Chapter Five - The Climate Change “Uncertainty Monster”

Summary

“Science […] can never solve one problem without raising ten more problems.”

—Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw1

In the linear model of expertise and decision-making (Section 4.1.1), uncertainty and doubt are enemies of action. Attempts to hide or simplify uncertainty are at the heart of some of the most acrimonious debates over climate change.

Uncertainty is a state of incomplete knowledge arising from a lack of information or from disagreement about what is known or even knowable. The fundamental mischaracterization of the climate change problem as a tame rather than a wicked problem (Section 3.4) has resulted in institutionalized efforts to ignore, simplify, reduce, and control uncertainty.

In frontier research, the objective is to extend knowledge in ways that change how we think about a particular topic. Doubt and uncertainty are inherent at the knowledge frontier. Researchers using the same data and hypotheses can come to different conclusions in the context of a vast universe of different possible research designs. While extending the knowledge frontier often reduces uncertainty in some dimensions, inevitably it leads to greater uncertainty in other dimensions as unanticipated complexities are discovered. Careful consideration of uncertainties is not a central element of frontier research.

However, uncertainty assessment and characterization are paramount for science that is targeted at policy-making. The greatest challenges are presented by frontier research that is policy relevant, such as climate change.

This chapter presents a consilience of diverse ideas about uncertainty, which provides the foundation for a strategy to accommodate uncertainty at the climate science-policy interface and in decision-making.

The Uncertainty Monster

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.” (Nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche)

With a heritage in monster theory, Dutch social scientist Jeroen van der Sluijs introduced the concept of the “uncertainty monster” in context of the different ways that the scientific community responds to the monstrous uncertainties associated with environmental problems. The “monster” arises from the confusion and ambiguity associated with knowledge versus ignorance, objectivity versus subjectivity, facts versus values, prediction versus speculation, and science versus policy. The uncertainty monster gives rise to discomfort and fear, particularly with regard to our reactions to things or situations we cannot understand or control, including the presentiment of radical unknown dangers. Specifically, in the context of decision-making, the uncertainty monster is perceived as something to be feared and avoided.