Elemental

It was a funny old week, last week.

First we have the Clive James kerfuffle, subsequent to his essay “In praise of scepticism“. There was some dissent against James on Twitter (which I am increasingly becoming disillusioned with as a tool for proper discourse and debate – 140 characters is not enough space to make points properly unless you are phenomenally eloquent). Many were equating sceptiscism with denialism, which was overegging James’ views somewhat. But I didn’t make too much of a deal about it and trundled on.

Then we had the Tim Nicholson vs. Grainger case on Tuesday, which I will say no more about, but appears to have been one of the catalysts for what happened next.

On Wednesday night, Amanda Baillieu dared to voice dissent with regards to climate change on Twitter. Her initial tweet was:

I am becoming increasingly irritated by the green lobby and the idea that its to be treated like a religion http://is.gd/4N8sH

Followed by:

Basically believing in man made climate change is a bit like hoping that fairies live at the bottom of the garden.

There followed a fair amount of toing and froing with various parties, as I gawped from the sidelines. I pondered whether Amanda was negating low carbon design and resource efficiency along with this scepticism? Luckily she redefined how she felt in her editorial for BD on Friday. And this is when the “where is the evidence you refer to?” attacks really began to gain traction.

Now, I may disagree with Amanda (I’ve covered my Pascal’s Wager here), but like I said in that post, I tend to keep out of global warming debates – in a way, I don’t really care. In fact, if I had to embark on a global warming debate with a client every time we wanted to build anything, I’d still be staring at a blank sheet of paper. And despite currently coming down on the side of the climate change scientists, I’ve actually read a fair bit of Lomborg and Crichton, to act as a counterfoil to Monbiot and Stern (an important discipline as I outlined in my how to read non-fiction post). I suspect there may be those who have attacked Amanda’s article without reading any literature on the topic at all. Not good enough.

What many of the commenter’s fail to pick up, is that despite Amanda’s agnosticism (after all, she admits to scepticism, which whilst it might be cynical, is certainly not denial-ism) on climate change science, she still supports ‘green’ design:

“…there’s no argument that natural resources such as water need to be conserved and low-energy buildings make sense…”

So did Amanda really deserve the criticism she got in return? One of the most outraged was Justin Bere who managed to write two posts, one outlining the events on Twitter blow by blow (which is handy as now I don’t have to) and another in which he addresses the “evidence” argument. There are many others who exprssed outrage in the comments to the article (although with some showing support). But what really matters here is our actions, not the beliefs that are behind them. To quote John Stuart Mills’ “On Liberty“:

…the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil, in case he do otherwise.

In other words, one should have the freedom to think as one wishes, and to feel as one does. This includes the freedom to opinion, and includes the freedom to publish opinions (aka freedom of speech). Mills also argued that censorship harms society, not only by limiting freedom, but because a banned opinion may be true or contain some truth, or will challenge the accepted one and prevent it becoming a mere dogma.

I shouldn’t have to point out that I’m a fan of freedom of speech – and I do think contrarians have a useful role in society. Even when we have reached a consensus opinion, we should continue to scrutinize and debate. As I’ve said before:

“…perhaps there is an opportunity to use antagonists such as Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg and even Tim Worstall to check our thinking. Without doing so, we run the risk of heading down cul-de-sacs unquestioningly. Question everything.”

An argument often bandied around is that websites and forums are not the proper channel to hold debates such as these. This episode highlights the drawbacks of such technology, especially twitter. But, it’s better to have some debate than to gag anyone whose opinions don’t match our own. I’ll add Amanda to my list of ‘useful contrarians’ and hope a few more people potter off to read up on Mills.

admin Opinion Amanda Baillieu, Climate Change, Clive James, global warming, John Stuart Mill, Liberty, Michael Crichton, twitter

Whilst I was away on holiday the US got a new president, and one of it’s most famous authors, Michael Crichton died. Catching up on my feeds over the past week, I was surprised there wasn’t any comment in my inbox on Crichton’s passing, given his brush with the green movement a couple of years ago. As a massive fan of ER, I always had a soft spot for him.

Much of the criticism of Crichton came following publication of 2004’s thriller State of Fear (disclosure – I haven’t actually read the book although I have read the speech I reference below. Grist review the plot here). The controversy arose from the assertions he makes:

“This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions, and organizations in this novel are the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real used fictitiously without intent to describe their actual conduct. However, references to real people, institutions and organizations that are documented in the footnotes are accurate. Footnotes are real.”

The main controversy came from the accuracy of the science he uses (misuses?) in the book. The book (remember, a work of fiction) has been used as nay-sayers of anthropogenic climate change. Which is all kinds of barmy, which I won’t get into here.

I’m fairly ambivalent about this and far more interested in his case that the issue is complex and (using James Lovelock’s terminology) there may be iatrogenic* consequences. My current interest in decision making and cognitive biases led me back to Crichton’s speech made in November 2005. It’s worth a read (at 41 pages longer than a coffee break! there is also a 1.5 hour video). Some key points Crichton makes:

“when I went back to examine old fears, the first thing I found was that newspapers were focused on momentary concerns; the second thing I found was that the language employed was excessively frightening, and the third thing I found was that a lot of advocacy was encouraging what was happening anyway.”

There’s a few areas of overlap with James Lovelock (the Chernobyl data, for instance). A key point being the danger of fear. I’ve touched before several times on scaring people into action. Crichton is also concerned with the effect of dispute on the underlying debate:

“Environmental disputes frequently revolve around conflicts of land use, triggered by a fear. The spotted owl is endangered, and that means that logging in the northwest must stop. People are put out of work, communities suffer. It may be, in ten or thirty years, that we discover logging was not a danger to the spotted owl. Or the issue may remain contentious. My point is that the drama surrounding such disputes—angry marches and press coverage, tree hugging, bulldozers—serves to obscure the deeper problem.We don’t know how to manage wilderness environments, even when there is no conflict at all.”

He then goes on to review the Yellowstone Park case. Again, a James Lovelock quote resonated with me on reading it. From the conclusions of The Revenge of Gaia (pg. 195):

“The more we meddle with the Earth’s composition and try to fix its climate, the more we take on the responsibility for keeping the Earth a fit place or life, until eventually our whole lifes may be spent in drudgery doing the tasks that previously Gaia had freely done for over three billion years. This would be the worst of fates for us and reduce us to a truly miserable state, where we were forever wondering whether anyone, any nation or any international body could be trusted to regulate the climate and the atmospheric composition. The idea that humans are yet intelligent enough to serve as stewards of the Earth is among the most hubristic ever.”

Crichton then goes on to define what he means by a complex system (something I touched on recently):

“We live in a world of complex systems. The environment is a complex system. The government is a complex system. Financial markets are complex systems. The human mind is a complex system—most minds, at least.

By a complex system I mean one in which the elements of the system interact among themselves, such that any modification we make to the system will produce results that we cannot predict in advance.

Furthermore, a complex system demonstrates sensitivity to initial conditions. You can get one result on one day, but the identical interaction the next day may yield a different result. We cannot know with certainty how the system will respond.

Third, when we interact with a complex system, we may provoke downstream consequences that emerge weeks or even years later. We must always be watchful for delayed and untoward consequences.”

He goes on to say:

“If you have a teenager, or if you invest in the stock market, you know very well that a complex system cannot be controlled, it can only be managed. Because responses cannot be predicted, the system can only be observed and responded to. The system may resist attempts to change its state. It may show resiliency. Or fragility. Or both.

An important feature of complex systems is that we don’t know how they work. We don’t understand them except in a general way; we simply interact with them. Whenever we think we understand them, we learn we don’t. Sometimes spectacularly.”

Crichton’s main concern is that ‘we’ have made conclusions in a linear cause and effect fashion that carbon causes climate change. Whether you agree with his assessment or not, Crichton applies critical thinking to the issue. I would counter his assessment and acknowledge that it is a complex issue, but that we have very likely identified a contributing factor and by reducing anthropogenic carbon emissions, we are doing no harm.

I’m not trying to defend Crichton’s views here, but I would like to acknowledge his recognition of the complexity we are facing.

I am also trying to ensure that we (i.e. me) don’t fall into the trap of discrediting other’s views outright when they don’t match our own and conversely we don’t agree with everything labelled ‘green’ without critiquing the argument.

When I originally read Brad Feld’s post on the current lack of critical thinking, I couldn’t confirm or deny it, but increasingly I’m seeing ‘green’ issues all lumped together and the no ‘internal’ criticism of the matters. For example from my post on the 100 months campaign:

“The pro-camp seems big on repeating the NEF press release, quiet on comment. Which is a shame as the anti-camp have come out all guns blazing”

Rather than getting marred in disputes, perhaps there is an opportunity to use antagonists such as Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg and even Tim Worstall to check our thinking. Without doing so, we run the risk of heading down cul-de-sacs unquestioningly. Question everything.

*iatrogenic – arising from treatment that adds damage instead of curing the malady – i.e. the unintended consequences argument

mel starrs Opinion Climate Change, Complex systems, environment, James Lovelock, Michael Crichton, State of Fear