[Radix] Ben Wisner's cri du coeur -- Help him puzzle "climate science"

[bwisner at igc.org]

Dear colleagues,

Here I am in Italy at the end of the 3rd expert working group meeting on measuring vulnerability.

I am getting more and more nervous about the way that the “standard” methods for linking human and natural systems – in climate change adaptation work, in broader human dimensions of global change work, etc., etc. – is using the same paradigm, replete with language no one reflects upon: “drivers”, “upscaling”, etc., etc.  We saw it in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; we saw it dozens of times in the Bonn meeting of the IHDP; and it seems to have become de rigeur in any work on climate change adaptation.  

Is this homogeneity healthy?  Where has it come from?

It strikes me that as useful for some purposes as this work is – and of course in relation to the andediluvians in the George W. cabal this is essential and important work, as well as trying to get climate onto the agenda of the MDGs and specific PRSPs, etc., sure! – such an approach is in danger of MASKING as much as it reveals.

Firstly, while allegedly holistic, it tends to de-humanise and de-politicize.  Whole “systems” adapt, respond, are subject to “stressors”, etc., etc.  Human agency is absent.  The politics of climate change and other policy decisions are notl a part of these models (see the chapter “The Day after Kyoto” in Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent book on climate change, “Notes from a Catastrophe”).

Secondly, I always say to myself, “follow the money.”  Who is funding this work?  Why do its practitioners get privileged access to elite decision makers (at least outside the US and Australia, the two remaining climate rogue states) and honors such as nomination to various Academies of Science, etc.?  By contrast consider the situation of scientists who work with local people in a more critical mode, even in resistance against economic globalization (critiquing and exposing the social and economic consequences produced, growing inequalities, etc.).  The comparison is obvious.  The latter group are lucky if they have university positions at all, let along accolades and research funding.

Thirdly, although the establishment modellers are smart and are taking on board participatory methods (merging quantitative and qualitative, etc.), I fear much of this is still in the “smash and grab” old fashioned mode of ripping off poor people’s ideas and aspirations in “focus groups” that bring them absolutely nothing in return.  Major personalities’ names appear along side those of academic co-authors who are African, Latin American, Southeast Asian, etc., but nevertheless usually civil society, especially the critical sector of civil society that questions economic globalization, neo-liberalism, corruption, violations of human rights, etc. plays no part in the research.  Nor is there any action plan at primary locality level that follow up: no pay back.

A fourth problem, following on the last, is that the language and output is far too complex to be of use at the village and neighborhood level, and often not at imporant sub-national levels such as municipality.

There are obviously exceptions, but I am growing very nervous, in fact, quite desperate concerning what I see as the tendency as I have described it.

So why does this stuff exist and is it diffusing so quickly and successfully through development and disaster risk reduction circles, as it has among the so-called “climate community?”  (Parenthetically, I am increasingly allergic also to the cosy language of “communities.”  Epistemic communities are necessarily conflictual, containing thesis and anti-thesis, or how else would understanding advance?)  It seems that the same pay masters who “drive” the work on “coupled society environment models” have learned from George W and Dick Cheney that dissention and difference of opinion are wrong – well, strickly speaking INEFFICIENT.

That brings me to my central “ah ha!” insight.  The dominant economic elites of the world (and their political allies) believe they need these models in order to regain control over an increasingly unstable socio-environmental situation OF THEIR OWN MAKING.  Again, this is not to dismiss all this modelling work, but to call on the intellectual workers involved to see clearly why they are doing what they do, to question in whose services they work -- whether their work will help reduce poverty and make the earth less unstable.  I'd like these intellectual workers also to think whether they should (and could) use what they do more directly in the service of ordinary people and their organizations (in civil society) – trade unions, cooperatives, local NGOs, etc.  Some would say that these institutions are non-democratic and that one must support the official organs of governance.  That is not a trivial issue.  However, one has to be discriminating and clear sighted about who uses what, why.  WHY ARE WE MEASURING VULNERABILITY?  In whose interest?

The economic and political elites know that peak oil is bringing with it a reorganization of the ecumene and the earths systems that will take some clever planning to continue to control and profit from exploiting.  These models help them forecast such social trends as international migration in response (so-called "environmental refugees") and conflicts over water (and again this explains the academic cult status of the Canadian Homer-Dixon who give these elites at least the illusion of understanding, thus ability to control!).  Jim Blaut ("Colonizer's Model of the World" 2 volumes completed, 3rd in progress when he passed away) would have this kind of answer for me, I think.

This, then is my dilemma and crisis.  I’m now 63.  Maybe it’s mid life crisis (arithmetically true since, as you may know, my plan is to commemorate Hiroshima + 100 and then expire on the top of Mt. Fuji at age 103.  I am not sure the cause, but I do know that I have reached saturation point and am on the point of bailing out.

>From 1960s – 1980s I worked almost totally outside the structures of international development assistance (bilateral national level donors) and international organizations except for short focused technical consultancies.  My one longer experience with FAO on agrarian reform and rural development leave me remembering a head of mission worried about how he could import a $700 Dollar flag pole for his Mercedes.  During the last 10-12 years beginning with the megacities and disaster work (RADIUS, EMI, UNU megacities project) I have tried the reform route and have grown to work much more closely with UNU, ProVention, IADB, even WB.  I am wondering if this is a good use of my time.

An admired colleague in the UNU EHS has finished her primary year of responsibility as Munich Re Prof of Social Vulnerability and has returned to Mexico to work with the Peasant University and Via Campesina.  I find that kind of work much more satisfying.

I guess what I want to know from your side – and I really need advice – do you think there ANY radical space in the global society-nature modelling world (institutionally in the IPCC, UNFCCC, etc., etc.), ANY way that this work can be bent (as, recalling Martin Luther King’s saying, “The universe bends toward justice”), toward empowerment of ordinary people?

I know “you’ll still need me, and you’ll still feed me, when I’m 64”, but if I am going to live long enough to reach 64, I need help in deciding what this tsunami of modelling hegemony means, where it’s come from, and where it’s leading.  As I told a friend the other night here in Tuscany, I see this stuff as a trolly.  I don’t know where it came from (but I am beginning to suspect it has to do with excess capacity on super computers once used to design nuclear weapons) and I don’t know where it’s leading (except not to the radical cut in green house gases and consumption needed but only to cosy “win win” tweakings).  For now I jump on and off this trolly and hope it is also a vehicle for some Tanzanian, Mozambican, Salvadoran friends.

What do you think?

All the best, BEN