Climate Change Expertise: Scientists, Boundary Organizations, Journalists?

• In Event: How Has Climate Change Reshaped Scientific Expertise and the Expert? - II

Abstract

Scientific expertise has long been a topic of interest to sociologists of science and STS scholars dating, at least, back to Merton’s classic 1945 article. STS scholars such as Nelkin, Collingridge and Reeve, and Wynne pointed to the limits of scientific expertise in enabling consensus in adversarial democratic decision-making where each side finds their own experts. To the extent that scientific expertise does close down debate, Collingridge and Reeve and Wynne argued, it often distorts the political process by leaving important issues, underlying values, etc. hidden. Three additional developments since this work are important to mention. One is the development of boundary organizations (e.g., IPCC) as means for marrying cross-disciplinary scientific expertise and the policy process. In boundary organizations, the intent is for scientific expertise to stay true to “the science” but also orient and adjust to and be framed for politically expediency. A second development is Collins and Evans delimitation of expertise within the scientific community on the one hand (core set) and broadening of expertise on the other to include the interactional expertise of select non-scientists. A third is work of Roger Pielke Jr. who advocates the “honest broker” ideal type where experts open up policy options rather than closing them down. Which model/theory best captures the positioning of expertise with the long-running and heterogeneous climate change case? I argue that while each offers insight, the notion of what constitutes (scientific) expertise needs further broadening and that the expert role has been extensively transferred from scientist to journalist and that climate change journalism is not adequately captured by the concept of interactional expertise. Though journalists have been effective in many respects, the trend is unstable and troublesome due to the receding number of science and environmental journalists and the personal threats they occasionally experience.

Author

• Stephen Zehr, Univ. Southern Indiana