Talking about future under climate change

On 25 to 27 August 2014, “Third Nordic International Conference on Climate Change Adaptation” took place in Copenhagen. I was asked to join a discussion panel at the end of the conference - with a short opening statement.

From listening to presentations here at the conference I got the impression that the term “future” is not always well defined even though it plays a very important role in thinking about and in planning adaptation. Often people describe the situation in a way as if that would be stationary “today” and then equally stationary “tomorrow”. In this framing the difference between today and tomorrow is only climate; everything else tomorrow is like today. This view is fundamentally flawed because

1. a characteristic of “future” is its instationarity, i.e.,  permanent ongoing change without reaching “constant” conditions. Thus, traditional “stationary” planning tools and numbers, such as the “200 year flood” makes no sense anymore. Indeed, such a term is to express the probability of the present state-which makes sense also in instationary conditions, but it does not imply the forecast that such an event would, in a certain average sense, take place once in the coming 200 years.
2. another characteristic of “future” is that many other things are changing as well-such as societal preferences, conflicts, land-use and technology.

Speaking consistently about possible and plausible futures requires taking these characteristics into account.

Gaia ist kitzlig: Bruno Latour über Existenzweisen im Anthropozän

Die Journalistin Elisabeth von Thadden hat in "Die Zeit" einen schönen Bericht über ein Treffen mit dem "Anthropologen und Wissenschaftsforscher" Bruno Latour veröffentlicht. Es gelingt ihr mit leichter Feder und mit Hilfe kleiner atmosphärischer Details, eine Idee seines Werkes, seiner laufenden Projekte und seinem Interesse an der Klimaproblematik zu vermitteln. Es ist eine heitere Übung, den Dialog zwischen Elisabeth von Thadden und Bruno Latour durch die Brille der Klimazwiebel zu lesen: hier kommen einige Themen zur Sprache, welche für einen Kern von honest brokern und Skeptikern hier auf der Zwiebel ein rotes Tuch sind. Kurz, es geht darum, dass Wissenschaft und Politik NICHT zu trennen sind; dass "Gaia" als Akteur mit uns interagiert, dass uns künftige Klimakriege drohen und wir die kurze Zeit vor dem Klimagipfel in Paris damit verbringen sollten, die Existenzweisen der Moderne zu verstehen und unsere Lebensweisen ökologisch umzugestalten. Starker Tobak und, wie so oft, ist Latour hier eine Aufforderung, an allen Ecken und Enden weiterzudenken anstatt die Diskussion einfach abzubrechen.

Heidi Kabel: Eine Hamburger Bürgerin über Umwelt in den 90iger Jahren

Was denken die HamburgerInnen? Wäre Heidi Kabel die 502te Teilnehmerin an der Telefonumfrage der hzg gewesen, hätte sie sich am Telefon bestimmt nicht das Wort abschneiden lassen, zum Leidwesen der Umfrager! Aus Anlass von Heidi Kabels 100stem Geburtstag hat das Hamburger Abendblatt ein Interview von 1994 noch einmal veröffentlicht. Heidi Kabel galt als Volksschauspielerin,  und als solche repräsentiert sie - zumindest für das Abendblatt - Volkes Stimme (ein Rollenmodell, das in der heutigen Medienlandschaft soweit ich weiß nicht mehr besetzt wird). Heidi Kabels Meinung zu den Themen der Gegenwart war in Hamburg gewichtig, und wer damals schon in Hamburg war, wird sich sogleich erinnern: das ist der hanseatische Sound der neunziger Jahre. Umwelt spielte damals bereits eine zentrale Rolle, die Anti-Atomkraftbewegung war auf dem Höhepunkt, der Klimawandel war offensichtlich noch kein Thema, dafür das Ozonloch; dass man je wieder in der Elbe wird baden können erschien unvorstellbar.  Als Leser taucht man ein in das Klima, die Atmosphäre Hamburgs im ausgehenden 20. Jahrhunderts. Das Interview gibt vieles wieder, was damals "in der Luft lag", und es gibt eine Ahnung davon was alles mitschwingt, wenn Klimaforscher heute nach den Einstellungen und Werten fragen. Hier ein paar Beispiele:

2014er Umfrage unter Hamburger Bürgern

Die Ergebnisse der 2014er Umfrage der Arbeitsgruppe Beate Ratter (Institut für Küstenforschung, HZG) durch FORSA liegt jetzt vor. Es ist die siebte Umfrage seit 2009, die im jährlichen Rhythmus durchgeführt wird.

Der 2014er Umfrage nach findet man für Hamburg

"Der jüngste IPCC Bericht zeigt keine Auswirkungen auf das Risikobewusstsein für den Klimawandel: laut der diesjährigen Telefonumfrage unter Hamburger Bürgern steigt die Besorgnis bezüglich des Klimawandels weiterhin nur leicht an. 2014 liegen die Hamburger Werte erstmalig auf gleicher Höhe wie die amerikanischen Vergleichsdaten."

Das vollständige Resultat findet sich hier.

知己知彼,百战不殆

For a workshop  "Better together? Reconciling the supply of, and demand for, climate knowledge in adaptation decision-making" in September 2014 in the UK, Hans von Storch and Nico Stehr have prepared a contribution.

The introduction of "知己知彼百战不 -  a precondition for a successful climate communication?" reads:

"In this Chinese proverb “Precise knowledge of self and precise knowledge of the threat leads to victory.”  Perhaps we could replace in a less ambitious sense “threat” by “challenge”, and “victory” by “achievement”. Then the saying implies we need to know our own limitations, our own blind spots, or the assumptions of our knowledge claims, before being able to enter into a meaningful communication with individuals and groups outside the scientific community. Such communication may or may not lead to changes in the social world. If persuasive and therefore effective, the communication will not only change the social world for our partners, as they act upon it but also for us scientists. But the proverb refers also to “knowledge of the challenge” – which means that we have to recognize that the production of scientific knowledge is a social process as is the communication of scientific findings and that our partners may well their own ideas and knowledge with respect to similar features of the world. In fact, their claims that may be in conflict with current scientifically constructed and accepted knowledge.

For a successful communication it does not only need a clear and understandable language, good images and pedagogical skills as well as the attentiveness of the intended recipients but the recognition of the presence of a competition of knowledge claims in guiding societal decisions, in explaining how the world functions. Such a competition for relevant knowledge is not automatically “won” by those with more scientific arguments.

In a nut-shell, this is what we want to convey with our presentation. Implications for regional climate servicing are added in the end.

But before we enter the discussion about knowledge competition and its consequences of climate change communication, we should clarify the meaning of “knowledge”, as we use it here. We follow Nico Stehr’s (2012a) definition, according to which “Knowledge may be defined as a capacity for action". Our use of the term “knowledge” as a capacity for action is derived from Francis Bacon's famous metaphor that knowledge is power ( scientia est potentia. Bacon suggests that knowledge derives its utility from the capacity to set something in motion; for example, using modern examples, new communicative devices, new forms of power, new regulatory regimes, new chemical substances, new political organizations, or financial instrument. Thus, knowledge has no connotation such as “right”, “accurate”, “scientific” or “truth”, but no more and no less than making sense of a complex situation, which allows drawing conclusions about what can, or should, be done about it.

Also, the term “communication” may need an explanation. In the past, “communication” was an euphemism for “teaching”, “informing”, “explaining” to less-knowledgeable people, for a one-way communication. Here we refer to exchanging knowledge between scientists, who have a complex, often abstract but in most cases specific and often narrow understanding of elements of a multifaceted system, and practitioners, who tend to an equally specific understanding of problems based on the circumstances that govern public discourse of the day, on the contingencies of everyday life and the various interests that govern the life-world. Exchanging ideas and knowledge claims requires a dialog, as opposed to providing a portal which provides numbers and Q&A sections."

Theses on " Rethinking EU leadership in fighting climate change"

I have been asked to come forward with a few "points" addressing the question "Rethinking EU leadership in fighting climate change". Having prepared a first draft, I would appreciate to hear comments by the readers of Klimazwiebel.

Some lay-people think that "The issue that climate is changing and that elevated CO2 levels play a dominant role, is no longer controversial among climate scientists." is a false assertion. I ask these people to restrain from contributing to this debate by ritual repetitions of long-known positions. Thanks

Addition, 10. August 2014: Thanks to constructive comments here and from a few colleagues, the text has undergone some clarifications - the final one is available at Academia.edu.