Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Third, climate science must reckon with extremely complicated open sys-
tems in which, to use the jargon, positive and negative feedbacks, thresholds,
blockages and spatio-temporal lags may all be in play. These systems are
assumed by climate scientists to exist 'out there' waiting to be studied as
objectively as possible and they are very challenging to understand in ways
that ensure any reasonable degree of certainty. Again, this fact is not unique
to climate science, but it contrasts with sciences that study, and successfully
control and construct, 'closed systems'. These sciences typically achieve high
degrees of explanatory, predictive and practical certainty. Yet climate science
is one of several forced to caveat its claims about nature, and where the
qualifications - if too cautious or else insufficiently so - can have life or
death consequences in the medium to long term. As I said near the end of
Chapter 7,
what we call 'climate change' is very obviously an epistemic con-
struction. It's an amalgam of specialised scientific attempts to depict past,
present and future alterations to the Earth's surface processes. Without these
attempts there would, quite literally, be no such thing as climate change so
far as we're concerned - just as there'd be no 'genes' without the claims of
microbiologists (see
Chapter 4)
or 'deforestation' in West Africa without the
discourse of silviculturalists (see
Chapter 6)
.
If climate science arguably exemplifies the power and high profile of
scientists in the contemporary world, the 2009-10 scandals reveal con-
tinued anxiety about whether this power is warranted and how it's used.
Soft though this power is, when the stakes are as high as they are in cli-
mate science, it's no wonder that some want to peer inside the citadel to
see what the epistemic workers are really up to. They worry that we may
be unduly subject to the power of science rather than empowered by its
findings. Two big, and far from new, questions arise from the two 'gates'.
First, can we trust scientific representations of nature when their implica-
tions stand to be highly significant? Second, if we can, then how should
we as citizens respond practically to science's insights? As I said, science
(like the mass media) does not usually
oblige
us to do things: the force
of its insights is rarely that strong. Rather, as a 'governmental' institution
in Foucault's expanded sense, it employs the power of expertise to direct
our attention to various problems and possibilities. It enjoins us to take
notice of certain things and invites us to consider how best to respond to
them. This doesn't mean the power of science is weak. On the contrary,
the case of climate change demonstrates why it's so important that the gov-
ernance of science and our relationship to science are in the best possible
health.
The governance of science
The professions, such as law and accountancy, have a long history of
self-regulation. Science is no different. Scientists have created norms and
institutions designed to govern their professional behaviour. Of course,
