Why We Disagree About Climate Change - the plot
Climate change is not 'a problem' waiting for 'a solution'. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the waywe think about ourselves, about our societies and about humanity's place on Earth. Why We Disagree About Climate Change is a book about this idea of climate change ... where it came from, what it means to different people in different places and why we disagree about it. It is a book which also develops a different way of approaching the idea of climate change and of working with it.
I deliberately present climate change as an idea to be debated, refined and used, as much as I that treat it as a physical phenomenon that can be observed, quantified and measured. These two ways of seeing climate change are very different. As we have slowly and, at times, reluctantly realised that humanity has become an active agent in the re-shaping of physical climates around the world, so our cultural, social, political and ethical practices are re-interpreting what climate change means. Far from simply being a change in physical climates - a change in the sequences of weather experienced in given places - climate change has become an idea that now travels well beyond its origins in the natural sciences. And as this idea meets new cultures on its travels and encounters the worlds of politics, economics, popular culture, commerce, international diplomacy and religion - often through the interposing role of the media - climate change takes on new meanings and serves new purposes.
Drawing upon my 25 years of work as a professional climate change researcher, university educator and public commentator, in Why We Disagree About Climate Change I examine this mutating idea of climate change. I do so using the concepts, tools and languages of the sciences, social sciencesand humanities and the discourses and practices of economics, politics and religion. As climate change is examined from these different vantage points it becomes possible to see that depending on who one is and where one stands the idea of climate change carries quite different meanings and seems to imply quite different courses of action. Our discordant conversations about climate change reveal at a deeper level all that makes for diversity, creativity and conflict within the human story - our different attitudes to risk, technology and well-being; our different ethical, ideological and political beliefs; our different interpretations of the past and our competing visions of the future. If we are to understand climate change and if we are to use climate change constructively in our politics, we must first hear and understand these discordant voices, these multifarious human beliefs, values, attitudes, aspirations and behaviours.
11 July 2009
Buy This Book
Mike Hulme of the University of East Anglia has a new book out with Cambridge University Press titled, Why We Disagree About Climate Change. It will be on my fall syllabus (hint, hint incoming students). I asked Mike why people should read his book and he responded with the following. Do read it, it is excellent.
29 comments:
Roger:
Can you say why this particular book intrigued you? I have to say that I do not find the above summary particularly compelling to say the least.
Roger:
I agree, I too would like to know why I should read the book. Could you give some more hints? Regards, Jos deL.
I completely understand why this book should be read. I spent many years in a political environment with policy makers of liberal and conservative backgrounds. It is very clear to me that climate change is both a scientific and a political, economic & environmental belief system.
I would suggest that those who do not understand why they should read this book are precisely the individuals who need to read it. "Seek first to understand." It will not be possible to engage in a meaningful dialog with those of differing viewpoints without first understanding "where they are coming from".
Too often we project onto others our values and perspectives and we view those who do not share them as being dishonest. We try to reason with what we see are perfectly logical arguments and we do not understand why they fall of deaf ears. I suspect this book elaborates on why this is so.
I believe you are providing an excellent service to your students by including this book in your syllabus. Whether they are pro-AGW or skeptical of AGW, an understanding of the underlying reasons why they think as they do and why others think differently will help them, not only in better understanding climate change, but in better understanding why individuals reach differing conclusions on a broad range of social and political issues.
Nice to see recognition that the complex subject of climate is as much about different interpretations, opinions, and behaviors as it is about facts and hypotheses.
Very ironically the growing number of otherwise responsible academics and pundits who suggest any dissenting climate debaters / commenters are evil "deniers" who should be burned at the stake are guilty of the same sins we saw in the middle ages where emotion and myth trumped reason.
Since burning so many reasoned folks at the stake will require the purchase of a lot of carbon credits why not just let them ... speak?
Joseph and It Stands to Reason:
Having listened to Mike Hulme on a discussion panel and on a BBC radio interview, I think you might be over-optimistic as to a sense of balance he is talking about. But I have not read the book and therefore I am open to being persuaded that he is saying something "new".
I am also skeptical of arguments that seem to assume that the facts and science are settled and we are arguing about how to weight and respond to these facts. Some facts and some science may be settled, but the physical phenomena of climate is sufficiently complex that some factgs and some science are insufficient. I also take exception to the fact that "we have slowly and, at times, reluctantly realised that humanity has become an active agent in the re-shaping of physical climates around the world". I know nobody who doubts man's ability to impact the "climate" of his immediate location - hence the UHI effects and other more extensive land use effects - it is the global effects of CO2 that are the issue and presumably are the catalyst for this book. Mike Hume is a key contributor and editor of the IPCC reports.
My question for Roger, therefore, remains: Why shouldwe read this book?
On a separate but relate note, I would be interested to see your reading list for your upcoming course.
Once you get past the longwindedness and slow development of commonplace ideas that could be said about anything, at its heart, Mike Hulme’s note looks like one more effort from the world of the delayers of action on global warming who find such a welcoming home on this blog.
This time the perspective seems to be from the school of bad sociology –give-away words like the tired “discourses”. And how about the poor logic – the straw man and false dichotomy - in making alternatives of words about and the measuring of global warming. Surely we need both.
The dog-whistle idea in the note, and presumably the book, seems to be that we should take no actual action till we have studied all the myriad different perspectives, presumably however informed or uninformed, on GW. That, of course, it just so happens, would take a long time.
Whenever there is any world crisis, there is always a range of views. Stalin was both a denier of the clear signs of the forthcoming 1941 Nazi attack on the USSR, and a delayer of effective defensive preparation in the months before it happened. There were also demands for action in WWII, but of the wrong type– for example the Second Front Now movement, calling for an Allied invasion of France in 1942, when it would likely have been defeated.
The test for our society now will be whether our leaders can detect the true signal from the noise, as the WWII leaders eventually did. My sense is that leaders like Obama and the G8 and G20 as a whole are much nearer to getting it right than getting it wrong. That is, thankfully, you see nothing of the case Hume makes in his note anywhere in their communiqués and other documents.
That said, to me the severe challenge for the planet as we know it is whether we will get it right in time.
That puts every single word by the delayers, whether deliberately seeking delay or just inadvertently supporting it, in its true context - as no less than Paul Krugman has noted, as treason to our civilisation.
Maybe we all should meet again in two months- having read the book.. and have the discussion on a more fact-oriented basis.
How about we all read it and each pick two
things we never thought of before in the book that added to our thinking, and two things we totally disagree with? we could possibly then discuss (virtually) with Roger's class.
PS for Coloradans, book is available through Prospector interlibrary service.
Sharon:
This is a $29 paperback! I would like more clarity as to its merits and content before I buy it or I ask my library system to buy it. The single review at Amazon is equaly laudatory but equally vague. Have you seen more thorough reviews?
"That puts every single word by the delayers, whether deliberately seeking delay or just inadvertently supporting it, in its true context - as no less than Paul Krugman has noted, as treason to our civilisation."
So, when do the show trials and the firing squads begin?
Andrew:
I have just been reading a few books related to the American Communist Party triggered by Anne Nelson's new book on the Red Orchestra. It is eery how akin to the ACP loyalty oath Transcepts rhetoric is. It will be interesting to see how Mike Hulme characterizes Transcepts viewpoint.
Andrew and Bernie - where in my post do I seem to be supporting Stalin or Stalinism? I used him as an example of a denier and a delayer. Rather than seizing on an irrelevant aspect of an example supporting my case, do you want to comment on the case itself?
Bernie- I am not going out to buy the book nor am I convincing my library to buy it; I simply noted that our Colorado Prospector system had it (3 copies, I believe). Given that, unless we assume that Colorado has a uniquely wonderful public library system, it would be logical to assume that other interested parties might be able to access it through their library.
It seems to me hat we could have a more meaningful discussion about the book if we'd read it..
Sharon:
It is great that your library system has it. My local library consortium does not have it as of this moment. All I was after was a clearer statement from Roger - or anyone else - as to what made Prof Hulme's book worth reading. I found Prof. Hulme's overview underwhelming - and I guess I am as suspicious as Transcept on the cultural/political/sociological framing of the issues.
"That puts every single word by the delayers, whether deliberately seeking delay or just inadvertently supporting it, in its true context - as no less than Paul Krugman has noted, as treason to our civilisation."
"So, when do the show trials and the firing squads begin?"
Indeed.
I always wonder about people like Transcept and Paul Krugman. (BTW, Transcept, your reference to Paul Krugman on "treason to the planet" is a bit like saying, "No less a person than Joe the Plumber..." To my knowledge, Paul Krugman has absolutely no education or experience in environmental analyses or law. So why should anyone pay attention to him, other than how nutty he is, when he offers a phrase like, "treason to the planet"?)
But I digress. ;-)
Transcept, do you really think that "civilization" is jeopardized by anthropogenic global warming? How? How would that be?
Right now, world per-capita GDP is about $10,000. Life expectancy at birth is about 67 years. There are about 180 countries in the world, and about half of them are ranked by Freedom House as "free."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Freedom_in_the_world.svg
Look into the future WITH global warming. What would you expect in 2050 and 2100 for:
1) World per-capita GDP?
2) Life expectancy at birth?
3) Percentage of the countries that would be considered "free" per current Freedom House rankings?
Now, what do you think the answers would be for 2050 and 2100 WITHOUT global warming?
I don't want to color your opinion, but I'll be happy to provide my estimates after you've provided yours.
P.S. Some may wonder what all this has to do with Mike Hulme's book? Well, since I haven't read his book, I can't say. But when I read phrases like "treason to the planet" and "treason to civilization," I suspect religious convictions.
Mark
You wrote:
"Transcept, do you really think that "civilization" is jeopardized by anthropogenic global warming? How? How would that be?"
Do you think I'm the first person to ever make that argument?
Why not google that question, and see how your estimates stack up against the existing peer-reviewed body of knowledge on this rather than invite me to write it out again.
BTW, have your estimates been published in a peer-reviewed journal?
Transcept,
I asked you, "Transcept, do you really think that "civilization" is jeopardized by anthropogenic global warming? How? How would that be?"
You respond, Do you think I'm the first person to ever make that argument?"
No. James Lovelock has stated that global warming will reduce humans to "a few breeding pairs...in the arctic". (What about the Antarctic, Dr. Lovelock? You got something against the Antarctic? ;-))
http://living.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2742781
And Hans Shellnhuber has stated that global warming could reduce the human population to 1 billion by 2100:
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/scientist-warming-could-cut-population-to-1-billion/
What neither of them of them did, to my knowledge, was to ever offer any credible scientific explanation of how these extraordinary claims could come to pass.
Carl Sagan often said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
You have claimed that climate change "delayers" are committing "treason against civilization." I'm asking you to provide any evidence for that extraordinary claim. It seems you can't.
That does not surprise me. I think your thoughts (and Paul Krugman's, and James Lovelock's) are based on religious belief of a coming apocalypse, rather than rational scientific thought about the consequences of climate change.
That's why I asked you to make predictions for per-capita GDP, life expectancy at birth, and the percentage of countries that are free in 2050 and 2100, with and without global warming...to see if there was any reasoning behind your extraordinary claim. There doesn't appear to be any reasoning behind your claim.
Mark
It is a well known device in a certain sort of "discourse' to ask the proponent of a view to do more and more work and present more and more material.
I do not feel like being drawn into that.
You have already cited two respected sources on the risk to civilisation from GW.
I can't even be bothered checking your unlikely claim that these serious scientists would make a case without evidence - checking the claim would be more work.
Hopefully fair-minded readers of this blog have seen from your post - and thank you - that authoritative scientists have said that GW is a threat to our civilisation.
So do you, Bernie and Andrew now want to turn to , and comment on, my main thesis ?
Transcept,
You said "Hopefully fair-minded readers of this blog have seen from your post - and thank you - that authoritative scientists have said that GW is a threat to our civilisation."
But many authoritative scientists - and I count myself among them - have said that GW is not a threat to our civilisation, or at least a minimal one.
So it IS necessary to check the evidence and beliefs of individuals who make – or do not make – such claims. Hence my book, Why We Disagree About Climate Change, which provides some pointers as to the types of evidence and beliefs that need to be checked (for whoever is making the claim, including myself – in the preface to the book I offer my own profile).
I hope you buy it.
Your "main thesis" is being neglected because it doesn't exist -- that is, if one counts only appeals to reason and not bold assertions, logical fallacies, or propaganda techniques.
The accusation of "treason" is a form of rhetorical bullying, and one with a long and ignoble history. It strongly implies a political endgame that goes beyond mere rhetoric. This is why the US Constitution contains a specific and narrow definition of treason. Do you have a justification for why "treason" is rationally appropriate as opposed to an incendiary appeal to emotion?
Your analogy with WWII is colorful but logically empty. It is a form of begging the question, because one must already believe your initial assertion (that there is a "world crisis") in order to be convinced of the validity of the analogy.
And in response to your last comment, I should say that "it is a well-known device" in reckless and dishonest argumentation to make unsupported assertions and then to demand that one's opponents refute them.
And even if "authoritative scientists have said that GW is a threat to our civilisation," then that is just one opinion among many. Why? Because assessing the likelihood of such a complex (and presently ill-defined) outcome requires an informed input from many fields -- science, engineering, economics, history, political science, etc. Climate scientists are free to offer an opinion on such matters, but they are deluding themselves if they think that they are the final gatekeepers of truth on social/political questions.
"It is a well known device in a certain sort of "discourse' to ask the proponent of a view to do more and more work and present more and more material."
I have not asked you to do "more and more work" and "present more and more material."
I've told you what the current values are for world per-capita GDP ($10,000), world average life expectancy at birth (67 years), and percentage of countries that are ranked as "free" by Freedom House (~50%). Then, I asked you what you thought the values for those things would be in 2050 and 2100 with and without global warming. Again, my purpose in asking you to estimate those values was to see whether you have actually put any thought into what you believe. The fact that you're unwilling to answer indicates to me that you haven't put any thought into what you believe.
"You have already cited two respected sources on the risk to civilisation from GW."
I have no respect for "scientists" who make predictions that they know will alarm the public and provide absolutely no scientific justification for their predictions. I consider such "scientists" to be no better than Pat Robertson.
"I can't even be bothered checking your unlikely claim that these serious scientists would make a case without evidence - checking the claim would be more work."
I see. So there's a problem that you think exists that you think will destroy civilization, but you "can't even be bothered" to check whether the predictions that civilization will be destroyed are backed by scientific evidence?
"Hopefully fair-minded readers of this blog have seen from your post - and thank you - that authoritative scientists have said that GW is a threat to our civilisation."
I'd hardly consider James Lovelock to be "authoritative" on global warming. He has a PhD in medicine. He invented the electron capture detector, which was used to detect CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons, responsible for stratospheric ozone destruction).
In January 2006, he came out with a book called, "The Revenge of Gaia" (nice scientific title! ;-)) and to hype the book, he wrote an article in the UK Independent in which he claimed, "...before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."
Those aren't scientific words. Those are words of a revival show preacher. And James Lovelock has never published any supporting analysis for his predictions in any scientific journal.
Similarly, Hans Shellnhuber presented his claims without any supporting scientific analyses. He has never (to my knowledge) come up with a predicted trajectory for human population that shows how it goes from the present almost 7 billion to only 1 billion by 2100.
"So do you, Bernie and Andrew now want to turn to , and comment on, my main thesis ?"
Unless you're cleverly disguising your "main thesis," it can be summed up by the concluding statement in your original post, "That puts every single word by the delayers, whether deliberately seeking delay or just inadvertently supporting it, in its true context - as no less than Paul Krugman has noted, as treason to our civilisation."
But you haven't explained at all what rational analysis you or anyone else has done to come up with the idea that climate change is a threat to "civilization."
The overwhelming scientific evidence is that people 50 or 100 years in the future will be wealthier and live longer than people in 2009, with or without global warming.
Mike:
Nicely put. Perhaps you can clarify on how much of the science upon which the GCM are based is actually "settled"? This, for me, is a key consideration in deciding where I should invest my time.
My other personal "reasonableness" litmus test is whether someone is open to the expanded use of nuclear power as part of a mitgation stategy.
Thanks for joining the discussion.
Mike:
Thank you for your courteous reply to my post. My initial post about your note was somewhat discourteous in its tone and your courtesy makes me feel bad about that and so I would like to apologise to you for the tone.
That said, as you would expect, I would still have wanted to make the points I made, but courteously.
That also said, you wrote: “So it IS necessary to check the evidence and beliefs of individuals who make – or do not make – claims.”
I absolutely agree – but please note all I said was I would not check the two references Mark specifically mentioned – because I could not believe his assertion that they did not provide evidence – and I still can’t.
BTW, I have a science PhD and have published in refereed journals including Nature so presumably at least on some occasions I have been able to assemble and use evidence convincingly – i.e, have some experience with , and some acknowledged competence with – evidence.
Andrew:
I don’t accept your interpretation of my case. I will leave it to informed readers to consider whether my point is useful – and indeed whether your points are useful, or fair.
On a separate matter, I do note, Andrew, that you wrote:
“…assessing the likelihood of such a complex (and presently ill-defined) outcome requires an informed input from many fields -- science, engineering, economics, history, political science, etc. Climate scientists are free to offer an opinion on such matters, but they are deluding themselves if they think that they are the final gatekeepers of truth on social/political questions.’
I also note that Bernie on July 14 wrote:
“ To my knowledge, Paul Krugman has absolutely no education or experience in environmental analyses or law. So why should anyone pay attention to him”
Am I right therefore that together you
(i) hold almost opposite views on what qualifications add value in speaking on GW; and/or
(ii) whatever the qualifications any one person has, those qualifications will be found unfortunately to be not appropriate to allow that person to be listened to?
Transcept:
You misattributed the statement to me. The evidence is at #14 above. Moreover, personally I do not believe that one necessarily needs professional level credentials to comment on critical aspects of the CAGW debate, but you do need to be willing to dig into the details and go beyond iconic images. As to your conclusion about the value of qualifications, I am confused.
As for Paul Krugman, I am sure that many may have anticipated where he stood on this issue by virtue of his general political stance.
I am more interested in the specifics of the arguments and, to my knowledge, Dr. Krugman has addressed little of substance in the CAGW discussion.
Transcept,
When you put quotation marks around what someone has written, it's not appropriate to cut the quotation off in a way that alters the meaning. Here is what I actually wrote:
"To my knowledge, Paul Krugman has absolutely no education or experience in environmental analyses or law. So why should anyone pay attention to him, other than how nutty he is, when he offers a phrase like, 'treason to the planet'?"
My point was merely that "treason to the planet" is a "nutty" phrase. It's completely emotional and irrational.
Historically, "treason" was considered a more serious crime even than murder. That's why treason carried a higher penalty even than murder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason
Further, the word "planet" generally means not only all living things on earth, but the earth itself. It's simply nutty to consider "treason" to rocks and other non-living objects.
So you twisted what I wrote into something that I did not write.
Transcept:
You quote Mike Hulme: "So it IS necessary to check the evidence and beliefs of individuals who make – or do not make – claims.”
And you respond, "I absolutely agree – but please note all I said was I would not check the two references Mark specifically mentioned – because I could not believe his assertion that they did not provide evidence – and I still can’t."
This is an easy matter to settle in these days of the Internet. I first noted the claims of James Lovelock:
"...before this century is over billions of us will die (editor's note: presumably this means 'die from global warming!') and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."
...and Hans Schellnhuber's claim that human population could be reduced (by global warming) to 1 billion people by the year 2100.
Then I stated, "What neither of them of them did, to my knowledge, was to ever offer any credible scientific explanation of how these extraordinary claims could come to pass."
If you don't believe that assertion is correct, in this age of the Internet, it should be easy to prove that I'm wrong.
For example, James Lovelock has his own website:
http://www.jameslovelock.org/page0.html
Click on his scientific papers, articles, or speeches, and show where he presented credible scientific evidence that billions of people would be killed by global warming in this century (note: the current estimate of the rate of deaths from global warming is 150,000 per year, so it would take over 6000 years to even kill one billion people). And then find scientific evidence that "the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."
You could even do as I did last night, and buy his book, "The Revenge of Gaia." (Note to Mike Hulme: I only bought James Lovelock's book because it was $3.79 DELIVERED.) (The market has already spoken about Dr. Lovelock's book. ;-) )
And then, if (when!) you don't find any credible scientific evidence in those places, you could check his Wikipedia entry, do a Google search, or whatever.
You could do the same for Hans Schellnhuber. It will be a little more difficult for him, since he's authored or co-authored so many papers, and a fair percentage are in German:
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/institute/director/public
However, you can probably ignore such items as:
Andrade, R.F.S. and Schellnhuber, H.J. (1997). Electronic States on a Fractal: The Consequences of Self-Energy Variation. Phys. Rev. B 55, 19
;-)
What I'm looking for is something that points out that the IPCC's four Assessment Reports and the Stern Review (none of which has anything remotely resembling a scenario in which the 21st century ends with a population of only 1 billion people) were completely wrong. Then I want to see a plausible, scientifically defendable case why they were completely wrong, and how those billions of people will be killed by climate change.
Note that simple math requires that if the earth's population is about 9-10 billion in 2050, and is 1 billion by 2100, then more than a billion people must be killed by global warming EVERY DECADE. That's more than 100 million killed per year!
Please convince me that a book on the climate debate from the University of East Anglia is not biased.
-26-Hans
Were you in my course you'd have to read it, so you are on your own;-) If you do have a look, please report back what you think.
Hans,
That's a bit unfair. It's like saying that no-one from Rome could ever be critical of Catholicism or that no-one from MIT could every be critical of technology.
If we're damned because of mere association then what hope for any constructive dialogue.
Mike H.
In July we had a discussion on this blog about Hulme’s book “Why We Disagree About Climate Change.” At that time, I suggested we might have more mutually enlightening dialogue about the book if we had read it.
Since I borrowed it from Prospector (our wondrous Colorado loan system), it took me a while to get it and due to the density of the book (ideas per page) it took me a while to read it.
In my opinion, people who want to look at the climate change debate from the metaphorical balcony and try to understand what is happening in the debate and why- people who like to think about how we think about climate- will like this book.
It is amazingly comprehensive. It seems to leave no framing unexamined.
If you can read only two chapters, I would read The Performance of Science and The Challenges of Development. The Performance of Science is a great summary for those of us who aren’t familiar with the science policy literature, plus for those of us who are, it has specific references to these concepts related to climate change.
As to development, in my opinion, this topic deserves a great deal more consideration and discussion in the climate change debate within countries as well as among them.
I was surprised and delighted to see that someone else had read Ellsworth Huntington. What Hulme did was to compare how we used to think about climate with how we think of it today.. the first time I've seen this and one of many important contributions of this book.
Two things I would differ with or clarify:
I would not agree that a panel of experts for post normal science is the “least worst” approach. I don’t agree, because I don’t think we’ve had a real brainstorming plus trials (yes, scientific studies ) of alternatives, including the one suggested in the box on page 91- “a more formal expert elicitation in which the Bayesian beliefs of experts would be revealed and collated.”. I think it might be the “least worst” of things that have been tried, and certainly that path is well-worn, but it is hard to believe we have exhausted the human imagination with the current approaches.
Second, the biofuels discussion talks about corn, sugar cane and palm oil. Meanwhile in other countries and here, people have been successfully using biofuels for thousands of years.. e.g., burning wood for heat- and continue to do so, without causing environmental problems (some have and some haven’t). There seems to be an undercurrent in the climate change debate that leaves out considerations of the vast possibilities of biofuels (all kinds of traditional and modern technologies). Corn, sugar cane and palm oil are a tiny piece of the biofuel world, but often the only ones talked about.
But these things are fairly minor, and as those of you who read this regularly know, they are my usual pet peeves.
If I worked in climate change policy I would definitely buy this book. There are great quotes and references and even writing this entry, I wished I could have highlighted my favorites- a good reason to buy.
Post a Comment