The REALITY of Climate Change

Annemarie Mol's (2002) illustrative work in the context of the medical profession is instructive here. In studying the disease atherosclerosis in a European hospital, "she shows that different practices tend to produce not only different perspectives, but also different realities..." (Law, 2004, p. 13). Or as Clay Spinuzzi (2003) puts it: "Mol persuasively argues that the things we take as settled, scientifically quantifiable and observable phenomena are not really just objects-in-the-world; rather, they are always multiple. Reality itself, she says, "multiplies when we focus on artifacts or practices." Thus, practices or methods used to understand CC do not just describe it; instead, they actually help produce or enact it. In other words, they produce the signified, not just the signifer. As John Law (2004) eloquently states, "The argument is no longer that methods discover and depict realities. Instead, it is that they participate in the enactment of those realities" (p. 46). When we allow for the enactive or performative nature of methods, we begin to understand how the use of multiple methods to understand an alleged single phenenomon like CC results in multiple—but networked—objects. In fact, as implied earlier, Mol (2002) has a powerful adage that captures this ontological status: "more than one—but less than many" (p. 55). Law (2004) points out that such multiplicity does not suggest that we live in a relativistic world. "It does not imply that reality is fragmented. Instead it implies something much more complex. It implies that the different realities overlap and interfere with one another. Their relations, partially coordinated, are complex and messy" (p. 61). These different realities are enacted by different methodologies and can be networked into various examples of a multiple object. This is very true for CC. One reason it is so complex is that no single method can enact it in its entirety. Moreover, as we will explore below, another compounding problem is that a high level of vision-logic is needed to enact CC fully because of its abstract nature, because of the space-time scales involved, and because of the need to coordinate competing and complementary epistemological, methodological, and ontological insights.

Excerpt from:

An Ontology of Climate Change: Integral Pluralism and the Enactment of Multiple Objects

I'm not sure how this paper is meant to be received, given how CC is often introduced:

google:  the reality of climate change

On the other hand, sceptics often counter:

google:  all they have is computer models

There's a practical point of judgement between these two views:  we could only discover the process of climate change, as driven largely by man-made CO2, by using models, and we can mostly only estimate its long term effect on the scope of 50 to 100 years by using models.  

google:  it could be too late if we wait until the bad effects of warming become obvious

Does one gamble that the consensus of scientists is likely to be wrong, as can happen occasionally in the history of science, which is slow to change, or does one decide to stand firm against the merchants of doubt ? 

Does one accept that changes in consensus can happen, but not due to amateur blogs, quack alternative theories, and ideologically or financially motivated denialism?

Personally, I accept most of these arguments as holding some weight.  I see it as a design problem -- how can you find the best balance between all the variables and specifications, even when some of them drive the project in contradictory directions?

Take for example, the design of a house window.  If you make it tall, the window lets in more light.  If you make it wide, the window shows a better view.  If you make it tall and wide, the window loses more heat.  But to design a good window doesn't mean negating the need for light nor the need for a view.  The design of a Georgian window uses a tapered wall detail, so that the view and light entering sideways can penetrate the room at wider angles. It is a subtle and ingenious design which includes both light and view.

In this light, understanding CC is to me about trying to find out what subtle insight could lie between the views of both extremes.

It is about asking, how might they be wrong in a subtle detail which otherwise doesn't negate the vast amount of good research that has been done by competent professionals?

Unless of course, one is happy to negate experts by claiming them to be ideologues.

Nevertheless, we can broadly agree with Dr Spencer [1] that a lot depends on precisely where one decides to look for evidence.  This is the wider issue of cherry picking (looking somewhere where your opponents would rather you didn't look).

The problem accusation of cherry picking has been around for a long time in the CC arena. Back when it used to be called "global warming", there was a thorny question: warming since when?  Since the start of the industrial revolution?  Since the Medieval Warm Period ? Since the last Ice Age ?  And spatially, was the MWP a European or a global phenomenon?  And has there really been no warming for the last 15 years, according to a top climate scientist, and does that mean anything?

Whilst many of these web links are to sources which many would dismiss, they illustrate a simple point:  you can see what you want, depending on where and how you look.  Scientists have to make a decision to look, and convince their peers that the money and effort is worthwhile. Which I believe is a general point of the article by Sean Esbjörn-Hargens ( subscribe to JITP; it is fun! :-) 

The mainstream public CC argument, however, states that the only serious science worth considering, is peer reviewed science in respectable journals and backed by the world's leading authoritative scientific bodies.

The facts will then merely take us wherever they have to take us. 

Just to drive this point home, the Royal Society changed its motto from, "on the word of no one" ( an inspiring reminder of its historical origins as an outsider to the establishment, but a pursuer of truth ) to "respect the facts" ( facts which, as we know, are sourced and disclosed by the world's best climate scientists and established institutions ).

Facts? Reality? Certainty? 

I wonder again, what will be the reception of Integral Pluralism in this arena?

[1] Dr. Spencer’s work with NASA continues as the U.S. Science Team leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite