Bruno Latour's climate wars

Some time ago we had a discussion about Latour's pronouncements on climate change and climate policy. This discussion was sparked by Werner's post Gaia ist kitzlig. The discussion was conducted entirely in German. I said in one of the comments that we should have a separate thread so here goes.

During the discussion I criticised Latour strongly, based on an interview he had, together with the late Ulrich Beck, given to the FAZ. I have now come across a paper by Latour, based on a talk he gave in Vancouver in September 2013. In this paper he develops his idea about a climate war and his distaste for the notion of 'climate change' in greater detail.

Communication control

The reports of the IPCC are complex and voluminous; there are three working groups each publishing one report. And on top of this is a synthesis report, 'distilling and integrating' the findings from the three separate reports. How to make sense of this all? And, perhaps more importantly, how to communicate this to the public? Well, one way is to put it out there and see what happens. Commentators from the media, interest groups and politics will pick out their favourite bits and praise or damn the message they think they see. Scientists may enter the discussion, even scientists who have participated in the production of the reports.

Bojanowski - konkretisiert seine Vorbehalte

Vor einiger Zeit (2. November 2014) machte Axel Bokanowski mit seinem Artikel Alarm geht vor Genauigkeit im SPIEGEL Furore, was unter manchen meiner Kollegen deutlichen Widerspruch auslöste und das Verlangen, mit Zitaten und Quellen die Vorwürfe zu substantiieren. Dies ist nun geschehen auf der Webseite: http://axelbojanowski.de/ipccsynthesisreport
Bojanowksi sagt dazu "Sehe den Synthesis-Report weiterhin sehr kritisch".

 

News: Weblog Climate Dialogue ceased its activity

We got informed that the climate debate at  Climate Dialogue has been ended, at least so far:

"Climate Dialogue, the site where both sides of the climate debate meet to discuss has formally come to an end as of January 2015. It was a  cooperation between KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute)  and PBL (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and science journalist Marcel Crok  (http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.nl/2014/05/another-effort-for-bridging-between.html).

Friedrich Heckmann:

Vulkane und Risiko, oder STS mal ganz praktisch
Friedrich Heckmann

Soziologie bei Vulkanen, wie geht das denn? Bereits 2012 haben die Geographin Amy Donovan, der Vulkanologe Clive Oppenheimer, und der Polarforscher und Wissenschaftsphilosoph Michael Bravo, allesamt Geowissenschaftler der Universität Cambridge, eine Studie zu aktuellen Tendenzen der Vulkanologie verfasst. Unter dem Titel "Social studies of volcanology: knowledge generation and expert advice on active volcanoes" wenden die Autoren Methoden der Science and Technology Studies (STS) auf die gute alte Vulkanologie an.  Die erfrischende und aufschlussreiche Studie möchte ich kurz vorstellen und auch einige persönliche Überlegungen zur Vorsorge vor Naturkatastrophen anführen.

2014 - the warmest year

Last week reports appeared in the media with the headline that 2014 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 2010 as the warmest year. I came across this article in the New York Times which covers the news with an angle on 'contrarians' and their insistence that global warming 'somehow stopped' in 1998. The paper then cites Stefan Rahmstorf, saying:

“Obviously, a single year, even if it is a record, cannot tell us much about climate trends,” said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of earth system analysis at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. “However, the fact that the warmest years on record are 2014, 2010 and 2005 clearly indicates that global warming has not ‘stopped in 1998,’ as some like to falsely claim.”

Damals in 1995 ...

1995, das sind jetzt 20 Jahre her, schon damals begann die Diskussion, was denn das "Klimaproblem" jenseits der Szenarien und des geophysikalischen Klimawandels sei. Im November 1995 veranstaltete die Universität Hamburg ein "Interdisziplinäres Seminar 'Klima-Umwelt-Gesellschaft'" - mein Vortrag "Fragen der Klimaforschung an Kultur- und Gesellscahftswissesnschaften" fand ich jetzt wieder, und biete ihn auf academia.edu als Faksimile (Alternative: http://www.hvonstorch.de/klima/pdf/1996.fragen.Uni.pdf) an.

Climate-change lore and post-science policy deliberations.

The Oxford Dictionary (1993) defines lore as ‘A doctrine, a precept; a creed, a religion.’  Lore includes, among other things, legends, oral history, beliefs and stories.  It can be argued that climate-change ‘lore’ plays a significant role in the formation of climate change policy in the German Baltic coastal region and  this has potential consequences for the science-policy interface, leading from post-normal science to post-science policy deliberations.

It should be noted that this is not the first case of lore intervening in the German science-policy interface. The example of the German Kur demonstrates how lore (perhaps combined with traditional knowledge but lacking in demonstrated efficacy) has previously impacted on science and policy in Germany.  The Kur, although having its origins long before the völkische Bewegung (which had its origins in the Romatic nationalism of the 19th century), has no doubt been sustained by lorific sentiments.  According to Pietikäinen (2000: 524) the völkische Bewegung was a loosely organized social movement that was unified by ‘a cauldron of beliefs, fears and hopes’ often drawn from romantics’ notions of folklore and the organic world.  Life was to be lived in a mystical, lorific relationship with the land. The Kur can be located within this context. The history of the integration of the kur movement and alternative medicine into allopathic medicine is well documented and suggests a template for the fate of the climate change issue.  Is this a template for defining the evolution of the issue of climate change in Germany?

Climate change: How does it feel?

Climate science is not just another science; instead, its results are read as oracles about our future. This affects climate scientists, too. Disinterested and objective as they have to be when calculating climate, matters of fact inevitably turn into matters of concern.
Joe Duggan, a science communicator, asked climate scientists  to express their feelings about climate change. He asked them to write letters, which is a great idea; it is a way of communication that bridges the gap between their professional work as scientists and their emotions: "(...) they're not robots. These scientists are mothers, fathers, grandparents, daughters. They are real people. And they're concerned." 

I am both fascinated by and frustrated by climate change. A lot of my working life is about studying climate change, and the way the climate system works is really fascinating to me. Understanding a little bit more over time is thrilling. Then I look at my children and think about what I know is coming their way and I worry how it will affect them. Gabi Hegerl

Scrolling through these letters makes a good and interesting read. Climate change is as much a novel as it is a calculation. Take your time, and figure out for yourself how it feels.

The Culture of Scientific Research in the UK

Yesterday the British Nuffield Council on Bioethics published the report The Culture of Scientific Research in the UK.  You can read it here in full.

The Times Higher Education commented as follows:

The council held 15 discussion events at universities nationwide to explore the ethical consequences of the research culture in higher education. It also met with research funders, publishers and editors, and social scientists, and analysed the results of an online survey that attracted 970 responses.