Dr. Judith Curry writes over at Climate Etc about the upcoming Lisbon conference on
“Workshop on Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate.”
I thought it would be good to touch on this. I was originally scheduled to attend, having been invited early on. I truly would like to be there to represent the readers of WUWT, but unfortunately, my reality is much like that of Jeff Id’s at the Air Vent. I’m a small businessman with a young family, and I simply can’t take a week long leave right now. The economy is hitting us hard.
Dr. Curry writes:
This week, I will be in Lisbon attending a Workshop on Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate. The Workshop was conceptualized by Jerome Ravetz,Silvio Funtowicz, James Risbey, and Jeroen van der Sluijs.
While I (relatively) rarely travel overseas for meetings, I jumped at this invitation. The topic is certainly intriguing and an issue that I have spent a great deal of time pondering over the last year. Further, I really want to meet Ravetz, Funtowicz, Risbey, and van der Sluijs, whose papers I have been avidly reading over the past year, including citing them on a number of Climate Etc threads:
- Climate Science and the Uncertainty Monster
- No Consensus on Consensus
- Decision Making Under Climate Uncertainty. Part I
- Overconfidence in IPCC Detection and Attribution. Part III
- Extended Peer Community
- Waving the Italian Flag. Part I: Uncertainty and Pedigree
- Politics of Climate Expertise: Part II
What has impressed me about their writings is that they recognize that climate change is not only a scientific subject, but also a political, economical, and ethical subject.
She adds:
I am hoping that there is some sort of path for reconciliation in this debate for the benefit of both scientific progress and social consideration of the issues surrounding climate variability and change. I don’t know what this should look like, other than:
- transparency and traceability in the science
- loyalty to truth and the scientific method
- understanding and acknowledgement of uncertainty and the possibility of error
- win-win situations such as no regrets policy.
I know what it DOESN’T look like, and that is reflected by Kevin Trenberth’s essay, where the blame is put on the deniers, the media, etc. (everybody but the IPCC scientists and their supporters). The domination approach only “works” if you can actually pull it off; climate scientists are babes in the woods when it comes to this kind of politics. A partnership approach makes much more sense and might actually produce a good outcome.
The people that really need to be there are from NOAA and NASA. Perhaps they will attend next year if the conference makes some progress that gets noticed this year.
While I regret that I am not going, on the plus side, I have delegated Steven Mosher to go in my place, and he’s all set. I look forward to his reports here.
You can read about the conference here in this summary that was sent to all participants:
reconciliation-rationale-WS2011 (PDF 57k)
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Don’t spare the graphite on the axles.
==============
Oh dear, I cannot believe you would consider attending Anthony, as the blurb, the pre-text, of this workshop is not only insulting to your postion but it also serves to promote the further corruption of science (and science method) by political modes.
Consider:
This tells me that the premise of this debate is exclusive of those who are normally regarded as sceptics. So what conflict are they looking at resolving?
The blurb also points to one of the standard contradictions of the Post-Normal Science position of the organisers. Namely, that, in the very suggestion of the possibility of something happening, under condition of uncertainty, we have implied an urgency for action. It includes the usually missleading discussion of the problem of ‘uncertainty’ (medieval astrological predictions were also uncertain) the best panacea — for the alarm so generated is Lomborg’s Sceptical Environmentalist.
The last paragraph is the most telling. It starts:
Debate on the scientific question is premature…? I thought the resolution of the science was urgent? Post-normal science (PNS) does not make sense until you realise that its proponents want to eschew the science for a debate about the politics of implementing policy determined by their position.
The way it does this is to say that the science is actually entirely of the political form, and then to silence any debate on normal scientific grounds (eg, evidence-based).
So, in this blurb we have firstly one side of the debate excluded — those sceptical about the science of AGW — and then the debate over the science is postphone for a discussion of the politics. What is actually urgent? It is suggested that it is the political success of one side of the debate (in the absence of the science) that is the thing that is urgent. (Mike Hulme’s Why we disagree about climate change makes the same move.)
This blurb fits with what ‘Scientist for Truth’ and myself have explained on this site and elsewhere, namely that Post-Normal Science serves to subvert scientific debate over climate change by an abuse of social science methodology.
So what is Science for these folks? Here is a hint:
The meaning of the term science is quite simple. It comes from the Latin ‘scientia’, meaning ‘knowledge’. Now, there are various ways of obtaining knowledge. These days ‘science’ usually referes to ‘modern science’ and more specifically ‘modern natural science’ (as per the Royal Society 350 years ago etc) and its conventions of methodolgy. ‘Theoretical,’ ’empirical’ etc are qualifiers that suggest certain specific methods for obtaining and varifying knowledge. In all this there is no presupposition of ‘public’ and ‘consensus ‘ whatsoever. Where does this come from. Remember that this blurb is written by those describing themselves as philosophers of science!
My view is that Post Normal Science does not help our cause, and that we should not be promoting any of its initiatives unless they can be shown to be promoting science rather than subverting it.
I thought “Extended Beer Community” was part of the programme,then I looked again………. Must get my glasses checked.
“”””” Ron Cram says:
January 25, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Anthony,
I’m sorry you are not able to attend. I think the conference is a great idea. Hopefully it will add some civility to the debate. But the debate should go on. I would be very unhappy if this turned out to be some kind of forced consensus.
As I posted on Judith Curry’s blog, the best way to go forward is to pressure the IPCC to publish two reports, a Majority Report and a Minority Report. It is the only way I know of to air all of the scientific evidence, otherwise someone is going to be complaining their perspective was not considered. “””””
Well first off you could try getting the National Academy of Sciences to routinely issue Minority Reports, like every time they issue a Majority Report; which currently I believe is all that they issue.
When you have an organisation that self selects its membership; as in there are no standard credentials one must achieve to become a member; well other than to become buddies with some folks who are already members; then you have the necesary organisation for misdeeds.
They exist purportedly to advise the Congress, and the President as to prudent Science policies. I’m all for that; greatly in favor of that. Much prefer that they give the gummint all the relevent information they have; pro or con.
As for their membership. They are high on my list of organisations I would not become a member of; or most other organisations who would have me as a member.
It would be nice if IPCC had a Minority Report; that way the AGW addicts, would always be able to count on getting their voices heard.
Mr. Watts you should re-evaluate your example of Northern Ireland. The reconciliation didn’t happen. But was spun as such for the naive.
Also the conference was not “conceptualized” but “conceived”.
Mr. Watts are you sure that all there is is angry rhetoric? Why don’t you just all sing Kumbaya and hold hands.
DirkH says:
January 25, 2011 at 12:48 pm
How can a compromise with somebody who wants EVERYTHING be possible?
Oh, and they should define clear criteria for falsifiability in their “theory”.
Ah well, it won’t happen, it will stay political post-normal agitation…
————————————————————————
I agree with DirkH here. It is wishful thinking to enter discussions about compromise. What compromise? With whom? On what matter?
But already this whole thing has gone too far into the political, infrastructural and economical arenas where the real damage has been done already and can only get worse. The whole thing has got far too much momentum to stop and it’s well and truly out of the ‘scientists’ hands. The Europeans are building windmills that are totally uneconomic. To get to the stage that the energy to sustain a nation is dependant upon a solution only dreamed in a Don Quixote nightmare would be laughable if it wasn’t so tragic. The outcome in only a short time for the UK is a diminished supply at a cost that is unaffordable for the population.
In New Zealand (where I live) I saw windmills marching across (and defiling) the Lammermoor Range west of Dunedin only yesterday. New Zealand depends upon its landscape as a basis for its tourist industry which is its largest single foreign exchange earner. So we defile our landscape, mothball our coal burning power stations and export our coal to India. Seems like a ‘no brainer’ to me. Who are you to reason with?
Douglas
JC says “there is a problem to be solved”. True, only it has nothing to do with climate.
Warmism is the problem. Truth is the solution, and right now, truth is winning.
While I applaud Dr. Curry’s efforts to get a civilised conversation going, I fear that it is doomed to failure for the reasons outlined by Doug – the whole thing is, as he put it : “Well and truly out of the scientists hands.”
If you go back and re-read the IPCC reports from 1992-3, or any literature on climate change from that time, the language is very cautious, and great care is taken to emphasise the large range of uncertainties, due to the lack of understanding of the natural processes which drive the climate cycles alongside any effect that anthropogenic CO2 may have.
Somewhere in the last 20 years, all these doubts and uncertainties have been swept aside, while the advances in understanding required to justify that have been conspicuous by their absence.
This kind of puts the pro-AGW climate scientists in an invidious position. Do they row back on their position, and tell politicians they are actually far less certain about AGW than they’ve been making out for the last 15-20 years, or do they “keep the faith” hoping against hope that future events will prove them correct?
I think we all know the answer to that one………..
Various references to Northern Ireland reconciliation have been made. If the proposed reconciliation is between ‘warmists’ and ‘skeptics’ – or at least between those who hold opposing ideological positions – a process of political reconciliation makes sense. But a ‘reconciliation’ between ‘truth’ and ‘politics’ is without merit. Truth, or at least the pursuit of it, is not an ideological doctrine. Rather, it is a process whereby all ideological doctrines come under the searing gaze of critical reason and are, progressively, undermined. It acknowledges no final resting place, no firm ground upon which to stand. At heart, it is a corrosive activity. But one that allows people to free themselves from the shackles of dogma should they choose to apply it. Politics, on the other hand, is much more focussed on generating collective endeavour by building upon a set of agreed, and fixed, founding ‘truths’. A marriage of politics and science, the latter being a truth-seeking endeavour, does not bode well for one or the other and, if history is a guide, where attempts have made to graft politics onto science, it is science that tends to suffer, far more so than politics. In this respect, Post-Normal Science is not likely to fare any better.
Uh, sorry. Either you’ve been fatally brainwashed, or your bias is showing, or you have no idea of the magnitudes and quantities involved.
That’s a range of 0.1 to 0.2°C/decade, not 1.0 to 2.0°C>. So if the rate is 1.5°C/decade that’s over 7X the upper limit. No waiting necessary!
LOL
😀
Anthony,
It will be an extremely difficult task to change the minds of politicians that have been hammered for years with propaganda.
Here is what I get trying to bring science forward on AGW theory being incorrect.
____________________________________________________________
Dear Joe Lalonde:
On behalf of Michael Ignatieff, I would like to thank you for your email regarding your concerns about our environment. As you may be aware, Mr. Ignatieff has presented the Liberal plan for the environment, climate change and clean energy jobs.
Under this plan, a Liberal government would restore Canada’s climate change leadership with a firm commitment to keep global warming within two degrees Celsius and create the clean jobs of tomorrow through a historic investment in clean energy and energy efficiency.
A Liberal government would create a binding and verifiable cap-and-trade system – with hard caps leading to absolute reductions – that is fair to all regions and industries, and compatible with other systems for international carbon trading.
At the heart of everything affecting climate change is the question of energy: the energy we produce, the energy we save, and the energy we’ll need. That’s why a Liberal government would set an ambitious target of quadrupling Canada’s production of renewable energy by Canada’s 150th birthday in 2017, and promote energy efficiency through new transit systems, high-speed rail, and ”smart” electrical grids.
Mr. Ignatieff has also proposed a single Clean Energy Act that would adopt the toughest vehicle emissions standards in North America and has outlined strategies to protect our air, water, forests and Arctic.
We need a Government that looks forward, not backwards. It’s time to set ourselves a new national project – one that brings together our economy, our environment and our best ideas to create the jobs and prosperity tomorrow.
You may find a copy of the highlights of our plan here: http://www.liberal.ca/files/2010/07/261109highlights_e.pdf.
Yours sincerely,
The Office of Michael Ignatieff
Leader of the Opposition
—
Le cabinet de Michael Ignatieff
Chef de l’Opposition
I’d like to say my invitation was deleted, but maybe they just couldn’t reach me by email.
=================
Excuse me, but my BS detector is sounding the alarm.
We believe that the possibility of harmful climate change is real, and that the
resolution of the science (even recognition of its inherent uncertainties) is urgent.
I don’t believe what they believe. Warmer is better. No urgency felt here. That’s perhaps why I wasn’t invited. One of the reasons anyway. Not in that movie.
There is already a precedent: Judith Curry and her colleagues agreed to debate in a nonviolent way…
Who is engaged in violent debate on global warming? One side refuses to debate at all, and the other side engages in blogging. The only violence I know of, associated with the Global Warming Hoax, is Hansen’s psycho calls for “civil disobedience”. That and outrageous Enron-type money pits and usurious taxes, if you want to call those violent.
…it could serve as model for the adoption of the nonviolent approach to conflict resolution in similar disputes in science…
As opposed to what? Knife fights in the laboratory? Nobel Laureate cage match duels to the death? Since when have scientific disputes been violent?
Just another excuse for public employees to go on vacation junkets on the taxpayers dime. I don’t blame Portugal for dreaming up this conference. They are in a world of hurt financially, teetering on the edge. But the premises are faulty. In more ways than one.
I don’t understand, I’m so confused. Aren’t we supposed to be big-oil-funded deniers with lots of cash to spew our invective hatred of science? Why can’t we afford jaunts to exotic locales to spew our patented nonsense? What happened to us? Did we spend all of our lobbyist loot on hordes of previously unemployed and now on-the-take internet message board posters intent on seeding counter-consensus thought into a free society? Did we not properly save our dirty oil money for the inevitable special occasions where the “good guys” invite us to present our evil thoughts?
I’m just so confused, I thought I was on the well-funded evil side….
AGW theory will not be proved if the temperature rises. Approximately 25,000 years ago Earth was experiencing a glacial event, then some 17,000 years ago (plus or minus) that event ended. Earth warmed. Ice melted. Seas rose. How does one use that information to prove AGW?
berniel;
Good catch. Jigger the terms of reference, and make sure the Fix is In.
I’ve direct linked to your comment in several places.
I’m with Piers Corbyn on this in that we don’t need pseudo reconciliation, we need more polarization.
However I will accept one compromise position, that is..
* All laws, rules regulations, taxation, trading schemes etc are VOLUNTARY.
* Anyone concerned about AGW can pay-up to their hearts content.
* Any company, corporation, business small and large who add AGW costs to their prices must make these charges VOLUNTARY. You believe? You pay.
* All politicians, public servants of all levels get the ‘ell out of my face and my pocket regards Climate Change (gawd I despise that term)
If the majority of people believe in AGW (as we are told they do) then there will be no problem raising the funds to buy the global temperature down by 2DegC. Enjoy your purchase.
There, I’ve reconciled, everybody is happy.
Take “no regrets” out of policy decisions. It’s too expensive. I’m sorry, but some things just can’t be bought because no one can afford it. Hell, I would look fabulous in a mink coat (sheared close, deep delicious chocolate brown, and below the knee, just in case) but my old wool coat will have to do. “No regrets” policy decisions are mink coats. In this economy, we need to be tightening our belts and getting back to work. Can’t see us doing that if we are trying to decide how to buy mink coats.
Kev-in-Uk says: January 25, 2011 at 2:12 pm
… but how the feck do you or I know what they did with the data to get their ‘conclusions’ !
By reading… By downloading GCMs and running them… The endless cycle of accusation about secret data and secret code wears then when the link provided details an enormous amount of freely available data (raw and processed) and code (GCMs and paleoclimate reconstructions).
Specifically, the link http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/data-sources/ provides:
•Climate data (raw)
•Climate data (processed)
•Paleo-data
•Paleo Reconstructions (including code)
•Large-scale model (Reanalysis) output
•Large-scale model (GCM) output
•Model codes (GCMs)
•Model codes (other)
•Data Visualisation and Analysis
•Master Repositories of climate and other Earth Science data
” What has impressed me about their writings is that they recognize that climate change is not only a scientific subject, but also a political, economical, and ethical subject. ”
With all the education these people have had, I’m perplexed that she’s impressed with that? Really?
Call me picky but it’s the “reconciliation” title that sets the tone that I also find disingenuous; because to have a reconciliation then that means that they started from a common ground or the same ‘true’ place and I just don’t see it that way.
Science is science.
These *scientists* that went to ‘work’ for global warming wound up being politicians without elections, receiving more money, benefits of untold limits, instant international prestige and the best…power for as long as they keep saying what the bosses are paying them to say.
Taxpayers not only get another tab to pay from the greenies *science* but as others above point out, makes the poli-sci’s only look better on real scientists reputations; They’ll have some street cred then when the babble on about what a great endeavor they’ve undertaken with the great consensus they’ve reached with denialist, er skeptics.
Doesn’t pass the smell test to me. Liars lie.
Lisbon indeed.
I will have a bit more confidence in the sincerity of the climate science community when they book their next meeting at the Best Western in Cleveland in February.
I fail to see the need for this conference. Why do the AGCC proponents need a compromise?
The list of attendees is on “Tallbloke’s Talkshop” site as he is there now. pg
Seeing as PNS Ravetz is involved I would not hold out any hope for this jolly meeting.
Reconciliation? With Hansen…Mann? Tell them to get on their knees to S.M. etc and grovel! How can you reconcile religious belief?
1. It is a warmist conference to promote AGW and any programme items on reconciliation with sceptics is part of the PR to make them look like reasonable people and good guys. Just as James Delingpole realised too late recently by his deliberate humiliation by Paul Nurse on BBC, any reaching out by the AGW community to any skeptic is a ploy to get the skeptic in a position to humiliate him/her. You have been accidentally saved from this Anthony by your situation. Do you really think that they are feeling nice to you when your blog is showing them up for the nasties they are?
2. You cannot reconcile religious beliefs. AGW is a nasty religious belief which has to be defeated completely. It is costing people money and their lives.
3. Sorry to those fans of hers here, but Judith Curry gives herself away by using the term “ethics”. This is code word by leftists/socialists used for putting pressure on anyone who argues with them. Another much used work is “morality”. I am inclined to think that Judith is part of the problem, being an AGW scientist, not the solution. Nice people can support programmes that are tremendously harmful.
4. Ireland is a red herring and a distraction and totally uncomparable with the corrupt science of AGW. Compares with all the mentioning of cigarette smoking and sceptics.
Lucy Skywalker says: (January 25, 2011 at 12:40 pm)
…and miracles happen, as in scientifically verifiable.
Huh…?