by Judith Curry
Here are some reactions from the Lisbon Workshop on Reconciliation in the Climate Debate. These are my personal reflections, and include some of the perspectives and statements made by others (without any attribution of names). First, I would like to thank Jerome Ravetz and Angela Pereira for organizing this Workshop.
The first issue is what exactly is meant by reconciliation, and who actually wants it? Reconciliation is defined (wikipedia) as re-establishing normal relations between belligerents: re-establish dialogue, reinstate balance, restore civility. It is not clear that there has ever been normal relations between, say, the mainstream IPCC researchers and the skeptical climate blogosphere. Consensus building was not seen as having any part in a reconciliation. Rather there was a desire to conduct impassioned debates nonviolently, and to create an arena where we can fight a more honest fight over the science and the policy options.
So who actually wants some sort of reconciliation or an increase in civility? One perspective was that the alarmists shooting at the deniers, and deniers shooting at the alarmists, with a big group in the middle, with both the deniers and the alarmists ruining the situation for reasoned debate about the science and the policy options. Another perspective described the fight as entertaining theater. One perspective was that there is no incentive for conciliation by either side; both sides like the “war.” In the context of the “war,” the hope was expressed that more moderate voices would emerge in the public debate.
The issue of civility and nonviolence in communication was regarded as an important topic by the Workshop organizers. They brought in an expert to facilitate nonviolent communication. This frankly didn’t go over very well with the Workshop participants, for a variety of reasons. This particular group of participants wasn’t very volatile in terms of emotions running high, use of offensive language, or heated arguments. The main format of the Workshop was for groups of 7-8 to discuss various controversial topics. Each group had a different dynamic; the group I was in had some colorful personalities but not terribly impassioned positions on the alarmist-denier spectrum. One table did encompass the entire spectrum, but the dynamic of that group seemed collegial. So the issue of getting skeptics to sit down with alarmists (these were the two words that were generally used to describe the two poles of the debate) and talk politely and constructively didn’t turn out to be a problem. This is partly a function of the individuals invited, who for the most part weren’t too far out there on either extreme and expressed their willingness to communicate by actually agreeing to attend the Workshop.
While I have despaired of the personalization of the debate, I came to understand why this isn’t going to go away, and maybe why it is even important. Besides personalities and disputes providing theater and fodder for journalists, there are several reasons for continuing interest in personalities. Trust is a key element at the science-policy interface. Journalists struggle with which scientists they can trust, and the public voices in the debate are a big element in effectively communicating the science and building public trust. Trust of the scientists is especially important, given the role that expert judgment plays in the IPCC assessment. Finally, the reasoning of an individual can be an important element of the scientific argument, which in many ways gets diluted in the compilation of the evidence in the IPCC reports.
One of the frustrations from the “warm” side was the inability to identify the skeptics and some selected spokespersons for the skeptic side. One scientist wanted an elite group of skeptics with whom to negotiate and debate. The skeptics made the point that skepticism is rather amorphous and anarchistic by its very nature. One person may be skeptical about one point but not about others, and may change their mind over time. There is no organized “group” of skeptics, and skeptics are likely to disagree with each other on specific points and may be skeptical about completely different scientific issues. The skeptics that are actively doing research, analyzing data, etc. are for the most part not the same individuals who are engaged in violent language; rather, it is anonymous posters on blogs and individuals with political agendas that seem to engage in the inflammatory rhetoric. The labeling as “deniers” of individuals that are actively doing research, analyzing data, etc. is indefensible, no matter how incorrect their analysis is in fact or believed to be. Confusing the group of scientific skeptics with individuals that are against the policies associated with climate change, and using this as an excuse to ignore scientific skeptics, is to the detriment of actively challenging the science and making scientific progress.
The issue of labels (such as alarmists, skeptics, deniers) wasn’t regarded by this group as especially importance. The violence in language that was objected to by both sides was the use of words such as “dishonest,” “fraud” and also appeal to motive attacks (these words are used on both sides.)
No attempt was made to dig into the details of any of specific scientific disputes. Rather the discussion was centered on trying to understand how we can even catalogue or assess the competing knowledge claims. We need to find some way to organize out dialogue and debate; this debate mostly occurs in the wild west of the blogosophere. While the IPCC is supposed to do this, many felt that this was not close to adequately addressed by the IPCC. Apart from competing knowledge claims, there are areas of ignorance that are not explicitly recognized. Uncertainty and complexity were major themes. One participant stated that “We need to overcome the stupid idea that we can represent the complex world.” Numerous participants were concerned that lack of alternative lines of investigation are detrimental to getting real scientific answers, and that the IPCC was torquing the scientific funding from national agencies to focus on greenhouse warming at the expense of other areas of investigation (e.g. solar). One participant stated: “Climate change is the most interesting puzzle ever in terms of its complexity and social implications.”
The issue of communication and public understanding of science was discussed extensively. One scientist raised these central issues:
- How do we speak to the public?
- How do we listen to the public?
- How do we reflect on ourselves?
Climate scientists seem frustrated by an apparent inability to communicate effectively to the public. They seem to think that knowledge speaks to power: if we communicated better, people would do what is needed. After several years of favorable press, climate scientists seem surprised (and often dismayed) to see journalists now behaving as watchdogs. The two MSM journalists that participated in the workshop, Pearce and Traufetter, were both superb and very valuable participants in the Workshop.
There was also much discussion about the science-policy interface, focused on “truth to power” versus working deliberately with imperfections, and to avoid deciding in a rush, without wisdom.
Towards reconciliation
Some principles/strategies that were discussed to improving the scientific debate:
- Acknowledge that there are real issues and we don’t agree on how to resolve them
- Disagreement with mutual respect
- Find better ways to communicate criticism
- Find better ways to admit mistakes without damage to reputation
- Find some common ground, something to work on together
- Find where interests intersect
- Importance of transparency
- Communication engenders trust
- Search for win-win solutions (i.e. both sides work to increase the funding base to collect more paleoproxies).
Postnormal science. The organizers of the Workshops are proponents of postnormal science. There are many misinterpretations of PNS (many of which are evident on the previous Lisbon thread.) I won’t delve on the topic here, put pull a quote from Funtowicz and Ravetz that I found on van der Sluijs web site:
The Post-Normal Science approach needs not be interpreted as an attack on the accredited experts, but rather as assistance. The world of “normal science” in which they were trained has its place in any scientific study of the environment, but it needs to be supplemented by awareness of the “post-normal” nature of the problems we now confront. The management of complex natural systems as if they were simple scientific exercises has brought us to our present mixture of triumph and peril. We are now witnessing the emergence of a new approach to problem-solving strategies in which the role of science, still essential, is now appreciated in its full context of the uncertainties of natural systems and the relevance of human values.
The group. The group of invitees was indeed an eclectic one. For the most part it worked, but there are some other people (and types of people) that I would have definitely like to have seen attend. I didn’t get a chance to spend time with all of the participants. The people at my “table” for group discussions included (with some rotation) Fred Pearce, Gerald Traufetter, Jeroen van der Sluijs, Werner Krauss, Steve McIntyre, Peter Webster, Hans von Storch, Ines Crespo, Angela Pereira, Jerome Ravetz. Other people that I spent significant time with were Ross McKitrick, Tallbloke, Steve Mosher, Nick Stokes. I very much enjoyed my interactions with each of these people, most of whom I met for the first time at this meeting.
Public event. The public event on Friday afternoon was a highlight of the Workshop. The program is here. I will post my presentation on Monday; I believe it is the intention to post all of the presentations. While the presentations were good, I thought the panel discussion was superb; I hope that this has been somehow captured so that others can see this discussion. It was very gratified to come to another country and have people come up to me and tell me they were reading my blog.
What next? The Workshop organizers are preparing a summary. I am not sure whether the Workshop met their original expectations for this experimental meeting. The possibility of a joint statement emerging from the group was discussed, but I (among others) objected. I suspect that there will be some follow on activities. IMO the main value of the Workshop was getting this group of people together with diverse perspectives and backgrounds to discuss this issue. It has undoubtedly broadened the perspectives of all the participants on this topic. Each of the participants will presumably ponder the issues raised and the ideas generated here and the personal connections made will hopefully contribute to improving the situation. I hope that other Workshop participants will share there thoughts here.
Lisbon. This was my first trip to Lisbon, it is a beautiful city. I had limited amount of time to visit areas of the old part of the city (including the castle and cathedrals). The people that I encountered were all very friendly. My only gripe was the food; I found the ubiquitous salt cod to be dreadful and fresh vegetables were sparse. The wine was very good, both the green wine (young white) and red wines; even the inexpensive plonk was quite drinkable. I was very impressed to hear that Portugal now gets 53% of its power from wind and hydro, which has substantially shifted in 5 years time.