Practice of Science Friday: Who Is Holding the Climate Research Funding Flashlight and How it Affects Our Thinking

One memorable summer or fall day, probably over ten but less than twenty years ago,  when I worked for the Forest Service, I attended some kind of conference (most likely planning) in Missoula.  Missoula was very smoky from wildfires.  Several colleagues of mine and I sought out a brewpub after the conference, but it was too smoky to sit outside, so I remember us getting a keg and retiring to a colleague’s home.

Now we know.. via many scientific studies, that wildfire smoke is bad for you.   Perhaps we knew it then, but then it just seemed like part of life in wildfire-prone country.  What has changed?  Scientists have studied it extensively and found it to be bad for health.  The same particles were always bad, but now scientific studies exist to tell us that they are bad.  I think of scientific interest as a flashlight.  The world goes on, but the part that gets highlighted as “science” depends on who’s holding the flashlight. This is much discussed in the history and sociology of science literature, but not so much questioned day to day information sharing and reporting.

And who is holding the flashlight is a complex multi-actor and institution process that is not well understood. If we look at relative funding for sociology of science,  we can see why.

What made smoke suddenly more interesting and worthy of research?  Was it the fact that highly populated areas were getting more smoke?  Was it the fact that suddenly wildfires were “due to” climate change and there’s plenty of money in climate change?

I remember clearly one day when I worked in the WO in Vegetation Management and Protection Research, Elvia Niebla our USGCRP (US Global Change Research Program) staff person, came and said “there’s going to be huge amounts of money for climate change.”  So I asked her “everything we deal with is affected by climate, so couldn’t anything be funded?” This seemed like a great deal for almost any researchers. But it couldn’t fund everything, so people had to decide what is more worthy in topic and approaches.

I attended an SAF meeting somewhere in New York (perhaps in the 80’s?) and a Station Director (FS research equivalent of Regional Forester) told me that his Station wouldn’t be doing much work with the National Forests anymore as they had tapped into climate change bucks and they were going to do “real science.”

And most recently, just a few years before I retired, I received a call from a nice woman in Missoula who had been tasked to ask research users what our social science needs were.  After talking about it, it became clear that this was because they had received climate change funding, so they couldn’t actually study today’s problems and issues- only those  due to climate change. Understanding how to reduce recreation impacts? Uh, no.  Housing in resort communities? Well, perhaps if they were climate refugees..  Peoples’ attitudes toward prescribed fire? Yes, if due to climate change.  It’s perhaps a slippery slope from rationalizing useful research by highlighting the climate aspects, to publishing studies that unintentionally encourage people to overlook other sources of problems.

I don’t think that we have adequately thought about how this infusion of money (and chasing after it) may have changed the way we view issues, the disciplines we hire (or don’t) and how that affects what’s illuminated by the flashlight, the way we approach issues about forests, and so on.  And there is definitely a tendency for the volume control holders (media, foundations and interest groups) to highlight certain results.   Certainly “climate change is not a big factor in this” is not as attractive as “climate change is going to have really bad effects.”

For whatever reason, there was a push for many years to value mitigation over adaptation.  And the sciences involved in mitigation (atmospheric physics and chemistry) became way cooler and more important than say, hydrology or wheat breeding (adaptation sciences).  If we look back at the history of science, we can just barely see the fingerprints of the physical sciences being way cooler than others (aka  the well-known “physics envy”).  Conceivably much of the funding could have been sent instead, once the climate problem was identified, to coalitions of engineering schools to figure out cost-effective ways to decarbonize.   What factors of the scientific enterprise kept modelling so high in importance, and figuring out ways to fix that are relatively low in importance?  And does this age-old historical bias against applied science and engineering unconsciously play out in what is covered in the media… leading to climate despair? And how does this play into the availability of satellite data (another flashlight) , journals favoring global conclusions, and studies getting further and further from real people (social sciences) and real places (the scale at which actions take place).

An example of the mitigation/adaptation disconnect is this Katharine Hayhoe (et tu, TNC, Chief Scientist?) interview on On Being with Krista Tippett.   She says that Texans need to give up barbecue and pickups for a better world.. meanwhile, auto manufacturers are producing electric pickups.

We can look at other examples as we encounter them.

 

 

6 thoughts on “Practice of Science Friday: Who Is Holding the Climate Research Funding Flashlight and How it Affects Our Thinking”

  1. Kind of like all the FS Research branch and land grant universities that fund research and publications that VIEW natural mortality as a sign of forest sickness, and logging as a solution to what ails the forest.

    When in reality mortality is just the natural response to current conditions, and is a negative feedback that generally helps resolve the condition.

    Reply
    • 2ndLaw: Why isn’t logging part of your “natural mortality?” How about hot dogs or chicken wings? Carrots or tomatoes?

      Many people have believed for thousands of years that firewood, flutes and structural materials were excellent uses of tree products. Sick trees do die, and logging is one tool that can help restrict that process and even make good uses of the dead trees. How is that “unhealthy?” Why can major diseases outbreaks, landslides, or wildfires ever be considered “healthy?” Or are you using a different definition of this word?

      Reply
    • Kind of like all the non-tax paying Environmental NGOs that fund themselves via mediocre to non-existent science who view making wood products out of the forest as evil, but say nothing of the carbon intensive alternative methods?
      Mortality is natural, and a way to resolve the condition. However, it is not 1000 years ago. People are here, and in place. Failure in certain places and locations to remove all that ***unnaturally*** high levels of dead tree mortality has very negative consequences. What is so wrong with addressing the world we live in right now? Removing some tree mortality, to make wood products, in a sustainable industry?

      Really, your comment is a sad attack on one of the most robust parts of the USFS (Research Stations), and very telling of the views of one “side”.

      “After talking about it, it became clear that this was because they had received climate change funding, so they couldn’t actually study today’s problems and issues- only those due to climate change. Understanding how to reduce recreation impacts? Uh, no. Housing in resort communities? Well, perhaps if they were climate refugees.. Peoples’ attitudes toward prescribed fire? Yes, if due to climate change. It’s perhaps a slippery slope from rationalizing useful research by highlighting the climate aspects, to publishing studies that unintentionally encourage people to overlook other sources of problems.”

      This paragraph really hits home to what the issue is. ‘Don’t look there, look here’. ‘Don’t talk about that, talk about this’. I’ve never seen you admit where/from what you make your living? Easy to attack the USFS research scientists if it helps you out.

      Reply
    • 2nd, that’s a pretty broad brush! So you’re saying every scientist in FSR and OSU, UW, U of Montana U of Idaho, CSU, and so on either have the wrong ideas, or are biased toward logging?

      Reply
      • Was forest management research historically biased towards logging for the same kinds of reasons that research now is allegedly biased towards climate change? And if so, do we know that is no longer happening?

        Reply

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