God and Nature Spring 2019
Environmental Problems as a Place for Compromise and Dialogue |
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By Johnny Wei-Bing Lin
In today’s polarized politics, the discourse around environmental issues has proved to be something of a model—in its intractability. Sometimes it appears the primary belief the different sides agree on is the conviction that the worldviews and motivations of the other side are morally suspect and the policies they advocate will result in disaster.
And yet, is this truly the case? In this article, I argue that for all the vitriol surrounding environmental issues, the intrinsic nature of environmental problems and their solutions suggest a way of addressing environmental issues besides zero-sum politics and morality plays, a way that encourages integration and compromise rather than win-lose outcomes. The prudential element of many environmental problems, the limitations of scientific input into environmental issues, and a rich landscape of collaborative models of environmental problem-solving result in a remarkable degree of common ground upon which we can practice dialogue and collaboration, even in the midst of disagreement and discord.
In today’s polarized politics, the discourse around environmental issues has proved to be something of a model—in its intractability. Sometimes it appears the primary belief the different sides agree on is the conviction that the worldviews and motivations of the other side are morally suspect and the policies they advocate will result in disaster.
And yet, is this truly the case? In this article, I argue that for all the vitriol surrounding environmental issues, the intrinsic nature of environmental problems and their solutions suggest a way of addressing environmental issues besides zero-sum politics and morality plays, a way that encourages integration and compromise rather than win-lose outcomes. The prudential element of many environmental problems, the limitations of scientific input into environmental issues, and a rich landscape of collaborative models of environmental problem-solving result in a remarkable degree of common ground upon which we can practice dialogue and collaboration, even in the midst of disagreement and discord.
"While much of the discussion regarding environmental problems is polarized, there actually exists a rich landscape of models for developing environmental solutions that fosters and facilitates dialogue." |
First, many environmental problems, even the most contentious ones, have a substantial prudential component. Unlike issues like abortion, where fundamental worldview and ethical assumptions, particularly those regarding the nature of being human and the moral good, drive nearly all of one’s position on the issue, environmental problems are seldom similarly constrained. This does not mean environmental problems have no moral components but rather that these components are accompanied by a large prudential component.
Consider the issue of climate change. While the ethics of stewardship and care, the rights of future generations, private property rights, and the intrinsic value of nature are all moral issues connected to climate change, such concerns do not, in general, necessitate specific policy responses. A carbon tax, tradable emission credits, development of techniques for air capture of carbon dioxide, and adaptation strategies are merely a few of the many possible responses to climate change that are compatible with a range of ethical positions. Not all, and in fact relatively few, disagreements regarding climate change must be disagreements in principle. There is quite enough prudential ground on which we can stand together, if we choose to.
Second, while science is commonly understood deterministically with respect to environmental issues—that is, authoritatively describing the problem and defining its solution—work in the epistemology of science and science-policy studies suggests a humbler understanding of the role of science in diagnosing and responding to environmental problems. Science may authoritatively describe (as much as we currently can) the state of nature, but science is limited in describing the meaning of that state and how to connect that meaning to policy responses.
For instance, while the discovery of stratospheric ozone depletion and the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) through the Montreal Protocol is typically presented as a textbook case of the success that occurs when science discovers and prescribes policy, what actually happened is more complex. The science at the time of policy action was not as clear as presented in the conventional wisdom retelling. As political scientist Reiner Grundmann recounts (1), action regarding CFCs was taken prior to a scientific consensus regarding the global nature of the depletion and the reason for the Antarctic ozone hole.
Additionally, as science-policy scholar Daniel Sarewitz notes, the creation of alternatives to CFCs played a crucial role in aligning the interests of various stakeholders; Sarewitz concludes that, “The ozone story is less one of controversy resolved by science than of positive feedback among convergent scientific, political, diplomatic, and technological trends" (2). Science certainly plays a role in understanding and dealing with environmental problems, but that role is not necessarily prescriptive. To the extent science does not prescribe environmental policy, we will find more room for creative dialogue regarding possible solutions. Put another way, a humbler understanding of what science can and cannot dictate will provide greater opportunity for the various stakeholders to adjudicate the value debates that accompany environmental problems, helping avoid what Sarewitz calls the “scientization” of environmental controversies.
While much of the discussion regarding environmental problems is polarized, there actually exists a rich landscape of models for developing environmental solutions that fosters and facilitates dialogue. As one example, during the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Forest Service began an approximately ten-year effort to write a comprehensive management plan for the Interior Columbia River Basin. One of the unique aspects of this effort was the role science played. Instead of taking a prescriptive role, science functioned as a neutral meeting ground, where disparate stakeholders could work out their differences. Science provided assessments, but did so in a value-neutral way, and the result, as Thomas J. Mills and Roger N. Clark of the U.S. Forest Service describe, was “a forum within which otherwise polarized interests may engage in productive dialogue and analysis of options” (3).
As another example of a dialogue-nurturing model for arriving at environmental solutions, consider the “collaboration” model being pioneered in natural resources planning in the American West. As Daniel Kemmis, Director of the University of Montana’s Center for the Rocky Mountain West, describes, the collaboration model starts not with what does science know but what local knowledge do the stakeholders (particularly long-time residents) possess (4). Based on that knowledge, the various stakeholders decide what they do not yet know and what they need to learn in order to properly manage the resources involved. That agreement between diverse interests leads to the commissioning of narrowly focused and targeted scientific research to fill in those gaps. This process, Kemmis concludes, by relying first on local knowledge rather than expert scientific “guns for hire,” results not only in the creation of common ground amongst adversaries but also a healthier role for science.
Finally, we find a model of care for the environment that includes dialogue and collaboration in an industry so commonplace as to escape notice: the tradition of local farming. While modern farming is by no means monolithic, encompassing both low and high-impact practices, inherent in the act of farming—of bringing from the earth fruit and bounty through toil and labor—is collaboration with, as urban design scholar Philip Bess has described (5), nature who “sustains and constrains us.” The farmer depends on the earth but the earth in turn depends on the farmer to nurture its fecundity. Both dependencies are embedded in a web of the social and economic dependencies of a rural community, a dependency where dialogue and collaboration exist not only by choice but also necessity.
One might object to this picture of environmental stewardship based on dialogue rather than zero-sum politics by saying that I am making a brief for “merely” being practical. What about principle? Do we not have to oppose greedy businesses or misanthropic tree-huggers? In reply, I argue that, yes, principle does matter and we will (and must) have disagreements based on those principles. And yet, the presence and importance of issues of principle do not negate a broad prudential ground on which those with differing principles can still agree. In some sense, ignoring that prudential ground is another example of the error of confusing first and second things. Usually, that error comes in the form of making second things first. But it is also an error to assume that first things are the same as second things or render second things unimportant.
For it is untrue that prudential things are “merely” prudential. Prudential things are not first things, but, particularly with regards to environmental issues, treating prudential issues prudentially can result in more effective solutions. Prudence, for instance, better supports flexibility and nimbleness, both of which provide an additional mechanism to deal with the uncertainty and risk that often accompany the most difficult environmental problems. In addition, because prudence provides something of a neutral ground where sides with differing worldviews and motivations can meet, prudence offers ground on which people can compromise, resulting in more socially stable solutions. Particularly with environmental issues, which can take decades to centuries to properly address, and thus do not respond well to solutions that are rescinded every two to four years by a change in who controls the levers of political power, we need solutions that find broad support in society. Rather than environmental policy relying on political power and flapping in the winds of electoral victories and defeats, a dialogue-centered approach offers the possibility of arriving at principled compromise, even in the midst of polarization.
This all sounds idealistic and vaguely “kum-by-ya”-esque: What hope do we have for creating such a culture? I admit it will not be easy, but it has already begun. The models I described above, particularly with regards to Western natural resources management, are one possible starting point. Another possible avenue of encouraging dialogue is the analytical taxonomy I developed (6) to help identify where we disagree on principle and where we can engage in principled compromise. Prayer and leaning into the living Gospel of Jesus will be vital and powerful, as The Colossian Forum has already demonstrated in their efforts at helping churches navigate conflict with respect to origins and human sexuality (7).
But perhaps what we all first need to do is realize that environmental debates do not have to be intractable and immune to compromise. Instead, environmental problems have a prudential component in their very nature, are not necessarily determined by science, and can be addressed by a variety of alternative ways that incorporate dialogue and compromise. The result, rather than a watering-down of solutions, instead offers the promise of more robust, flexible, locally tuned, and broadly supported responses to environmental problems. The narrative of conflict that surrounds environmental issues is not only unfortunate but also tragic, for it obscures models centered on dialogue that promise to be both more winsome and more effective.
Photo Credit: Image courtesy Boston University and NASA GSFC
References
1 Grundmann, R. “Ozone and Climate: Scientific Consensus and Leadership.” Science, Technology and Human Values 31 (2006)
73–101. DOI: 10.1177/0162243905280024.
2 Sarewitz, D. “How Science Makes Environmental Controversies Worse,” Environmental Science & Policy 7 (2004) 385–403.
3 Mills, T.J., and Clark R.N. “Roles of Research Scientists in Natural Resource Decision-Making.” Forest Ecology and Management 153 (2001) 189–98.
4 Kemmis, D. “Science’s Role in Natural Resource Decisions.” Issues in Science and Technology 18, no. 4 (Summer 2002).
5 Bess, P. "Even Mother Nature has an Agent". First Things July 23, 2015.
6 Lin, J.B.-W. The Nature of Environmental Stewardship: Understanding Creation Care Solutions to Environmental Problems (Pickwick Publications, 2016).
7 The Colossian Forum
Johnny Lin is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Computing Education, Computing and Software Systems Division, University of Washington Bothell, and Affiliate Professor of Physics and Engineering, North Park University. He is an ASA Fellow, and past President of the ASA Executive Board.
Consider the issue of climate change. While the ethics of stewardship and care, the rights of future generations, private property rights, and the intrinsic value of nature are all moral issues connected to climate change, such concerns do not, in general, necessitate specific policy responses. A carbon tax, tradable emission credits, development of techniques for air capture of carbon dioxide, and adaptation strategies are merely a few of the many possible responses to climate change that are compatible with a range of ethical positions. Not all, and in fact relatively few, disagreements regarding climate change must be disagreements in principle. There is quite enough prudential ground on which we can stand together, if we choose to.
Second, while science is commonly understood deterministically with respect to environmental issues—that is, authoritatively describing the problem and defining its solution—work in the epistemology of science and science-policy studies suggests a humbler understanding of the role of science in diagnosing and responding to environmental problems. Science may authoritatively describe (as much as we currently can) the state of nature, but science is limited in describing the meaning of that state and how to connect that meaning to policy responses.
For instance, while the discovery of stratospheric ozone depletion and the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) through the Montreal Protocol is typically presented as a textbook case of the success that occurs when science discovers and prescribes policy, what actually happened is more complex. The science at the time of policy action was not as clear as presented in the conventional wisdom retelling. As political scientist Reiner Grundmann recounts (1), action regarding CFCs was taken prior to a scientific consensus regarding the global nature of the depletion and the reason for the Antarctic ozone hole.
Additionally, as science-policy scholar Daniel Sarewitz notes, the creation of alternatives to CFCs played a crucial role in aligning the interests of various stakeholders; Sarewitz concludes that, “The ozone story is less one of controversy resolved by science than of positive feedback among convergent scientific, political, diplomatic, and technological trends" (2). Science certainly plays a role in understanding and dealing with environmental problems, but that role is not necessarily prescriptive. To the extent science does not prescribe environmental policy, we will find more room for creative dialogue regarding possible solutions. Put another way, a humbler understanding of what science can and cannot dictate will provide greater opportunity for the various stakeholders to adjudicate the value debates that accompany environmental problems, helping avoid what Sarewitz calls the “scientization” of environmental controversies.
While much of the discussion regarding environmental problems is polarized, there actually exists a rich landscape of models for developing environmental solutions that fosters and facilitates dialogue. As one example, during the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Forest Service began an approximately ten-year effort to write a comprehensive management plan for the Interior Columbia River Basin. One of the unique aspects of this effort was the role science played. Instead of taking a prescriptive role, science functioned as a neutral meeting ground, where disparate stakeholders could work out their differences. Science provided assessments, but did so in a value-neutral way, and the result, as Thomas J. Mills and Roger N. Clark of the U.S. Forest Service describe, was “a forum within which otherwise polarized interests may engage in productive dialogue and analysis of options” (3).
As another example of a dialogue-nurturing model for arriving at environmental solutions, consider the “collaboration” model being pioneered in natural resources planning in the American West. As Daniel Kemmis, Director of the University of Montana’s Center for the Rocky Mountain West, describes, the collaboration model starts not with what does science know but what local knowledge do the stakeholders (particularly long-time residents) possess (4). Based on that knowledge, the various stakeholders decide what they do not yet know and what they need to learn in order to properly manage the resources involved. That agreement between diverse interests leads to the commissioning of narrowly focused and targeted scientific research to fill in those gaps. This process, Kemmis concludes, by relying first on local knowledge rather than expert scientific “guns for hire,” results not only in the creation of common ground amongst adversaries but also a healthier role for science.
Finally, we find a model of care for the environment that includes dialogue and collaboration in an industry so commonplace as to escape notice: the tradition of local farming. While modern farming is by no means monolithic, encompassing both low and high-impact practices, inherent in the act of farming—of bringing from the earth fruit and bounty through toil and labor—is collaboration with, as urban design scholar Philip Bess has described (5), nature who “sustains and constrains us.” The farmer depends on the earth but the earth in turn depends on the farmer to nurture its fecundity. Both dependencies are embedded in a web of the social and economic dependencies of a rural community, a dependency where dialogue and collaboration exist not only by choice but also necessity.
One might object to this picture of environmental stewardship based on dialogue rather than zero-sum politics by saying that I am making a brief for “merely” being practical. What about principle? Do we not have to oppose greedy businesses or misanthropic tree-huggers? In reply, I argue that, yes, principle does matter and we will (and must) have disagreements based on those principles. And yet, the presence and importance of issues of principle do not negate a broad prudential ground on which those with differing principles can still agree. In some sense, ignoring that prudential ground is another example of the error of confusing first and second things. Usually, that error comes in the form of making second things first. But it is also an error to assume that first things are the same as second things or render second things unimportant.
For it is untrue that prudential things are “merely” prudential. Prudential things are not first things, but, particularly with regards to environmental issues, treating prudential issues prudentially can result in more effective solutions. Prudence, for instance, better supports flexibility and nimbleness, both of which provide an additional mechanism to deal with the uncertainty and risk that often accompany the most difficult environmental problems. In addition, because prudence provides something of a neutral ground where sides with differing worldviews and motivations can meet, prudence offers ground on which people can compromise, resulting in more socially stable solutions. Particularly with environmental issues, which can take decades to centuries to properly address, and thus do not respond well to solutions that are rescinded every two to four years by a change in who controls the levers of political power, we need solutions that find broad support in society. Rather than environmental policy relying on political power and flapping in the winds of electoral victories and defeats, a dialogue-centered approach offers the possibility of arriving at principled compromise, even in the midst of polarization.
This all sounds idealistic and vaguely “kum-by-ya”-esque: What hope do we have for creating such a culture? I admit it will not be easy, but it has already begun. The models I described above, particularly with regards to Western natural resources management, are one possible starting point. Another possible avenue of encouraging dialogue is the analytical taxonomy I developed (6) to help identify where we disagree on principle and where we can engage in principled compromise. Prayer and leaning into the living Gospel of Jesus will be vital and powerful, as The Colossian Forum has already demonstrated in their efforts at helping churches navigate conflict with respect to origins and human sexuality (7).
But perhaps what we all first need to do is realize that environmental debates do not have to be intractable and immune to compromise. Instead, environmental problems have a prudential component in their very nature, are not necessarily determined by science, and can be addressed by a variety of alternative ways that incorporate dialogue and compromise. The result, rather than a watering-down of solutions, instead offers the promise of more robust, flexible, locally tuned, and broadly supported responses to environmental problems. The narrative of conflict that surrounds environmental issues is not only unfortunate but also tragic, for it obscures models centered on dialogue that promise to be both more winsome and more effective.
Photo Credit: Image courtesy Boston University and NASA GSFC
References
1 Grundmann, R. “Ozone and Climate: Scientific Consensus and Leadership.” Science, Technology and Human Values 31 (2006)
73–101. DOI: 10.1177/0162243905280024.
2 Sarewitz, D. “How Science Makes Environmental Controversies Worse,” Environmental Science & Policy 7 (2004) 385–403.
3 Mills, T.J., and Clark R.N. “Roles of Research Scientists in Natural Resource Decision-Making.” Forest Ecology and Management 153 (2001) 189–98.
4 Kemmis, D. “Science’s Role in Natural Resource Decisions.” Issues in Science and Technology 18, no. 4 (Summer 2002).
5 Bess, P. "Even Mother Nature has an Agent". First Things July 23, 2015.
6 Lin, J.B.-W. The Nature of Environmental Stewardship: Understanding Creation Care Solutions to Environmental Problems (Pickwick Publications, 2016).
7 The Colossian Forum
Johnny Lin is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Computing Education, Computing and Software Systems Division, University of Washington Bothell, and Affiliate Professor of Physics and Engineering, North Park University. He is an ASA Fellow, and past President of the ASA Executive Board.