When Nature Speaks for Itself

Facts about the world can be explained in terms of things we can’t see derived from things that tell us how the world is after the dust settles. In our attempt to make sense of the world beyond two houses, two camps, bicameralism is more than pitting facts vs. values or politics vs. nature. The mobilization of nature takes place inside the collective which is made up of humans and non-humans and the proposition of how the world hangs together – or not. But the world seems more plausible when it fits together.

Because of the gaps in understanding between scientists, policy makers, journalists, and the public domain, there remains a major barrier to the adoption of sensible responses to the climate problem. So, how do disputes end? When the dust settles. How could the collective get on with doing something about global warming, since the debate already seems to have shifted from whether humans are warming the planet, to what to do about it? What we know and what we should believe, or as Latour would say, what is and what ought to be, appears in Dressler and Parson’s book, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate (Cambridge University Press, 2006), where they distinguish between objective understanding and subjective value judgment. This way of thinking holds promise because it curbs the potential to use ignorance to manipulate the debate, but also acknowledges the limits of scientific understanding. Even when policy makers ground their decisions in the best available knowledge, they must still balance that knowledge with ethical considerations and the policy implications to a broad range of constituents.