Things I don’t understand ||

Life’s pretty exciting these days when you’re a climate researcher, a lobbyist or an environmental activist. There’s a neverending schedule of conferences on climate change around the world to attend.

It’s a shame that very little science actually goes on at these conferences. Just lots and lots of shoulder-rubbing with politicians, scientists, writers, activists and the press. Especially press, because you can never have too much publicity.

As Bob Carter reports(pdf) on three such conferences held in Australia and New Zealand:

The three conferences shared the features of widespread pre-meeting publicity, and of sponsorship by major science organisations (CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology, Royal Society of New Zealand), government departments (governments of Victoria, South Australia and New Zealand, foreign embassies (U.K., Holland), Greenhouse organisations and lobby groups (Australian Greenhouse Office, Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature, Pew Center for Climate Change), and a wide range of companies and business organizations.

Press coverage before and during each meeting often gave the impression that the science of climate change was to be the focus, but in fact the conferences were dominantly concerned with greenhouse politics and governance, with a special emphasis on the development of presumed environmental-good “command and control” measures such as carbon taxes. As the organizer of the Wellington meeting noted, “This is a policy conference, not a science congress or a diplomatic negotiation”.

I present here an analysis of the face that was presented to the public by the Wellington conference, Climate Change and Governance, hereafter often called simply the climate conference. The conclusions that I draw are, however, applicable also to the Melbourne and Adelaide meetings and to others of like kind. I assess the intentions of the Wellington conference organizers, the degree to which the general and policy discussions were informed by an adequate understanding of the science of climate change, the role played by the media in informing the public, and assess the outcomes. Troublesome ethical issues emerge, the most important of which include the role in society of scientific organizations and universities, and the way in which government-employed and other scientists are today constrained in the public comment that they can make on controversial issues of the day. Another major concern is the way in which scientific results are now routinely deployed into the public domain with a clear greenhouse propaganda intent.

That’s problem with being a skeptic - I just don’t get out enough.