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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

 Gregory C. Unruh, “Understanding carbon lock-in,” Energy Policy 28 (2000)  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.  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  Chris Mooney, "Do Scientists Understand the Public?" American Academy of Arts and Sciences, June 2010.Do Scientists Understand the Public  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

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 5. Chris Mooney, "Do Scientists Understand the Public?" American Academy of Arts and Sciences, June 2010.Do Scientists Understand the Public 4

“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” 5 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 6

Cost of MitigationBenefits of Mitigation Relatively certainHighly uncertain NowDistant in Time HereGlobal 7

 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 8

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February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy10

February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy11

 Increasing returns result from  Scale economies  Learning economies  Adaptive expectations  Network economies February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy12

 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 February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy13

February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy14

February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy15

February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy16 at 12:00 – 17:00

 by 2035, 80% of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources. Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal, and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all - and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen  We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's. February 2, 2011Sustainable Energy Policy17

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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 19

 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? 20

21 Science(facts)Politics(values) Truth

22 Jasanoff and Wynne 1998

23 Politics Science

24 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 25

 Scientific controversies are frequently more about underlying value conflicts  e.g., conservation vs. development 26

27 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 28

 Formal governance 29