David Brin on Global Climate Change

[Forkboy]

The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change - A War on Expertise

The schism over global climate change (GCC) has become an intellectual chasm, across which everyone perceives the other side as Koolaid-drinkers. Although I have mixed views of my own about the science of GCC, and have closely grilled a number of colleagues who are front-line atmospheric scientists (some at JPL), I'm afraid all the anecdotes and politics-drenched "questions" flying about right now aren't shedding light. They are, in fact, quite beside the point.

That is because science itself is the main issue: its relevance and utility as a decision-making tool.

Let there be no mistake, this is all about power, and the struggle goes way back. In Britain, the "Boffin Principle" long held that technical people have no business making policy suggestions to their betters. In America, waves of anti-intellectual populism - like the 19th Century Know Nothing Party - were deliberately stoked by aristocracies who saw the new, mental elites as a threat.

There have been counter-surges. In the 1930s, propelled by ambitious modernism and depression-era desperation, a briefly popular "Technocracy Movement" held that knowledge and skill should be paramount criteria for positions of leadership. A milder version of this eagerness for expertise was seen from Sputnik through the 1960s and 1970s, with glimmers during the Internet Boom years. (Notably, these were all lush times for science fiction literature.)

Of course, Technocracy was boneheaded and scary - though not as much as the new know-nothing era that we have endured during the last decade or so, a time when things became dicey even for the Civil Service and the U.S. Officer Corps. Chris Mooney documents how relentless this agenda has been, in The Republican War on Science. Though, let's be fair. If films like Avatar are any indication, a variant of dour anti-scientific fever rages on the left, as well.

http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2010/02/real-struggle-behind-climate-change-war.html

[Fumesucker]

1. Umm.. The scientist in Avatar was one of the heroes..

Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) was killed by the know nothings..

While I admit that there can be an anti-scientific bent on the left I don't think Avatar was a good example..

And I've enjoyed Brin's SF too, he's a good novelist.

Edited for speling..

[Forkboy]

4. I can't say...I still haven't seen Avatar.

:hide:

[Posteritatis]

2. "Some day we may be judged by just how well we served, when alone we were Earth's caretakers."

I don't always agree with Brin, though I do often enough to seek his take on things out, but he's a consistent source of brain candy and I love the long view he takes at times.

And, well, I like his novels. (That quote's taken from his postscript to The Uplift War.)

[Forkboy]

3. I like Brin's stuff quite a bit.

He has some weaker novels, but who doesn't? Earth was one of my favorites, and Kiln People was a wild ride as well.

His blog is always a good read. Like you, I don't always agree, but at least he's making us think. :toast:

[Posteritatis]

5. I discovered him before reading his books

Someone pointed me at his questionnaire on ideology on his website. It's slightly loaded in places, of course, but it's hard for such a thing not to be, and it's a really interesting way of trying to puzzle out one's own worldview.

I remember leaving blank copies of it around my university campus just to see if anyone poked at it and blew a fuse or something.

[Meldread]

6. There is definitely anti-intellectualism from all sides: right, left, and center.

Virtually everyone, even the most closed minded fundamentalist is happy to accept any scientific report that backs up their already held beliefs. The problem arises when science begins to contradict the beliefs held; instead of studying the evidence and modifying the beliefs if necessary, the fundamentalists put their head into the sand and attack the evidence.

This happens on all sides: right, left, and center.