Überblicksartikel von 2019 zu den Angriffen auf die Wissenschaft während der ersten Trump-Regierung und ihre kurz- und langfristigen Folgen. Forschungen zur Klimakrise und öffentlichen Gesundheit wurden behindert, weil sie den Interessen der fossilen Industrien schaden. Der Kampf gegen Foschung, die Interessen bestimmter Unternehmen und Branchen bedroht, ging aber weit über die Klimathematik hinaus und dient u.a. auch der Chemie- und Agroindustrien. Zu den Maßnahmen gehörten: - Beendigung von Forschungsprojekten - Abbau des Einflusses von Wissenschaftler:innen auf regulatorische Entscheidungen - Verhinderung von öffentlichen Stellungnahmen von Wissenschaftler:innen - Behinderung von Forschungen zum menschengemachten Klimawandel - Vorschreiben erwünschter Forschungsergebnisse - Overruling von Experten durch politische Funktionäre bei Begutachtungen und Regulierungen - Einstellungsstopps und Entlassungen - Entfernung bestimmter Wissenschaftler:innen aus Beratungsgremien - Verbot der Berücksichtigung bestimmter Wissenschaftstypen bei Regulierungen - Druck auf Forschende, unwissenschaftliche Aussagen des Präsidenten zu unterstützen - Schließung von Forschungszentren und -büros und Auflösung von Ausschüssen - Umsiedlungen von Behörden und Forschungseinrichtungen in unattraktive Gegenden

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/climate/trump-administration-war-on-science.html

Nach den Erfahrungen mit den Angriffen der ersten Trump-Administration auf die Wissenschaft haben Wissenschaftler:innen in den USA verschiedene Maßnahmen zum Schutz wissenschaftlicher Institutionen ergriffen. Die New York TImes berichtet ausführlich über diese scientific integrity policies, die wissenschaftliche Arbeit öffentlich beobachtbar machen, aber politische Einflussnahme ausschließen sollen. Die Biden- und schon die Obama-Administration haben scientific integrity policies gefördert. Zu den Maßnahmen gehören die Benennung von Verantwortlichen für wissenschaftliche Integrität in Behörden und Kollektivverträge, die die Disziplinierung von Forschenden erschweren.

Zum „War on Science“ schon der ersten Trump-Regierung gehörte außer Entlassungen von Wissenschaftler:innen auch die Anordnung der Verfälschung von Forschungsergebnissen. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/climate/trump-government-scientists.html

Die Redaktion von Nature verurteilt die Angriffe der Trump-Regierung auf die Wissenschaft und fordert die internationale wissenschaftliche Community auf die bedrohte US-Wissenschaft zu unterstützen. Die US-Regierung arbeite an der Zerstörung der bisher führenden Rolle der amerikanischen wissenschaftlichen Institutionen. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00562-w

Die Trump-Administration will 65% der 15.000 Angestellten der Umweltbehörde EPA entlassen. Die Zahl geht auf den von Trump ernannten neuen Chef der Behörde Lee Zeldin zurück.

https://www.liberation.fr/international/amerique/les-agences-gouvernementales-promis-a-des-licenciements-massifs-saignee-pour-lagence-de-protection-de-lenvironnement-20250226_IIZTZD44KZBJZADBASG6M4QWNA/

for - synergy - David Hinton and SRG / Deep Humanity open science, TPF project - climate departure

for - climate crisis - IPCC - warning - working group 3 - integrated assessment models - are basically economic models - with a bit of mythical technology - a bit of social science - Kevin Anderson

for - definition - realtime ecological forecasting - definition - near term ecological forecasting - adjacency - near term ecological forecasting - open science - citizen science - climate departure

for - climate denialism- science education - public distrust of science

for - climate change impacts - marine life - citizen-science - potential project - climate departure - ocean heating impacts - marine life - marine migration - migrating species face collapse - migration to escape warming oceans - population collapse

main research findings - Study involved 146 species of temperate or subpolar fish and 2,572 time series - Extremely fast moving species (17km/year) showed large declines in population while - fish that did not shift showed negligible decline - Those on the northernmost edge experienced the largest declines - There is speculation that the fastest moving ones are the also the one's with the least evolutionary adaptations for new environments

for - open source, citizen science biodiversity projects - validation - open source, citizen science climate departure project - validation

open source, citizen science biodiversity projects - validation - Inventories of species remain incomplete - mainly due to limited field sampling to provide an accurate picture of the extent and distribution of all components of biodiversity - Purvis/Hector 2000, MEA 2003

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/great-salt-lake-shrinking-greenhouse-gas-emissions

Der Bezos Earth Fund wird bis zum Ende des Jahrzehnts 10 Milliarden Dollar für den Kampf gegen die Klima und die Biodiversitätskrise zur Verfügung stellen. Die Mittel des Fonds geben ihm enormen Einfluss. Viele in der NGOs Szene sehen die Politik des Fonds als Gefährdung für die Unabhängigkeit der von ihm geförderten Organisationen. Der Guardian berichtet anlässlich einer Preisverleihung kritisch vor allem über das Engagement des Fonds für CO2 Kompensationen. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/20/jeff-bezos-earth-fund-carbon-offsets-climate-sector-uneasy-aoe

for - key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - adjacency - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - climate denialism - mistrust in science - polycrisis - Deep Humanity

• the worry for Goethe and whitehead is that
  • we forget sometimes with the typical scientific method that = we can only ever apply concepts derived from our empirical experience
• and so if we're trying to understand experience as if it were really
  • an illusion produced by
    • collisions of particles or
    • brain chemistry or
    • something that we can never in principle experience
• what we're doing is
  • applying concepts derived from our experience
  • to an imagined realm that
    • we think is beyond experience
• but it's not
• This is Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

key insight - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness - This helps explain the rising rejection of science from the masses. I didn't realize there was already a name for the phenomena responsible for the emergence of collective denialist behavior

adjacency - between - fallacy of misplaced concreteness - increasing collective rejection of science in the polycrisis - adjacency statement - Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness exactly names and describes - the growing trend of a populus rejection of climate science (climate denialism), COVID vaccine denialism, exponential growth of conspiracy theory and misinformation - because of the inability for non-elites and elites alike to concretize abstractions the same way that elite scientists and policy-makers do - Research papers have shown that the knowledge deficit model which was relied upon for decades was not accurate representation of climate denialism - Yet, I would hold that Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concretism plays a role here - This mistrust in science is rooted in this fallacy as well as progress traps - Deep Humanity is quite steeped in Whitehead's process relational ontology and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness requires mass education for a sustainable transition - This abstract concreteness is everywhere: - Shift from Ptolemy's geocentric worldview to the Copernican heliocentric worldview - Now we are told that the sun is not fixed, but is itself rotating around the Milky Way with billions of other galaxies - scientific techniques like radiocarbon dating for dating objects in deep time - climate science - atomic physics - quantum physics - distrust of vaccines, which we cannot see - Timothy Morton's hyperobjects is related to this fallacy of misplaced concreteness. - "Seeing is believing" but we cannot directly experience the ultra large or ultra small. So we have scientific language that draws parallels to that, but it is not a direct experience. - - Those not steeped in years or decades of science have the very real option of feeling that the concepts are fallacies and don't hold as much weight as that which they can experience directly, even though those concepts have obviously produced artefacts that they use, like cellphones, the internet and airplanes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/opinion/truth-climate-future.html

• for: types of initiators of community projects, SONEC - initiators of community projects, question - frameworks for community projects, suggestion - collaboration with My Climate Risk, suggestion - collaboration with U of Hawaii, suggestion - collaboration with ICICLE, suggestion - collaboration with earth commission, suggestion - collaboration with DEAL

• question: frameworks for community projects

  • If our interest is to attempt to create a global collective action campaign to address our existential polycrisis, which includes the climate crisis, then how do we mobilize at the community level in a meaningful way?

  • I suggest that this must be a cosmolocal effort. Why? Knowledge sharing across all the communities will accelerate the transition of any participating local community.

  • This means that we cannot rely on citizens living in small communities to construct an effective coordination framework for rapid de-escalation of the polycrisis. The capacity does not exist within small communities to build such a complex system. The system can be more effectively built before the collective action campaign is started by a virtual community of experts and ready for trial with pilot communities.
  • To meet this enormous challenge, it cannot be done in an adhoc way. At this point in time, many people in many communities all around the globe know of the existential crisis we face, but if we look at the annual carbon emissions, none of the existing community efforts has made a difference in their continuing escalation.
  • The knowledge required to synchronize millions of communities to have a unified wartime-scale collective action mobilization to reach decarbonization goals that the mainstream approach has not even made a dent in will be a complex problem.
  • In other words, what is proposed is a partnership.
  • Since we are faced with global commons problems that pose existential threats if not mitigated in 5 to 8 years, the scope of the problem is enormous.
  • Super wicked problems require unprecedented levels of collaboration at every level.
  • The downscaling of global planetary boundaries and doughnut economics seems the most logical way to think global, act local.

  • Building such a collaboration system requires expert knowledge. Once built, however, it requires testing in pilot communities. This is where a partnership can take place

  • 2024, Jan. 1 Adder

    • My Climate Risk Regional Hubs
      • time 29:46 of https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Funfccc.int%2Fevent%2Flater-is-too-late-tipping-the-balance-from-negative-to-positive&group=world
      • https://www.wcrp-climate.org/mcr-hubs
      • Suggestion:
        • SRG has long entertained a collaborative open science project for grassroots polycrisis / climate crisis education - to measure and validate latest climate departure dates
        • This would make climate change far more salient to the average person because of the observable trends in disruption of local economic activity connected to the local ecology due to climate impacts
        • This would be a synergistic project between SRG, LCE, SoNeC, My Climate Risk hubs, ICICLE and U of Hawaii
        • Our community frameworks need to go BEYOND simply adaptation though, which is what "My Climate Risk" focuses exclusively on. We need to also engage equally in climate mitigation.
  • reference
  • I coedited this volume on examples of existing cosmolocal projects
    • https://clreader.net/

upon minor differences by men of science and belief in their strenuous search for the completest truth and the exactest expression sometimes gives color to this sort of misunderstanding.

This emphasis on minor differences is exactly what many anti-science critics have done. See examples with respect to evolution and climate science denial.

• for: science communication, climate communication

• title: Americans’ Trust in Scientists, Other Groups Declines

• author:
  • Brian Kennedy
  • Alec Tyson
  • Cary Funk
• date:Feb. 15, 2022

• for: academic communication to the public - importance, elites - two types, key insight - elites, key insight - science communication

• comment

• key insight

  • Elites are necessary in every society
  • Historically, people who strongly believe that the current elites aren't necessary or are harmful often become the revolutionaries who become the new elites
  • elites need to speak in their own specialist language to each other but there are two kinds of elites
    • those who serve society
    • those who serve themselves
    • often, we have fox in sheep's clothing - elites who serve themselves but disguise themselves in the language of elites who serve others in order to gain access to power ,
    • we normally think of wealthy people as elites, but Harari classifies scientists as also a kind of elite
  • elites may be necessary but
    • We are caught in a double bind, a wicked problem as elites are also the world's greatest per capita energy consumers and their outsized ecological, consumption and energy footprint is now a existential threat to the survival of our species

• references

  • Kevin Anderson: A Habitable Earth Can No Longer Afford The Rich – And That Could Mean Me And You
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fclimateuncensored.com%2F1485-2%2F&group=world
  • The role of high-socioeconomic-status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41560-021-00900-y&group=world
  • Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 °C ambitions
    • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sciencedirect.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fpii%2FS2666791622000252&group=world

• for: quote - Yuval Noah Harari, quote - storytelling, quote - scientific storytelling, science communication, climate communication

• key insight

• quote

  • If we want to see science having a deeper impact on society and politics, it's crucial that we have also scientific storytelling

• comment

  • I would just add that it should be COMPELLING scientific storytelling

The Climate Web

Explore What We Collectively Know About the Causes of, the Risks From, and the Solutions to Global Heating (Climate Change)

• for: climate science - for policymakers, climate science - for citizens, leverage point, leverage point - climate science, missed opportunity - citizen movement

• comment

  • has anyone thought about the idea of writing a science report - FOR THE CITIZEN? It seems that there is a potentially large missed opportunity by NOT seriously engaging the public with climate science and thinking that the policymakers are the only ones who can make the system change.
  • question
    • what if
      • climate science reports and studies can ALSO be written for THE GENERAL PUBLIC?

Der Standardbericht zu dem neuen State of the climate-Report konzentriert sich auf die Forderung nach sofortigen Veränderungen in der Wirtschaft. Er enthält auch eine Übersicht zu den Temperaturanomalien in Österreich in diesem Jahr. https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000192443/hoechsttemperaturen-wie-2023-gab-es-womoeglich-erstmals-seit-100000-jahren

Mehr zum State of the climate 2023-Report: https://hypothes.is/search?q=tag%3A%22report%3A%202023%20state%20of%20the%20climate%22;

• for: climate communication, climate communication - comedians, Climate Science Translated, Climate Science Breakthrough

• potential partner

  • Climate Science Breakthrough

• for: science communication, climate communication

• for: climate science - citizen engagement, johan rockstrom - advocacy for citizen engagement, scientist - activism
• comment
  • supporting the previous comment, Johan Rockstrom see's scientists having a much more active role engaging with the public.

• for: quote, quote - Paul Gilding, quote - climate disruption, quote - science underestimates climate impacts
• quote
  • Knowing the science community has long underestimated climate impacts,
  • it is my judgement that the climate system has crossed a critical threshold.
  • I believe its destabilisation will now trigger
    • cascading and
    • chaotic changes and
    • disruption to human social and
    • economic systems
  • and do so globally.
• author: Paul Gilding
• source: https://www.paulgilding.com/cockatoo-chronicles/the-great-disruption-has-begun

• date: Sept. 3, 2023

• comment

  • the concept of emptiness (shunyata), found throughout eastern philosophy is an organizing principle that can be used to frame the polycrisis, especially the many system wide entanglements.
  • Emptiness's two main characteristics:
    • interdependency and
    • change
  • are analogous to:
    • complexity / ecology and
    • evolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/opinion/climate-change-deniers.html

Blau, W. (2022, February 14). Climate Change: Journalism’s Greatest Challenge. Medium. https://wblau.medium.com/climate-change-journalisms-greatest-challenge-2bb59bfb38b8

Pauer, S., Rutjens, B., & Harreveld, F. van. (2022). Trust is good, control is better: The role of trust and personal control in response to risk. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dvb5x

The online information environment | Royal Society. (n.d.). Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/online-information-environment/

US, G. S., Barbara K. Hofer,The Conversation. (n.d.). Don’t Look Up Illustrates 5 Myths That Fuel Rejection of Science. Scientific American. Retrieved January 14, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dont-look-up-illustrates-5-myths-that-fuel-rejection-of-science/

Vega-Oliveros, D. A., Grande, H. L. C., Iannelli, F., & Vazquez, F. (2021). Bi-layer voter model: Modeling intolerant/tolerant positions and bots in opinion dynamics. The European Physical Journal Special Topics, 230(14–15), 2875–2886. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-021-00151-8

Swire-Thompson, B., Cook, J., Butler, L. H., Sanderson, J. A., Lewandowsky, S., & Ecker, U. K. H. (2021). Correction format has a limited role when debunking misinformation. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 6(1), 83. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00346-6

Hignell, B., Saleemi, Z., & Valentini, E. (2021). The role of emotions on policy support and environmental advocacy. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/45pge

van Lange, P., & Rand, D. G. (2021). Human Cooperation and the Crises of Climate Change, COVID-19, and Misinformation [Preprint]. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6tpa8

Hotez, P. (2021). Covid-19: A disaster five years in the making. BMJ, 373, n657. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n657

reddit. ‘R/BehSciResearch - Hackathon: Climate Denial and COVID-19 Misinformation: Birds of a Feather?’ Accessed 6 March 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/BehSciResearch/comments/jjjzgs/hackathon_climate_denial_and_covid19/.

Thorp, H. Holden. ‘Gradually, Then Suddenly’. Science 370, no. 6517 (6 November 2020): 639–639. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf5396.

Pennycook, Gordon. ‘How the COVID-19 Crisis Exposes Widespread Climate Change Hypocrisy’. CBC, 22 May 2020. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/opinion-climate-change-should-believe-dont-understand-1.5482416.

Links zur Berichterstattung in der englischsprachigen Presse. Der Artikel geht vor allem auf die Sicherheit und Unsicherheit der Angaben zur Durchschnittstemperatur ein.

They try to mold our opinions so we are more amenable to their agendas.

Times info@bylinetimes.com (https://bylinetimes.com/), B. (2020, October 9). Climate Science Denial Network Behind Great Barrington Declaration. Byline Times. https://bylinetimes.com/2020/10/09/climate-science-denial-network-behind-great-barrington-declaration/

Merchants of Doubt. (2020). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Merchants_of_Doubt&oldid=950272903

DeAngelis. T., (2020). Could COVID-19 change our environmental behaviour. American Psychological Association. 51(5) Retrieved from:https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/environmental-behaviors

Ecker, U. K. H., Butler, L. H., Cook, J., Hurlstone, M. J., Kurz, T., & Lewandowsky, S. (2020). Using the COVID-19 economic crisis to frame climate change as a secondary issue reduces mitigation support. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 101464. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101464

Long read: Cultural evolution, Covid-19, and preparing for what’s next. (2020, April 22). LSE Business Review. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2020/04/22/long-read-cultural-evolution-covid-19-and-preparing-for-whats-next/

Herzog, S. (2020 April 9). *"back to the future", not "back to normal". Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/BehSciAsk/comments/fx4hs3/what_behavioural_factors_will_affect_getting_back/fmsgqg7/

Crist, M. (2020, March 27). Opinion | What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-climate-change.html

Johnson, N.F., Velásquez, N., Restrepo, N.J. et al. The online competition between pro- and anti-vaccination views. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2281-1

Brzezinski, A., Kecht, V., Van Dijcke, D., Wright, A. (2020) Belief in Science Influences Physical Distancing in Response to COVID-19 Lockdown Policies. BFI. https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/belief-in-science-influences-physical-distancing-in-response-to-covid-19-lockdown-policies/

Fischer, H., & Said, N. (2020, May 12). Metacognition_ClimateChange_Fischer&Said_Preprint. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fd6gy

Climate Science Special Report Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), Volume 1