Download Climate Change and Science Studies: An uneasy relationship

Climate Change and Science Studies: An
uneasy relationship
Reiner Grundmann, Aston
University
Nico Stehr, Zeppelin
University
Paper presented at the workshop
Science Studies Meet Climate Change: A Rendezvous with
Consequences?
Copenhagen University, 23-24 April 2009
Five theses
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Sociology and nature: long term neglect, now alarmed discovery
Climate change as top global policy issue: Social sciences cannot
ignore it.
Science studies in the past well placed but seem uneasy in the
face of the politicisation of the climate change debate.
The social sciences do not always make genuine contributions to
climate change debates.
Sociology and science studies: the role of constructivism.
ISI database (SSCI) 1992-2009 ‘global warming’
OR ‘climate change’ in topic (articles, all languages)
Sorted by authors
Articles in two main STS professional Journals, using “Climate
change” or “Global warming” in abstract
Shackley, Simon,
Wynne, Brian
Boehmer-Christiansen,
Sonja
van der Sluijs, Jeroen,
van Eijndhoven, Josee,
Shackley, Simon,
Wynne, Brian
Miller, Clark
Lahsen, Myanna
Jamieson, Dale
Sundberg, Mikaela
Grundmann, Reiner
Yearley, Steven
Kwa, Chunglin
Representing Uncertainty in Global Climate Change
Science and Policy: Boundary-Ordering Devices and
Authority
Science, Equity, and the War against Carbon
Anchoring Devices in Science for Policy: The Case of
Consensus around Climate Sensitivity
Hybrid Management: Boundary Organizations, Science
Policy, and Environmental Governance in the Climate
Regime
Technocracy, Democracy, and U.S. Climate Politics:
The Need for Demarcations
Ethics, Public Policy, and Global Warming
Parameterizations as Boundary Objects on the Climate
Arena
Ozone and Climate: Scientific Consensus and
Leadership
Computer Models and the Public's Understanding of
Science: A Case-Study Analysis
Local Ecologies and Global Science: Discourses and
Strategies of the International Geosphere-Biosphere
Programme
Science Technology Human Values, Jul 1996;
vol. 21: pp. 275-302
Science Technology Human Values, Jan 2003;
vol. 28: pp. 69-92
Social Studies of Science, Apr 1998; vol. 28:
pp. 291-323
Science Technology Human Values, Oct 2001;
vol. 26: pp. 478-500
Science Technology Human Values, Jan 2005;
vol. 30: pp. 137-169
Science Technology Human Values, Apr 1992;
vol. 17: pp. 139-153
Social Studies of Science, Jun 2007; vol. 37:
pp. 473-488
Science Technology Human Values, Jan 2006;
vol. 31: pp. 73-101
Social Studies of Science, Dec 1999; vol. 29:
pp. 845-866
Social Studies of Science, Dec 2005; vol. 35:
pp. 923 - 950.
Martello, Marybeth
Long
Wynne, Brian
Arctic Indigenous Peoples as Representations and
Representatives of Climate
Change
SSK's Identity Parade: Signing-Up, Off-and-On
Wachelder, Joseph
Democratizing Science: Various Routes and Visions of
Dutch Science Shops
Social Studies of Science, Jun 2008; vol. 38:
pp. 351-376
Social Studies of Science, May 1996; vol. 26:
pp. 357-391
Science, Technology & Human Values, Apr
2003; vol. 28: pp. 244 - 273.
Lahsen, Myanna
Seductive Simulations? Uncertainty Distribution Around
Climate Models
Social Studies of Science, Dec 2005; vol. 35:
pp. 895-922
Thesis 1
•
Sociology has had a difficult and distanced relationship to
climate change because of its theoretical heritage
–
–
Durkheim, Weber (Marx!)
nature/society dichotomy (reinforced on both sides of the divide)
–
boundaries between what is beyond our ability to transform and what is
beyond our control are shifting
Holocene /Anthropocene (Chakrabarty 2008; Crutzen and Stoermer 2000).
–
•
Modern sociologists have largely neglected climate change
as an issue (but good at analyzing ‘globalization’)
Climate change science provided ‘social analysis’
largely dominated by modelling community
Problem: Modellers tend to have specific concepts about
the relation between knowledge and decision making, between
facts and values, between experts and laypeople…
Thesis 2
• Over the past 20 years anthropogenic climate
change has evolved from a science based issue to
a top global policy and business issue.
• There have been countless political controversies
around the issue and scientific arguments have
been used to justify political positions.
– IPCC and skeptics
– Policy instruments (cap and trade; targets and timetables;
etc.)
– Annex 1 countries, ‘tiger’ economies
– Renewable energies or Nuclear comeback?
– Lifestyle and technology
• This raises the problem of involvement and
detachment (Elias)
Thesis 3
• Science studies well placed but have a tense relationship
because of the politicisation of the climate change debate.
– Science studies scholars feel uneasy in a polarized debate where
academic research might be seen as politically counterproductive.
– It may be that this constellation had a paralyzing impact on Science
Studies as well as there has been very little research on this topic
in recent years
• Science studies need to stick to their guns
– Principle of symmetry
– Analysis of scientific practices/ of practitioners’ communities
– Knowledge and action /new institutional forms (IPCC and beyond)
• Science studies need to reconceptualise the ‘Political’.
– ‘everything is political’, no special attention should be given to
Politics
– Strategies of actors and their rhetoric
Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?
• … entire Ph.D programs are still running to make sure
that good American kids are learning the hard way
that facts are made up, that there is no such thing as
natural, unmediated, unbiased access to truth […]
while dangerous extremists are using the very same
argument of social construction to destroy hard-won
evidence that could save our lives.
• Was I wrong to participate in the invention of this field
known as science studies? Is it enough to say that we
did not really mean what we meant? Why does it burn
my tongue to say that global warming is a fact
whether you like it or not? Why can't I simply say that
the argument is closed for good?
Critical Inquiry 30 (Winter 2004)
Thesis 4
• The social sciences in general need to re-focus their core
contribution to debates.
– Advantage of ‘reflection theories’/disciplines: geography, economics,
politics (including IR) and of interdisciplinary fields
– What role for sociology? (Giddens on Climate Change Politics)
– Science studies need to revive their heritage: social construction of
knowledge, framing and discourse, hybrid roles of scientists and
policy makers, new institutional forms
– Public engagement
Joining a chorus of alarmist voices will not be beneficial
Not for academia, not for the political process
‘10 more years’ before the point of no return: Why has
the timeframe of 10 years been given? Who has come
up with it? What if we miss the deadline?
Magical 2˚C (Copenhagen March 09  4˚C)
Thesis 5
• Sociology has been founded on social
constructivism
• Re-discovery of nature has led some to
abandon it
– Lever-Tracey in a recent contribution to Current Sociology
writes: ‘Preoccupied with analyzing […] social facts,
sociologists are unwilling to be disturbed by the voices of
natural scientists, reporting from inaccessible upper
atmospheres, ancient ice cores or deep oceans, where no
social fact exists.’ (Lever-Tracey 2008:454).
– ‘[I]t seems to me that a respectful division of labour is
essential now that natural and social change are operating in
tandem, on the same time scales. Since we are not
ourselves competent to evaluate the debate between
climatologists and skeptics, we have no option but to accept
the professional authority and integrity of the accredited
experts…’ (Lever-Tracey 2008: 457).
Conclusion
– Anthropogenic climate change exemplifies shifting
boundaries between nature and society
– ought to move into the center of sociological concern
– Sociology needs to learn from STS that constructivism
does not mean playing into the hands of climate change
deniers.
– STS needs to take on board the broader dimensions, P
– Both should study
• Technological innovation
• Social shifts that contribute to or mitigate against climate
change (and its consequences)
• Relation between knowledge and decision making
• Discursive constructions and their implications
• Values that inform our dealing with nature (social equality,
economic growth, environmental protection=SD)
• Comparative studies: across countries/cases
• Keep the bigger picture: what if CC was solved? SD?