The climate issue provides an incredibly rich and textured body of experience to explore issues of science and politics. All participants in the political debate over climate policy work hard to define the issue in terms of science. This by itself is of course not so surprising, as anyone who has seen the old television commercial claiming that “4 out of 5 dentists recommend Acme gum for their patients who chew gum” will be familiar with the appeal to scientific authority. What is most interesting to me in the case of the climate debate is the different roles that scientists might play in the political debate over climate, and how scientists have chosen to position themselves and their institutions on the climate issue.


An interview last week on Democracy Now helps to illustrate how advocates try to conflate scientific and political issues, but more importantly, it highlights some of the challenges facing the scientific community as providers of information to policy makers. If scientific debate equals political debate, then we will find that science has simply become another political battleground, and we will lose much of the positive contributions of science in policy (see this PDF for discussion). And as we have asked frequently here of late, should the climate science community position itself more like an issue advocate or honest broker?

The Democracy Now interview focused on the recent feature on climate change politics in Mother Jones magazine that we discussed here last week. In the interview, Ross Gelbspan, a vocal issue advocate, makes the following assertion:

“… the head of this intergovernmental panel on climate change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, said recently that we have about a ten-year window to make very, very deep cuts in our carbon fuel use, if, quote, “humanity is to survive.” This is a scientist. He speaks normally in very conservative and measured language. So, to hear that kind of talk is very, very troubling.”

I follow the IPCC pretty closely and we have occasionally commented on Dr. Pachauri’s advocacy-oriented statements, but I am unaware of any statements made by Dr. Pachauri referring to the end of humanity if fossil fuel use is not dramatically cut. There are two possibilities here, neither of which is particularly attractive, and both imply choices for the climate science community.

Possibility #1 – Mr. Gelbspan is accurately quoting Dr. Pachauri, which would suggest that the IPCC is continuing down the path of transformation from honest broker (circa 1990) to advocate in support a particular approach to dealing with climate. We’d welcome a reference to Dr. Pachauri’s quoted words by Mr. Gelbspan if any Prometheus readers are aware of it.

Possibility #2 – Mr. Gelbspan is not accurately quoting Dr. Pachauri, which would suggest that he is misusing the imprimatur of the IPCC in
pursuit of political advantage, by suggesting that the IPCC (or at least its leadership) has in fact endorsed the approach to the climate issue that Mr. Gelbspan prefers.

If for a moment we assume that Mr. Gelbspan is misquoting Dr. Pachauri, it would seem to be in the best interests of the IPCC to correct the misattribution, as Mr. Gelbspan is a well known and widely cited commentator on climate
politics. Under this scenario, if the climate science community were to simply ignore such misuse of their authority for purposes of advocacy, it raises legitimate questions about the role that climate scientists wish to play in the political debate. Context matters here as many climate scientists have shown little reluctance to speak out in response to certain commentators (compare, e.g., reaction to Michael Crichton). And the context becomes even more relevant when a climate scientist favorably invokes the work of Mr. Gelbspan, reinforcing a connection between climate science and a particular approach to climate politics. Under this scenario, letting misstatements stand while selectively correcting others contributes to the conflation of climate science and climate politics.

These dynamics help to illustrate how an observer (e.g., Gelbspan, Crichton, others) of the political debate on climate might come to (or even seek) the conclusion that climate science and politics are one and the same. From this vantage point, climate scientists become issue advocates whether they like it or not. For some climate scientists this outcome may be perfectly acceptable (see earlier reference to Madisonian democracy), but if climate policy needs consideration of new and innovative options (see earlier reference to Schattschneiderian democracy) then the climate community’s collective actions may limit its future contributions to the climate debate to simply a tool of marketing for agendas now on the table. For issue advocates this may be a desirable outcome, but the question that I have for scientists is – is this the direction that you really want science to go?