Why has Hansen become an 'Advocate'?

One of the reasons its been quiet here is because yours truly has been busy mixing it at the Guardian. Occasionally, the odd little gem has poppped out of the cabbage patch and been reasonably well received.

Just now, someone else left a post on a John Abrahams article (here) which I felt the need to respond to. I'm quite pleased with the result, so here are the two comments:

Smith1867

05 September 2014 5:23pm

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In truth, I prefer the harder science, but frankly these do not get as many page views as the debunking posts.

Is how many page views your blog posts receive what you are interested in? Is that the primary reason for your participation in this blog? If so, then by all means follow more closely to your colleauge's approach. But beware that that is not a scientific blogging approach so much as it is a publicity approach in a sciency genre. Not really science communication in even a loose sense of the term.

A problem for all science communicators and the public who are their target, is that their scientific credentials are often projected onto their activist writings. Take Dr. Hansen for instance, a brilliant and well qualified atmospheric physicist he may well be, however his advocacy for, or protest against any given solution to the technical problem which is high atmosheric CO2 concentrations is no more qualified than any other intelligent layman. He is not a politician or an economist and solutions for the CO2 problem all require considerable expertise in these arenas. However, more often than not he is awarded the respect he has earned as a scientist for his socio-economic/political solutions. We are told we are not listening to "science" if we do not agree with his proposed solutions. Yet when discussing his solutions his scientific credentials hold no more weight than anyone else who accepts the concensus scientific position on AGW.

So you have to ask yourself, is this blog about science communication, which you are well qualified to author? Or is this blog about advocacy for or protest against highly complex socio-economic/political solutions, which you are no more qualified to author than any other intelligent layman?

If you choose the later, just remember that you are not communicating science and cannot project your scientific expertise onto your opinions about other matters.

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  Fergus Brown Smith1867

  05 September 2014 6:01pm

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  First, I think it is important to point out that the blog is a part of John's journalistic work, into which his science work feeds. As a journalist, he needs to earn his crust by bringing an audience into the Medium that pays him, so hits matter.

  On the main points you make: Let's say for arguments' sake that you, a scientist, along with a number of colleagues, spend several years working on a hypothesis and reach the conclusion that it really is likely to change the World as we know it, and furthermore, that the consequences could be devastating, and beyond this, that a certain course of action could reduce risks and harm considerably.
  So, of course, you publish. Then, for twenty years, nobody does anything about your findings apart from whinge and get abusive. The evidence mounts up, but the clock is ticking. Your original conclusions have been validated many times over, but still nobody seems to want to do anything to stop the harm or the potential devastation.
  So, what do you do?
  Firstly, as a scientist, you keep on proving your point, testing your work, and keeping up to date. You develop some kudos. Then, as a human being, you start advocating loudly and publically. Because talking about it scientifically and reasonably didn't work. But it still matters. It matters more than ever. So you shout, you protest, you publish, you lobby, and you do everything in your power to get the message across that this is serious, and it ain't gonna go away.
  No, bollocks. If it was me, I would have lost my patience years before Hansen did. Any normal, rational human being would do the same.
  Along with which, I'd get really pissed off with people who told me I had no right to meddle in politics or that my opinions had no validity.
  I think I've made my point...

On the impossibility of dialogue

In the busy thread below, this extended comment appeared. It contains some thinking which requires extended response, so I’ve done a lift and here it is up front.

The context is that the correspondent is a regular presence on the internet, commenting on climate change and global warming. His view and mine are different.

In the comment, he tries to explain why he thinks the way he does, to which I offer my efforts to understand.

Please note that his first language is not English, and make allowance that some of the expressions, which might sound abrasive, may be a function of linguistic difference, not necessarily aggression.

Here we go:

Let me suggest something: Pull back and consider that I am convinced you act in good faith and are honest, but you have been brainwashed.

I too have been brainwashed. The only difference is that I´m aware of the brainwashing and you seem to be oblivious (like 99 % of the population).

This is not a promising start. You set out by claiming your intellectual superiority to me, in that you have a privileged (and superior) epistemic status, because I am not aware that the world as I understand it is relative. I might be inclined to disagree with this.

The brainwashing isn´t the result of an overarching conspiracy. Some of it is genetic, some of it is deeply ingrained culture, some is early education, and some of it is impressed on you by the media, your friends, and your enemies.

Being brainwashed seems to be a positive survival trait in homo sapiens. Although many brainwashed populations were defeated and driven to extinction, others which practiced brainwashing as a higher art form, or got a bit luckier seem to have survived more often thanks to this brainwashing, which aligned most of society with the leadership, and moved them to perform as requested.

This is somewhat helpful. You are trying to describe your hypothesis, that our perception of reality is conditioned. In particular, you emphasise the social context of individual development (or call it the means by which I form my Weltanschauung (‘World-view’).

Thus my position is that a lot of what we believe is real isn´t really there. As my grandchildren would say, it´s all bogus.

Though your expression is a little clumsy, what is coming out seems to be a much simplified version of the ideas of Paul Feyerabend, for example, in ‘Against Method’. Feyerabend’s views are well summarised in Wkipedia (here).

So how does this impact the way I absorb information about global warming? First, I know there are actors trying to manipulate me to behave in a certain way. Why? Because whenever an issue arises which involves government decisions, subsidies, taxes, putting a drilling rig on the public library grounds, and moves like that I have to be manipulated to accept such decisions.

The position gets a bit more complicated here. This is because you introduce the Political realm. What you seem to be saying is that the information which is available about global warming has the same epistemological status as the information which we get from politicians or their employees. I think some people might object to this.

Do you see why you really can´t change my mind? As far as you are concerned I´m a ghost. I live in a different universe. You are trying to debate global warming, and I debate the way "they" manipulate us.

A part of the complexity is that you seem to have thoroughly mixed your resistance to political manipulation and your view of the nature of scientific endeavour. To you, these are manifestations of the same phenomenon – the untrustworthiness of given knowledge – and therefore they are the same thing. You reject Science as a whole, wholesale.

And why do you think you avoided the subject when I tried to use Kosovo and Iraq as talkng points? Because your comfort zone is in global warming and the associated science. You want to feel comfortable surrounded by your friends, sitting in a tall stone tower from which you can fling arrows and stones at the enemy trying to scale your walls.

Here, you are making presumptions about me which are not justified. I avoid discussing Kosovo or Iraq because I do not believe I have sufficient knowledge or understanding to comment on these subjects; I have no expertise or opinion which I trust.

And your characterisation of me in the second sentence is laughable. I have spent considerable time addressing your point of view and defending your right to express yourself, even when you have been illogical and inconsistent, yet you accuse me of attacking you. If you still see me as your enemy I would suggest that the problem lies not in my attitude but in yours. You have already decided that we must be enemies, so I cannot have any understanding of you or any human compassion. This means I cannot win. Your mind is closed to my humanity and identity; to you, I am just ‘one of them’. So who is acting in bad faith, you, or me?

On the other hand, I see this behavior as normal, quite human, and also misguided.

How very patronising and wise of you.

Almost everybody is the same. And this is why in the 21st century we see children being slaughtered with laser guided bombs in Palestine, and we look the other way. We have been brainwashed to accept this, and we can´t even bring ourselves to discuss it. And the odds are this post may even be censored, isn´t it?

Since I have both permitted every statement you have made on this blog, and defended your right of comment, even when it pushed libellous status, you have no grounds whatsoever to imply I might censor you, so this is just a personal insult.

To sum things up as best I can. You claim to be my intellectual superior. You set out a view of how the world (of understanding, or knowledge) is constructed. In this, you explicitly reject Science wholesale; to you, it is just as much in error as political propaganda. You frequently draw parallels between political events and scientific knowledge. You then remind me of why I am ignorant and accuse me first of being your enemy, then of repressing you, in spite of the visible contradiction of these in this blog.

Where does this leave me? If, as you say, all science is deception, then we cannot talk about science – not at all – by your terms there is nothing meaningful to say about it. But neither can we talk about anything which we might think of as being a shared human experience. So we cannot have any dialogue. Besides this, you have demonstrated that you do not respect me as an individual or as a human being; in particular, to you I am an inferior being. So you deny me any motivation to continue the effort to engage with you. Finally, you have established that, whatever I say and however I say it, you have determined that I am your enemy. I don’t need enemies, I want friends.

In conclusion, by your terms and rules, since there is nothing ‘true’ to say about science, every comment you make on science is a piece of hypocrisy. Furthermore, on your terms, nobody understands how things really are better than you, so you will never consider the possibility that you might be wrong, or the possibility that anyone else might have anything valid to say. This, too, given your views on propaganda, is hypocrisy. You deny the subject, the means, and the motivation to engage in dialogue. You have determined that discourse is impossible, so, unless you give me some reason to believe otherwise, I can do nothing better than remain silent.

For now, that is all I have to say on the subject.

Whistling at a different pitch

Having exorcised Mrs Merkl’s Swabian housewife, let’s get back to some more thinking.

I want to explore a sample explanation of why the Farmer and the Cowboy can’t be friends. Obviously, this is apropos of my concern over the effective communication of climate issues and environmental issues in general.

We recently discussed Truth – it’s easy to agree that this takes us in tricky directions. It can be hard to agree what makes a truth, and hard to agree the specific cases of whether something is true or not. So I’m going to move the focus on to the notion of Understanding, instead.

However and whatever forms of ‘knowledge’ we acquire (or, reducing it further, form of meaningful communication with which we agree), we tend to come to an understanding of reality, truth, fact, whatever, from two distinctive and often contradictory ways of understanding things. This is what Wikipedia says about Reason:

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.^[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art, and is normally considered to be a definitive characteristic of human nature.^[2] The concept of reason is sometimes referred to as rationality and sometimes as discursive reason, in opposition to intuitive reason.^[3]

Reason or "reasoning" is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. Reason, like habit or intuition, is one of the ways by which thinking comes from one idea to a related idea. For example, it is the means by which rational beings understand themselves to think about cause and effect, truth and falsehood, and what is good or bad. It is also closely identified with the ability to self-consciously change beliefs, attitudes, traditions, and institutions, and therefore with the capacity for freedom and self-determination.^[4]

You’ll note that the article distinguishes between DISCURSIVE and INTUITIVE reason. This is what the Wiki says about Intuition:

Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.^[1] The word intuition comes from Latin verb intueri which is usually translated as to look inside or to contemplate.^[2] Intuition is thus often conceived as a kind of inner perception, sometimes regarded as real lucidity or understanding. Cases of intuition are of a great diversity; however, processes by which they happen typically remain mostly unknown to the thinker, as opposed to the view of rational thinking.

Intuition provides views, understandings, judgements, or beliefs that we cannot in every case empirically verify or rationally justify. For this reason, it has been not only a subject of study in psychology, but also a topic of interest in various religions and esoteric domains, as well as a common subject of writings.^[3] The right brain is popularly associated with intuitive processes such as aesthetic or generally creative abilities.^[4][5][6] Some scientists have contended that intuition is associated with innovation in scientific discovery.^[7]

Both Reasoning and Intuition are legitimate ways of reaching understanding. Further, there is often reasoning embedded in intuition, and intuition likewise informs reasoning.

Science in general, say Mathematics as a paradigm, is basically rational; it has rules, structure, processes, precedents and checks. Without necessarily being complete or absolute, Mathematics is a profoundly rational activity. If you have learned the rules and the conventions, you can apply them to any number of problems of increasing complexity. It is largely consistent and logical. The ‘truths’ of Mathematics are results derived from within the syntax and semantics of the system, and their value is a function of their formulation, which is neither arbitrary nor contradictory. In other words, within Mathematics, 2 + 2 always = 4. The only way you can change this ‘truth’ is to change the rules or convention by which you understand the expression.

On the other hand, many people have an understanding of their world from an intuitive perspective, of which religion is an example. Let’s consider Buddhism as the paradigm. A person who ‘understands’ the underlying truths in Buddhism, the ‘Four Noble Truths’, does not necessarily understand them in a consciously rational manner. But this does not imply that her understanding is inferior to the understanding of a mathematician of the truth of the axioms of number or addition.

These are different ways of ‘understanding’. But they may not be quite so contradictory as you might think. For example, to reach a new solution or hypothesis, the mathematician may well start by having an intuition that something is wrong, that a certain type of procedure might correct the error, or have an insight into the nature of a problem which informs new possible resolutions. And the four noble truth of Buddhism can be laid out in a strictly formal logical ‘proof’, which suggest that, though understanding them may be intuitive, their meaning has a formal structure which allows them to make sense to our thoughts.

Religions have a long history of Reasoning associated with them in East and West. Some of the great thinkers in history were dealing with problems arriving not from science, but from a religious, intuitive source. But many religions also recognise, implicitly or explicitly, that understanding, or wisdom, about the world in the context of the religious system concerned, comes to the individual from a deep personal insight or understanding. Furthermore, this understanding is often opaque to communication; ‘The way that can be spoken of is not the true way’. Can we argue that wisdom is impossible under these conditions? Can we argue that the understanding of the Buddha is a false understanding? We can’t, for two reasons; firstly, because we have not nor can we ever strictly reach the same understanding that the Buddha has. Our insight must be our own, a personal understanding which might parallel what we have learned or experienced. Secondly, because the full detail of the nature of the understanding is beyond language (any language); it is a lived experience.

What am I getting on to? Well, obviously, people ‘understand’ Global Warming in different ways. A lot of people reach their understanding by reasoning, analysis, interpretation and evaluation of evidence, argument, and by testing the mechanisms and processes. Why would anyone look at it any other way?

I am speculating that one of the reasons why people might look for a different way of understanding Global warming is because they don’t trust what science is. Sometimes, the contradiction of the science is simply fuelled by ignorance – it is easy to distrust what you don’t understand, especially if you feel threatened by it. Sometimes a person can have such a strong negative prejudice about a message that they choose to contradict irrespective of understanding – this is why such behaviour is often labelled as ‘denial’.

But there are other people who are otherwise reasonable who turn away from the evidence and the arguments because they believe that science is something they cannot trust.

The problem is, Science is an institution as much as anything else. It works in relation to rules and conventions, exists within other institutions, is paid for by institutions. Science, it seems, has authority because it is an Authority – in this sense, it is a part of the ‘System’. More than this, Scientific argument is often derived from an apparent appeal to authority –precedence, existing assumptions, previous work, peer-review. It is an ‘Institution’ par excellence.

And a lot of people don’t trust Authority, They don’t trust Institutional models or processes, they see an underlying circularity in the self-justifications of scientific ideas, and they believe that, since Science is about authority, it suffers from the same weaknesses as other forms of authority.

This association is the problem. A person who is consistently ‘let down’ by a social or legal system, who is not protected but persecuted, who experiences injustice or repression at first hand by the hand of the System, learns in real experience that Authority and The System are inherently untrustworthy. This understanding is intuitive as well as evidential, so it has a strong force in the understanding. For such a person it is probably quite natural to mistrust and be cynical about anything which makes claims to authority. The natural default based in the understanding which exists is that first you assume the authority is either wrong or is lying, then you assume the authority has a self-serving intent and is indifferent to you, and is therefore fundamentally corrupt.

For young people, who often have an innate mistrust of the system in some form, or for those whose experience has led them to believe that no-one can be trusted, asking them to see things from a rational point of view has limited use. It is not the way their understanding has been formed. For ignorant people with strong prejudices it has no use, because they cannot even acknowledge the possibility that another understanding can exist at all. But it doesn’t mean that discussion is impossible.

Even the most intuitive person recognises the underlying formal structures which allow meaningful discourse to happen. They can accept the idea that an effect must have a cause, that if you add something to something you end up with something ‘more’. An ‘intuitive understander’ can be quite sophisticated, and even see the logical inconsistencies of their understanding. Simple logic and simple reasoning can work within a discourse to the point where a person can recognise contradictions and inconsistencies and acknowledge that these might undermine their understanding, so that, even if they sustain their understanding from intuition, they can agree that their understanding is irrational. It doesn’t mean, to them, that they are wrong.

So, can the Farmer and the Cowboy ever be friends? I would suggest yes, this is possible, but first they need to accept that what is already understood does not rest on mutually agreed conventions. But for a discourse to happen at all, there must be the possibility of logic. To start a discourse, to establish the conventions and terms of dialogue, the most important thing is to listen first, and avoid passing judgment based on your own conventions or understanding.

Possibly there will be more on this later, it depends.

If I listened long enough to you...knowing what we don't know

(AKA The Rumsfeld Conundrum)

Following on from a discussion amongst a number of internet friends at Planet 3.0, The Usefulness of Knowing what we don't know , it occurs that, since I was educated in Philosophy (specifically Epistemology) by some of the players mentioned in the literature, and on the basis that some of their cleverness might actually have been absorbed, I might have something useful to say on the matter.

It's important not just as an intellectual exercise (of the type that causes non-philosophers to tear their hair out and kick things) but also because even a cursory exploration of some of the more modern ideas of knowledge, belief and justification can lead us down some revealing paths when we look at the expert/public interface in science and the media.

It's also revealing of something else - the motivations for 'skepticism' and the reasons why some people (without trying to judge them) are still not convinced by some arguments and conclusions arising from climate science and the policy implications of AGW.

In general, Epistemology is the Theory of Knowledge ; in other words, attempts to address or answer questions such as 'What do we mean when we make a claim to know something?' Immediately it is clear that this is relevant to climate science discourse, since many of the things which are traditionally associated with a 'common sense' understanding of what constitutes 'knowing' are challenged by 'skeptics'; from what fundamental 'facts' are to be accepted, to what counts as evidence in support of AGW, through to more sophisticated problems such as whether there is justification for certain policy decisions (such as the immediate mitigation of AGW via CO2 emissions management).

The first thing to observe is that much (most?) of the public discourse, though it sometimes appears to be about what is 'known', actually revolves around what different people believe, and the reasons why they believe these things (in epistemological terms, justification). One of the reasons for this is that Climate Science is not an easy thing to do or test, and most of the public discourse is amongst people with varying degrees of ignorance (with some notable exceptions, such as RealClimate). We frequently hear scientists voicing concern over the public interface and the difficulty of communicating effectively, but the problem won't go away easily, because a lot of the work done by 'skeptical' communicators is aimed (directly or indirectly) at reducing the epistemological status of the science, the scientists, and the milieu in which the science is undertaken. By this I mean that the justifiability of a certain scientific proposition is undermined, creating doubt amongst some of us who don't, or can't do the actual science, or even fully understand the methods.

We often find it hard to see another person's point of view if we disagree about the 'facts' or the 'conclusions' of a position, regardless of the reasoning either has undertaken to reach the conclusion. In other words, we start with a problem of Belief. There are many ways to reach a condition of believing in the truth of a proposition, some logical, some rational, some intuitive, some pre-conditioned. It can be revealing to ask a person who you disagree with, why they hold that particular belief. In the case of we ignorant masses (the 'non-climate-science community'), investigation leads down any number of paths, but often reduces down to a relatively small number of core, or foundational assumptions about ourselves, the world and how we interact with it. Sometimes, these fundamentals are derived from religious or spiritual beliefs, which hold a privileged status in our personal epistemological landscape, and are therefore highly resistant to challenges, not least because they are often self-consciously 'irrational' as well as being deeply embedded in our psyches.

So, how can we make progress, about what we can claim to 'know' about climate science, or about why emissions controls (regulation, taxation, limitation of freedom, of trade, of wealth) matter now?

One way is to shift the epistemological landscape to newer ground, from the 'traditional' or 'common-sense' notions of truth, knowledge, belief and justification, to more modern, 'hard' notions of knowledge and belief, such as Bayesian Confirmation Theory, or Bayesian Social Epistemology. Without going into the details here, since they are well expressed elsewhere, for example here), this can lead down tracks such as betting on climate change, a popular and readily understood activity which has the power of publicly testing both the credibility of a person's stated belief (how much they really believe it being measured by how much they are willing to bet on it), as well as the actual grounds on which two differing views are justified, in relatively simple and measurable terms.

For scientists, there is appeal in the betting meme, since it relates to some very interesting ideas about probability and statistics, exemplified by what are known as Dutch Book Arguments. This type of discourse - the climate bet - (see here, for example), is accessible and its results understandable, with the added piquancy that someone is going to get 'smacked down' by the result. For the public, it can work as an immediate measure of the sincerity of the exponent of a given belief, which in turn has an effect on the justification for believing in that person's stated belief (both in common-sense, and Bayesian terms).

Yes, it is essential to have a sense of 'what we don't know'. In climate science discourse, most of us are obliged to confess that our personal beliefs do not depend on first-hand science; we must depend on others to provide the evidence, so our beliefs are more or less justified by the weight, credibility and logic of others. But we also can have a sense of what we should be able to claim to know, without too much controversy, and it is important for the discourse that climate scientists understand that communicating this is still very important. But enough for now, so later I will look at trying to find the grounds (fundamental principles) for a claim to know that policy action is no longer avoidable.

Never mind the widgets - here comes the bomb

Perhaps a little late, but I've just got through Hansen et. al. : 

Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature

Here's the abstract:

We assess climate impacts of global warming using ongoing observations and paleoclimate data. We use Earth’s measured energy imbalance, paleoclimate data, and simple representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on today’s young people, future generations, and nature. A cumulative industrial-era limit of ~500 GtC fossil fuel emissions and 100 GtC storage in the biosphere and soil would keep climate close to the Holocene range to which humanity and other species are adapted. Cumulative emissions of ~1000 GtC, sometimes associated with 2°C global warming, would spur “slow” feedbacks and eventual warming of 3–4°C with disastrous consequences. Rapid emissions reduction is required to restore Earth’s energy balance and avoid ocean heat uptake that would practically guarantee irreversible effects. Continuation of high fossil fuel emissions, given current knowledge of the consequences, would be an act of extraordinary witting intergenerational injustice. Responsible policymaking requires a rising price on carbon emissions that would preclude emissions from most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels and phase down emissions from conventional fossil fuels.

And here is a graphic from the paper which I'll be referring to:

Doing my usual trick, I'm going to try and extract the points which struck me in the simplest form possible:

1. Setting a 2c target for future warming (the current 'standard' policy approach) is no good. This level is likely to result in 'dangerous' impacts.
2. A 1c target is better. It is also, with radical action, achievable.
3. We need a 6% per annum reduction in emissions from 2013, with other actions, to limit warming to 1c this century.
4. We've got about 128GTc of fossil fuels left for use if we want to avoid 'dangerous' change.
5. Failing to act now (or, as in the article, in the 2014/15 cycle of the UNFCCC), represents 'an act of extraordinary witting intergenerational injustice'; in other words, our leaders know the consequences of inaction and may choose to account for them or not.
6. From the paper: Ultimately, however, human-made climate change is more a matter of morality than a legal issue. Broad public support is probably needed to achieve the changes needed to phase out fossil fuel emissions. As with the issue of slavery and civil rights, public recognition of the moral dimensions of human-made climate change may be needed to stir the public’s conscience to the point of action.
7. Mitigation is desirable, achievable and (arguably) essential for the future of the planet's ecosystems and the welfare of humanity.
8. short term delays now result in much greater difficulties in mitigation later, in time scales of less than a decade.
9. (see the graphic above) We have known about this since at least 1992, yet the progress of action to date is derisory, as evidenced by the rate of growth of emissions in the timescale referred to.
10. We have a choice: act now and make a difference, or avoid acting now and accept the moral responsibility for the consequences, with all their implications.

I have been involved in discussions, for example at Stoat and Rabett Run, in which I have tried to point out that the moral dimension of Climate Science is not just important, but is central to the arguments about policy implications. Hansen seems to agree with me.

No doubt, more on this paper later.

Valuable free resource pool on climate adaptation (but only till Sunday)

It's a shame I didn't pick up on this earlier, but there are still a few days left to take advantage of FREE ACCESS to some useful and interesting papers on Cities and Climate Change, courtesy of the IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development).

The introductory article, here, explains the remit of the pieces. The paragraph below seems to provide a helpful context to understand this:

The theme for this issue of Environment and Urbanization (our fiftieth issue) draws on Mark Pelling’s book on Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation. (4) The focus on resilience and transformation was conceived as a theme that is of relevance to all urban settings, namely how the capacities to withstand or recover from all direct and indirect impacts of climate change (resilience) can be developed while also contributing to the so much-needed transformation to a low carbon (local and global) economy where everyone’s needs are met – and to achieve this quickly enough to avoid dangerous climate change. This has, as a central component, the delinking of successful cities, towns and rural settlements (and their inhabitants’ consumption patterns) from high greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, these are inter-connected, since reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally reduces the direct and indirect impacts of climate change.

In all there is access, either on the main page, linked above, or attached to the articles (including the first), to around sixty pieces, all connected by the interface of Urban society, climate change action and the notion of resilience.

There's way more than a couple of days reading here, but recent commentary at Stoat (look at the comments thread, in particular), suggests that, as a resource, this will be of interest and value to a number of us who attempt to deal with such issues on the internet and in our thinking.

Enjoy the free access and make the most of the opportunity. This whole package is strongly recommended, not least because it raises interesting points about some of the implicit assumptions and principles which are used.

The COP-out; what a catalyst you turned out to be...

What is to be learned from the fiasco that is currently COP19? 

First, it appears that there is a sea-change in the rhetoric of certain developed nations. Where previously there had been some attempt to avoid being seen as a moral pariah, the examples of Australia, Canada, hosts Poland and other participants, show that the fear of domestic political damage is overriding the fear of international shame in responses to both mitigation and adaptation needs. Some folks are just flat out saying that they ain't gonna do nuthin' for mitigation, on the contrary, intend to follow domestic policies which run counter not just to climate change M&A but also pretty much all concepts of Sustainable Development. 

Their response indicates that rather than address the hugely complex ethical and practical difficulties of coping with Sustainability on a global as well as domestic scale, these players prefer to deny any relationship to responsibility past present or future, and express the intent to go down the short-term self-interested path. As a former teacher, this is reminiscent of certain schools which proclaim that 'bullying is nonexistent'. There is no such thing as an adolescent society devoid of an internal power/influence structure; it just takes subtly different forms. But in all (secondary) schools there are those who dominate and those who are dominated. Likewise, it is fair to say that there is no society which will escape the negative consequences of AGW down-the-line, and these players, in denying the reality, are simply deferring the problem to a period beyond their tenure (or even lifetime).

Second, the divide between have and have-not seems to be crystallising. Not just the rhetoric, but also the desires and intentions of the G20 (for example), are in conflict with those of the G77. One one side, the demand is: "you caused this problem, you ought to help fix it," on the other: "it isn't OUR problem, why should we?" 

It's difficult to be sure how this divide will develop over time, but the choices seem to be starkly twofold: 
1: Either we move towards a global society which is increasingly polarised on the basis of wealth (capacity to adapt), increasingly inequitable and unjust, and increasingly violent (what happens at metropolitan level when you have a strongly financially divided society?), in which scenarios of multiple-million deaths and permanent local/regional instability become the accepted 'necessary cost' (Collateral damage, anyone?), or 
2: We continue to struggle towards a generally more equitable and just society, where the distribution of the means of survival are managed and shared, according to the need of the recipient and the ability of the provider (Charity, anyone?), ie, seeking the win-win solution. (Yes, it can be argued that Australia is playing a particular variant of the zero-sum game, the Prisoner's Dilemma, and is opting to 'win' at the cost of the other).

The third (and probably most divisive) lesson is that Climate negotiations are going down an inexorable path to a blame-culture. This can be nothing but bad news. It's as if the developing nations ('victims') have decided that, since the 'noisy neighbours' won't play ball, they are going to proceed to litigation and counter-attack to achieve their objectives, in response to which the neighbours send out the rottweilers. This is very much a no-win game.

On the brighter side, I have a suggestion as to How to ensure that funds exist for fixing what's been broke, protecting what's at risk, and preparing for the unexpected.

The parallel is not exact, but more than 300 years ago, the largest need for investment, and the largest return on investment, came through international trade, conducted over the high seas. In response to market demand, and from pre-existing processes, Lloyd's of London was formed, to provide investors with greater security, and sailors with funds needed to set sail. Why can't we construct a similar organisation for Global Environmental (incl. climate) Capital? Existing entities such as the World Bank and the IMF, funds such as CCC or the corporate sustainability foundation trusts, can band together, with or without individual governments, as 'names', providing the capital to allow for underwriting of risks, for investment in M&A strategies, and for providing succour to the victims of disaster. This way, more would share the burdens, autonomy could be preserved, and what was needed could be provided where and when the need arose.

It's a thought.

It's amazing what we have in common; wanna live like common people?

Over at the warren, Eli makes mention of Gardiner's 'Perfect Moral Storm', a characterisation of the ethical complexities associated with climate change. Gardiner compares the moral dilemmas associated with climate change and the issues of mitigation, adaptation, loss and damage, and intergenerational equity to the 'triple storm' which forms the centrepiece of the original story by Junger.

One of the matters which arises during Gardiner's discussion, and in Peter Singer's 'response' paper of the same year (2006), is that of the 'Tragedy of the Commons'. This is Hardin's highly influential analysis going back to 1968 of the difficulties of dealing with ecological and environmental problems, particularly (in his case) to do with overpopulation.

When you look at the dialogues and arguments surrounding COP19 (and all other climate policy debates), it is easy to see the influence of Hardin (and perhaps Gardiner), in the underlying principles which are being discussed - who should take responsibility, who should pay, who should benefit, etc. Gardiner provides the basis for a moral framework which supports the notion that developed nations need to support developing nations to avoid a future destruction of the 'commons' of the global ecosystem. Singer goes beyond this to argue that, regardless of the moral basis chosen, the result (about who should take responsibility) always goes back to the same source, not just for ethical reasons, but also for practical ones.

It had been a few years since I first flirted with this material, during my brief period as a postgrad in Environmental Ethics, so I duly refreshed. Following this up with some further reading, I came across the work of the remarkable Elinor 'Lin' Ostrom, with whom I had not previously been acquainted.

And so, by a roundabout course, I came across some weekend reading for Eli to enjoy, which I am sure he will, since the very first example cited in the book refers to the maintenance and management of levees in the USA. I'm also recommending it to Roger Sr, since it relates to his team's work on (local) resource vulnerability and climate, and to Roger Jr, since it relates to the fundamentals of 'right policy making', which I know he is enthusiastic about, and has quite a lot about sports.

So, here is the (open access) 'Sustaining the Commons' by Anderies and Janssen. Grown ups and interested parties can revert, of course, to the original material by Ostrom et al., but this is about four hour's worth of undergrad level light weekend reading, and therefore suitable for busy bunnies. Why bother? Well, an awful lot of what has been going the rounds recently, for example in my chosen rag the Guardian, has been very depressing. There are times when one gets close to the 'we're f***@d' position. Reading this both cheered me up and gave me some more thoughts to work on in my search for a redefinition of our generational social dilemma.

Please, read and enjoy.

More out than in - outside physics, is it possible?

Yesterday in the Guardian, Tim Smedley reports on the forthcoming forum on Natural Capital Accounting. Link to the article here. 

It's an interesting feature, not least for the comments which follow it, which are clearly considered and sophisticated (so far!). Included among which is the response from the group setting up a 'counter forum, in the same city, Edinburgh, at the same time; 'Nature is not for sale'.

Lord Aaron's comment in the feed at the bottom of the article brings up one of the more significant problems in the area of Natural Capital Accounting: that it is placing a financial price on Natural Capital (the article cites the groundbreaking work done by Puma since 2010), and thereby making Nature marketable (in other words, natural assets can be traded, and 'environmental offsets' can become tradeable capital resources. If this were the direction that NCA goes into, it's easy to see that the Environment is likely to lose out again to vested interested/creative accounting, where it substitutes for accountability.

But it seems also that NCA can have a role to play. As the article shows, it becomes possible to place a relative price and cost against a return from exploitation. This in turn allows us to see where resources are being exploited rather than used Resourcefully- in other words, more is lost in the transition from the prime resource to the tradeable commodity, or product, than is gained in the short term. You can see where this could be of benefit, not just to the Corporates who now appear to be recognising that unsustainable exploitation means precisely that they cannot sustain, even in the mid-term, the end product which is the basis of their capital wealth and added value. And losing their core supply, even shifting the balance of Demand/supply, will hurt their businesses moving forward.

For a long time now, Many Environmentalists have been deeply suspicious of moves to subsume the World's natural resources into a discussion of Economy, of 'putting a price on Nature'. What the argument has often boiled down to is that the Value of a Natural Resource lies in more than the dollar signs against it - the price. And this in turn is driven by a division in the ways in which people view Nature and the World: whether it is something for us humans to use (you could call this the 'Genesis' perception), or is something to which we belong and for which we, as the species which can damage it, or unbalance it, have a duty of care (the 'Stewardship perception).

All of which relates to the principle of Resourcefulness. In particular, it serves to demonstrate why Resourcefulness must be about more than resources. It is good that someone is working hard to challenge the implicit presumptions or potential hazards embedded within Natural Capital Accounting, but sadly, for the organisation involved, the brute reality is that, whilst it can be argued that Nature should not be for sale, in fact, as a basis of the means of production, it is.

There is a temporal perspective to be considered here in relation to these matters - for climate debaters, the principle of 'trash now, pay later' is one of the monsters being strongly fought, consistently. Scientists try to tell politicians and the public what they are letting themselves in for, and then get berated for 'alarmism', because narrow focussed eyes don't look far enough down the line to account for the consequences of choosing net present profit over projected loss.

There is also a philosophical/existential principle, but this is a little harder to summarise briefly, so will have to wait for another post. It is about what it means to be human, in the World, with Others, and also about the concept of 'home' and its significance to us.

A parting thought. A while back, someone might have realised that Dodo represented a potentially valuable commodity as a foodstuff, like turkeys, for example, but to make it so, the supply chain would have needed preserving. Hungry sailors didn't tend to think that way.

Being Resourceful; can we fix it?

Recently I suggested that the idea of Sustainability, or Sustainable Development, contains an underlying negativity which can contribute to a resistance to change.

Instead, I suggested that it might be useful to adopt an alternative term; Resourcefulness. Though in retrospect I am tending towards the idea that Resourcefulness might be a subset of Sustainability; we shall see.

So, what do I mean by Resourcefulness?

First, and perhaps finally, this is a state of mind – an attitude towards the World and its component parts which is both responsible and creative – a predisposition towards the things of the World and Society. Resourcefulness explicitly implies that a response to a problem, demand, crisis, need or situation involves the application of intelligence, imagination and creativity. It also contains the assumption that the attitude to the case in point is one of seeking the opportunity in the situation (if there is one), and making the most of it (and the resources involved).

In itself, this is nothing especially original. Business and enterprise are full of examples of exactly this kind of approach (though often driven by necessity rather than disposition). Some commercial services are particularly focussed on this kind of thinking; others, driven by more immediate pressures on performance, seem to avoid it. In this sense, it looks like there could be a relationship between Resourcefulness and the management of Risk which points us towards something useful at a more sophisticated level of development.

One would expect Resourcefulness to include, specifically, an attitude to Resources. Examples of this might be Resource efficiency (making more from less), Natural Resource Economics, or more closely observed, the Circular Economy concept (I profess to admiration of the work of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in this field). All of these, and other existing practises in Sustainability, such as Waste Management, can be included in the remit of the Resourceful Society, Business or Individual, but Resourcefulness should not be seen as being limited to an attitude to Resources alone.

This is because there are other kinds of Resources than simply the ‘stuff’ of the World. And there are approaches to all resource types which do not imply a relationship of use or exploitation; this is particularly important to understand, since Resourcefulness (the ‘creative’ predisposition) expects of us that we see the worth, or value of things and actions, not just in ‘net benefit’ or ‘utility’ terms, but also in terms of the ‘Goodness’ or ‘Rightness’ of these. This means that Resourcefulness goes beneath issues covered by Consequentialism, to the core Human Social values of Equity, Justice and (probably) Liberty.

This leads us to a fairly fundamental point of ‘Resourceful’ Action: it should be non-exploitative both in terms of resources, and also in terms of people. In other words, Resourceful Actions do not serve to take from one person or group in order to give to another. This runs counter to so much of modern Economic and Social theory that considerable effort must be spent to demonstrate that personal or commercial Wealth need not come at the cost of exploitation of Labour or Markets. For some, this will read as an impossibility, for others, akin to heresy (or Social Democracy), but it is the intention to undermine the model of ‘Competitive Advantage’ as best practice and seek, instead, a model of ‘Collaborative (Mutual) Advantage’.

One special strength of the concept of Resourcefulness is that it is Action-oriented, in other words, a Resourceful approach, instead of asking ‘what’s going wrong?’ or ‘who is to blame?’, asks ‘How do we make it better?’

It may seem to some experienced and knowledgeable observers that this appears to be a somewhat trivial and simplistic idea, but I believe that, in common with many important principles, Resourcefulness is both simple to grasp and put into action, but also deep and meaningful – the one does not exclude the other.

I’ll finish today with a reference to a childrens’ TV character. It is a statement of affirmation and intention, of predisposition to make things better:

“Can we fix it? YES WE CAN!”

Money talks, what is it saying?

Today's Guardian carries an interesting piece about the World Bank on moving forward on CC action. What is particularly interesting to me is that we are clearly thinking along similar lines, about communication, if nothing else. Here's what Rachel Kype says in the interview:

How important is getting the communications right?

We've started talking to behavioural psychologists and other disciplines about how to communicate so that you can convey urgency in a way that people can respond. There's a long history in the environment movement of fear-mongering and a) not providing alternatives or b) not having those fears realised. So we feel a responsibility to be able to communicate this in such a way that people can say: "OK, so what now?"

Extreme weather events is the place where the public and science and policy-makers seem to agree that they're prepared to accept the climate is having an impact. Obviously, that grabs people's attention and for a few weeks after superstorm Sandy you had everybody's attention, but then it starts to ebb away.

There is a particular problem in the US, which is the role of science in the society, which seems to be up for question, not just in the area of climate but elsewhere. Communicating science poses a set of challenges in the US that is not necessarily the case in other parts of the world.

Even more interesting is her take on the Language issue:

From your research, what have you learned about how to communicate more effectively?

The tendency with a lot of social movements is to talk to ourselves, so we develop language that we're comfortable with, that speaks to other environmentalists or other engineers but which means absolutely nothing to the lay public.

We're very reluctant or reticent to come up with language and idioms that will perhaps not express every little nuance in that one sentence, but which will actually resonate. We've known for a very long time that the phrase "sustainable development" is kind of clunky and we've never come up with anything better, and that's OK as long as we tell stories and build images and pictures about what we're really talking about.

There's lots of behavioural psychology that some of these words just land really cold: they don't mean anything and they don't speak to the emotional brain. What does "green" mean? It doesn't evoke very much.

Jim Kim feels very strongly that, if you're going to paint a picture of the future where it's sackcloth and ashes, don't be surprised if you don't have a long line of people following you. We have to paint a picture of opportunity.

It sounds to me like what they need is a little bit of Resourcefulness. 

The World Bank is a complex issue, but I know from personal experience that it has an important role to play in supporting Energy Development, security and poverty reduction in rising economies, so I'm happy to be counted as (at least in part) a fan, if not totally happy with everything it does.