marklynas.orgThe truth will not necessarily out 26 March 07
For years, climate-change activists such as myself have been fond of asserting that "the time for debate on global warming is over - and the time for action is now". But the debate hasn't ended, despite our attempts to suggest otherwise: it rages on. And its contin uation raises fundamental questions, not just about the effect that humankind might have on the atmosphere, but about the nature of science, reason and democracy itself.
This article was first published in the New Statesman on 26 March 2007. Original version is here.
Here in Britain, the ever-controversial Channel 4 weighed in on 8 March with a film by Martin Durkin, provocatively titled The Great Global Warming Swindle. In New York, just over a week later, National Public Radio organised an Oxford Union-style spat between the climate scientists Gavin Schmidt, Richard Somerville and Brenda Ekwurzel, and the climate sceptics Richard Lindzen (also a scientist), the novelist Michael Crichton and the retired geographer Philip Stott. The transcript makes depressing reading: according to the voting roster, the net result was that there were fewer people convinced about global warming at the end of the debate than there were at the beginning.
Liberals such as myself tend to assume that debates are always a good thing: that if enough facts can be marshalled in support of a particular case, then the truth will out. It is this assumption that drives us to write books and talk on the radio about important issues such as global warming. “If everyone knew what I know,” is the underlying mental reasoning, “everyone would think like me.” Wrong. Competing world-views will determine different stances on an issue, particularly where “facts” are disputed. Moreover, argu ments about science may simply be obscuring debates about something far more fundamental.
As Gavin Schmidt pointed out in the New York debate: “Creationists have argued that the eye is too complex to have evolved – not because they care about the evolution of eyes, but because they see the implications of evolution as somehow damaging to their world-view.” And he concludes, rightly: “If you demonstrate the evolution of eyes, their world-view won’t change. They’ll just move on to something else.”
In Channel 4’s case, Durkin has amply de-monstrated his antipathy to environmentalism in previous programmes, and most of his interviewees have similar track records. Despite the graphs, none of this has much to do with greenhouse gases: what is happening is that a scientific debate has become politicised – or perhaps a political debate has become scientised.
So does this mean that objective truth – or at least its closest approximation – is impossible to discover via the scientific method? I would argue not, though such relativism is obviously appealing to the postmodernists who run Channel 4. Indeed, without core scientific principles – the possibility of falsification, the repeatability of experiments, the open sharing of data, and so on – we are left with little more than faith and assertion. Indeed, scientists such as Schmidt do strive to be values-free, objective and rational, and base their claim to credibility on this: “We are scientists, we talk about science, and we’re not going to start getting into questions of personal morality and wider political agendas,” he writes on the RealClimate blog.
But, for non-scientists such as myself, that claim would be more than a little disingenuous. While my latest book, Six Degrees, is a review of the science, and is in my opinion an honest assessment of the state of the expert literature, I cannot deny that my concern about global warming is rooted in a world-view that sees a planet overexploited by humans, and that this world-view long predates any knowledge I now have about climatology.
I should also admit that on occasion I have been quite happy to resort to the kind of tactics used by today’s climate sceptics – when battling the introduction of genetically engineered crops a few years ago, for example, I constantly asserted that science had been distorted by financial interests. Today, when I hear the same arguments used to undermine the credibility of climate scientists, I explode with righteous fury. (In my defence, the two things aren’t directly comparable: GM was the introduction of a new technology with inherent risks; while climate science seeks to identify the risks inherent in modifying the atmosphere’s chemistry as a result of burning fossil fuels.)
But the last word should go to a Swiss correspondent on the RealClimate site, who pointed out why such science-about-values debates – such as that between climate scientists and sceptics, or worse, environmentalists and sceptics – are essentially pointless.
“In a field where uncertainties are everywhere around,” writes Urs Neu, “it is much easier to confuse people than to convince them.” So unfortunately my liberal assumption is probably wrong: the truth will not necessarily out, and debates are not always beneficial to those who seek it. In a democracy, appeals to public ignorance may be just as successful as appeals to public wisdom.
Comments
Douglas Coker
March 26th, 2007 at 04:32 PM
Mark. An interesting piece. It’s true that we can develop an argument or suggest an explanation which stands up to all sorts of scrutiny, accords with the evidence and is internally consistent and so on … ! And still some won’t agree.
I think it’s increasingly clear many have a faith position on AGW/CC. And this can be the case even with people who are scientifically trained and work in fields such as, for example, engineering where theories, experimentation and evidence are what they work with day in, day out.
But converse on AGW/CC and any consideration of evidence and the scientific method is dismissed and a whole bunch of quite spurious objections are proffered. People are strange … !
I found your section on denial in Six Degrees (final chapter) very useful. It’s something I’ve been pondering for some time now and you make a number of useful points. The “pressure to conform” to conventional high consumption lifestyles is a major factor and it seems many find it difficult to stick their necks out and say NO! I’m not doing that any more.
Pioneers and vanguardists are in short supply. But the more we fail to mitigate the more warming will impact and the more we will be forced to adapt to the new warmer reality. And it will be messy and costly. Which politician, when, will be brave enought to stand up and say we need to start thinking seriously about abandoning some of the lower lying parts of London and relocating to safer ground?
It’s a terrible thing to have to say but in some ways we need more catastrophic events.
Douglas Coker
Lynn Vincentnathan
March 27th, 2007 at 02:02 AM
I grew up in the 50s & 60s, when science was king (in 6th grade we listened to that dog’s heartbeat in Sputnik for an hour – wrapped in awe). And my Sunday school taught me about the symbolic value of Genesis and the Bible & evolution (figuring we’d be learning it school anyway).
So my respect has always been there. I was raised a Republican, but I was also a Girl Scout & close to nature. I learned about conservation, then about ecology, then about entropy during the early 70s oil crunch. Then later about statistics & how scientists are cautious in their claims.
I shifted from conservative to liberal only later, but my foundation for accepting the idea of GW was laid much earlier.
In my mind it would amount to dishonesty & immorality & arrogance not to take GW seriously. I think it is an issue sincere conservatives can accept. The problem is that a large proportion of people are no longer civic citizens with adequate moral development, but consumers who don’t want to be unplugged from the matrix.
Peter Winters BHI
March 27th, 2007 at 04:36 AM
Mark, I think a crucial insight here is to understand people. Books I would strongly recommend are:
The First Idea by psychologists Greenspan & Shanker
What is exciting those of us in marketing, branding & market research is the importance of emotions in making us do things. We have all kinds of associations and emotions which are stored in our brains (the prefrontal cortex), many from very early years that provide a cornerstone of our values. (I was interested in Lynne’s comments about her childhood references.)
To give you an example of what I mean, I saw Jonathan Porritt give the key note speech at the MRS conference in Brighton last Friday. It was mainly to do with Global Warming, and he answered all the other questions (e.g. What do you think of nuclear power? etc.) very easily.
Yet, initially at least, he seemed speechless and quite amazed with my question, which was along the lines of:
“My name is Peter Winters & I live in Wimbledon. In the last few months a new restaurant has opened up called “Coal”. (www.coalgrillandbar.co.uk/coal.swf) Coal seems to have a number of positive emotional values associated with it, at least in the UK – family values, memories of childhood with grand-parents, nice smell – and so on. Do you think we are too emotionally attached to many destructive habits to change?”
.. but after a bit of ranting against coal, I think Jonathan Porritt got the point of what I was trying to make. An implication is that we need to communicate emotion – and think of what will do that effectively.
In how to communicate & convince – I recommend 2 books by Lawrence Rees, Auchwitz & Selling Politics.
I have sketched out a longer article about this when I get a moment. In the meantime, I do think we ought to think very carefully about the communication of what to do about global warming – and I don’t think “saving money”, or “stop enjoying yourself” are going to do it.
.. but for anyone reading this, here is an exercise – what associations do you have about coal, and what emotions do they evoke?
Peter
Peter Winters BHI
March 27th, 2007 at 10:31 AM
Apologies for the rather garbled message above. I got up in the middle of the night & thought I would post something – but I think I was missing words etc. Anyway, more about this branding below (is it just me, or is this just mad)
http://www.creativematch.co.uk/viewnews/?93326
Shall we call the next bar “Poisoned Children”, “Cyanide”, “Astha attack”, “Adolf’s Lair” ...
Lynn Vincentnathan
March 28th, 2007 at 05:02 PM
There has to be an emotional (as well as logical) appeal. Peer pressure & fads is another thing—it’s in to be environmental (it was in 1990, and it can be again – the media & industry have made it “out” with labels, such as “tree-huggers” & Judy Woodruff calling Jerry Brown “Governor Moonbean” – which was NOT something the people came up with, but was created by Mike Ryoko of the Chicago Tribune).
So we need to consider (& work to change): 1. cultural (world view, ethos, technology, science); 2. social (other people & peer pressure, SES, economics, politics, family, community, nation, etc.); and 3. psychological (both emotional & cognitive).
Keith Farnish
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 PM
We want the easiest option, the most comfortable chair, the nearest remote control, the quickest route to the place we want to go. It makes perfect sense, really – as hunter-gatherers there was no point in killing the fastest, most agile beast, when the slow, ponderous one was available.
In the climate change argument, the option that requires the least change will always win out, and that is what we have to face if we are to affect the majority of people who value non-action over action. Climate change is gradual and it doesn’t have an end point – we have to choose one – or more – milestones, which Mark has admirably allowed us to do. But it’s a hell of a battle if we are to convince society, against all the preaching that comes from the economic status quo engineers, that if we don’t change then what we have to face is the harder of the two options.
One of the first articles I ever wrote was called Why The Public Won’t Change it doesn’t make for pleasant reading, but those who wish to create change have the hardest job of all, so it’s worth facing up to reality.
Keith Farnish www.theearthblog.org
Lynn Vincentnathan
April 4th, 2007 at 06:41 PM
I’m also thinking that people, even those who acknowledge GW & their role in it, tend to think that their little efforts won’t amount to much, so no use putting much effort in changing. (That’s also why many people don’t vote.)
Or, they think, “why should I be the only one to change, while everyone else is living high on the hog?”
Or, “I know plenty of people who are much worse than me—like Al Gore in is mansion….so why should I be the one to change?”
Hopefully we will reach some critical mass at which it will be the in-thing to change and a definitely out-thing to drive around in SUVs, etc.
I developed a LITTLE WAY OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALING so as to encourage people to do every little thing they can (& big things too, if feasible) to reduce their GHGs, even if it seems like a meaningless drop in the bucket. Mother Teresa said of small deeds, your love makes them infinite.
jim roland
April 4th, 2007 at 07:33 PM
Keith, your blog piece essentially is on the ‘Death of Environmentalism’ thread.
We are faced with a bit of a chicken and egg dynamic. We have to persuade politicians to educate the public to vote for politicians who will impose fiscal etc instruments on the public.
Keith Farnish
April 4th, 2007 at 10:52 PM
I’d like to think it isn’t quite dead, Jim, I wouldn’t keep going if I did. But maybe we have just been too soft on people’s good will and need some different ideas. The Green Seniors concept (the web site of which I co-founded) is one method of attack – a different group of people who aren’t likely to be distracted by every day trivialities – but maybe we also need a return to the word “Conservation”...
Keith
jim roland
April 5th, 2007 at 06:01 PM
I’ve duly viewed and I like this Green Seniors concept a lot, will be in touch.