NOAA has edited its press release that originally asserted a “consensus” among NOAA scientists, which we discussed here. How does this change the landscape of the hurricane climate issue? While it is a positive step forward for public relations, it doesn’t alter the current state of the science or most importantly, our understanding of what sorts of policy actions make the most sense in hurricane policy. Read on for details.

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From James Hansen’s talk at The New School, 10 February 2006 (here in PDF).

I do not attempt to define policy, which is up to the people and their elected representatives, and I don’t criticize policies. The climate science has policy relevance, but I let the facts speak for themselves about consequences for policy-makers.

But then the very next sentence says:

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Dan Sarewitz, director of the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes at ASU, is a close colleague and frequent collaborator. He is also one of our leading thinkers on science in politics and society. He has an essay in the March-April 2006 issue of American Scientist titled “Liberating Science from Politics.” It is relevant to frequent recent discussions on this blog. Below is an excerpt, but do read the whole thing:

”Wouldn’t it be wonderful if science—and scientists—were taken more seriously in the political process? Wouldn’t democracy be better served? And wouldn’t many difficult problems be more rationally resolved? Take the debates over protecting the environment. It certainly seems that, here, science should be able to cut through political controversy and enable beneficial action. Yet experience mostly shows the opposite: Controversies surrounding environmental problems as diverse as global climate change, genetically modified foods, nuclear energy, biodiversity, air and water pollution, and toxic wastes rarely seem to come to a satisfactory resolution. They are instead characterized by long-term intractability and periodic resurgence of bitter partisan dispute—all in the face of a continual expansion of scientific understanding.

Blame for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is usually assigned to the political process itself, especially to those who use science to advance particular ideological agendas. If only, the complaint goes, those (a) conservatives (b) liberals (c) environmentalists (d) industrialists or (e) ignorant members of the public would understand the facts, or stop manipulating the facts for their own political gain, we could arrive at rational solutions to the problems we face.

Yet this sort of complaint—which I have heard, in one form or another, from innumerable scientists—suffers from a profound misunderstanding of the relation between science and politics. The idea that a set of scientific facts can reconcile political differences and point the way toward a rational solution is fundamentally flawed. The reality is that when political controversy exists, the scientific enterprise is ideally suited to exacerbating disagreement, rather than resolving it.”

Read the whole essay here.

Ed.- Richard Tol, a professor at Hamburg, Vrije and Carnegie Mellon Universities. has written an interesting paper forthcoming in the journal Energy Policy critiquing the scientific basis for Europe’s temperature target for responding to global warming. Frequent readers of this blog will be familiar with discussions of the FCCC and “dangerous anthropogenic interference.” Prof. Tol adds to the diversity of perspectives here at Prometheus and offers a challenging, rigorous critique. Richard was kind enough to summarize his recent paper for us, so please read on. RP

The European Union have set a goal for international climate policy: The world should not warm more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures. This is an ambitious target. As the warming response to the enhanced greenhouse effect is so uncertain, it may imply that the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide could not rise much above 400 ppm, only some 20 ppm above today. If recent trends continue, the 400 ppm level would be reached by 2020. A 400 ppm target may require zero carbon emissions, worldwide, by 2050.

One may of course dismiss the European target. Who are they to decide on a global target? Perhaps the target is just political posturing and wishful thinking, or maybe it is just the opening bid in international negotiations. Perhaps European policy makers have been led to believe that deep emission reduction is easy and cheap. However, the European Union is a major player in international climate policy, and its 2°C target deserves serious discussion.

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Guest Post by Andrew Dessler

Ed.- Professor Andrew Dessler, of Texas A&M University’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, has been a frequent and substantive contributor to discussions here at Prometheus for a while now. On the occasion of the publication of his new book (The Science and Politics of Climate Change, co-authored with Edward Parson, Cambridge University Press, 2006), we thought it might be valuable to ask Andrew to present his views of science and policy in the climate issue to stimulate discussion and debate among our readers, and to give Prometheus readers a little diversity in the perspectives presented here. Andrew introduced his book here. This is part two, on uncertainty. RP

Anyone familiar with the climate change debate is familiar with the “scientific uncertainty” argument, which usually goes something like this:

The response to climate change must be based on sound science, not on speculation or theory. There is too much uncertainty and too much that we do not know about climate change. It would be irresponsible to undertake measures to reduce emissions, which could carry high economic costs, until we know that these are warranted.

Political analyst Frank Luntz suggests that this argument can aid in convincing people to oppose action on climate change, especially when used as part of a broader set of arguments that include economic and standard rhetorical components. The foundation of the argument – that there is uncertainty in present scientific knowledge of climate change – is uncontroversial. But is there so much uncertainty that we should delay action on addressing climate change until we know more? According to this argument, the answer is yes.

To dissect this argument, let’s consider three different arenas of decision making under uncertainty:

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During 1993-1994 I was doing research on my dissertation which was focused on the implementation of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), then a new program having been written into law in the fall of 1990. Part of my research involved interviewing people responsible for the creation of the program and its implementation. Many of these people were high-ranking agency officials and very difficult to schedule, so I was only able to interview several of them. In 1994 I wrote up a paper based on my analysis for presentation at the annual meeting of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) in Washington, DC. I sent copies of the paper to the agency officials that I did get to interview for their reaction, and this is when the fun began.

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Ed.- This comment from Gavin Schmidt of NASA appeared in the comments and I thought important enough to bring to the top. Thanks Gavin very much, RP

A couple of points for clarification. Around 20 of the scientific staff at GISS work directly for NASA as civil servants (including me). The rest work for Columbia University or the contractor.

GISS’s mission is to research long term climate change, rather broadly defined, it is not to implement government policy. Thus there is no contradiction in Hansen continuing to work on climate science while disagreeing on policy.

The problem with NASA public affairs was not limited to Hansen, but also impacted the rest of us even on issues and media requests that had absolutely nothing to do with any policy questions. Simple requests to explain ‘global warming’ or discuss the difference between weather and climate were turned down by Deutsch and company, presumably because they felt the mere mention of the science was political.

At the core of the debate over NASA and NOAA policies for the interaction of scientists with the media lies an implicit and ill-defined distinction between discussions of science and discussions of policy. Most discussions of Dr. Hansen have glossed over the distinction between his right to speak out and his fundamental disagreement with the policies of the U.S. government. Is there a point at which Dr. Hansen, or other government officials in similar situation, have an obligation to resign? The answer is that it is complicated.

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In the 20 February 2006 issue of The New Republic, John B. Judis has an article about how the issue of hurricanes and global warming has been handled by NOAA. Judis is engaging in scientific McCarthyism by arguing that certain perspectives on science are invalid because they are viewed as politically incorrect by some.

The transformation of this part of climate science into pure politics is fully embraced by those on the political left and the right, and most troubling is that this transformation is being encouraged by some leading scientists who have taken to criticizing the views of other scientists because they happen to work for the federal government. These scientists know full well how such accusations will be received. What ever happened to sticking to the science? Read on for background and analysis.

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At SciDev.net David Dickson has a thoughtful essay on GM foods, science, and trans-science. Dickson notes that people in poor countries can view “modern science and technology with suspicion, if not scepticism.” I’d extend this claim to cover some people in richer countries as well. Here is an excerpt:

But the distrust is also due to the fact that faith in scientific solutions may clash with the comforting certainties of traditional belief systems. This in turn means that these solutions may undermine not only the social practices that belief systems support — the most obvious example being traditional medicine — but also the social cohesion they generate. Put these factors together, and the result is that, for all its promises, modern science often generates a sense of alienation, rooted in feelings of a loss of control. In principle, we can all subscribe to the idea that, as the philosopher Francis Bacon said, “knowledge is power”. In practice, scientific knowledge is frequently seen as reinforcing the power of those who already have it — and, as a consequence, further disenfranchising those who do not.

Dickson then explains that the GM food debate is not really about scientific risk per se, but science and technology in modern society:

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