Branch, Chapter 1, Rationalizing Politics; 2009 Interview with Professor Jasanoff)

The first chapter of The Fifth Branch is something that I think that all managers of science in the U.S. Agencies should read. The book, quickly and compellingly, describes the role of scientists in the U.S. political environment. There are references to and case studies of many instances where scientific investigation is motivating and informing policy. There are examples from environmental science, from waste management, and from approval and management of prescription drugs. The book makes it clear that if scientific investigation suggests a need to change, to regulate, or to restrict a certain practice or behavior, then there is a response to oppose that change, that regulation, or that restriction. The depth and vigor of the opposition depends on the wealth and power of those who perceive themselves as impacted; there is often the funding or the advocacy of “opposition science.”

As part of the opposition, there is the tactic of searching for, finding, and amplifying any weaknesses or indiscretions of the scientists. Occasionally, there is revelation of true fraud. (Previous blogs on all of this are listed at the end.)

Building off of the opening sentences quoted above, since 1990 bitter ideological confrontations have become more bitter. There is little evidence that this trend will change until some sort of catastrophe forces the change. The evolution of political tribalism has entrained the scientific advisory panel into politics and brought the role of the scientist out of obscurity.

As background, Professor Jasanoff describes the Fourth Branch of the U.S. government as the Agencies, which have evolved to carry out the functions of the government. This includes the pursuit of scientific investigation for the benefit of the country. These agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and NASA, are formally in the Executive Branch. There are political appointees in the agencies, and there is a standing force of civil servants and associated private-sector contractors. The agencies fund research outside of the government. The staff and longevity of the agencies gives them a life that extends far beyond the term of any particular President. (these are perhaps D.H. Lawrence’s “… good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they’re talking about, or talk as if they did.” Lady Chatterly’s Lover)

In February I wrote that in the absence of comprehensive policy to address climate change in the U.S. the 2007 Supreme Court Decision that allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide becomes more important. As the EPA plans to move forward with the authorization to address carbon dioxide as a pollutant, some legislators are moving to block the EPA. ( see also) This is a classic political push and pull, with the argument that the regulation power of the agencies is out of the hands of voters, because the agency is not an elected representative (see Wall Street Journal Review and Outlook) Interestingly, the sponsors of the bill are, in fact, bipartisan, which shows the ultimate rule of their constituencies, which include coal mining, automobiles, and oil.

If there is any doubt that climate science has moved from a discipline of science to, de facto, an element of politics, then Senator Inhoff’s Minority Report should remove that doubt. Aside from amplifying the political positions about the EPA in the previous paragraph, this report implies the criminal investigation of a set of scientists involved in the IPCC Assessment Reports. The increasing role of point-of-view journalists and public relations professionals is discussed in this The Daily Climate Article. These are disruptive and, often, intimidating political tactics in the tradition of, well, unsavory participative politics. (see also, Climate Science Watch).

All of this has motivated a series of open letters by Ben Santer. The last in the series is an eloquent statement that the sustained political attacks does not stop the fact that the Earth will warm, sea level will rise, and the weather will change. (Santer’s Open Letter # 6, The List of 17).

What’s the purpose of my article?

At this point we have established that, going forward, “climate change” is a political issue, and it is subject to both the well founded and the pernicious aspects of the political process. This is nothing new; it fact it is ancient. Scientific investigation has challenged, with dire consequences to scientists, that the Earth is at the center of the universe and many other tenants of nations, religions, and corporations. The ramifications of their investigations rarely enter the minds of young people motivated by the scientific process. Therefore, not only are scientists not well positioned to participate in the realm of bitter ideological confrontation, scientists are, I assert, by both training and predisposition, easy foils for savvy political strategists.

This leaves the scientist in a lose-lose situation. They are required to defend themselves, but their self-defense perpetuates and amplifies the political confrontation. The confrontational process is not one, as one of my readers more eloquently stated, where we are looking for knowledge-based reconciliation of an issue. Knowledge-based reconciliation is the scientific instinct.

The knowledge that this is a political process that has been repeating itself for centuries, that there is always a community motivated by factors other than knowledge, and that we are in a world of nuanced language of words like “consensus” - this knowledge, derived from social scientists, does offer strategies. First the scientists need to think, individually and collectively, that their responses are, by definition, political. We need to adopt a position, not of defense or isolation, but to do no damage. In a political process certain individuals evolve to the point that there is nothing they can say that serves to advance their position. Nothing. I have been there. This is a difficult-to-accept powerlessness. There is a need to learn, at times, to be quiet – to do no damage.

There are other voices in the community of science, and their voices bring new strength and perspectives to the body of knowledge. Often these voices are young, the next generation, and if we have confidence in our efforts, then we should have confidence in those who have learned from us. There are voices outside of the community, from other fields, those who study the process of science, those who are impacted by the results of scientific investigation, those who use the results of investigations – these are powerful, independent, and supportive voices. They provide informal external review; they could provide formal, external review.

There are organizational steps we can take. In the United States we need to use our principles of checks and balances to have different organizations that generate science-based knowledge from those which use it – perhaps a provider-customer relationship. Or for the scientist, setting up a “validation process” that is independent; an organization that affirms value. This would help to break the perception of a conflict of interest, where scientists are often viewed as both provider and customer. As a matter of practical policy, scientists are pushed into this position by the requirement that “they prove what they have discovered is important.” (If we develop a Climate Service, this service should NOT be responsible for the use of the information they provide, for example, climate adaptation. Perhaps we need an organization made up of Agriculture, Interior, the Centers of Disease Control, etc., that are users of the Climate Service.)

We, scientists need to learn, better, that scientific knowledge is used and misused in both the political process and in all forms of decision making. And that misuse is part of the process - knowledge, once released, is no longer controlled. We need to learn that uncertainty is part of all decision making processes, and that systematic reduction of uncertainty in a complex problem like climate change is not the natural evolution of investigation. We need to learn that promising reduction of uncertainty is both scientifically and politically naïve.

Most of all, there are those, and this is perhaps what is really happening, what the majority will do – there are those who will take the knowledge that the Earth is warming, sea level is rising and the weather is changing and act on it. They will think about the investments of their companies, the management of our resources, and the incremental development of policy, that will take advantage of the tremendous and unique opportunity offered by the projections of climate change.

r

Strength in Many Peers

“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Trust, but Verify

Scientist as Advocate

Science, Belief and the Volcano

Opinions and Anecdotal Evidence

And here is

Faceted Search of Blogs at climateknowledge.org

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“Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Yesterday I got into an exchange with a person who posted a comment wishing the curse of a pox to the students writing on the UoMichigan COP15 Blog . It reminded me of Joseph Welch’s question to Senator Joe McCarthy, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” (Welch-McCarthy Exchange from American Rhetoric)

In the United States we devolve into something that is more like tribalism with sides taken based on the color of your uniform or who pays you the most. Discussion is based not on ideas and solutions, but on who makes a statement. Issues are advocated, and ideas are placed into extremes that take on attributes such as good and evil, for and against. The other side is wrong, and their intentions are of hidden control or hidden profit. This threatens our credibility and our viability.

US Senators pursue an investigation of climate science based upon the stolen and published correspondence of a small clutch of prominent scientists. Here at the Conference of Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen the news says that we should anticipate a visit by Congressman Sensenbrenner to call for the end of “climate fascism.” This will place this US political tribe in solid alliance with, perhaps, Saudi Arabia.

For the conference as a whole, I, my students, my colleagues, new people I meet, the discussion in the plenary sessions – from all of these sources, I hear no serious discussion about any challenge the CRU emails present to the basic conclusions that the Earth will warm, ice will melt, sea level will rise, and the weather will change. I have had a small number of interviews, and the question is asked almost as a curiosity. It’s more like the scandal of the emails is really a scandalous aspect of the US culture, like displays of disfigured animals in the back lot of a traveling freak show.

Some of my American colleagues, those closest to the IPCC, these people spend time developing rational responses to calls for investigations, allegations of lies, searches for conspiracies, and efforts to control the participation of individual US scientists in IPCC assessments. They work to craft rational responses to the irrational. Members of the Congress form and dissolve COP delegations. The rationalist’s response to a process that is being managed to be irrational is, itself, irrational. As the rationalist counters the irrational, their irrationality becomes more and more damaging.

It took me several years of management at NASA to realize that there were some people who thrived on the fight. There were those who were disruptive and sometimes deliberately hostile. Others, who benignly fueled chaos. These efforts to cause organizational dis-structure, to increase organizational entropy – these efforts were their strategy for success. Or if not a strategy for success, it was a strategy to keep others from succeeding, of using the distraction to outlast efforts they viewed to their disadvantage.

I spent some time as a manager of scientists trying to find the rational arguments that would help people see the intent and advantage of what I was trying to do and to develop buy in. I had some success, but there was always a group that worked, deliberately or subconsciously, to sabotage. Their strategy was often to create disorder. Their tactic was often to isolate facts or conjecture that in their isolation suggested rationality, compelled a rational response. The rational response was, ultimately, parried with the next isolated fact or conjecture. This is a tactic to build selective doubt.

While at NASA I had the experience of being on a long camping trip with a person who had a psychotic episode. My companion started to hear voices in the radio background, and transmissions through rusted cans lying on the side of the trail. There were always perceived people with weapons in groups of people near us. My first response was to discuss the inability of people speaking through rusted cans. Then I proceeded to showing that nothing bad did occur following the perceived threat. I tried to use a rational description of reality to prove a point that was motivated and fueled by extreme irrationality. Irrationality ultimately anchored in fear.

As a manager, I became more aware of fear and the fear of change. I tried to make my contribution as organizing disorganized systems. I hired a sociologist to work with me at NASA. What I learned is that this tactic of developing the rational response to the isolated assertion, conjecture, or fact was, fundamentally, ill posed. I learned that irrationality and sabotage were a natural part of getting the job down. I learned that if you allow the isolated assertions, conjectures, and facts to grow to dominate the job, then progress will be slowed, perhaps stopped. I learned that if you want to make progress then the leader has to differentiate her/his self from the turmoil, objectify the irrationality and sabotage as part of the whole – and manage it. Place the disruption in its place – the place of the disruptors.

I also learned that it is important to listen to the disruptors, to truly understand the motivation of the disruption. Almost always a sound foundation of the disruption is offered. It was my job to determine if the stated foundation was the real foundation – what is the subtext? It was my job to determine if I needed to accommodate the concerns of the disruptors into the direction the project or organization needed to take. The reason people disrupted ranged from a true conviction that a certain path was wrong to strong emotional attachments to particular ideas and, even, pieces of software. There were always some who where, often by their own admission, contrarian. And, if one is contrarian, it is usually because being contrarian has been a successful strategy in their lives. There are a host of reasons to disrupt, to resist, and to sabotage change.

As long as the community of climate scientists engages in the disruption and the creation of selective doubt, the disruptors will garner attention and an exaggerated amount of success. The march forward will be slowed. The behavior of all will be reduced to one where it makes sense to question decency. The disruptors cannot be convinced by the exposition of the rational totality; they are not looking to be convinced. Their motivations are elsewhere.

The person who made the original comment on the blog responded to me that their comments represented civility in 2009 and suggested that I would be intimidated by and unwelcoming of the language of Shakespeare. I do not, however, accept that participating in this game of personal attacks, repeated slogans, and outrageous assertions is the form of how we must now carry out deliberations of serious issues. I find no relevance of the curses of MacBeth’s witches. If I behave like a character in a tragedy, then it is likely the results will be tragic.

This behavior of disruption is an old and common tactic. It is always in present in politics and management - really throughout life. It is something one imagines as absent in the purity of science, but it is not absent in the best of worlds; it is a community peopled by scientists. We in the US have allowed it to grow to a way of doing business that threatens our relevance and our viability.

I sit here in Copenhagen, not far from Hamlet’s castle of tragedy. I hear quiet men developing community-based climate adaptation plans to link to development activities in their countries. I see interesting technology in transportation and energy from countries eager for wealth. I see policy and practices developing in other countries that promote efficiency and environmental trade. I see the US distracted and wasting its intellect and time on disruptions designed to play to people at home, and which will assure to hasten our marginalization as a great culture. We don’t even look smart to our own children.

r

Other relevant blogs

Paul Edwards: IPCC Press Briefing

Paul Edwards: “Climategate,” Not IPCC

Jeff Masters: Manufactured Doubt

Jeff Masters: Don’t Shoot the Messenger

Rood: Climategate Copenhagen Impacts

Rood: Update from Copenhagen

And here is

Faceted Search of Blogs at climateknowledge.org

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Science, Belief and the Volcano:

In January 2008 there was an article in the National Geographic called the The Gods Must Be Restless. The author, Andrew Marshall, describes Mbah Marijan, who has the job of satisfying the ogre that inhabits the volcano Merapi in Indonesia. The volcano is about to explode, the government has ordered an evacuation and Marijan is not convinced. Quoting the article:

“The alerts are merely guesses by men at far remove from the spirit of the volcano. The lava dome collapse? ‘That’s what the experts say,’ he (Marijan) says, smiling. ‘But an idiot like me can’t see any change from yesterday.’ ” (more…)

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In recent years, China has emitted more carbon dioxide than any other country, except the United States (see Figure 1). Furthermore, Chinese emissions will soon overtake even the US, on a per country basis. Policy debates over emission reductions, particularly in the US, often focus on the need to include China in any effort. Why would the US (or any other country) begin to reduce emissions unless the Chinese take similar actions? (more…)

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Thousands of research papers have been published on different aspects of the science of climate change. Developing an accurate picture of the state of scientific knowledge requires sorting through and assessing the potential insights offered by these papers.

That’s what comprehensive assessments, like the Working Group I contribution to the IPCC’s most recent summarized and full reports and the National Academy of Sciences reports attempt to do. The credibility of these efforts is built on the inclusion of a broad range of independent experts, representation of the full range of credible scientific research, and an openness of the process and the participants to reassessment of their views in the face of new or contradictory evidence. The result is our most accurate depiction of what is known and not known about the state of climate science. (more…)

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