Politicization of Climate Sciences

In the wake of Climategate, climate researcher Mike Hulme has articulated the ideal role of science in public discourse. Basically, he declares that scientific debates should be kept separate from ethical debates (leaving aside bias inherent in hypothesis generation and choice of research directions), while still informing our actions. This is a nice ideal, but ignores the fact that people will enter scientific debates with ulterior motives and it can be hard for the layman to distinguish between the sincere scientist and these charlatans.

In contrast to Mike Hulme's call for the separation of science and politics, we have his colleague James Hansen (head of NASA's Goddard) who is quite happy to transform his scientific prestige into a platform for political moralizing. In reviewing Hansen's new book for DailyKos, DarkSyde introduces him in this manner:

To be a top climate scientist today means being up to speed in graduate level physics, advanced mathematics, planetary astronomy, meteorology, paleontology, oceanography, bio and geo-chemistry, dealing with programmers and constantly shifting computer architectures, and now on top of everything else, you have to be a tireless political activist and media celebrity.(emphasis mine)

No, you don't have to be a political activist...at least not in Hulme's model of science and politics. The scientific method strives for consensus, while the political method strives for domination; If Hansen and DarkSyde want to make politicians out of scientists, then they should expect politicized resistance and deal with it as a political dispute.

When Hansen compares carbon emission credits to the Indulgences that sparked the reformation, he just sounds like a moralizing fool (even to someone like me who agrees with his preference for a carbon tax, in this case).

There is no necessary connection between doing research and political advocacy. A scientist does have a responsibility to communicate his findings to the public, and when his findings have urgent implications, there is not time to allow the knowledge to percolate through the formal education system (i.e. inform other researchers, who inform their students at university, who become teachers in the primary and secondary schools). So there is an imperative for some member of the field to directly communicate the field's findings to the general public, which probably means being "a media celebrity". However, this is an issue for all academic disciplines, and it is not a requirement for everyone in the field--certain individuals naturally distinguish themselves within the field as communicators and politicians (often taking jobs such as heading major research institutions), and these individuals are the natural public spokespersons of the field.

But what if the research findings have implications for economic policy? If the spokesperson ignored those implications, they would be neglectful in their communication to the public, but taking a position politicizes the field of study. Following Hulme's model, I suggest that that the scientist make a point of contacting political activists, informing them of the situation, and allowing them to advocate for policy changes. This may even include sitting down with them for a public Q&A, where the scientist acts as a resource on which they draw as they suggest policy responses. This could be either a live discussion, or a book where the first chapter describes the scientific situation and the subsequent chapters are written by activists/politicians who explore the implications.

I'm not saying that scientists should avoid politics all together, just that they shouldn't use their prestige as a practicing scientist to gain exceptional authority in their political advocacy (at least until they have retired).

To be a top climate scientist today means being up to speed in graduate level physics, advanced mathematics, planetary astronomy, meteorology, paleontology, oceanography, bio and geo-chemistry, dealing with programmers and constantly shifting computer architectures

Those academic fields do encompass the scope of "climate science," but I seriously doubt any one man can simultaneously be an expert in all of them, and, of course, have time to a media celebrity to boot. Of course, Hansen is also quite fond of dispensing expert economic advice, so apparently chalk up another discipline to his alleged impressive portfolio of expertise.

Hansen is a primary culprit in promoting the cataclysmic tipping point at time T meme and has frequently injected himself into the political/media arena with some bizarre statements. Contrary to the Hansen acolytes at DKos, I think Hansen has hurt "the cause" because his extreme pronouncements are the standard you have to apparently agree to or otherwise face being labeled a "denier." Hansen's primary field of expertise is atmospheric physics and one of the complaints against climate science modeling is that it really can't accurately model the incredibly complex system encompassed by the academic fields above and it relies too heavily on boundary condition fluid dynamics modeling, which Hansen is indeed an expert in.

My knowledge of climate science is pretty scant, more or less limited to the basic paradigm. Although humans only account for a small percentage of total emissions, estimated to be anywhere from 3-6% of the total, there is much scientific evidence that human actions, through burning fossil fuels and deforestation, do upset the carbon cycle, which roughly functions so that there is no net accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere. However, the disruption of the carbon cycle by itself is really not the culprit; it would actually just result in minor warming, which would actually be beneficial to most life. The problem is the nonlinear coupling of net increases in carbon in the atmosphere with such things as water vapor, which creates the so-called nonlinear "positive feedbacks." However, these "positive feedbacks" can also trigger "negative feedbacks." For example,increased humidity would enhance plant growth which would create an enhanced photosynthetic effect, which would serve as significant carbon sink. Now there is no way to mathematically model the evolutionary dynamics of such system(at least no yet), that is, predicting positive and negative feedbacks as emergent properties; these are really the essential properties of the system that need to be known when talking about "climate change." Instead, they are treated as boundary conditions in fluid dynamical models; that is, rather than being emergent properties of a real world complex system, they are boundary constraints(that is, they "constrain" or limit the possible future evolutionary paths of the dynamical system) of an abstract, simplified physics model. The feasibility of a given model is determined by plugging in current observables as the boundary conditions for that model in a best fit graphing of past climate evolution/changes.

I believe that my outline of the basic paradigm is fairly accurate; other than that, i don't pretend to have any specialized knowledge of the many academic fields involved in climate science, apart from an undergraduate background in physics and math. So i do have a little background in non-linear dynamical systems, and it is a leap to assume today's emergent property observables of such a dynamical are tomorrow's boundary constraints. Frankly, earth (paleo)climate is a chaotic system likely governed by strange attractor that probably is immune from anthropogenic influence, in the end, absent a highly sophisticated technology that goes way beyond anthropogenic CO2 emissions(as a crude form of "engineering").

So from my (admittedly limited) perspective, Hulme's treatment of the role of science, particularly with respect to climate science, is rational. Hansen's is not...appeals to granchildren don't cut it for me. And it should be noted that China just recently called on the world to follow it's population control model,justifying it in terms of climate change, so Hansen can perhaps change the title of his book to "Storms of my one grandchild." Well, he doesn't like that political solution; well, it's sort of the point, when you use science as a cover for political value judgments.

From an economic standpoint, pricing the externality of carbon is problematic, because in all likelihood, anthropogenic CO2 will likely only result in winners and losers, that is, formerly highly valued habitable areas(along coast lines, primarily) becoming less inhabitable and formerly inhospitable areas becoming more inhabitable and hospitable. In this sense, pricing the "externality" of carbon doesn't make much sense, because for some it's a positive externality, and for some it's a negative externality. Relying on fear-mongering to make a catastrophic case for the negative externality of carbon reflects more of a moral value judgment than a scientific conclusion. Why am I not surprised that Hansen is an advocate of a centrally planned energy policy.

Frankly, as we have discussed previously, the more likely relevant topic going forward will be the more sophisticated engineering capability to directly alter (local) climates than the crude, indirect engineering of anthropogenic CO2. These disputes are not going to be resolved by the political/moral values of Hansen, or by appealing to his superior, messianic genius.

...it would actually just result in minor warming, which would actually be beneficial to most life. The problem is the nonlinear coupling of net increases in carbon in the atmosphere with such things as water vapor, which creates the so-called nonlinear "positive feedbacks."

If I'm understanding this data on Radiative Forcing, CO2 itself is estimated to be responsible for a 1 degree C increase in 2005 over temperatures in 1750.

I don't know if you consider a few degrees C to be a problem. If this were a uniform global increase, it probably would not be a problem in temperate zones (putting aside issues such as glacial melt and ocean acidification), but it could be a problem in the tropics.

The really nasty predictions arise from feedback loops--both on the global and local scale. While I won't make a wager about whether the global feedback will be positive or negative, I think we can be confident that there will be some sort of local feedback, meaning that some places will hardly be affected and others will be affected strongly.

From an economic standpoint, pricing the externality of carbon is problematic, because in all likelihood, anthropogenic CO2 will likely only result in winners and losers

That may be true if you are using universalist utilitarian theory of justice, but I think an individualist view wound have to treat such behavior as a form of theft. It is unjust to physically interfere with another person's property and lifestyle. In that case, the proper price for emissions is whatever we need to pay compensation to those harmed by the pollution.

Without some sort of compensation, ongoing emissions amount to a continuation of the domination and despoliation of some nations by others. Maybe we can get away with it, but if we don't get serious about this and terrorists from The Maldives attack an oil rig (or even an urban center of the USA), I won't bother to feign outrage.

The concept of externalities essentially is a utilitarian concept; a problem for relying on utilitarian means to enforce libertarian justice is in the case where the marginal social cost curve would not necessarily diverge all that much from the marginal private cost curve in terms of price-output of (fossil fuel) anthropogenic CO2 emissions; in such case, there is no real externality to price. Without an externality to price, then a global agreement on anthropogenic CO2 emissions is problematic. That was my point.

In libertarian justice, you have either rely on self-defense, in this case, say, reverse geo-engineering, or restitution. If there is no global externality to price, then it's problematic to think how restitution can be funded from such. Restitution, in such a case, should actually come from those who are enjoying improvement of climate as a "public good." If a global carbon tax scheme were so out of whack with the actual divergence of marginal social costs from marginal private costs, then you would have breakdowns and defections. This would make it much more difficult to evolve formal institutions for restitution, likely based on some form of coasian bargaining. So a bad, unenforceable collective action would likely to result in participants on their own resorting to reverse geo-engineering in the future as the only course of action.

I would say that there are multiple concepts with differing origins converging on the topic of externalities. For example, a libertarian approach to politics and class theory could see the overall cost to society of a certain regulation, or the overall cost to the taxpayer of a subsidy, that is not fully internalized by the organization or individual benefiting from the government's policies. So we have a transportation system that may or may not fully reflect the true price of differing modes of transportation.

The difference is over government created externalities and government "allowed" externalities. Which also relates to ideas of the commons. Is overgrazing of the commons create an externality created by government or "allowed" by government. I suppose it depends on your theory of justice and property rights.