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28 results in Environmental Expertise

Page 1 of 2

  • Case J - Groupthink and Whistle Blowers in CO2 Capture and Storage

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 234-246

  • Summary

    The case of CO2 capture and storage (CCS) is a detailed example of an expert who stepped out of an arbiter or honest broker role and took on a more engaged and critical stance. The arbiter no longer found the terms of advice acceptable and felt the need to question the assumptions in the assessment of carbon capture and storage as a means to mitigate climate change. In her eyes, the CCS experts were turning into issue advocates, pushing their preferred solution. In the Netherlands, the issue came to a head in the media over a plan to store CO2 deep underground in Barendrecht, a village near the Dutch city of Rotterdam.

  • 7 - Interdisciplinarity and the Challenge of Knowledge Integration

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 152-164

  • Summary

    To effectively address the multidimensional character of environmental issues, there is a strong call to provide an integrated and interdisciplinary perspective that combines not just natural science, but also social science knowledge. In this chapter, we will introduce a number of common methods or approaches to knowledge integration including scenario analysis and (integrated assessment) modelling, cost–benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis and conceptual frameworks, and critically reflect on their strengths as well as limitations. We conclude the article by discussing how knowledge integration can safeguard the diversity of types of knowledge. This chapter is complemented with cases about the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and long-range transboundary air pollution modelling.

  • Case A - Framing Climate Change

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 58-67

  • Summary

    The case study on framing in the climate change debate demonstrates how profound variations in the understanding of climate change underlie some of the current disagreements. Various framing processes are at work in this example, including scale frames or metaphors. Mike Hulme shows how analysing these frames can clarify assumptions, as well as help to map what disagreement is about, such as by pointing to very different root causes of climate change. He shows how frames operate even in climate science and the world of climate models.

  • 9 - Environmental Experts at the Science–Policy–Society Interface

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 222-233

  • Summary

    Environmental experts are found in many different places and organisations. They not only work for universities or research institutes, but also companies, consultancy firms, governmental departments, advisory bodies, and non-governmental organisations. The different institutional contexts in which experts operate together, the variety of the tasks and activities they undertake, and the responsibilities they have means that experts have a wide array of options at their disposal in deciding about their role at the science–policy–society interface. This chapter discusses those different options and presents three general modalities that experts can employ: servicing, advocating, and diversifying. Each of these comes with challenges and opportunities and involves ethical choices that require careful reflection. This chapter is complemented with a case about the different roles that one expert played in a recent controversy around CO2 capture and storage

  • 11 - Conclusion

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 257-262

  • Summary

    The concluding chapter of the book reiterates the main claim and recaps how each chapter contributes to the overall argument. In the end, the key question for how to provide environmental expertise is not just about how to be neutral, methodologically sound, and timely, but also how to have respect for democratic values. These include accountability, respect for value and knowledge diversity, the right to contest expert claims, and, ultimately, appropriate expert humility. Accommodating knowledge diversity fairly and respectfully is not just a secondary obligation, but a core challenge for environmental experts and a way to distribute power more fairly.

  • Case H - Lay Expertise and Botanical Science

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 200-209

  • Summary

    This case describes several programmes at botanical gardens throughout the world that bring together scientific and lay knowledge of biodiversity. Lay expertise of gardeners and volunteers operate in complex cooperation patterns with professional scientists, such as ecologists and botanists. Neves shows that it is neither easy nor fruitful to try and draw a sharp line between these communities and that complex forms of cooperation have developed, even though some knowledge hierarchies may still be present. These stories of the interaction between lay and professional expertise show how productive collaboration is possible, with important contributions to areas such as biodiversity conservation, horticulture, and restoration ecology.

  • Case E - Expertise for European Fisheries Policy

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 141-151

  • Summary

    The fisheries case study shows how relevant, timely, and actionable expertise develops over a period of decades in a concrete policy field. It shows how such arrangements get embedded in organisational procedures and even mathematical models, the so-called Total Allowable Catch Machine. The case illustrates how the usefulness of expert advice depends on for whom and what the advice is supposed to be useful. In fisheries policy, this usefulness was historically dominated by concerns for fishing right conflicts, and far less by concerns for sustainability. Some science advice has been ‘useful’ in criticising the assumptions of this system.

  • 5 - The Limits to Knowledge

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 104-116

  • Summary

    This chapter deals with the limits to our knowledge. In spite of our high expectations of science for the solution of environmental problems, scientific results are fringed with uncertainties. Measurement equipment always has a limited precision, even though it is continuously improving; shifting oil prices make it difficult to assess the cost-effectiveness of alternative energy sources; unpredictable human behaviour might off-set potential ingenious technical solutions; and so on. We show the differences between risk and uncertainty and provide you with the conceptual tools to distinguish different types of risk and uncertainty. We also describe the consequences of uncertainty for environmental policy and of the social response to uncertainty in environmental knowledgeThis will provide you with the tools to recognise forms of uncertainty, to recognise typical reactions, and to understand strategies and debates addressing uncertainty and risk.

  • Case G - Integrated Assessment for Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 176-183

  • Summary

    This case on activities under the Convention On Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) is an illustration of a simultaneous process of integrating knowledge and ‘integrating science and policy’. It shows how during the processes of data collection and negotiation, scientists and policy makers together frame a problem, determine what aspects are important and define relevant and workable indicators. The use of the RAINS model offers an example of a model used as a common framework for integration. The case shows that the logic of integration that was used led to an expanding network of people, issues, and tools. At the same time it shows that there is a limit to comprehensiveness.

  • 4 - Science, Politics, and the Public in Knowledge Controversies

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 68-81

  • Summary

    Controversies are an inevitable part of current science–policy–society relations. Getting people to agree on the facts of nature and environment is never a smooth and easy process, particularly when there are high stakes and interests involved. In this chapter, we discuss what forms of reasoning underlie controversies, the extent to which controversies are never only about facts or knowledge but also, simultaneously, about policy and society, and how they are settled in practice. We use the example of controversies to illustrate some general patterns in science–policy–society relations, including the linear model and the information deficit model. We conclude the chapter by drawing attention to the importance of trust. This chapter is complemented with cases about climate change and the IPCC and public resistance against hydraulic fracturing or fracking

  • 3 - Frames: Beyond Facts Versus Values

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 36-57

  • Summary

    Frames identify what is at stake in a problem or situation, indicating to what broader category it belongs, and thereby pointing out which facts are relevant. The chapter explains how framing is involved in misunderstanding or disagreement in environmental controversies. It provides conceptual handles to recognise frames in the language of environmental science or policy, by identifying what is included and excluded, by identifying metaphors or comparisons, or by articulating storylines. Frames can also become institutionalised, embedded in organisational practices, regulations, or even material devices. This makes them harder to identify. As frames clash or run into trouble, they get modified, which provides opportunities for social learning about fundamental assumptions or understandings of an issue. By making frames explicit, they become available for more open reflection, which may in some cases lead to reframing: new interpretations that can help deadlocked debates or question problematic assumptions.

  • Case B - What Does ‘Climategate’ Tell Us About Public Knowledge Controversies

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 82-89

  • Summary

    Climate change is one of the more public current knowledge controversies in the environmental domain. Part of the controversy revolves around the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which has as its mandate to assess the current state of knowledge about the state and causes of climate change. This case documents a particular episode in the history of the IPCC where it faced considerable scrutiny about its ways of working. The case illustrates the role of the linear model in these controversies and the role of politics.

  • 2 - What Is Science? (And Why Does This Matter?)

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 11-35

  • Summary

    The question of which knowledge may count as science (and which not) has considerable consequences for how we make public decisions. However, both philosophers and sociologists of science have so far not come up with some gold standard to determine which forms of knowledge can rightfully claim the cognitive authority of science. Rather, social studies of science point to the diversity of the sciences, a family of practices that operate with different styles and sometimes even in competition. This does not deny the enormous value of the sciences, but it does indicate that there is no simple way to establish an absolute criterion for a scientific truth that is universally superior.

  • 1 - Introduction

  • Esther Turnhout, Wageningen Universiteit, The Netherlands, Willemijn Tuinstra, Open Universiteit, Willem Halffman, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
  • Book:
    Environmental Expertise
    Published online:
    22 February 2019
    Print publication:
    21 February 2019, pp 1-10

  • Summary

    This is a book about how environmental knowledge is used in policy and about how it is transformed to be useful for public problem solving. It is also about how such processes sometimes fail, or are based on misguided conceptions of science, of policy, or of public concerns about environmental matters. We will describe the problems environmental professionals encounter in the interaction between knowledge, policy, and society, on a practical, but also on a deeper, conceptual level. To do so, this book builds on the knowledge and experience of both social and natural scientists and tries to combine these insights, without reducing them to the lowest common denominator. This first chapter explains why and how the book addresses these issues.

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