UPDATE: twitter exchange with Gavin

by Judith Curry

The failures of climate advocacy – particularly in the US – are motivating reflection on responsible and effective advocacy. Gavin Schmidt provides his thoughts on the topic of scientists and advocacy in his recent AGU talk.

So, what is the point of scientists advocating for climate change policy? This article in the Huffington Post should give scientist advocates cause for concern: Americans have little faith in scientists, science journalists: Poll. Excerpts:

In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, only 36 percent of Americans reported having “a lot” of trust that information they get from scientists is accurate and reliable. Fifty-one percent said they trust that information only a little, and another 6 percent said they don’t trust it at all.

A whopping 78 percent of Americans think that information reported in scientific studies is often (34 percent) or sometimes (44 percent) influenced by political ideology, compared to only 18 percent who said that happens rarely (15 percent) or never (3 percent).

Effective and accurate polling is a complex and challenging issue, and I have no way to interpret this survey in this context, but whatever the context these are pretty stunning numbers.

I have long stated that scientists advocating for public policy can lead to distrust of scientists and their scientific findings. Some previous CE posts on this topic:

Gavin Schmidt

A new contribution to the discourse on scientist advocacy was made by Gavin Schmidt in theStephen H. Schneider Lecture at theannual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, titled “What should a climate scientist advocate for? The Intersection of Expertise and Values in a Politicized World.” . Its a thoughtful and well presented talk, reflecting a strong heritage from Steve Schneider.

Gavin’s money quote, IMO, is in response to Schneider’s ‘double ethical bind’ statement:

The ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently ind ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.

Gavin proposes the following amendment:

. . . because without honesty there is no possibility of being effective in a sustainable and responsible way.

Common sense, but it needs to be stated more often.

While this is a thoughtful presentation and some good points, I find a number of flaws in Gavin’s reasoning.

1. A confusion about what advocacy actually is. While Gavin gives lots of examples etc., he fails to recognize as advocacy this statement by Thomas Stocker at the end of the IPCC AR5 video:

Continued greenhouse gas emissions cause further climate change and constitute a multicentury commitment in the future. Therefore we conclude that limiting climate change requires substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

He states that numerous people complained that this statement is advocacy including IPCC scientists. Schmidt argues that it is not a normative statement, that is a factual statement. Huh?

Even if you believe that CO2 is the dominant control knob on climate change on timescales of decades to centuries, how is it a ‘fact’ to state that this must be dealt with by reducing greenhouse gas emissions (rather than by adaption, carbon sequestration or geoengineering)? And there is a missing element in this argument that warming is ‘bad’, which is a value judgment and has nothing to do with science.

This belief that CO2 mitigation follows logically from the science is part of what I have called the UNFCCC/IPCC ideology.

Gavin sees no difference between advocating for scientific integrity and public understanding of science, or for research funding, versus advocating for public policy related to a scientific finding. There is a fundamental difference, which was laid out in these two posts:

As a further example of this confusion, Gavin went on to show a list of activities and asked audience members to raise their hands if they considered a given activity advocacy to avoid:

“Scientists should communicate more about what they do and find.”

“Funding for scientific research should be a higher priority.”

“People should understand the basics of the greenhouse effect.”

“Global warming should be in the high school science curriculum.”

“Geoengineering should be seriously considered.”

Gavin stated “All of these statements are normative” e.g. they are expressions of advocacy. I beg to differ, there is a world of difference among these statements. For the record, the only statement that I support is the first one: scientists communicating their research is part of their job description if they are employed by a university or govt agency or receive government funding. To declare this is not advocacy, to argue that scientists should focus on communication at the expense of other things is arguably advocacy. The middle 3 are normative in the sense that they relate to science in general. The last one is in a different category, whereby a specific scientific finding is used to advocate for public policy.

2. Confusion about advocacy, Part II. Gavin gives much play to Steve Schneider’s arguments about values. He gives the following guidelines for responsible advocacy:

What are your values? Represent them fairly.

Make connections between your policy choices and your values explicit. Then people can see what that chain of logic is and they can decide to go along with you or decide this is the point at which we part. That makes for a much better conversation.

[Acknowledge] differences between one’s personal conclusions [and the scientific consensus].

Acknowledge that people with different values would have different policy choices even if the science was exactly the same and everybody accepted the science basis.

Be aware of how our values might affect our priors.

Well I don’t have any problems with these (I particularly like the last). Gavin then states:

You can’t be a communicator and pretend that you have no values. What instead you need to do is accept that. If you don’t explicitly say you’re advocating for x, y, or z people will just assume you’re advocating for a, b and c because you haven’t told them otherwise. And in a politicized environment, the default assumptions that people will make about you will not necessarily be very flattering.

I just don’t get what kind of ‘values’ Gavin is talking about, he never tells us what his values are (does anyone know where Gavin has declared his values? He certainly didn’t do this explicitly in the talk). Are we to infer all that he is talking about is scientists valuing science, and of course a logical outcome of scientific truth is limiting greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. Stocker’s statement)? Valuing science as opposed to primarily valuing religion or economic development or personal wealth? Political preference (after all this, I have no idea what Schneider’s or Gavin’s political preferences are)?.

If I state that I value health, happiness and prosperity for everyone, plus world peace, does this help in any way?

Gavin then states:

You can’t be a communicator and pretend that you have no values. What instead you need to do is accept that. If you don’t explicitly say you’re advocating for x, y, or z people will just assume you’re advocating for a, b and c because you haven’t told them otherwise. And in a politicized environment, the default assumptions that people will make about you will not necessarily be very flattering.

No one pretends that they don’t have values, although scientists should strive to be as objective as possible. Here is an example of potential hidden values that are rather inconvenient, I suspect this is not what Gavin had in mind but these are why the public distrusts scientists as advocates:

personal career advancement

research funding

the value in terms of professional recognition (e.g. awards from professional societies) that supporting the scientific consensus can provide (recognizing the ostracism that con result from straying)

media attention

influence within the scientific community

influence at the power tables in terms public policy

broader political objectives that support any/all of the above

There is a value conflict if a scientist is willing to sacrifice the integrity of scientific research for any other conceivable value (Peter Gleick is the poster boy for this one). Beyond this, I just don’t get the ‘value’ issue, esp since Gavin is not talking about the bulleted list above (which i think are the real issues in value conflicts for scientists).

3. Naivete over scientism and the role of science in public policy. Gavin closes with this statement from Nobel Laureate Sherwood Rowland:

What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?

The inference is that climate model predictions should be used to drive global energy policy. This is the simple linear model of scientism, that has been resoundingly debunked particularly for a complex problem like climate change.

JC summary: While Gavin’s talk is thoughtful and provides some good points, it is fundamentally flawed IMO by the naive believe in Stocker’s statement and that Stocker’s statement does not constitute advocacy. This is stealth advocacy at its worse, stating that this is a ‘fact’ and not advocacy. This belief in Stocker’s statement is so entrenched in the climate establishment (ideology) that they cannot even see this as advocacy. As a result of the hidden values of scientists in promoting Stocker’s statement as fact, the public is losing trust in climate scientists.

And all this, for what? Scientist involvement in climate policy advocacy doesn’t seem to be needed at this point (as per Amy Luers), and is arguably making things worse (not to mention damaging the integrity of science). So I remain with Tamsin Edwards on this one: climate scientists should avoid advocacy related to public policy related to climate science research findings. If you choose to advocate, here is a reminder of guidelines for responsible advocacy from the AAAS:

Limit science advocacy to your area(s) of expertise and be clear when you are presenting a personal opinion not based on your formal expertise or professional experience;

Present information clearly and avoid making exaggerated claims;

Be aware of any conflicts of interest – for example, financial interests that you or members of your family have or affiliations with advocacy organizations – and make them clear

Point out the weakness and limitations of your argument, including data that conflict with your recommendations;

Present all relevant scientific data, not just that which supports a particular policy outcome;

Be aware of the impact your advocacy can have on science; and

Make clear when you are speaking as an individual scientist as opposed to acting as a representative of a scientific organization

UPDATE: Twitter exchange with Gavin

Conversation #1:

Gavin Schmidt ‏@ClimateOfGavin 14h

.@curryja Big difference between saying “an apple pie requires apples” and “You should bake an apple pie”. Only latter stmt is advocacy.

Conversation #2:

Judith Curry ‏@curryja 15h

@ClimateOfGavin @thebenshi @Revkin a quick summary of main point?

Gavin Schmidt ‏@ClimateOfGavin 15h

@curryja 2 quick pts: 1) the pop quiz was for whether people *would* say those statements (not opposite). Ppl more willing than I expected

Judith Curry ‏@curryja 14h

@ClimateOfGavin my point re the statements is that they are very different in context of advocacy, not similar species as you argue

. @curryja You are missing the point completely. All of them are advocacy. What is diff are background values, hence not universal agreement

the difference among them is whether it uses one’s expertise to accomplish a specific policy goal @ClimateOfGavin the difference among them is whether it uses one’s expertise to accomplish a specific policy goal

My pt is that diff btw the various pts aren’t whether some are ‘advocacy’ (they all are), but how yr expertise/values come together @curryja My pt is that diff btw the various pts aren’t whether some are ‘advocacy’ (they all are), but how yr expertise/values come together