Writing – Page 63 – a sibilant intake of breath

Draft research design paper introduction

Preamble

‘Policy making’ can be understood as the application of judgment to problems, on the part of those empowered to make choices that will affect the matters in question. Global environmental policy making, in particular, involves heightened difficulties related to the process of acting upon the world. Firstly, with regards to such large and complex matters as climate change and the management of ecosystems, our understanding of the objective nature of the world is uncertain. This applies both to the functioning of the natural world in the absence of specific human prompts and to the impact that choices made by human beings and organizations will have within the context of natural processes. On the one hand, for instance, we have an imperfect understanding of the functioning of food webs in the absence of human involvement. On the other, we have an incomplete understanding of the effects of pesticide use on those processes.

The major vehicle through which questions about the nature of the world and the consequences of human action are accessed is science. ‘Science’ exists as a collection of methodologies, epistemic communities, and ideals. While the role of science as an entity involved in policy making may seem initially straightforward, complexities arise rapidly. Crucially, these involve the balance between making judgments about ontological questions under circumstances of uncertainly and the balance of making judgments between alternative courses of action. On one hand, for example, scientists can assess the distribution of fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests conducted above islands in the Pacific; on the other, groups of concerned scientists can call for the discontinuation of such tests.

The perceived appropriateness of each of those roles, on the part of scientists, is reflective of the credibility of scientists as individuals and members of communities and organizations, as well as the political understandings that exist about the relationship between expert knowledge and power. All viable environmental policies must be created in light of existing and emerging expert knowledge, but the question of arbitration between descriptive and prescriptive claims is one that raises fundamental issues about how science and policy do, can, and should relate.

The question

This thesis will examine the relationship between science and global environmental policy making on two conceptually separable but intertwined levels. It will so so firstly on the practical level of how environmental science and scientists have been involved in the development of laws and institutions and secondly at the more theoretical level of the understood relationship between the actual communities and idealized roles of scientists and policy makers. While the general answers for each level will be generated through different methodological means, it can be hoped that the insights generated will be mutually reinforcing.

In order to engage with the practical questions of how science has affected policy making, this thesis will examine two case studies: the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The first can be seen as an example of a mechanism where a scientific understanding emerged of the issue in question and a reasonably effective legal regime for its mitigation emerged. The second example demonstrates a situation in which, for reasons which shall be examined, a similar progression from issue identification to effective policy action has not taken place. The contrast between the cases will hopefully allow for the isolation of important variables, on the basis of the comparative study of preparatory documentation and the first-hand impressions of the participants.

The theoretical component of this thesis will use the controversy surrounding the publication of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist in 2001 as a starting point for addressing the internal debate within the scientific and policy communities about the role that science and scientists should play in the making of decisions that entail both potentially enormous costs and equally serious risks. The theoretical discussion will also involve the examination of the secondary literature on the philosophy of science, as well as the relationship of science and policy in related fields: such as global health and development studies.

The thesis will consider the competing hypotheses that the general understanding of science as a descriptive adjunct to the prescriptive policy making process is broadly valid, that is is overly simplistic given the multifaceted nature of the epistemic communities involved, and that it might be a fundamentally inappropriate way of representing a corpus of thinking, institutions, and individuals which is actually incapable of operating without concealed normative maneuverings. These possibilities will be assessed through consideration of the examples listed above, as well as the analysis of primary and secondary documentation.

See also: Research design essay planning (15 May 2006)

In Memoriam

One year ago, my friend Karen died in a car crash, in Vancouver. I found out the next morning from a newspaper headline, while I was waiting at a bus stop with a packet of photos I had taken of her in and around the Nitobe Gardens at UBC. It all strikes me as having happened a very long time ago: from our last brief conversation to walking twenty kilometres home, along the dark sea front, after her candle light vigil.

A year’s contemplation of life and death have yielded little more certainty about how to feel and respond.

As such a personable and enthusiastic individual, I do not doubt that Karen Furstrand is well and broadly remembered. I hope that those good recollections will temper the grief of friends and family as they think back upon her. In particular, my best wishes and condolences go out to her brother Ian, sister Sonia, and parents Erik and Celia.

Man of letters

Since I got my fountain pen and pad of brown, lined, recycled paper, I’ve written about thirty letters: ranging from a few short paragraphs to one of several hundred pages. There was a time, about eight years ago, when I wrote a great many handwritten letters: probably more than a hundred in all. In one of the more cruel things ever done to me, a few years ago the recipient demanded to return or destroy them, en masse. I certainly didn’t want them returned, but I really hope they haven’t been destroyed for want of attic space. They were written during an incredibly embryonic time and, idiotic as they doubtless are in the greater part, I think of them as a partially externalized version of myself as I was and wanted to be. I want them out there as a challenge to the blurring of memory in response to time and new events.

Since then, I’ve been both too ashamed of my atrocious handwriting to write many things by hand. I have also been concerned about having information out there of which I have no record to back up recollections that inevitably become hazy with time. The greatest force that has changed my mind recently is the sheer and impossible volume of computer generated text: whether blog, email, or printed letter. In the face of such a flood of information, it is increasingly hard to get anyone (including myself) to pay attention. As a consummate record-keeper, I do have virtually every scrap of electronic information ever sent to me archived and searchable. Even so, I am far more likely to re-read the few letters I have received since arriving here (the rest being safely entombed with photographic negatives back in North Vancouver).

I’ve just finished writing a letter of the sort that you hope will become a bulwark between a past mistake and all the future. As always, there is no certainty that a few flimsy pages can prove so solid, but I shall hope and see.

Further thesis planning

The thesis discussion with Dr. Hurrell has further convinced me that I am on a good track. We also sorted out an agreeable pattern for this term’s work this evening: two essays for the core seminar, two papers specifically for him, the research design essay, and a third essay for him to be written during the subsequent break, if necessary. Based on my standard of 3000 word papers, that will mean 21,000 words of writing for this term, in total. (Not counting dozens of blog posts, of course)

While discussing the thesis topic, we edged closer to a real question. The idea, at this point, is to choose two examples of international environmental agreements, then investigate the role that science and scientific communities played in their formulation. Two possible examples at the Stockholm Convention – wherein the coordination of science and policy can be said to have gone fairly well – and the Kyoto Protocol – where the relationship is muddier and the policy outcome less effective. The methodology would centre around looking at the preparatory materials and history of both conventions, as well as interviewing participants. On the theoretical side, I would examine writing on the connections between science and policy in this and other areas, as well as as much philosophy of science as I can push through my limited mental faculties.

The above, expanded and fused with a preliminary survey of the literature, will form the body of the 6000 word research design essay I submit at the end of this month.

A farewell to spheres of tungsten carbide

When I saw fountain pens on sale for the price of a pint at Smiths, I decided it was time to try and improve the elegance of my correspondence. It was with some success that I made my initial foray into the world of non-ballpoint pens: writing a thank-you note to Sarah’s parents and a short letter to Meghan. My printing is more geared towards being able to copy extensive notes during a lecture than producing perfectly formed letters, but it would be nice to be able to do the latter, when the necessity arises.

One unexpected aspect of fountain pen use if that it feels better to write. No pressure is required in order to deposit ink, so there is a feeling that the pen is just gliding across paper. While you might expect that to lead to many errors, even my earliest experiments are at least as legible, on average, as my ballpoint printing. Taken up with the novelty of a new type of writing instrument, as well as the familiarity of writing to friends, I wrote short letters to Viktoria Prokhorova, Meaghan Beattie, and Kate Dillon. There is something exceptionally satisfying both about writing and receiving handwritten letters. Regardless of the level of care or energy you put into an email, it doesn’t usually manage to have the same significance.

Cognitive calculus

Speaking with Lindi tonight, I was reminded of an idea that I wanted to briefly describe. Basically, it’s that it can be useful to think about self-expression in terms of time ratios. That is to say, the ratio between the amount of time it takes for someone to take in your thoughts, as a function of how useful they find those thoughts to be.

If, in a seminar of fifteen, you can make a comment that takes one minute, the effective cost to the group is fifteen minutes. As such, it had better be worth at least fifteen minutes of thinking time, based on the value of thinking time for members of that group. A comment that nobody would have come up with on their own is especially valuable precisely because it represents such an efficient use of time.

Something similar is true of blogging. If I can spend an hour to produce something that is worth two minutes to thirty people, I will have at least broken even. In practice, I will probably have done better because I will have achieved other objectives: most notably the clarification of my own thought.

The value of the time ratio idea is primarily in helping you to avoid exposing people to pointless or irrelevant information. The self-selection involved in reading or not reading a blog is somewhat liberating in that capacity (compared to a seminar comment you have little choice but to listen to), but I should still aim to maintain a net cognitive surplus.

The development of language

Those interested in the study and emergence of languages should do some reading about a remarkable series of occurrences in Nicaragua during the 1970s. Students at a number of schools for the deaf there, initially staffed by teachers who did not know sign language, invented their own version, which grew in complexity over a period of years.

Ann Senghas, of Columbia University, has studied the signing capabilities of people who left the school at differing times and therefore different stages of the evolution of this language. Users of the early versions of the language, for instance, could not describe whether something was on the left or right side of a photograph; users of later versions could do so.

Perhaps the most interesting questions raised by this situation relate to the nature of human cognition where it comes to language. For instance, it makes one wonder about the degree to which people are instinctually provided with mechanisms for both the comprehension and development of language.

More information is in this Wikipedia entry.

Mid-essay insight

Overwhelmingly, the Oxford system privileges speed over perfection. This may be well suited to their self-styled role as gatekeepers to the British political and intellectual elite, but it produces a style of learning quite thoroughly at odds with the immortal image of the scholar surrounded in well-thumbed books and meticulous notes, composing the authoritative treatise on some question. The point is to gain the ability to spend a couple of days taking in key parts of key texts – the specific selection entirely up to you – and then write something cogent, but not fully formed, on the basis of that reading.

For anyone with an interest in journalism, this method is probably ideal in many ways. Both require a fairly broad base of general knowledge – at least wide enough that you will know where to look for more specific information and will not make obvious missteps in somewhat unfamiliar areas. Both are based on a multitude of overlapping deadlines and the need to produce something intelligent and defensible, though certainly not authoritative in the final account. Both involve the requirement to write about things that are not necessarily of direct interest or within your existing scope of expertise. Finally, both involve close contact and coordination with individuals in similar circumstances. The social and cooperative elements are critical to success.

In the end, it’s a curiously roundabout way of teaching self-reliance: to arrange highly specific tasks in a string of frequent deadlines. It certainly forces you to come up with a system that works for you and, while it may not conform to one’s ideals of creativity and extensive research, it must nonetheless stand the test of the storms that batter it.

Fewer but better

After 168 consecutive daily posts, I am suspending the practice of daily updates. A number of factors inform this decision, but it’s mostly because I don’t have time at the moment to produce one post every 24 hours that is terribly interesting. Certainly, I don’t have time to produce such a post that also includes an original and aesthetically pleasing photo. Rather than subjecting you to content of declining quality as overly many of my thoughts are directed towards other things, I shall be more discerning in terms of when and what I post.

As always, comments are appreciated.

Final reminder, Oxford bloggers’ gathering

Our second such meeting will be happening tonight (February 21st) at The Turf at 8:00pm. I think we should be a fairly easy to recognize group but, if people wish, they can email me and I will send them my mobile number. I look forward to seeing a good number of you there, though I am tempted to dash off for a few minutes to catch the end of the Strategic Studies meeting…

Being elected in absentia is liable to be something of an embarrassment.