“Practically Useful” Scientific Mischaracterizations
January 21st, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Gavin Schmidt, NASA scientist and a RealClimate proprietor, and I have occasionally engaged in a bit of back-and-forth on issues of science and politics. I respect Gavin, and we have always enjoyed cordial relations, but as regular readers here will know, I have frequently criticized RealClimate for hiding an implicit political agenda behind the fig leaf of putative concern about scientific truth. A recent exchange between Gavin and I related to a recent post of mine provides a look behind the fig leaf, and more importantly illustrates how hiding behind science contributes to sustaining gridlock on climate policy.
My post made the case the statements of some climate scientists about the state of climate science are likely shaped by the overriding objective of the Framework Convention which is to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference” in the climate system. Gavin and I both seem to agree that the ultimate of the Convention is not grounded in an accurate reading of how the world works. I’ll let Gavin explain the fundamental weakness in the Convention’s overriding objective:
”This post is based on a kind of false dichotomy, that there are two separates states of ‘climate’ – One which is benign and one which is ‘dangerous’ and that the sole scientific and political task is to ascertain when the switch is and presumably avoid it. Does it really need me to point out how over-simplisitic this is? The fact is that there will not be a global tipping point that pitches us into ‘dangerous’ terrrority, more like countless local tipping points (for ecosystems, climate, argiculture) that will come at varying points in the trajectory. The further along we go, the more damage will be done – it may not be a smooth increase but it is certainly not a binary system.”
But Gavin makes an interesting leap in a further entry when he says “there are no binary states ‘benign’ vs ‘dangerous’. This is a completely separate question from whether it is practically useful for a policy to set an arbitrary limit as if there were.”
So what he is saying here is that in some situations it is OK for policy makers to mischaracterize how the world actually works if they find such mischaracterizations to be “practically useful.” My response to this was to ask a question:
“But I am curious why is it then that you folks at Real Climate focus so much on “getting the science right” in the climate debate but you draw the line when it comes to the implementation of the FCCC? Maybe as a practical matter it is useful for Senator Inhofe (from his perspectives) to mischaracterize the science? It is OK for the FCCC to mischaracterize how the world works but not Inhofe? Seems like you are saying that policies out of step with scientific understandings are OK if the goals are in one direction but not others. . . In a number of publications I (and others) have pointed to the impracticality of the current policy framework, in part because it does not reflect how the world actually works.”
Let’s take a look at some of the effects of the Framework Convention’s mischaracterization of how the world works for real-world outcomes:
Astonishingly, developing countries face barriers to getting resources to deal with climate disasters because they can’t prove that the climate-related impacts, such as disasters, that they have experienced have actually crossed the “dangerous interference” threshold. Consider this report of the International Institute for Sustainable Development,
”. . . if a country seeks funding for a project on flood prevention, the GEF would only be able to finance a portion proportional to the additional harm that floods have caused or will cause as a result of climate change, and the rest would have to be co-financed by some other body. The plea from LDCs [Least Developed Countries], particularly the SIDS [small island developing states], lies precisely on this paradox, in that even if funds are available in the LDC Fund, their difficulty of finding adequate co-financing, and the costly and cumbersome calculation of the additional costs, renders the financial resources in the LDC Fund, in practice, almost inaccessible.”
Obviously, it is practically impossible to distinguish any climate change signal in disasters. The Framework Convention does not appear to be grounded in economic reality either, as suggested by Nordhouas and Boyer (2000, PDF):
“. . . it appears that the strategy behind the Kyoto Protocol has no grounding in economics or environmental policy. The approach of freezing emissions at a given level for a group of countries is not related to a particular goal for concentrations, temperature, or damages. Nor does it bear any relation to an economically oriented strategy that would balance the costs and benefits of greenhouse-gas reductions.”
Stanford’s David Victor agrees,
“Diplomats have been trying to build an overly ambitious system for controlling greenhouse gases that is based on a fundamentally flawed architecture. . . Governments need to start thinking about the alternatives to the Kyoto Protocol approach.”
One of the great ironies of this situation is that from the perspective of the stated political objectives of the Bush Administration, it would have been far more “practically useful” for them to have signed on to Kyoto rather than flipping the bird to the rest of the world when they unilaterally pulled out of the Protocol. I made this case in a post here a while back. This up-is-down perspective can cause dissonance I know. I am in fact saying that the best way to stymie progress on the climate issue is to support the Framework Convention and its Kyoto Protocol and the best way to facilitate action is to argue the case for new and innovative options to the policy strategy outlined under the Framework Convention. Because everyone is pretty wedded to their positions, it is not surprising that this argument finds few supporters on either side of the current debate.
So to return to where we started on this post, when scientists overlook, excuse, or otherwise defend the inescapable reality that the Framework Convention is grounded in a vision of the world that does not square with how the world actually works, not only are they showing their political colors, but more importantly, they are contributing to the sustainability of the current gridlock on climate change. When leading scientists point out the inconsistency of the Article 2 of the Climate Convention with reality, then we might have an opportunity to discuss new and innovative policy options. And that is something that really would be practically useful.
January 21st, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Roger-
The argument over whether science can provide a single “dangerous” threshold misses the point. To understand my argument, let’s consider the definition of “legally drunk.” Most U.S. states define it to be when the blood alcohol content (BAC) exceeds 0.10 mmol/L. However, it is not the case, nor does anyone argue, that someone with BAC of 0.099 is perfectly capable of operating a vehicle, while someone with BAC of 0.1001 is not. Instead, the relevant scientific research indicates that the ability to drive begins to deteriorate around 0.02 and gets progressively worse as BAC increases. And there’s lots of variation from person to person, and with weather conditions, etc.
However, the lack of an unambiguous “drunk” threshold does not mean that a policy should not or cannot be implemented. Rather, policymakers take the relevant scientific results, and combine them with normative judgments about the rights of people to drink and the rights of people to be safe on the street and come up with a single value. Note that the value is different in different states, which emphasizes the fact that it’s fundamentally a value judgment.
Now … back to climate change. Like being drunk, a policymaker can define a “dangerous” level by looking at the science and deciding, based on his/her normative values, what level of warming is “too much.” Other policymakers make the same decision, and then a policy debate ensues that leads to a single value that best encapsulates the values of the group.
I guess the main point here is that defining “dangerous” is not a scientific judgment at all, but a policy one. Science can tell us that if the climate warms by 2 deg, then effects A, B, and C will occur, while if it warms by 3 deg, then D, E, and F will occur. One person can look at that and decide that 2 deg is dangerous, while another can look at that and decide that 3 deg is dangerous. Neither is making a scientific judgment, and neither is right or wrong. Instead, they have to get together and debate the implications of their choices in order to determine a single value that they can both live with.
Regards.
January 21st, 2006 at 11:04 pm
I just thought of a perhaps better example: driving while talking on a cell phone. It is illegal to drive while talking on a cell phone (w/o a hands-free device) in the District of Columbia, but legal to do so in MD and VA. This difference in policy is not based on scientific evidence that talking on a cell phone is more dangerous in the District, but rather on a normative judgment by District policymakers that it is too dangerous, a judgment that policymakers in MD and VA disagree with.
Thus, I would disagree with your characterization that the FCCC “is grounded in a vision of the world that does not square with how the world actually works.” Rather, the definition of a single “dangerous” threshold seems to be consistent with similar policy deliberations.
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:16 am
Andrew-
Both of your examples are based on situations where a single forcing (alcohol, distraction) leads directly to negative impacts.
In the case of climate change there are multiple factors that lead to climate change, including mutiple human factors.
So for example James Hansen has complained that the FCCC diminishes the value of addressing non-GHG forcings like aerosols. So have people such as my father who focus on the role of land use change
If you care about climate impacts on people or the environment, the reality is that GHGs are but one of many factors that lead to impacts. In some cases the role of GHGs are irrelevant, and in some cases the effects of GHGs may be benign or beneficial (e.g., more rainfall might be helpful help some regions).
Your description of the problem is (a) single factor, (b) linear, (c) ubiquitous (the effects of 6 beers on a driver in China is the same as on a driver in Germany), and (d) characterized by shared values. If the climate problem was indeed accurately characterized in this mechanistic manner, I’d agree with you 100%. The reality is that the climate problem is not accurately characterized by simplifying it in this way.
Mis-specification of problems is one of the easiest ways to make problems of action intractable. Do you simply discount all of the peer-reviewed liteature that makes this case? E.g., Norhaus and Boyer, Victor, Marland et al., Tol, etc. etc.? Is it posisble that the evaluation of problem definitions is more than just a matter of personal opinion and that some ways to characterize and thus respond are better (i.e., more amenable to effective action) than others? Is it possible that he climate issue has in fact been specificed in a way that contributes to its intractability? Think about it.
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Roger-
I think you’ve oversimplified the issue of driving safety:
(a) single factor: blood alcohol is just one of several factors that make a driver unsafe. Others are age (either too young or too old), eyesight, whether they’re talking on a cell phone, etc. In each case, we’ve made normative judgments about where to draw the lines.
For climate change, GHGs are one factor. But a policymaker can nonetheless look at the data and, by combining with his normative values, come to the conclusion that GHGs should not exceed, say 550 ppmv equivalent CO2. He can do the same with other forcings, such as land-use change.
(b) linear. First, I think this is a red herring. How does this impact our argument? Second, I’d be interested to know why you think any of the driving thresholds discussed above are linear. Is an 8-year old half as capable of driving as a 16-year old? Is an 86-year old six times better of a driver? All of these problems have strong uncertainties in the shape of the response.
(c) ubiquitous. Not so. The effects of alcohol vary strongly by person. A 240-lb college student who drinks a case a day is much less affected by 6 beers than a 105-lb highschooler who’s never drunk alcohol. This does not, however, mean that a single threshold for “drunk” cannot be picked. Similarly, the effects of climate change will impact different people differently, but policymakers can still pick a single value that they determine as “dangerous.”
(d) characterized by shared values. That remains to be seen. The goal of policy debates is to determine what common values we share. In a few decades, I’ll get back to you on what common values we share.
In the end, I still categorically reject your statement that picking a single threshold for “dangerous” misrepresents the science. There are too many examples of our society doing exactly that for me to accept your argument. And more fundamentally, the definition of “dangerous” is a policy choice, not a scientific one.
Regards.
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Andrew-
I agree with you that the problem of climate change can indeed be characterized as a threshold problem, and that the setting of such a threshold involves values choices.
My point is that in defining the problem in such a manner cannot lead to the desired outcomes, which are presumably to address the impacts of climate on people and the environment. One reason for this is that defining the problem as a threshold problem ignores the realities of how the world works — economically, politically, and scientifically.
In an idealized world perhaps defining the climate problem as a threshold problem makes sense, but that is not our world. Real world evidence such as the continuing growth in greenhouse emissions and the ever-increasing costs of climate-related disasters, suggest pretty strongly that current framing of the problem is ineffective. That the climate problem is so very different than the incredibly simplistic analogies that you (and Gavin) have suggested should be a first clue that perhaps we’ve misdefined the problem. Continued poor performance with respect to policy goals will inevitably lead to more and more calls for a change in approach. The only question is if we can see the dead-end path we are on and change approaches sooner rather than later.
So go ahead and argue that the problem can be framed as a threshold problem. It can be and it is, but it won’t make the challenges of climate policy any more tractable. If you’d like to read a popular account of why the current approach simply cannot work, have a look at this paper:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-69-2000.18.pdf
And if you are indeed so confident in the current approach then you might find this post worth a read:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000542a_piece_of_the_actio.html
January 22nd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Andrew-
Here is a concrete example of the practical effects of misdefining the climate problem:
The Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC is concerned with
limiting ‘‘anthropogenic carbon dioxide equivalent emissions
of the greenhouse gases . . .’’ And yet, anthropogenic
climate change also involves other elements of the Earth’s
energy balance and the internal distribution of energy within
the Earth’s climate system. These can be driven by landsurface
changes at local and regional scales; and they are
quite separate from changes driven by the concentrations of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere . . . Changes in land
surface can result in emission or removal of CO2 to the
atmosphere and thus to changes in the Earth’s radiation
balance. Changes in land surface can also change the
radiation balance by altering the Earth’s surface albedo. In
addition, changes in land surface can alter the fluxes of
sensible and latent heat to the atmosphere and thus the
distribution of energy within the climate system; and in so
doing can alter climate at the local, regional, and even global
scale. Mitigation strategies that give credits or debits for
changing the flux of CO2 to the atmosphere but do not
simultaneously acknowledge the importance of changes in
the albedo or in the flows of energy within the Earth system
might lead to land management decisions that do not
produce the intended climatic results (Marland et al., 2003).
Cited in this paper:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1841-2004.10.pdf
Seems to me to be a pretty strong indication that policies that don’t reflect how the world actually works can “lead to land management decisions that do not produce the intended climatic results”. What have they gotten wrong here?
Seems to me that at some point you guys have to stop talking about driving drunk and speed limits and start talking about climate change
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:12 am
Two extremely pertanent quotes:
“. . . it appears that the strategy behind the Kyoto Protocol has no grounding in economics or environmental policy. The approach of freezing emissions at a given level for a group of countries is not related to a particular goal for concentrations, temperature, or damages. Nor does it bear any relation to an economically oriented strategy that would balance the costs and benefits of greenhouse-gas reductions.”
and
“Diplomats have been trying to build an overly ambitious system for controlling greenhouse gases that is based on a fundamentally flawed architecture. . . ”
When one accepts that the major policy agitators in the area of climate change are refugees from the Marxist-Socialist movements of pre 1990s Kyoto makes perfect sense – as a central planners’ charter for social engineering. That love of centrally planned social systems was never going to be polpular (all pain no gain), but worse was the fact that they clearly delivered inferior standard of liviing and were demonstably unsustainable.
Clearly, if you can’t offer the populous vision of central planning (and hence social manipulation) with economic arguments that are demonstrably flawed, you can try and achieve the same with environmental arguments: especially ones that can’t be countered in our lifetime (as you have now discovered, nothing we are likely to witness over the next 50 years will be inconsistent with AGW).
And so Kyoto (and the coming son of Kyoto) will become the central planners charter of choice – this time with popular appeal.
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:01 am
Roger, why do you persist in mischaracterizing what others say. Gavin did not say that (your paraphrase) “in some situations it is OK for policy makers to mischaracterize how the world actually works if they find such mischaracterizations to be “practically useful.”” Going back to the analogy with speed limits. Everybody knows that there is not, really, an arbitrary limit for ’safe’ speed. So, when policy makers propose such a limit, they are mischaracterizing the way the world actually works?
No, of course they’re not. You’re obfuscating.
Speed presents a continuous relationship to risk and benefits with no threshold. Hypertension presents a continuous relationship to risks and benefits with no threshold. Atmospheric GHG presents a continuous relationship to risks and benefits with no threshold.
It helps, nonetheless, to set a target speed, above which the dangers clearly outweigh the benefits. It helps, nonetheless, to set a target blood pressure, above which the dangers clearly outweigh the benefits. It helps, nonetheless, to set a target level of atmospheric emissions, above which the dangers clearly outweigh the benefits.
Defining a threshold doesn’t mean you have to pretend the detail doesn’t exist. I can’t believe you manufactured a whole post on the basis of arguing against this!
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 am
Tom-
You ask:
“So, when policy makers propose such a limit, they are mischaracterizing the way the world actually works?”
Yes! Of course they are. They are doing this because they have determined that it is practically useful (i.e., condusive to achieving desired goals) to establish a policy that doesn’t reflect how the world works. In fact, to go from complicated reality to implementable policy in most cases requires that policies be put into place that somehow fail to accurately reflect the complexities of the world. And there is nothing wrong with that, unless (!) the simplified policy turns out not to be practically useful for achieving desired ends.
Scientists have therefore moved around the threshold for recommending annual mammograms for middle-aged women based on findings that earlier simplified policies did not in fact lead to the desired results (i.e., better health outcomes).
So when Senator Inhofe simplifies the state of climate science in a way that is incorrect and then justifies policies based on that improper simplification, many people take him to task because they do not believe that his proposed policies can reach their desired goals based on how they understand the world to work.
Well, when people propose a threshold-based approach to climate change to aviod future climate impacts, my point is exactly the same as those who respond to Senator Inhofe. This particular over-simplification of the world cannot achieve its desired ends (reducing climate impacts) because it is grounded in a model of the world that does not square with reality.
Based on empirical evidence (i.e., aside from hypothetical scenarios or discussions of speed limits or cathartic release) what evidence can you provide that it has “helped” to set a target for greenhouse concentrations based on a threshold of “dangerous interference”?
Have a look at the Marland et al. excerpt above, and the examples in several of my papers, there is ample evidence that it has not helped. Sort of like setting a stress threshold for ulcers and then seeing little effect on health outcomes might cause you to go back and look at your approach to the problem, and find that the problem was mis-specified in the first place. You can define the climate problem as a threshold problem, but you can’t compel the world to match your interpretation of the problem, in the end reality will win out!
January 23rd, 2006 at 9:59 am
Most of my responses have been pre-empted by the other commenters, but I will point a couple of further issues.
The basic point of disagreement is that I think you mis-diagnose the problem. The FCCC declaration is the equivalent of a declaration of support of motherhood and apple pie. Nothing that could possibly be offensive or disagreed with. Who would not want to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change? However, once a decision to encourage motherhood and the consumption of apple pies has been made, the substantive debate will be on what that actual means and the most effective way forward. Similarly, following the FCCC declaration, the substantive debate has been on what ‘dangerous’ is and what it means in practice. I am extremely sceptical that this debate could have been avoided had only the FCCC adopted some other criterion. Any attempt to do so would have simply brought forward the same discussions that are occuring now and would have meant no FCCC at all.
This mis-diagnosis is exemplified by the LDC example you chose to raise. Here the problem is one of attribution, not definition. Attribution (as we can see with the 2003 European or with Hurricane Katrina) is fraught with difficulty regardless of how climate change is defined. And even with say a strong attribution of 50% to anthropogenic causes, that probably means that only 50% of the subsequent costs would be picked up by any conceivable FCCC-like mechanism. So in the absence of other funding sources, LDCs are always going to be short changed. There may be available frameworks under which basic resiliancy to climate and weather is funded and a good argument could be made that climate change funds should be channelled through that. However, it still has nothing to do with the FCCC definition.
The second example you give concerns Kyoto and not the FCCC. There is no problem with land use changes etc. coming into an FCCC definition. However the problem is that those additional effects are basically second-order globally (despite what your father suggests), and (more importantly) much more uncertain. Again, as a matter of practical policy it makes sense to try and deal with the known problems which can be quantified and leave the as-yet-unquantified second-order impacts to later.
Those decisions about what gets put in and what gets left out and how things are implemented are the job of policy analysts, not scientists, and asking scientists to take the FCCC to task because of specific policies that to my mind have no direct link to it, is a waste of time.
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:45 am
Gavin-
Thanks for this response. A few reactions:
1. You assert “The FCCC declaration is the equivalent of a declaration of support of motherhood and apple pie. Nothing that could possibly be offensive or disagreed with.”
Presumably then you are either unaware of or simply waving off thoughtful critics of the FCCC who have published in the peer-reviewed literature? I’ve cited a bunch, and here is another:
“As various commentators have observed, the current architecture for an international climate policy regime was based on that achieved for the protection of the stratospheric ozone level. But, despite some obvious superficial parallels, the scientific, technical, and political structure of the ozone and climate problems is quite different. As a consequence the world has committed itself to a framework for climate policy that, in many respects, may be quite unsuited to the problem. It seems to be a classic case of the phenomenon observed by military historian Gwynne Dyer, that generals invariably try to fight the next war with the technologies and strategies that won the last one.”
Steve Rayner, Oxford University
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/EAC%20memo%20fin.doc
For someone who routinely emphasizes the importance of understanding “climate science from climate scientists” you appear to be completely dismissive of policy analyses from policy experts. Perhaps your own feelings towards this research might give you a better personal understanding of how easy and compelling it is for “climate skeptics” to completely dismiss the scientific consensus on climate change.
2. You write, “Who would not want to avoid ‘dangerous’ climate change?”
Except that the concept belies operationalizing in any meaningful manner, and some have called into question whether it is even possible to use the concept as the basis for practical action. Words matter in policy. Your deterministic view of how policy is made is not how it actually works. The climate problem did not have to be approached as it was, and it likely will not remain in this form forever. Policy frameworks change, words reflect that.
3. You write, “There may be available frameworks under which basic resiliancy to climate and weather is funded and a good argument could be made that climate change funds should be channelled through that. However, it still has nothing to do with the FCCC definition.”
Sure it does. The FCCC definition forces that funding be predicated on evidence of attribution. Where else would the attribution requirement come from? Funding could just as easily be predicated on evidence of an impact, regardless of cause. To use a very simple example, there is a difference in implementation between fault and no-fault insurance in auto insurance (otherwise why do insurance companies recognize the difference?). You are starting with the assumption that attribution is a necessary prerequisite to policy. It is not.
4. You write, “Again, as a matter of practical policy it makes sense to try and deal with the known problems which can be quantified and leave the as-yet-unquantified second-order impacts to later.”
If you really believe this then you would recommend focusing attention on vulnerability reduction related to extreme events, public health related to disease, development related to poverty, improving water quality and accessibility to modulating future supplies, etc., all of which show a much larger quantifiable impact on people than does climate change of any sort. Could this be what you mean?
5. You write, “asking scientists to take the FCCC to task because of specific policies that to my mind have no direct link to it, is a waste of time”
Now you are being silly;-) The policies related to the GEF, forest sequestration, and adaptation that I have cited are all being implemented under the FCCC and there is plenty of discussion and debate about them among people involved in and around the FCCC. On what basis are you claiming “no direct link”? Surely you must be aware of the intense battle going on for years now about the scientific basis/policy practicality for forest sequestration under the FCCC? If any of those policies under the FCCC cannot work because the science that underpins them is mischaracterized or mis-operationalized in policy (that is, not practically useful) then I would think that scientists those scientists who claim to be speaking out to better inform debate would indeed have an obligation to point this out. What is the point of criticizing George Will, Fox News and Michael Crichton, but then drawing the line at critique or evaluation at the FCCC? Is the FCCC either perfect or sacrosanct? Sometime a little constrictive criticism of actual real-world policy can be more effective to practical ends than choosing a political side and defending it regardless.
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:47 am
Roger, you continue to overinterpret what I say. You take my unwillingness to be concerned about the FCCC definition as a an implicit support for everything that has subsequently been proposed under the FCCC. You claim there is a direct link, while my point is exactly orthogonal to that. Many of the policies you advocate could easily have incorporated under FCCC and the reason they weren’t is not because of the FCCC framework but because of the details of what happened afterwards. It is precisely because I don’t want to delve into the sausage-making of how policies are actually made that I avoid making statements on specific policies. You on the otherhand, find that fascinating as is your right. I don’t refrain from criticising the FCCC because it is sacrosanct, but because I don’t see anything of great import to criticise – you disagree, but please respect my right to take a different position.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:24 pm
Thanks much Gavin, do understand that it is of great interest to some of us who study scientists in policy and politics to observe a scientist who claims at once to seek to “rebut or debunk rather fanciful claims or outright mis-representations” of climate science and at the same time say “I don’t see anything of great import to criticise” related to the FCCC when many respected scholars have argued that the FCCC is in fact built on both fanciful claims and outright mis-representations related to climate science.
So we ask, why is it that these scientists (more generally, including the IPCC) act in this obviously inconsistent way? We have our hypotheses and theories about this (which you may or may not accept), but as well recognize that I am of the generation of scholars who happen to think that “stakeholder involvement” is an important part of research, and well, that means I am confronting you with I see as inconsistencies in your statements, asking for responses etc. You’ll find that other scholars, mostly from another generation, want no part of this engagement-with-stakeholder business!
You have every right to your position, and we are happy to provide you with a forum to clearly say what that position is. And just like you do over at RC, we’ll offer our interpretation of what the relevant expertise says in our area knowledge. And here is how things look from where I sit: (a) the FCCC has been called into question by a range of reputible scholars as to whether it is scientifically well-grounded, (b) the leading part of the scientific community on issues of climate policy (generally characterized as IPCC WGI types) to date refuses not only to engage this question, but even that such questions have any standing, and (c) instead chooses to focus their expert attention and finite resources, in the case of RC, on wild-eyed Senators, movie makers, and right wing skeptics, rather then the very real substantive questions of science relevant to actual real-world policies. We see this trend manifesting itself more broadly in more calls from scientists to view the IPCC WGI as some how spearate from WGII and III, and others politically oppposed to those scientists making similar calls for the focus of attention to in fact shift to WGIII type issues. Why is this? And does it matter?
Understanding the prefence of leading scientists to engage in politics over policy might be important to understanding more generally the role of the scientific community in climate policy and politics, and how their role might become more practically effective to dealing with the climate problem.
Your engagement is thus very much appreciated, and know that while I respect your opinions, I also am interested in understanding what they are and how you justify them. So thanks for the responses!
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Roger,
In your last response to Gavin, you are binging in a lot more then article 2 of the ICCC which is what this discussion was “about”. I doubt you will get an understanding let alone agreement without a larger context.
When you point to article 2 and then say one has to admit that the whole basis of the ICCC is “scientifically unsound”, you have left too much is left unsaid to make a case. Rather you come across as petty and wanting to push peoples buttons.
Once I study the literature you site I may very well agree with you, but having read your blog consistently for several months, I don’t really know what the basis of your arguments are.
January 23rd, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Greg- Thanks, Article 2 _is_ the basis of the FCCC (not ICCC). Please do go ahead and read that literature, I’d be happy to discuss it further. And thanks for the reminder that blog discussions can sometime get too specialized or decipherable only to insiders!
January 23rd, 2006 at 3:08 pm
Thanks Roger.
I do wonder if the scientists you are criticizing are insiders enough to understand your point of view! How many of them have studied the policy literature?
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Greg- Probably about as many as there are policy scholars who have studied the climate science literature! But seriously, through contributing to this blog and seeing the responses I see clearly that the science studies community has its own “technology transfer” problem — most (but certainly not all) of the people that it focuses its attention on (scientists and science policy makers) have no awareness of (and many give no stanidng to) knowledge in this area. There are some ironies here because the science studies literature has often criticized scholars in other areas of expertise for not transferring their knowledge to decision makers. I wrote about this issue here:
http://www.ostina.org/html/bridges/article.htm?article=1322
Thanks!
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:40 pm
Roger,
Has anyone bothered to do a study of how often the word “policy” or the phrase “policy implications” appears in climate change articles? I recall that many papers in climatology up to 1990 ended their papers with discussions of policy, but then it seem to dry up. Now the words seem to be returning to climatology papers, such as the recent one on frogs by Pounds. It would be an interesting study for someone to see who said what.
January 23rd, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Roger,
Yes, but you too have your own “transfer” problem, and this article and the one that sparked are a good illustration of that problem. Have you convinced anyone? Gavin’s, and Andrew’s arguments are clear, well stated and understandable. Yours maybe right but it requires a lot more work to understand and it assumes a larger context. Furthermore it started with what appeared to be a pot shot designed to provoke a reaction (the FCCC article 2 comment)–not a good strategy.
Greg.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
Thanks Greg for the additional feedback. My close colleagues and I are fairly confident that we’ve convinced no one of anything
I appreciate that a blog post may look like a “potshot” especially to those unfamiliar with the topic. But it wasn’t. I am confident that readers who want to get into the details will not rely only on blog posts or comments and will eventually make their way to the full scholarly article that crtiques the FCCC and Article 2, and forms the basis for the post (linked again below). You’ll note that I also referenced a boatload of serious scholarship by people like Victor, Norhaus, Rayner, etc. in the exchange that was completely ignored. A good strategy for public blog debates, but not helpful for serious intellectual exchanges.
You keep reading and commenting and we’ll keeping trying our best to focus discussion on serious intellectual topics! Some people will take us up on that, some won’t. It is all part of this whole blog experiment. But so far the feedback (not all public of course) is positive enough to keep it up.
Here again is the link to the paper critiquing the FCCC and its Article 2:
Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2005. Misdefining ‘‘climate change’’: consequences for science and action, Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 8, pp. 548-561.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-1841-2004.10.pdf
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Douglas-
A good question, and I’ve seen no data along these lines.
I am on record as arguing that scientists are increasingly enegaing policy through policy advocacy as compared to other forms of enagagement, but that is a hypothesis and also not systematically studied (though I think a strong case can be made for it).
January 23rd, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Roger, I have a short response to your statement” I am on record as arguing that scientists are increasingly enegaing (?? your probably mean engaging in) policy through policy advocacy as compared to other forms of enagagement, but that is a hypothesis and also not systematically studied (though I think a strong case can be made for it).”
Edward Teller.
January 24th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Roger, setting thresholds for a complex problem does not require the science to be mischaracterized. Take something I happen to know a bit about: cardiovascular disease. Lots of different factors contribute (blood pressure, obesity, exercise etc) in a continuous fashion, and they interact. In order to implement a prevention strategy, thresholds are set. Increasingly, the trend is to attempt to provide an integrated measure of risk (by integrating the different factors in a risk model) This doesn’t require the science to be dumbed down or misrepresented – the targets in this case are set by the scientists themselves, rather than politicians. The setting of a target simply reflects the fact that if you want to introduce an intervention, you need some benchmark by which to assess its effectiveness.
Similarly, if you are concerned about global warming, then you have a number of options (you can set targets for individual effectors, you can set targets for overall effectors by converting them into equivalents, you can set a target for temperature change (either global or regional) or you can set a target for impacts. All of these have pros and cons, none of them require the science to be misrepresented.(e.g. see http://www.cicero.uio.no/publications/detail.asp?publication_id=2776 )
The Kyoto Protocol went for option B. There is some justification for this, since research before and since indicates that the climate impact of a variety of factors is largely independent of their nature (a major exception being land use changes). Now, that may or may not be the best metric. But a metric is necessary.
I don’t know much about Senator Inofe, but I suspect the problem here is something different. By the sound of it, he’s forumating policy on the basis of an simplified awareness of the science. That’s a different thing from formulating a policy target(s) based on a detailed awareness of the science.
January 24th, 2006 at 8:24 am
Tom-
Thanks, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Any time that you have a continuous function, whether the impacts of heart disease or climate impacts and you choose to introduce a threshold approach to intervention, you are making a decision to implement a policy that is out of step with how the world works. In principle, why wouldn’t a continuous function of impact require a contuous funtion in response? (By the way speed limits in may places are enforced this way with greater fines for greater speeds above the limit).
Well, the reasons for why thresholds make sense are obvious, such as, the complexity of implementing a continuous function in response versus the simplicity of a threshold approach, benefits exceeding costs of adopting a threshold approach, clarity of decision rules in plementation, unambiguous metrics of performance, etc. etc.
As has been pointed out setting a threshold for action, and the selection of the variables to be considered as triggers, in any context are based on values. But so too is the decision to frame a problem as a threshold problem rather than as a some other sort of problem. In the case of climate change, it seems pretty clear to date that the performance of international climate policy with respect to its own stated goals strongly suggests that either the threshold was chosen poorly (DAI) or that the problem was fundamentally misconceived to begin with (a la Rayner). Excuses why performance hasn’t been better than it has underscore this point.
When people start providing empirical evidence that the current approach is working based on ANY relevant metrics, I will be open to changing my mind. But so far all I here is theoretical arguments aboout why the climate problem is properly framed in theory. That doesn’t get us very far in the real world. I continue to be amazed at how people (in general) who claim to be concerned about climate change are so wedded to a policy framework that has not, can not, and will not work.
Thanks!
January 24th, 2006 at 9:18 am
The problem may be semantic: setting threshold clearly isn’t out of step with how the real world works – as you point out, the reasons for setting a threshold are obvious. Speed fines may increase with increasing speed relative to the threshold, but they are still based on a threshold.
I’ve read through Rayner (http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/EAC%20memo%20fin.doc), and can’t see where he advocates abandoning targets. He advocates carbon taxes with trading, which of course most observers agree would be a Very Good Thing. But implementation of such an approach requires a simplification of the science – you need to set a premium to the traded items.
The main problem with an international carbon tax is that it would work (very effectively), but it will never happen. So, as a solution to the problem, it’s a bit moribund. That doesn’t necessarily differentiate it from other proposed solutions. From a pragmatic point of view, none are likely to have much effect. It just seems odd that Prof Rayner (like so many others) is weded to an idea that will not work
January 24th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Tom- Well, we do seem to pretty much agree here, though if this statement of yours is indeed the case . . .
“The main problem with an international carbon tax is that it would work (very effectively), but it will never happen. So, as a solution to the problem, it’s a bit moribund. That doesn’t necessarily differentiate it from other proposed solutions. From a pragmatic point of view, none are likely to have much effect.”
. . . then the problem perhaps out to be thought of as an adaptation problem rather than prevention problems as posed by the FCCC, which gets us right back to where I started this conversation. The FCCC deempahsizes adaptation, so not only does it misframe the problem, but creates an obstacles to impementation of the policy strategy that may be most needed and most effective for dealing with climate impacts!
January 24th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Adaptation as a public policy won’t happen either – and for mostly the same reasons. The problem is too diffuse and too distant relative to the election cycle. If the US failed to prepare for a disaster as obvious as New Orleans/Katrina, then what hope is there for seriously addressing climate change? There is a fundamental psychological problem here – studies show that people are reluctant to pay up front for hypothetical future benefits, even when the benefits far outweigh the cost (the same psychology explains why people don’t, in general, pay enough into their pension funds).
My prediction is that the world will segway smoothly from wringing our collective hands and saying ‘we must do something’ to wringing our collective hands and saying ‘we should’ve done something’!
I’m planning for personal adaptation. Let’s just hope that the WAIS doesn’t melt – an outcome that would be difficult to adapt to!
January 26th, 2006 at 10:19 am
Tom – “There is a fundamental psychological problem here – studies show that people are reluctant to pay up front for hypothetical future benefits, even when the benefits far outweigh the cost”
Can you give some links to these studies? I’m not a social scientist and so am unfamiliar with the lit, but I’d like to read them….
January 26th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Tom Rees, “There is a fundamental psychological problem here – studies show that people are reluctant to pay up front for hypothetical future benefits, even when the benefits far outweigh the cost”
Kevin Vranes, “Can you give some links to these studies? I’m not a social scientist and so am unfamiliar with the lit, but I’d like to read them….”
Here’s a highly technical article:
http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=are_ucb
Some “money quotes” (no pun intended):
“Second, discounting at a non-negligible rate makes the present value of future damages small.
The effects of greenhouse gasses might not be felt for a century (if ever). At an annual discount rate of 1% we would invest 37 cents today to avoid a dollar’s worth of damages in a century, and at a discount rate of 4% that amount falls to 1.8 cents.”
“It seems reasonable to apply a non-negligible discount to the future, but using a constant and
non-negligible discount rate makes us callous toward the far-distant future.”
I’ve just skimmed the paper, but the authors don’t seem to further explain, “…makes us callous toward the far-distant future.”
“Callous?”
January 26th, 2006 at 11:36 am
NASA-Hansen on doing science and policy advocacy
So 2005 has turned out to be the warmest year on record according to the NASA GISS numbers. (Note that there are a few ways to do the calculation so this should not be considered a definitive answer, but it…
January 26th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Kevin
One angle to approach the “fundamental psychological problem” is from the risk perception literature, and cognitive heuristics.
As a starting point Slovic gives a nice precis on the *affect* heuristic, which is suggested to allow an individual to perceive less dread from a risk if the perceived benefits are high enough.
Slovic, P. (2001) The Perception of Risk Earthscan, London.
I quote
“Alhakami and Slovic…observed that the inverse relationship between perceived risk and perceived benefit was linked to an individual’s general affective evaluation of a hazard. If an activity was ‘liked’ [driving an SUV?] people tended to judge its benefits as high and its risks as low. If the activity was ‘disliked’ [not driving an SUV?], the judgements were opposite-low benefit high risk” (p. xxxii comments added)
Conceptually transferrable to include the possible perceptions of the proposed behavioral changes needed to mitigate global warming at an individual level wouldn’t you say??
H