"It is difficult to get a man [sic] to understand something when his salary 
depends upon his not understanding it"
                                        --Upton Sinclair

John
...............................................................
John Scull
http://members.shaw.ca/jscull
There are always two parties; the establishment and the movement.
                             --Ralph Waldo Emerson


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "SowNet" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 11:43 AM
Subject: Re: "Mediarology" Stephen Schneider


I had to send this to myself to break this down into separate paragraphs before 
I could digest it, however much Stephen Schneider may have against deep ecology!

See my insertions in the text.

Best wishes from Jim Scott



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  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: "Chris Keene" <[log in to unmask]>
  To: <[log in to unmask]>
  Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 1:02 PM
  Subject: "Mediarology" Stephen Schneider


  http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Mediarology/MediarologyFrameset.html?http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Mediarology/Mediarology.html

  I thought members of Crisis Forum would be interested in this piece from
  American climate scientist Stephen Schneider. Note that he disagrees
  with the deep ecology groups. Where *does* the truth lie? Do Greens
  really exaggerate the problems? There is also some interesting
  discussion of the role of the media, and of scientists

  Chris

  "Mediarology"
  "“End of the world” and “good for the Earth” are, in my experience, the
  two lowest probability cases."
  Special interest groups followed the IPCC proceedings closely. Given the
  broad range of possible outcomes, proponents of the many sides of the
  climate change debate (often dichotomized into “ ignore the problem ”
  versus “stop it ” camps, though it is actually an issue with many, many
  sides) deliberately selected and continue to select information out of
  context that best supports their ideological positions and their or
  their clients' interests. They frequently practice a phenomenon I call
  "courtroom epistemology": refusing to acknowledge that an issue (climate
  change, in this case) is multifaceted, and presenting only their own
  arguments, ignoring opposing views.

  Stephen Schneider cannot claim to be neutral himself.

  Deep ecology groups point to the
  most pessimistic outcomes, using their warnings of climate catastrophe
  to push for the creation and implementation of energy taxes, abatement
  policies, and renewable energy promotion and subsidies (as many believe
  renewable energy is “the solution).

  This is not what deep ecology is about.  The pessimistic-optimistic scale is 
Schneider's construct, not theirs.

  Clearly, such policies would affect
  the industries that produce and use the most energy, especially the oil
  and auto industries. The auto, oil, and other fossil fuel-intensive
  industry groups, uncoincidentally, tend to be the extreme optimists in
  the global warming debate though, ironically, they often are the
  pessimists when it comes to estimating the costs of fixing the problem.
  They attempt to trivialize the potential hazards of climate change and
  focus on the least serious outcomes and the most expensive mitigation
  policies to discourage political action.

  They don't tend to be extreme optimists.  They minimise the hazards of climate 
change to protect their commercial interests.

  This plays into the media's tendency to engage in "balanced" reporting:
  polarizing an issue (despite its being multifaceted) and making each
  "side" equally credible. The media dutifully report the dueling
  positions of ecology and industry, further confusing policymakers and
  the public with an endless parade of op-eds and stories quoting those
  suggesting that global warming is either “good for the Earth and too
  expensive to fix anyway” or “the end of the world but nonetheless
  relatively cheap to solve with solar or wind power.” “End of the world”
  and “good for the Earth” are, in my experience, the two lowest
  probability cases (as are "it would bankrupt us to mitigate climate
  changes" and "technology will solve climate change at no cost"). Neither
  side usually offers probabilities of such outcomes.
  "Just because we scientists have Ph.D.s we should not hang up our
  citizenship at the door of a public meeting."

  I agree that the normal debating format is both too crude to produce 
dependable outcomes, and presumes a false equivalence between opposed positions.

  Eliminating this confusion and misrepresentation of the climate change
  debate requires the participation of scientists, citizens, and
  journalists alike. First, scientists should not be discouraged on
  principle to enter the public debate on climate change both as
  scientist-advocates and scientist popularizers; if they don't,
  popularization of potential probabilities and consequences of climate
  change will occur without their input and will likely be more
  inaccurate. A scientist should also transcend prejudices against
  non-frequentist (i.e., subjective) analysis and treat climate change
  like the issue that it is: one for which future empirical data cannot be
  obtained (as it is simply impossible to obtain hard data for events
  occurring in the future) and which therefore necessitates the use of
  Bayesian, or subjective, probabilities and projections/models — our
  'cloudy crystal balls' — that compile all the information we can
  possibly bring to bear on the problem, including, but not limited to,
  direct measurements and statistics.

  I don't believe anyone, including scientists, can presume to transcend 
prejudices, and it is more honest to follow C. Wright Mills in 'The Sociological 
Imagination' (1959!) in calling on them to declare instead of hiding their 
biases, and Karl Popper in stating that the choice of one's theory is a private 
matter, and only its testing is a matter for objective scrutiny.

  It is scientists, not policymakers,
  who should provide subjective probabilistic assessments of climate
  change. Just because we scientists have Ph.D.s we should not hang up our
  citizenship at the door of a public meeting — we too are entitled to
  advocate personal opinions, but we also have a special obligation to
  make our value judgments explicit. If they do express opinions,
  scientists should attempt to keep their value judgments out of the
  scientific assessment process but should make their personal values and
  prejudices clear regardless.

  I agree.  Both James Lovelock and Sir David King need to take note.

  It is then the role of the
  scientist-popularizer to propagate and promote these assessments and
  values in an understandable manner in the public realm so that the
  scientific community's findings and the scientist's ideas are heard and
  his/her suggestions are available. An effective scientist-popularizer
  must balance the need to be heard (good sound bites) with the
  responsibility to be honest (see "the double ethical bind pitfall") as
  well. Doing both is essential.

  Citizens must demand that scientists provide honest, credible
  assessments that answer the "three questions of environmental literacy":
  1) What can happen?; 2) What are the odds of it happening?; and 3) How
  are such estimates made? Citizens must also achieve a certain level of
  environmental, political, and scientific literacy themselves so that
  they feel comfortable distinguishing climate change fact from fiction
  and making critical value judgments and policy decisions, in essence
  becoming "citizen scientists". Just as popularization of potential
  probabilities and consequences will occur with or without input from
  scientists, policy decisions will be made with or without input from an
  informed citizenry. I hope that citizens will take responsibility for
  increasing their scientific, political, and environmental literacy and
  recognize the importance of the positive effect that an informed public
  will have on the policy process.

  This particularly applies to responding intelligently and honestly (unlike 
Bjorn Lomborg) to alternative scenarios that depend upon differing government, 
commercial and public actions.

  Citizens and scientists clearly can't operate as completely separate
  entities in the climate change debate. Their interaction is essential,
  especially when it comes to "rolling reassessment". Given the uncertain
  nature of climate change, citizens and scientists should work together
  to initiate flexible policies and management schemes that are revisited,
  say, every five years. The key word here is flexible. Knowledge is not
  static — there are always new outcomes to discover and old theories to
  rule out. New knowledge allows us to reevaluate theories and policy
  decisions and make adjustments to policies that are too stringent, too
  lax, or targeting the wrong cause or effect. Both scientist-advocates
  and citizen-scientists must see to it that once we’ve set up political
  establishments to carry out policy that people do not become so vested
  in a certain process or outcome that they become reluctant to make
  adjustments, either to the policies or the institutions.
  "Citizens should make sure that the public debates take into account all
  knowledge available on climate change."

  A step is missing here.  The choice of what scenario to pursue involves 
essential value judgements: what is valued most - in the classic latest example, 
averting climate change or continuous economic growth.  This is where values and 
ideology are needed!  Choices do not depend just on objective 'Knowledge'.

  In addition, citizens and scientists must coordinate with journalists
  and other media figures to ensure accuracy in the media portrayal of
  climate change (see The Journalist-Scientist-Citizen Triangle). We
  scientists need to take more proactive roles in the public debate. We
  need to help journalists by agreeing to participate in the public
  climate change debate and by using clear metaphors and ordinary language
  once we do so. We should go out of our way to write review papers from
  time to time and to present talks that stress well-established
  principles at the outset of our meetings.

  Before we turn to more
  speculative, cutting-edge science; we should deliberately outline the
  consensus before revealing the contention. Citizens should make sure
  that the public debates take into account all knowledge available on
  climate change. Hopefully, their actions will encourage reporters to
  replace the knee-jerk model of "journalistic balance" with a more
  accurate and fairer doctrine of "perspective": one that communicates not
  only the range of opinion, but also the relative credibility of each
  opinion within the scientific community. (Fortunately, most
  sophisticated science and environment reporters have abandoned the
  journalistic tradition of polarization of only two "sides", but
  nevertheless, especially in the political arena, such falsely
  dichotomous "balance" still exists).
  I am not sure about 'consensus'.  Wright Mills raised the classic dilemma 
between acting on 'what people are interested in' or 'what is in their 
interests'.  Now, that would make a fascinating debate, for it covers the full 
political spectrum!




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