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do, even though it can help us understand what's doable in a technical
sense. The 'is-ought' link is very weak indeed - 'under-determined' to use
philosophical jargon - and yet, Pielke argues, this is often forgotten, delib-
erately or otherwise. Attempts are often made to pretend that 'abortion
politics' is really 'tornado politics'. Reference to science is made to justify
very particular courses of (in)action, as if these are mandated by the evi-
dence (or by uncertainties in the data). This is a misuse of science as a genre
Interpreted in Pielke's (2007: 7) terms, many climate change sceptics can
be seen as 'stealth issue advocates'. They pretend to separate 'science' and
'politics', only to use uncertainties in the former to surreptitiously advance
their own preferred agenda (e.g. burn more oil, gas and coal). In essence,
it's an anti-democratic manoeuvre in which reference to knowledge about
nature (the climate system) is used to delay important decisions about our
climate research is not scientific enough, even as they try to conceal their
own politically motivated use of epistemic uncertainty. This is one example
of a wider practice, summarised by Steve Fuller, wherein
the invocation of scientific findings - almost any findings will do - has turned
out to be the most ideologically palatable means of [effectively] coercing the
populace
...
(Fuller, 2000: 104)
I can find no better way to illustrate the folly and perniciousness of this
than as follows. Imagine it's the year 2050 and recent temperature records,
combined with extraordinarily powerful predictive climate models, reduce
uncertainty about future environmental change to virtually zero (so far as
climate scientists are concerned). Would this enhanced scientific certainty
in itself resolve political debates over the 'what is to be done?' question?
I suggest not (see Oreskes, 2004). While doing nothing might be ruled out-
of-court by virtually everyone (a 'tornado politics' is-ought connection),
beyond this we'd still need to debate some profound ethical issues about the
value of humans and non-humans (i.e. engage constructively in 'abortion
politics'). At some point, agreement on these issues, however challenging,
would compel more or less drastic actions to adapt to climate change. Such
agreement would not be reducible to questions of what the scientific evi-
dence tells us about the future state of the world. At best, as Pielke argues,
post-normal scientists can together act as 'honest brokers' who point out the
range of practical implications of their findings, without telling us how to
act on them (see
Figure 8.1)
.
The current climate change sceptics' argument that we need more or bet-
ter evidence for, analysis of and models for climate change is thus ultimately
a diversion, given the consensus represented in the most recent IPCC assess-
ment reports. It involves the exercise of soft power using the rhetoric of
