Calculative Power in Data-Driven Environmental Governance

• In Event: Citizen Science, Law and Policy - II

Abstract

For more than ten years, a coalition of environmentalists, academics, non-profits, and utility companies known as the "Gas Leak Allies" grappled with the climate crisis in Massachusetts. Their work started with organizing by two community-based organizations but soon included twenty groups across New England. The coalition accomplished much, from agenda-setting to advances in environmental monitoring to legislation. They did so without a universal definition of a natural gas leak, leak detection methodology, or standard for how leaks should be classified according to severity. The coalition formed as state and federal agencies responded to methane emissions, methane leakage from oil and gas production and distribution infrastructure, and the climate-forcing impacts of methane with inventories, reporting rules, and required service reports. Other data that could be used in combination to make claims and frame related problems existed prior to the coalition. Yet cities, towns, and state agencies did not create plans to deal with methane leakage, which accounts for roughly one tenth of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. What does the progression of methane leakage as a policy issue tell us about threshold levels of calculative power as social movements frame policy problems, collaborate and develop plans with stakeholders, and agree to the nature of policy-relevant facts? What led to an increase or decrease in calculative power as methane leaks emerged as a climate issue in New England? Through interviews across the fields of climate and energy policy, archival research, and observation, we tell the story of the Allies through measurement and charismatic data such as leak threshold, number of leaks, leaks per mile, leak size, leak rate, surrogate metrics for leak extent, leaks as percentage of inventory, lost gas, leak grade, missing leaks, super-emitters, and environmentally significant leaks. We explore the role of calculative power, visualization, categorical decisions, and new entities and demarcations in organizing around environmental data, social movement building, and policy-relevant knowledge creation. We discuss implications for the role of civic epistemologies in environmental policy and disputes.

Authors

• Gregg Macey, Brooklyn Law School, Harvard STS Program

• Amanda Giang, University of British Columbia

• Morgan Edwards, University of Maryland