A Vast Machine: Computer Models, Climate Data, and the
Politics of Global Warming. Paul N. Edwards. MIT Press. 2010
‘If you understand why climate data shimmer, now and always,
and why climate predictions too will shimmer, you may come to accept
proliferation within convergence. Today, an Enlightenment idea of knowledge as perfect
certainty still holds us back from this acceptance. Oddly enough, so too does a
widespread relativism – promoted not least by some of my colleagues in science and
technology studies (STS) – that elevates virtually any skeptical view to the same
status as expert consensus.’ (Evans 2010: 436)
A Vast Machine, running at just over 500 pages, is
also a vast book. This is going to be a brief review, so I will miss much. ‘A
Vast Machine’ is taken from a statement by John Ruskin, the art critic, inspirer
of William Morris (Britain’s most important ecosocialists) and social reformer.
He is referring to the science of metrology noting that to advance it will need
to extend.
Paul N. Edward’s book is essentially an account of how a
vast physical and conceptual machine has been put together to model climate
change. I have come across a number of poorly written books both technical and
literary about climate change recently, this in contrast is very well written,
accessible and almost poetic.
It is haunted by the living ghost of Bruno Latour. If I am
frank I really don’t like Latour, I have only dipped in, if I am honest to his ‘Politics
of Nature’, and it really didn’t do for me. However, a bit of Latour is
probably no bad thing. Certainly, the influence of Latour has positively
informed ‘A Vast Machine’, which is neither poorly written or obscurely and ornately
over-theorised.
I will explain how I think Latour is important to this text
and review Edwards’ thoughts on the largely Latour inspired Science and
technology studies (STS). However, this is probably of secondary or even no
interest to most likely readers of the book.
What Edwards does is to show in very great detail is how the
science of climate change, the development of models, the physical use of satellites,
and the construction of institutions has created a network. The network which
to repeat is both physical and conceptual, as well as institutional, is the ‘vast
machine’ prophesised or, at least, invited by John Ruskin.
Edwards argues that while absolute certainty is impossible,
we have a ‘shimmering’ effect, within a range of variables prediction is possible.
He notes that the uncertainties of climate change modelling on a global bases
can be compared with economic data, we know, for example, when there is a
recession.
The intellectual battles and controversies particularly in
the US around climate change are well discussed here. How do we know? Well
Edwards patiently and in detail shows how the models have been created.
This is where I would note the influence of Latour. We live
in a world where conspiracy theories have power. Understanding how anything
works, can lead, not just for conspiracy theorists to a misplaced believe in intention,
centralised control and simplification. We expect, positive or negatively, that
politicians can confidently make things happen. Social change or indeed the
conservation of social and political institutions, seems magical.
Latour in his actor-network theory and wider philosophy, I
think provides an antidote. He is rigorously anti-reductionist. Man, far from being
the measure of all things, is one species with agency but agency, controversial
for Latour, if I read him write (not that I have really read him) is a feature
of all aspects of reality. Everything to some extent is an ‘actant’.
This extreme horizontality is unsustainable however looking
at the vast machine, it is fair to say that there is no centre. Or at least the
vast climate machine has not resulted from a decision by one individual or
institution.
Instead, Edwards shows, a complex interaction of
institutions and individuals, and indeed ‘climate’ has produced the machine.
This seems a very non esoteric, very empirically grounded and carefully applied
account of the concepts of Latour and other, usually French theorists, to understand
the operation of ‘assemblage’ etc.
To put it plainly as the cliché goes and the English demand,
he shows how something works. Stripping out the mystery to show the key steps
in understanding the creation of a globalised climate modelling system. From
the strongest denier to the most passionate advocate of climate change emergency,
this is an essential text for understanding how the modelling has come about.
I think there are wider lessons for social change, if we
want to produce effects in the world, we need a more sophisticated understanding
of ‘how things happen’. This is a very useful account of ‘how things happen’.
Latour is too horizontal, if everything is actant, nothing and everything has
the same effectiveness and nothing, perhaps can be understood. Likewise,
without being reductionist or totally reductionist, economics has considerable weight.
Edwards rather than spinning some metaphors and bending,
consciously or unconsciously some events to add to a narrative, produces a
happily detailed study to show how networks have been shaped by actors and vice
versa.
Often the book seems to go into too much detail and can be
in some chapters a bit of a trudge. This is not though a criticism, to do the
work he has set out to achieve this is necessary and Edwards does suggest
different reading strategies for different readers depending on one’s perceived
needs.
There is far too much to recount, and I have only skim read
the 2010 edition, incidentally some of it spent in the romantically named Honey
Street in Wiltshire, on boiling days during Britain’s recently hot (climate change
induced) summer.
However, to finish I will review some of this thoughts on
STS in the last chapter of the 2010 edition.
Edwards ‘proudly’ counts himself (p.436) as an STS scholar,
during the 1960s and 1970s he argues it ‘attacked a technocratic elitism that […]
seemed to place scientists beyond the reach of moral values and democratic ideals’.
Science was a product of power struggles, human things and larger contexts.
Like Edwards I would agree that ‘internalist historiography of science’ needs
challenging. Science requires a philosophy of science or to put it simply,
science doesn’t automatically get it right, and getting it right tells us
nothing about the social consequences of scientific discovery.
Edwards description of the social construction of science,
reminds me of Latour’s notions of ‘actants’ and the work of Elinor and Vincent
Ostrom in discussing how humans deal as crafts people with institutional and
indeed natural materials that can be shaped or ‘constructed’
‘So far, the ‘social construction of knowledge’ idea makes almost literal sense. If you want to build a skyscraper, you start with natural materials: iron ore, trees, gypsum deposits, and so on. […] erecting your skyscraper – requires not only technology but also social organization, coordinated action, persuasion, standards, and norms. Thus any building is made as much from labor relations, design discussions, banking, politics, and other social processes as from metal, wood, or wallboard. In exactly this sense, science constructs knowledge from natural materials through a combination of technical, social and political processes. This is much of the social constructivist argument seems incontestable – and it is exactly how I have approached the climate knowledge infrastructure in this book’ (p.437).
This incidentally is a really useful insight for climate
politics. Calling for a ‘Climate Emergency’ act to be passed by a local
authority or a national government, might be useful, however it is close to
seeing political change as a form of magic or decree. Combatting climate change
and adapting to it’s effects, requires a careful interaction with diverse processes.
More sophisticated climate action or more sophisticated politics in general requires
an attention to social and natural processes. Perhaps, while an indirect lesson
from Edwards’ book, this is the most important.
Where Edwards criticises STS is where STS divides between a
trust in social judgement and a distrust in the science. He rejects the belief
that ‘Science became little more than ideology or groupthink, within which any
belief at all might come to count as ‘knowledge’’ (p.437). Seeing how science
is shaped and constructed, should not be a license he argues for rejecting science
and trusting mere sceptical opinion.
I agree!
My general prejudice, equally, is that theory is essential.
Bring on the Lacan, the Althusser, the Marx, the Freud and even in some circumstances
the Latour (although I prefer his insights to be distant and reflected through
secondary sources) but use the theory to inform rather than using theory as an
academic engagement that makes the glass opaque. We need to see where we are
going better in the face of rising temperatures, rising social injustice and
the threat of accelerating authoritarianism.
