How can the ideas in v2 position and pinpoint the perspectives taken by climate sceptics such as Bjørn Lomborg, judith curry and roger piekle jr and how these specific criticisms are addressed
The ideas in the V2 collection position climate skeptics not as “wrong” about facts, but as participants operating from specific, limited mental models and causation frames. By applying these frameworks, we can pinpoint where their arguments reside and how the systems perspective addresses them.
1. Positioning the Skepticism: Cognitive and Structural Frames
The V2 collection provides three primary lenses to “pinpoint” these perspectives:
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Systemic vs. Direct Causation (George Lakoff): Lakoff argues that the human brain is evolutionarily wired for direct causation (e.g., “the boy broke the window”). Skeptics often rely on this frame, looking for a single, direct “smoking gun” or dismissing the science because the cause (CO2 emissions) is diffuse and the effect (global warming) is indirect and probabilistic. Lakoff identifies global warming as the “star example” of systemic causation, which the “conservative” or “Old Enlightenment” mind struggles to process.
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The Environmental Fallacy (C. West Churchman): This occurs when a problem is defined so narrowly that its broader environmental impacts are ignored. Skeptics often commit this by focusing on a single variable (e.g., solar cycles or economic costs) while ignoring the whole system interdependencies.
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Wicked Problems vs. Tame Puzzles (Horst Rittel): Skeptics often treat the “cause” of global warming as a tame problem—something that can be solved with a definitive scientific “true/false” proof. V2 frameworks position the issue as a wicked problem or “mess,” which has no “stopping rule” and requires a shift from “truth” to “viability”.
2. Pinpointing Specific Perspectives and Their Addressals
Bjørn Lomborg: The Prioritization Skeptic
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Positioning: Lomborg’s focus on “Opportunity Costs” (arguing we should spend money on malaria or poverty instead of climate) is positioned as a Value Judgment within an Appreciative System (Geoffrey Vickers). He selects “facts” about the economy that fit his internal “appreciative setting”.
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How V2 Addresses It: Churchman’s “Sweeping In” process. The systems approach argues that you cannot solve poverty or malaria in isolation because they are coupled with climate stability. By “sweeping in” the ecological variables Lomborg excludes, the framework reveals that ignoring climate change eventually intensifies the very problems he aims to prioritize (e.g., poverty and disease).
Judith Curry: The Uncertainty Skeptic
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Positioning: Curry’s focus on “Uncertainty” and the limits of climate models positions her in Dave Snowden’s Complex Domain. She argues that because the system has “unknown unknowns,” we lack the predictive mastery to act.
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How V2 Addresses It: Probe-Sense-Respond (Cynefin). Snowden’s framework explains that in the complex domain, causality is only visible in retrospect. Therefore, the systems response is not to wait for “certainty” (which is ontologically impossible in complexity), but to launch safe-to-fail experiments and adaptive management strategies. Uncertainty is not a reason for inaction, but the primary reason for continuous learning and resilience-building.
Roger Pielke Jr.: The Policy/Science Skeptic
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Positioning: Pielke’s focus on the “politicization of science” and the failure of the “linear model” positions him in Horst Rittel’s Second-Generation Systems. He correctly identifies that climate change is a “mess” of strongly non-separable problems.
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How V2 Addresses It: Accommodation over Consensus (Bob Williams). The V2 collection suggests that for wicked problems, the goal is not to force a single scientific “truth” that all must agree on. Instead, practitioners use tools like Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) to find an accommodation—a path forward that parties with conflicting worldviews can “live with” to secure improvement in the human condition, despite their enduring disagreements.
3. Summary of the Systems Response
Rather than attacking the skeptics’ data, the V2 collection addresses the issue by:
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Exposing Assumptions: Forcing mental models “out into the open where they can be shot at”.
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Challenging Selective Perception: Using Boundary Critique to show that skeptics are choosing to look at a “part” and mistaking it for the “whole”.
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Shifting to Systemic Reason: Moving the public discourse from direct causation (who is to blame?) to systemic causation (what structures are generating this behavior?).