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 Engineers point to socio-political reasons  Why challenge is so formidable (Victor)  Carbon lock-in  science-policy dilemma  Mooney (2) 2

1. Delucchi, M.A. and Jacobson, M.Z., “Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part II: Reliability, system and transportation costs, and policies,” Energy Policy 39 (2011) 1170–119. Read sections 4 and 5 only. 2. David G. Victor, Global Warming Gridlock, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Chapter 2, “Why global warming is such a hard problem to solve.” (on-line UBC Library) 3. Gregory C. Unruh, “Understanding carbon lock-in,” Energy Policy 28 (2000) Chris Mooney, “The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science,” Mother Jones, May/June 2011,The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science 3

“We suggest producing all new energy with [water, wind, and solar] by 2030 and replacing the pre-existing energy by Barriers to the plan are primarily social and political, not technological or economic. The energy cost in a WWS world should be similar to that today” 4 Jacobson, M.Z., Delucchi, M.A., Providing all global energy with wind, water, and solar power, Part I: Technologies, energy resources, quantities and areas of infrastructure, and materials. Energy Policy (2010),

1. Very deep cuts to GHG emissions are required  Long residence time of CO2 in atmosphere – given rate of emissions stock is hard to reverse 2. Costs immediate, benefits uncertain and distant in time  “time inconsistency problem” 3. Global nature of problem creates spatial inconsistency: local costs, global benefits 5

Cost of MitigationBenefits of Mitigation Relatively certainHighly uncertain NowDistant in Time HereGlobal 6

 Scientist’s myth: scientific research can determine the safe level of global warming  Environmentalist’s myth: global warming is a typical environmental problem  Engineer’s myth: once cheaper new technologies are available, they will be adopted 7

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Sustainable Energy Policy9

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 Increasing returns result from  Scale economies  Learning economies  Adaptive expectations  Network economies Sustainable Energy Policy11

 Not discrete technological artifacts  Complex system of technologies embedded in a powerful conditioning social context of public and private institutions  Technological systems – technological lock-in  Institutional lock-in  Private organizations  governmental Sustainable Energy Policy12

February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy13

Sustainable Energy Policy14

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 Deficit Model: “You just don’t understand”  more information will resolve conflicts and produce appropriate policy response  Members of the public strain their responses to science controversies through their value systems  Social science helps explain how this works 16

 motivated cognition: unconscious tendency to fit processing of information to conclusions that suit some end or goal  biased information search: seeking out (or disproportionally attending to) evidence that is congruent rather than incongruent with the motivating goal  biased assimilation: crediting and discrediting evidence selectively in patterns that promote rather than frustrate the goal  identity-protective cognition: reacting dismissively to information the acceptance of which would experience dissonance or anxiety.  Daniel Kahan, “What Is Motivated Reasoning and How Does It Work?, Science and Religion Today May 4, 2011.What Is Motivated Reasoning and How Does It Work? 17

18 Science(facts)Politics(values) Truth

19 Jasanoff and Wynne 1998

20 Politics Science

21 Politics Science

 Policy reflects value judgments, but embodies causal assumptions  Causal knowledge frequently very uncertain, undermining power of science  actors adopt the scientific arguments most consistent with their interests  “science” becomes a contested resource for actors in the policy process, by lending credibility to arguments  the body of credible science bounds the range of legitimate arguments, but only loosely 22

 Scientific controversies are frequently more about underlying value conflicts  e.g., conservation vs. development 23

24 Science Politics Regulatory Science Regulatory Science: Scientific assumptions adopted for the purpose of policy- making

 Some causal assumptions are better than others – science helps  Some policies are better reflections of society’s distribution of preferences than others -- democratic institutions help  Avoid: political decisions made by scientists and scientific judgments being made by politicians  Prefer: transparent justification for decisions  Reveals boundary where scientific advice ends and value judgments begins  Promotes accountability 25

 Formal governance 26