Dear Colleagues,

I want to make you aware of a very interesting post discussing the issue of evidence-based policy by using the example of hurricane Sandy.

Here comes my appetizer from the post:

“As a case study in the application of “evidence-based policy” you won’t find a better one than the hurricane deductible. Sometimes “evidence” matters, sometimes it does not. Sometime we care about whether it matters, sometimes we do not.”

And here comes the link:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2013/02/interesting-update-on-sandy-hurricane.html

I very much enjoyed Brad’s talk yesterday. I understand that he put forward the hypothesis that in recent years, typically two means were combined for making the public aware of an issue:
i) oversimplify the issue;
ii) dramatise it as an essential threat.

For quite some time, I have been wondering whether this is the only way for achieving public awareness, and whether it is a good way of actually addressing an issue of concern.

I think just threatening people is sub-optimal. Hope is a much more powerful incentive than fear, at least I think it is a more sustainable one. Or, in a more moderate tone: When fear is balanced by hope, one can mobilise people much better.

As a child of the cold war, I want to refer to two historical cases:

1. The cold war in general. At one hand, there was the Sowjet threat. On the other hand, there was a great vision: Freedom and prosperity for all nations.

1. The Sputnik shock. At one hand, it was the Sowjet threat that mobilised forces. On the other hand, Kennedy reacted by proposing an inspiring vision: Bringing a man to the moon.

It may sound strange when I speak about the spirits of the 60s, as I was only a child in those day. Nevertheless, being born in 1962, I still experienced the mood of the day, i.e. what I perceive as the last period in Western history of a fundamental and widespread hope that things will, overall, be ever improving. This mood gave way to the despair of the 70s, at least this is how I experienced the 70s.

If my analysis is right, there is a lesson to learn for the sustainability community. At least I try to lead by example and highlight the possibilities that lie ahead instead of threatening people into action.

I am curious about your opinion on all this.

Dear Colleagues,

I want to build on what I have voiced yesterday when speaking about the need for a next enlightenment. As I have indicated, I think that we need to help people educate themselves about how to deal with large scale uncertainties.

There are several issues I would like to highlight:

– I have consciously phrased above “help people educate themselves”. This refers to Humboldt’s idea that it should not be academics who educate scholars, but human beings who educate themselves. It also refers to Humboldt’s idea that education is not identical to training people in specific professional skills, but means to grow as individual and become a person who is able to use her reason without external assistance. Clearly, this refers to Kant’s concept of enlightenment.

– I think that one of the biggest challenges for policy- and decision-makers is dealing with large scale uncertainties. Just developing some fancy tools that build on today’s risk tools will not do the job as today’s risk tools are severely limited. Many of them build on the frequentist notion of probability. They do a reasonable job when a sufficient amount of data is available, and when one can expect that the system that generated this data will not undergo substantial changes.

– For many global systems, we expect them to undergo substantial changes in the future. These changes will “devalue” the data from the past and subsequently devalue risk tools that need past data for projecting future risks. Instead, we need concepts and tools that help us build expertise about global systems, their future dynamics, and the uncertainties involved.

– Quick fixes will not do the job. I expect that we will need a further “round” of the enlightenment, which I like to denote as enlightenment 2.0, and which I expect to last for another 250 years. If, in 2250, we will have accomplished a decent job in dealing with global systems, more challenges will await us. Enlightenment 2.0 is only the next step. But as the Chinese say: The longest journey begins with the first step. I suggest to make the second one.