Comments on: If Wishes Were Horses…

By: Eric Fairfield

Eric Fairfield — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:55:15 +0000

It seems as if this topic deserves much more discussion among us than fits into blog comments. How might that discussion take place?

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:47:51 +0000

Thinking more about this, it seems that a necessary implication of Sarewitz’s views (albeit not one he would agree with) is that emphasizing the worst-case scenarios supported by the science will tend to tilt the adopted compromises farther toward solutions consistent with the science. It can only help if people understand (or are told, at least) how bad it could get. For the most part hardly anyone has much of an idea about that, a point nicely illustrated by Michael’s conceptual graph.

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:18:23 +0000

jf: “(T)he solution is to craft policy solutions that more effectively straddle the value spectrum, avoiding scientization.”

What this amounts to is an argument for politicization. That’s fine in the abstract, and of course political compromises can be very satisfying, but the problem is that we are then relying on politics to generate a solution to a problem that has been defined by science. That may work in situations where incremental progress is sufficient, but such is not the case with climate change.

Of course Eric is right about the discounting, and that’s why a lot of people think society won’t be willing to take the needed steps until the climate beast bites our collective butt in a way that’s impossible to ignore. In the meantime, we continue to struggle for the incremental progress we can get and hope that things don’t get too bad in the future.

BTW, people who are happy to discount the science 100% also won’t support energy r+d or adaptation on anything like the needed scale.

By: jfleck

jfleck — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:03:52 +0000

If you are right, that this is not an “insurmountable part of the human condition”, then go for it. Figure out how to fix the problem. Because I see it as insurmountable, I cannot see how to do it.

If Sarewitz and I are right, that this is intrinsic to our political system, then the solution is to craft policy solutions that more effectively straddle the value spectrum, avoiding scientization.

But it strikes me that the latter solution is robust to the uncertainty at the core of our disagreement, and thus offers a useful path forward.

So for me, I’m spending more time thinking about energy policy and water policy (mitigation and adaptation) and less time thinking about climate science.

By: Eric Fairfield

Eric Fairfield — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:52:00 +0000

John,
Thanks for doing this writing. I agree entirely. Zetland and I have been having a long discussion on the underlying forces that drive the observed behaviors.
I also put a comment on Revkin’s DotEarth blog under the climate change posting along the lines that you suggest.
My very short conclusion is that the cost of disagreeing with the established science is low enough that people are safe in disagreeing with it. Stated in Zetland terms, the discount rate on unappealing science is 100%.

By: Michael Tobis

Michael Tobis — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 05:22:16 +0000

I don’t object to your observations. (It would be ironic if I did.)

I just object to taking a description of a particular culture at a particular time as a universal and insurmountable part of the human condition.

So to me the question is, how do we fix it? I think we have to fix it first, or we won’t be able to fix anything else.

I realize it’s a tall order, but here we are.