Book contents
- Climate Rationality
- Climate Rationality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and Overview
- Part I The Costs of Precautionary Policy
- Part II The Other Side of the Story
- 10 But Is It True?
- 11 “Born in Politics”
- 12 Settling Science and Propagandizing for Action
- 13 Recent Observed Climate Change in Longer-Term Perspective
- 14 Beyond CO2
- 15 Projecting Future Climate from Computer Models and Far, Far Distant Earth History
- 16 The Precautionary Social Cost of Carbon
- Part III Toward Rational Climate Policy
- References
- Index
11 - “Born in Politics”
The Rise of the Climate Change Science Production and Assessment Complex
from Part II - The Other Side of the Story
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2021
- Climate Rationality
- Climate Rationality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction and Overview
- Part I The Costs of Precautionary Policy
- Part II The Other Side of the Story
- 10 But Is It True?
- 11 “Born in Politics”
- 12 Settling Science and Propagandizing for Action
- 13 Recent Observed Climate Change in Longer-Term Perspective
- 14 Beyond CO2
- 15 Projecting Future Climate from Computer Models and Far, Far Distant Earth History
- 16 The Precautionary Social Cost of Carbon
- Part III Toward Rational Climate Policy
- References
- Index
Summary
A very typical story leading to domestic environmental legislation in countries such as the United States is one in which people in a number of localities within the country begin to experience harm from a particular kind of pollution and then legislators from those places take up the cause and ask scientists to identify which pollutant or pollutants are causing that harm so that legislation can be passed to curb the harmful pollution. As discussed earlier, precisely such a process led to the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970. One might suppose that a similar pattern occurred on the international level with global warming: some countries might have been experiencing harmful warming, leading them to ask for international scientific cooperation to identify the cause of the warming. Such a pattern – a problem is identified, and scientists are asked to figure out what is causing it and what might be done to eliminate it – is what might be called the standard model of how science relates to policy.
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- Climate RationalityFrom Bias to Balance, pp. 286 - 316Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021