Climate change
is not a simple problem with simple answers. It is a global issue. Scientifically,
it is beyond global since it involves the atmosphere, energy from the sun, and
is influenced by planetary phenomena. The science of climatology is in many
ways a predictive science. General trends and averages can be successfully predicted
but individual events often only come into view when they are about to occur. Sometimes,
weather is not easy to predict, but in today’s connected society with instantaneous
availability of data, weather predictions are often spot on. However, with
things like rain the best we can often do is give a percent chance of rain from
0% to 100%. As is often said. ‘weather is not climate.’ Weather is generally
predictable but specifically unpredictable. It is predictable in the short-term,
but quite unpredictable in longer time periods. We don’t know at all what the weather
will be on a day 30 days from now, but we do know that it is summer in the
Midwest U.S. and that it is likely to be hot – we know the avg. temperature and
moisture ranges for a particular area and can generally predict. Climate is similar
in that it is a statistical concept based on averages, trends, and cycles.
As a global
system, climate is influenced by many variables. There are many chemical cycles
in the atmosphere. There are many sinks taking up carbon, including the ocean, plants,
and the atmosphere. There are forcings and feedbacks. There are several changing
planetary and solar influences. There are various oscillation cycles and
regional cycles like El Ninos and La Ninas. There are natural phenomena that
produce CO2 and aerosol particles such as erupting volcanoes. There are also myriad
human influences: CO2, methane, CFC’s and HFC’s, nitrous oxides, aerosols from
particulates (that can give temporary colling effects), the multiple effects of
wildfire smoke (half of wildfires are sparked by humans) which include CO2,
aerosols, and particulates that land on glacial snow and darken it, making it a
little easier to melt. Scientists plug all these variables and many more into
models and attempt to predict what will happen. We also look into the past to determine
what ranges of atmospheric CO2, temperature, moisture, and other variables occurred
in the past. Now we have very good data around the world, but that good data
does not go very far back in time. As time goes on, we get more data, and this has
and should continue to improve the models. The bottom line is that climate
change is a complex problem with many variables and many systems not fully
understood. As author Stephen Koontz notes, it is not a settled science. There
are yet considerable uncertainties.
Climate Reductionism(s)
As a global
problem with potential consequences that are suspected but not fully known, climate
change as an issue, a social issue or a political issue, is wrought with the
potential to be exploited by those who want to advance their own ways to solve
the problem. Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan Rigg are scientists and editors of a
book, People and Climate Change. Mason has a Ph. D. in Social Work. Rigg
has a Ph. D. in Geography. They note in a 2019 article from Oxford University
Press Blog that the climate change problem is often oversimplified due to not
appreciating the contexts of the problem. They point out that there are five
climate reductionisms that support this oversimplification.
The first is disciplinary
reductionism. We tend to think that the specialist scientists that
identified these problems will solve them. However, they note that climate
change is not merely a natural problem, but a social and cultural issue as
well. In addition, it can be an economic issue and a political issue. We are sometime
affected by it, and we are presented with various opinions and views of what we
need to do about it. If someone’s livelihood is directly affected by it, say
with droughts – which are a result of both natural and anthropogenic climate
change without a means to determine how strong is the anthropogenic influence,
then they are likely to want to solve the problem as quickly as possible.
People living on islands being inundated by rising seal levels have a tendency
to blame anthropogenic change and yet sea levels have been rising since the
last ice age as that ice continues to melt. The unknown is exactly how much
seal level rise can really be attributed to humans, or by what amount has anthropogenic
CO2 accelerated seal level rise. One key to solving several climate change
problems is getting a true understanding of climate sensitivity. The range for
climate sensitivity given by scientists has not changed since 1979. If it is in
the low part of the range, then the problem is overblown. If it is in the high
part of the range, then the problem is even worse than we think. However, a more
specific value for climate sensitivity has not been agreed by scientists. That is
the basis of much uncertainty.
The second
reductionism given is participatory reductionism. Here, they are
referring to the tendency to leave everything to the experts. They argue that
non-experts need to participate and develop views and opinions. Of course, we
should all become as informed as we can about the climate science and the plethora
of arguments being presented. They argue that active participation is required to
ensure just outcomes. Of course, we should rely on experts as much as we can
while also noting that different experts have different levels of certainty and
that scientific experts are not policy experts. I am not sure of this one. Do
we really need to actively participate as citizens who may not be well-informed
about the subject? I think that we should study the issue from a variety of
points of view and become better informed. If that is active participation,
then I’m all for it. If what they mean by active participation that we should exert
our less informed views on others – promoting active participation sounds a
little like promoting activism, especially when paired with the idea of justice.
Such activism has a long history of loudly proclaiming views that are sometimes
quite uninformed. I am not for that.
The third reductionism
given is experiential reductionism. This refers to the way
scientists and policymakers see the issues from their own professional concerns
and interests without considering the hierarchy of concerns regular people might
have. Other more immediate and more problematic issues certainly take
precedence over climate change, especially in a short time frame. Basic needs
outweigh concerns further into the future for many and most people. This is the
same argument that others have made that environmental concern, while a public
good, is less important than the more basic needs that would be lower on
psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They say that to ignore these
basic needs, which include affordability, is to stray from the idea of climate
justice. I agree with this. Keeping things such as food and energy affordable certainly
feels more just and fairer to someone with less financial means.
The fourth one
given is teleological reductionism. In describing this they ask the
question, “How will the future look?” Since climate science is predictive and
based on models rather than just direct data it is less certain and can create narratives
that can be considered catastrophism. Even though the IPCC and climate scientists
and policymakers give various levels of confidence for their conclusions, the
authors seem to suggest here that catastrophistic narratives seem to have
become prevailing narratives and this might become some sort of self-fulfilling
prophecy and that alternative narratives should also be considered. We should
not be confined or reduced to one prevailing narrative. They seem to be saying
here that what we imagine can become what we get and thus we should perhaps focus
on more optimistic narratives. I tend to agree.
The fifth and
final one given is what they call species reductionism of the global.
Here they refer to “the tendency to view a global problem as a global
experience.” Each of us responds differently to the perceived threat of climate
change. How the threat is perceived is known as risk perception and has many
influences. I wrote about it here.
In conclusion
they write:
“Together,
these reductionisms make climate change a matter of justice. Who is hurt by
climate change? And compared with who is to “blame”? Why are some groups
affected more than others? And how do we respond in tailored ways that take
people’s lived experiences, needs, and knowledge into account? By challenging
these reductionisms—by widening our lens—we contextualize climate change and
increase our chance of achieving meaningful, sustainable change.”
Two Fallacies About the Relationship Between
Climate and Society: Climate Determinism and Climate Indeterminism
Mike Hulme in
2011 wrote that climate discourse has moved from a role of climate determinism,
a variety of environmental determinism, to one of climate reductionism. I think
he means that climate went from “a” determining influence to outcomes to “the” determining
influence of outcomes, that climate was reduced from one of many influences to
the chief one worth considering. He defined this change as climate
reductionism. He posits that:
“the new climate reductionism is driven by the
hegemony exercised by the predictive natural sciences over contingent,
imaginative, and humanistic accounts of social life and visions of the future.
It is a hegemony that lends disproportionate power in political and social discourse
to model-based descriptions of putative future climates.”
Hulme
postulated two common fallacies around the relationship between climate and
society:
“The first is that of ‘climate determinism’ in which
climate is elevated to become a – if not the - universal predictor (and cause)
of individual physiology and psychology and of collective social organisation
and behaviour. The second fallacy is that of ‘climate indeterminism’ in which
climate is relegated to a footnote in human affairs and stripped of any explanatory
power. Geographers have at times been most guilty of the former fallacy;
historians at times most guilty of the latter.”
One might
consider these the two extremes: that climate is a strong determinant of outcomes
or that it does not influence outcomes. The truth is, of course, somewhere in
between. His point can be readily seen in news headlines from that time period
(2011) where headlines spouted out that climate change causes wars and the now
familiar term “climate refugees.” Social scientists and others began to calculate
and predict how many people would become climate refugees in the future and new
hot spots for climate wars. Most of these predictions have been way off so far –
no real climate wars and less people that could really be considered climate
refugees.
Hulme contends
that it is “the enterprise of climate prediction” based on simulations
and models that led to the narrowing of climate determinism to climate
reductionism. There are many examples of this. I have written about them in my
book, Sensible Decarbonization. When governors of Western U.S. states
call wildfires “climate fires” they are guilty of practicing climate reductionism.
One could just as easily or better define them as “human carelessness fires,” “inadequate
power line maintenance fires,” “inadequate forest maintenance fires”, or “inadequate
control of flammable invasive species fires.” However, “climate fires” is by
far what we hear reported.
The history of
climate determinism is wrought with some very wrong assumptions. Jared Diamond’s
book Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I have read and reviewed years ago, noted
that it was often geographical boundaries and climate that advantaged some
people and disadvantages others, and that is certainly true to a point. However,
that is likely an oversimplification, or as Hulme says an instance of climate reductionism.
Hulme noted that others have said that Diamond’s book is an example of the
climate determinism fallacy. Perhaps, but it was a good and fascinating book,
nonetheless. A Climatology textbook with editions from 1931-1965 still had in
its 1953 edition the statement “The enervating monotonous climates of much
of the tropical zone ... produce a lazy and indolent people.” Thus, he suggests
that reactions against such “excesses” in considering climate determinism helped
to set the stage for climate reductionism. With the advent of seeking to
understand and mitigate anthropogenic climate change came the search for more
and more causal relationships between climate and outcomes, so much so that
interest in these relationships has dominated other factors that influence
outcomes. The goal of reductionism is that it seeks to simplify something that
is inherently complex. There are a huge number of examples of climate reductionism
and Hulme gives several. Hulme suggests that climate reductionism “distorts
and over-emphasises the causative role of climate in shaping the future
prospects of society and the well-being of individuals’” Climate
reductionism elevates the predictions from the models over other influences so
much so that climate modelers become social, political, economic, and political
analysts. As anthropogenic climate change emerged as a concern, he says, there
were three developments: “the retreat of the social sciences, and geography
in particular, from working at the nature-culture interface; the emergence of a
new epistemic community of global climate modellers; and the asymmetrical
incorporation of climate change and social change into envisaged futures.” When
the IPCC and others began doing climate impact assessments they were and are in
essence predicting the future based on models.
Figure 1: Schematics of impact and interactive models are highly simplified graphic depictions of types of study methodologies. It was the more reductionist “impact model” which predominated in most impacts studies. [Source: Kates et al., 1985]
In these
predictions, Hulme notes that the “impact model” came to predominate, ignoring the
“interaction model” which takes into account things like technological, social,
cultural, and political improvements which allow us to better adapt to climate
change impacts. He says this ignoring led to the predominance of climate
reductionism in climate impact assessments of the IPCC and others. Even the IPCC
acknowledged this in their Third Assessment: “Future socioeconomic ...
changes have not been represented satisfactorily in many recent impact studies”
and “... many impact studies fail to consider adequately uncertainties embedded
in the scenarios they adopt.” He also noted that some scientists have
adjusted to these failures, noting ideas like climate resiliency and climate
impact vulnerability approaches. It is the prediction of the future that has
been reduced to climate above other important factors. He goes on to say: “I
suggest that the climate reductionism I have described here is nurtured by
elements of a Western cultural pessimism which promote the pathologies of
vulnerability, fatalism and fear. It is these dimensions of the contemporary
cultural mood which has offered the milieu within which this particular form of
neo-determinism has emerged. By handing the future over to inexorable non-human
powers, climate reductionism offers a rationalisation, even if a poor one, of
the West’s loss of confidence in the future.” I think his bottom line is
that climate reductionism is an inadequate, limited, and deficient way to envision
the future and serves to overly dramatize the risks we face.
Climate Change and Home Runs: An Example of the
Silliness of Climate Reductionism
Roger Pielke
Jr.’s article points out in the title that some are ‘making everything about
climate change.’ Climate change is the scapegoat, the demon to curse, but if
humans are responsible for most of it, then we are the demon behind the mask. An
important consideration for an individual person, family, community, business,
government, or other institution is then what should they do about it. Down to
the individual person we are ‘nudged’ to develop a strategy and policy for
dealing with climate change. A key question is who is doing the nudging? Climate
scientists? The IPCC? Highly biased activists? First off, most people would
agree that we shouldn’t waste energy. But sometimes there are trade-offs.
Flaring natural gas at oil wells is an example. That problem is being addressed
successfully but not as fast or as much as some hope. Another example is mitigation
of methane leaks in oil and gas facilities, landfills, farms and agriculture, and
sewage treatment plants. This seems to be progressing faster than expected with
room to keep going. Efficiency improvements are always low-hanging fruit.
Technology improvements often result in better efficiency and less wasting of
energy. If we can all agree that wasting energy is undesirable, then we should
all be able to agree that tech and efficiency improvements are desirable. New technologies
in fossil fuel extraction like horizontal drilling, fracking, and enhanced oil
recovery, have led to much lower emissions intensity, emissions per unit of
energy produced. Such improvements lower emissions significantly but not to the
desired degree.
Incentives to Reduce Everything to Climate?
Looking at
everything through the lens of climate change can be problematic and sometimes
even downright silly. Case in point is a recent article reported on by NPR and
others positing a causal relationship between climate change and the amount of
home runs in Major League Baseball. Any possible relationship is quite tiny at
best but as is often the case the various article headlines suggest a discernible
relationship that is much greater than it is. Roger Pielke Jr. addressed this through
dialogue with the authors in his piece on Substack. He first pointed out that readily
available data from other baseball leagues- Japan, AAA, and NCAA – did not corroborate
those results. He then points out that another researcher concluded that only
about 5% of the increase in MLB home runs can be attributed to climate change. Pielke
Jr writes: “Thus, a more accurate reading of the paper’s quantitative
conclusions is that climate change is a tiny, even insignificant, factor in MLB
home run trends, easily swamped by everything else that can affect home runs.”
However, the story was carried and spread by many media outlets including NPR,
CNN, AP News, NBC, and Fox with the headlines noting the influence of climate
change on home runs. He claims there is an incentive to reduce everything to climate,
in science, science promotion, and journalism. Even though there are many other
variables to unravel what influences home runs (and wildfires, droughts,
floods, extreme weather, etc.) it is climate change that gets the spotlight.
News people rarely forget to ask about the influence of climate change on, well
everything. Pielke Jr. writes: “These incentives help us to understand what
gets published, promoted and clicked. These incentives are also incredibly
distorting to both journalism and, increasingly, to research. Baseball and
climate might seem like a silly topic, but these dynamics can be found on far
more important issues involving climate.”
References:
The
trouble with how we talk about climate change. Lisa Reyes Mason and Jonathan
Rigg. OUP Blog. June 17, 2019. The trouble with how we talk about
climate change | OUPblog
Climate
Change Causes Home Runs: What we can learn from making everything about climate.
Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker. April 12, 2023. Substack. Climate
Change Causes Home Runs - by Roger Pielke Jr. (substack.com)
Reducing
the Future to Climate: a Story of Climate Determinism and Reductionism. Mike
Hulme. 2011. Hulme-Osiris-revised.pdf
(mikehulme.org)
Global
Warming, Home Runs, and the Future of America’s Pastime. Christopher W. Callahan,
Nathaniel J. Dominy, Jeremy M. DeSilva, and Justin S. Mankin. Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society. Volume 104: Issue 5. May 1, 2023. Global
Warming, Home Runs, and the Future of America’s Pastime in: Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society Volume 104 Issue 5 (2023) (ametsoc.org)
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