This lecture in the philosophy of climate change introduces module 3, which is about theories of climate politics. We survey political theory and the powers and limitations of science.

1. 12. CLIMATE
SCIENCE IN
CONTEXT
Adam Briggle
UNT Phil 4250 Climate Change
adam.briggle@unt.edu

2. Outline
• Objective: survey module 3 – theories of climate politics
• Module 3 in a nutshell
• Political theory
• Big picture
• Zoom in on the social process
• What science can and cannot do
• Climate philosophers
• A look ahead

3. • “…he’s very patient. And he
just kept on working and
publishing, thinking that
someone would do
something.”
• “…that all his scientific
efforts would come to naught
if he didn’t also involve
himself in political action.”

4. Module 3: Theories of Climate Politics
Data, Information, Knowledge Meaning, Speech, Action
PoliticsScience
Media
How can we understand these relationships?
What are they like; what should they be like?
Economics

5. Political Theory: Big Picture (Arendt)
The human condition (theoria as a vision of the decisive features)
1. The political animal: political organization in contrast to natural associations of home (oikos) and
family. Besides this private life, a bios politikos, a public life.
2. Politics as the realm of speech and deeds. Violence is mute, apolitical.
3. Plurality: no human life is possible without a world that testifies to the presence of others – to be
seen and heard by others, the space of appearance. Identity and difference – who I am, who we are.
4. Uniqueness and freedom: we are not cogs or clones, not pre-determined, politics as realm of freedom.
5. Power: an in-between activity – who is equal, who is not?
6. Justice: who deserves what? (recognition, distribution, retribution)
7. Sovereignty and jurisdiction: especially nation states, multi-national corps, and sub-national actors
8. History: colonialism, globalization, technoscience, and ‘development’ – conditions everything.
9. Post-human politics? Can the Earth and her creatures be equals?

6. The Social Process:
Political theory on a smaller scale
Participants
Perspectives
Situations
Resources
(Base
Values)
Strategies
Outcomes
a. Who gets what, how, and when?
b. What is possible and how do the boundaries
of the possible shift?

7. What science can do (Borgmann)
1. Explain how things work – and set the standards for explanation
2. Correct pre-scientific views
3. Give us a coherent and detailed view of the world
4. Disclose new (or invisible) phenomena

8. What science cannot do
1. World articulation – where are significance and meaning to be found? Thus, the continuing
need for stories or worldviews for the political animal. Climate science only matters if we
make it matter – if it becomes part of our story.
2. Quality – modern science can tell us how to get more, but not what is better. It gives us
metrics like GDP, but struggles to articulate qualitative differences.
3. Problem formulation – what is relevant, where should we focus our attention, how should we
prioritize different problems, and how do we frame and weigh competing values? How to
distribute power? How to frame the possible?
4. Action – modern science allows the world to appear as modifiable, but does not tell us what
to leave alone and what to modify, how much, and in what way. Solar radiation management?
*So, which science? Where are we marching?
Yes, science is real… but it is not our intuitive way of feeling reality or gaining access to it.

9. Climate philosophy (or mode 2 inquiry)
1. Climate change is a human science as much as a natural science
2. Our quest for understanding must follow the rhizomes where politics and science,
the human and the natural, tangle together.
3. Module 3 is about developing more tools to aid in this journey.

10. A look ahead at modul3
Three theories of climate science-politics
13. Politics as applied science: the linear model
14. Politics as paradox: an excess of objectivity
15. Politics as propaganda: merchants of doubt
16. The media
Two narratives
17. Climate crisis or emergency
18. A manageable problem
19. Capitalism: Is it the problem and/or the solution?

11. ACKBAR, SPACE HERO
“OUR CAPACITY FOR
EXCELLENCE IN SPEECH
AND DEEDS MAKES US ALL
HUMANOIDS.”