Weeknotes are my way of reflecting on my readings, research and thoughts from the week. They link and contrast experiences and observations that happen to have occurred in a short period of time. I am writing these notes quickly, doing my best to correctly represent the sources, but I would love to learn if I am mistaken in my understanding in any way. You can contact me on https://climatejustice.social/@PenguinJunk.
Contents
This week
I’m hoping this is hump week and that things will start going downhill from here. Hmm, not downhill as such, but easier. I have a lot of reading to write up, and plenty already noted in my bibliography database, but much of the last few weeks have been about trying to work out who and how to interview. I’m used to settling down with some nice data - some images perhaps - and writing code. Interacting with people is a very new game for me. It’s honestly been feeling like some of those days from my PhD (decades ago - it’s eerie to recall it) when I have felt very much at sea on a raft each and every day. However, I have received some extremely useful feedback on my interview script and also started composing emails to people whom I hope will be willing to participate in my study. I can start sending these as soon as I have ethics clearance!
What I’ve been reading
Scientists’ experience of policy
Reading to understand what “science at the interface with policy” looks like (I will learn much more once I start interviewing). In 2017, the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology surveyed academics to learn about their perceptions of engaging with UK Parliament (Knowledge Exchange Unit, 2021). It identified that lack of knowledge and of confidence were common barriers. Giving a first-hand account, Gerber2023 extols the virtues of scientists working at the interface with policy but acknowledges frustration and drawbacks, some of which can be addressed if scientists’ institutions recognised impact on policy as much as, for instance, publishing a peer-reviewed article. Frustrations with government use of scientific evidence emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to “shadow” science advisory mechanisms; Pielke (2023) suggests how this can be avoided in future with better preparation for emergency decision-making using science advice.
In his still influential book, The Honest Broker, Roger Pielke, Jr identifies the roles that experts can perform at the policy interface. Rapley and De Meyer, 2014, Gluckman, Bardsley, and Kaiser (2021) and, this month Gregory et al, 2024, have all expanded on this. They are all concerned that experts maintain credibility, Gregory et al, 2024 acknowledges the tension felt by conservation scientists needing to be seen to act with impartiality given our situation’s urgency and complexity (“in a society under threat through existing policies and economies”) and that some say that “advocating in every way possible for a liveable future is a rational rather than political act”.
Policy’s experience of science
Regarding climate science, Cologna et al. (2024) review work into trust in climate science and climate scientists, and then draw on communication and behavioural science to identify how scientists may bolster their credibility, at least with some, by demonstrating competence, benevolence, integrity, and openness, for instance by avoiding advocating for a specific policy and having a modest carbon footprint. An experiment by Pereira et al. (2024) tested local politicians’ obstacles to acting on climate, which concluded (among other things) that politicians show greater interest when they are contacted by a climate scientist than a peer (except in the US). Whether decision-makers use expertise is entirely their choice. Tennøy et al. (2016) studied how planners tend to use or ignore expertise as fits their framing and culture, even when it results in counter-productive measures being implemented. I was therefore interested to hear in the Science for Policy podcast that EU institutions receiving advice, recommendations or guidance from the European Climate Change Advisory Board must justify if they decide not to action on it (Wardman and Edenhofer, 2023).
Science struggles
The precautionary principle (PP) has been evoked in demands for action on climate but I was unaware of its philosophical underpinning until I read Taleb et al. (2014) and Read and O’Riordan (2017). The former describes conditions under which the PP should be instated, the latter how it has been downgraded since the Paris Agreement. This second paper also notes the reluctance of scientists to raise false alarms (noted in a previous weeknotes), which has been deeply undermining of their ability to convey the risks of climate change. A brilliant paper1 from Simon Sharpe discusses how we should be talking about climate risks (Sharpe, 2019) - by identifying climate impacts that are meaningful (such as the permanent inundation of an island or inability to grow a vital crop) and plots the probability over time of this impact occurring.
Beyond science advice
Much of the above puts a great deal of onus on experts to communicate to policy in the right way. However, by considering the barriers to climate action through 9 different lenses, Stoddard et al. (2021) identify that power is an important thread in 3 decades of unmitigated greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps, therefore, it’s no surprise that environmental scientists are turning to activism (Pivovarchuk, 2024).
AI and climate
For a while there has been discussion of the impact on climate of the rising use of artificial intelligence (AI). This was certainly something that I was concerned about in my former life in which I would witness regular failed and aborted trainings of artificial neural networks, all of which used power (not to mention the energy of people trying to make the best use of poorly documented platforms, and slightly better documented coding languages). I haven’t seen a solid estimate of current or projected emissions caused by AI. Luers et al. (2024) attempt to flag that emissions go well beyond training and call for AI driven emissions to be linked to existing climate scenarios. And on that topic, whilst listening to another podcast that mentioned how AI could also “solve” climate, I finally exploded and scribbled this piece on how this is just another hope coda.
TL;DR Hopefully this was hump week
It’s been sluggish of late but I’m ready to start inviting people to participate in my study as soon as I have ethics clearance, and in the mean time have continued with my somewhat scattergun approach to reading (the trouble is, I find it all too interesting).
References
Viktoria Cologna et al. “Trust in climate science and climate scientists: A narrative review”. In: PLOS Climate (May 23, 2024). https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000400.
Peter D. Gluckman, Anne Bardsley, and Matthias Kaiser. “Brokerage at the science–policy interface: from conceptual framework to practical guidance”. In: Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 8.84 (1 Mar. 19, 2021). 10.1057/s41599-021-00756-3. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00756-3.
Richard D. Gregory et al. “What is the role of scientists in meeting the environmental challenges of the twenty-first century?” In: Royal Society Open Science. June 19, 2024. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.240498
Knowledge Exchange Unit. Academics’ perceptions of barriers to engaging with Parliament. Knowledge Exchange Unit, UK Parliament. June 12, 2021. https://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/research-impact-at-the-uk-parliament/why-engage-with-parliament/supporting-researchers-to-engage/.
Amy Luers et al. “Will AI accelerate or delay the race to net-zero emissions?” In: Nature 628 (Apr. 22, 2024), pp. 718–720. 10.1038/d41586-024-01137-x. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01137-x.
Miguel M. Pereira et al. “Encouraging politicians to act on climate: A field experiment with local officials in six countries”. In: American Journal of Political Science (Mar. 19, 2024). 10.1111/ajps.12841. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajps.12841.
Jr Roger Pielke. “Improve how science advice is provided to governments by learning from “experts in expert advice””. In: PLOS Biology 21.2 (Feb. 2023), pp. 1–3. 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002004. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002004.
Anna Pivovarchuk. What grief for a dying planet looks like: Climate scientists on the edge. Al Jazeera. June 16, 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/6/16/what-grief-for-a-dying-planet-looks-like-climate-scientists-on-the-edge-2 (visited on 06/17/2024).
Chris Rapley and Kris De Meyer. “Climate Climate Science Reconsidered”. In: Nature Climate Change 4 (Sept. 2014), pp. 745–746. https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2352.
Rupert Read and Tim O’Riordan. “The Precautionary Principle Under Fire”. In: Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 59.5 (2017), pp. 4–15. 10.1080/00139157.2017.1350005. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00139157.2017.1350005.
Simon Sharpe. “Telling the boiling frog what he needs to know: why climate change risks should be plotted as probability over time”. In: Geoscience Communication 2.1 (2019), pp. 95–100. 10.5194/gc-2-95-2019. https://gc.copernicus.org/articles/2/95/2019/.
Isak Stoddard et al. “Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven’t We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?” In: Annual Review of Environment and Resources 46 (Oct. 2021), pp. 653–689. issn: 1545-2050. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104. https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb et al. “The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the Genetic Modification of Organisms)”. In: Extreme Risk Initiative (2014). https://arxiv.org/pdf/1410.5787.
Aud Tennøy et al. “How planners’ use and non-use of expert knowledge affect the goal achievement potential of plans: Experiences from strategic land-use and transport planning processes in three Scandinavian cities”. In: Progress in Planning 109 (2016), pp. 1–32. issn: 0305-9006. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2015.05.002. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305900615000306.
Toby Wardman and Ottmar Edenhofer. Ottmar Edenhofer on giving climate advice in Europe. Sept. 5, 2023. https://scientificadvice.eu/podcast/ottmar-edenhofer-on-giving-climate-advice-in-europe/ (visited on 06/14/2024).
I say this because I read on my phone and fully understood this paper while being jostled in the queue for a London attraction - a true test of great writing ↩
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