Possible questions for the future

Insights for the Future from the Change of Climate in Copenhagen (Part #6)

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A very insightful generic checklist of Innovation Dynamics: Top Forty (December 2009) was prepared by G. K. VanPatter as part of the process of Making Sense of the Copenhagen Summit. It focused on 'why most large group meetings, work sessions, working conferences produce little other than feel good vibes'. The first 5 read:

1. Vastly different, unarticulated, unaligned expectations among participants.
2. Lack of awareness that many types of dialogue exist.
3. Lack of acknowledgement regarding what the default dialogue mode is.
4. Disconnect between (serious significant) expected outcomes and (tea party-like) processes.
5. Lack of acknowledgement that the scale of challenges facing us has changed.

The following unrelated items are however more specific to the dynamics within the pro-climate change movement:

• Many of the commentators offer well-reasoned comments. However the title of that of Richard Heinberg (The Meaning of Copenhagen, 3 January 2010) raises the question as to how each is to be construed as "The" meaning of Copenhagen. Does each preclude other interpretations and meanings -- of validity for some?
  
  
• Are those analyses that frame one group as essentially "bad" people (vested interests, etc) and another group as "good" people (those in favour of action on climate change) a bit too simple for governance in the 21st century?
  
  
• Do any framed as "bad" people have any kind of case? Is there anything to be learnt from them?
  
  
• Is there anything inadequate (if not "bad") in the case made by the "good" people?
  
  
• How come so little is said about the difficulties of the "good" people in getting their own act together -- echoes of the problems that the spectrum of religions face? Is it easier to identify "bad" people rather than recognize the challenges that the "good" people themselves face amongst each other?
  
  
• With respect to 'denial' and 'deniers':
  • To what extent is who "in denial" -- necessarily from some other perspective, readily held to be irrelevant or misguided?
  • User of 'denier' vs 'sceptic' has been helpfully considered with respect to media presentation by David Marsh (Mind your language, The Guardian, 1 March 2009). Suggestions have been made to stop referring to "climate change deniers" in favour of, perhaps, "climate sceptics", indicating: The former has nasty connotations with Holocaust denial and tends to polarise debate. On the other hand there are some who are literally in denial about the evidence. Also, some are reluctant to lend the honourable tradition of scepticism to people who may not be truly 'sceptical' about the science.
    
    
• Have the "good" people:
  • effectively bought into the problematic dynamics of religion over centuries past and its expectations that all can (and should for their own benefit) be persuaded of the validity of its perspective -- even though it makes every effort to marginalize and condemn other faiths?
  • trapped themselves in the belief that they had an unquestionable case which everyone should "believe" in or be labelled as an unbeliever and a denier, with all the historical echoes of that term? Should denial be criminalized?
  • made a poorly framed case in that it reflects those past patterns of religions in endeavouring to persuade the world of their unique message -- demonising those who disagree? Does the 21st century call for a subtler approach -- a possible lesson of Copenhagen?
    
    
• How appropriate is it to borrow language from fundamental debates of centuries past in order to frame the challenges of the future, namely:
  • the quasi-religious distinction made between "believers" in climate change and its "deniers" and the opprobrium with which it is considered appropriate by the former to frame the latter. In the religious traditions. deniers are a focus of stereotyping and victimization -- through a process of demonisation denying any degree of legitimacy to their perspective. Given the "evil" they are then held to represent within that framework, are they legitimately to be treated as an existential danger to the community and worthy of any sanction?
  • use of the term "denier" also borrows from the widespread condemnation of Holocaust denial -- now criminalized in some countries. Is it appropriate to activate a debate analogous to that in relation to the so-called "Holocaust industry", with use of pejorative terms such as "self-hating Jew", worthy of extreme threat in the eyes of some (Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering, 2000)? Will this transform the already emerging "climate change industry" such as to recognize and stigmatize some as "self-hating environmentalists"?
  • suggestions of the need to constrain population increase, as an aspect of the challenge of anthropogenic global warming, may be reframed in an extreme manner in terms of the process used where populations of animals threaten their ecosystem. Is it appropriate to then deliberately imply that any restriction on population increase should be understood as promoting the "culling" of human populations with all that implies in terms of killing the unsuspecting, as in the analysis of the climate change debate by James Corbett (A Message to Environmentalists. The Corbett Report, December 2009)?
    
    
• Is the failure of Copenhagen now going to result in the emergence of a pattern of complaint typical of religions in blaming unbelievers for hindering the arrival of Heaven on Earth? Is that posture a bit too easy, implying that the "good" people have nothing to learn from Copenhagen (other than that the "bad" people were worse than they thought, and better organized)?
  
  
• To what extent has the climate change process been symptomatic of a more fundamental challenge, namely the desperate desire to achieve universal consensus -- something for everyone to believe in -- thereby obscuring the challenge of psychosocial diversity and of why people may have reason to disagree?
  
  
• With respect to choice of language to communicate the challenge of climate change:
  • Campaign: Should the challenge have been framed as a "battle" in the first place -- notably in the use of "campaign" -- or effectively presented as a "crusade" (and why not a "jihad")?
    
  • Targetting: The problem is that anyone who feels they are being targetted tends to have techniques for avoiding the consequences -- as in the animal world.
    • Comparison may be made with interpersonal relationship: anyone who gets the sense that they are the subject of a campaign (courtship or otherwise) tends to adopt measures of avoidance. For courtship to work, obvious targetting has to be avoided. What then are the range of 'courtship techniques' for climate change? How does climate change become sexy -- how is a change of climate cultivated? Intriguing is the recent recognition by the marketing world that 'targetting' now has to become contextual -- 'environmental' -- moving beyond older marketing ploys. Neuromarketing is the name of the game. And for climate change?
    • Missiles, Missives, Missions and Memetic Warfare [https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/missile.php]
  • Western bias: It would seem, given the emerging Chinese strategy with respect to climate change, that there is merit in exploring Chinese insights into responding to 'Western strategy' :
    • David Lai. Learning from the Stones: a go approach to mastering China's concept, Shi. Strategic Studies Institute (United States Army War
      College), 2004 [http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB378.pdf]
    • Scott Boorman. A Protracted Game: a wei-ch'i interpretation of maoist revolutionary strategy. Oxford University Press, 1969
      [http://senseis.xmp.net/?TheProtractedGame]
      
      
• What is it fruitful to do when a "battle" is perceived as lost -- focus on blaming the enemy?
  
  
• Has the scientific community made mistakes in pretending that it is its business to achieve consensus and to penalize all those scientists who do not subscribe to it -- complaining that its unquestionable values are being besmirched by questioning its processes? A case of "scientific wailing" despite complicity of marine biologists in "scientific whaling"?
  
  
• What questions have been swept under the carpet in the effort to bulldoze consensus -- to manufacture consent in Chomsky's terms? How come there is so little mention of the Kaya Identity on which the IPCC case is built -- having excluded consideration of one of its components?
  
  
• Although much was said about "the science" relevant to climate change and its reliability, is the fact that so little attention was given to other "sciences" capable of analyzing the debate itself and its players more fruitfully to be considered a blindspot in "the science"? What efforts are made to recognize cognitive blindspots and biases in global risk analysis, as discussed by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgment of global risks, In: Nick Bostrom and Milan Cirkovic, eds, Global Catastrophic Risks, OUP, 2008)?
  
  
• Who can now be held to speak credibly and with authority -- and how is this credibility determined, other than by affirmation? Who to have confidence in -- given the range of constituencies with various conflicting perspectives, each appealing for such confidence?
  
  
• What are the other questions that might be tabled for consideration rather than pretending to have achieved closure on "The" meaning of Copenhagen? How to determine what more strategically instructive questions might be?

Where are the analyses of mistakes made by all the respective parties to the climate change debate -- and the learnings to be obtained from those mistakes?

• How are these to be interrelated to transcend an unfruitful blame-game, as has been the case with the financial crises of 2008-2009?
• Is another style of meeting and communication required, rather than endeavouring to pour 'new wine into old bottles' with processes that have proven to be unfot for purpose?

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is widely renowned for his early contribution to what was subsequently hailed as an emergent scientific methodology. As an artist, he quickly became master of topographic anatomy, drawing many studies of muscles, tendons and other visible anatomical features through dissecting human corpses -- a conventionally repugnant preoccupation for an artist. It resulted in a theoretical work on anatomy to which he contributed more than 200 drawings (published 161 years after his death) as a treatise on painting. It might be asked whether the attitude of a Leonardo is required to engage in the study -- so repugnant to conventional "science" -- of the "corpses" of international gatherings such as Copenhagen, in order to herald the emergence of a "new science" of vital relevance to understanding collective intelligence and governance processes of the future (cf End of Science: the death knell as sounded by the Royal Society, 2008).

Might it be concluded that "Copenhagen", given its ambition, could be fruitfully recognized in the terms of Gregory Bateson in concluding a conference on the effects of conscious purpose on human adaptation, namely: "We are our own metaphor." (Mary Catherine Bateson. Our Own Metaphor, 1972, p.304)

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