Not just a hat rack
Ringing in the New Year at Conflicted
Tossing out my kitchen calendar every December is always bittersweet. I transfer the annual birthdays and anniversaries from the old calendar to the new and in the process remember the past year’s activities, travels, and special events. The crisp new calendar with its themed intention represents a fresh start with lots of days to fill with new experiences, milestones, and of course, the grind.
I also clean up my desk. A clear space provides for a clear mind. Inshallah.
Looking back at things done and things to do, I find that I’m not just a hat rack. There’s real stuff going on up there.
Here’s what on my docket coming up for next year…
Political Warfare
I fell down the intelligence rabbit hole. My bookshelves are beginning to fill with tales of subterfuge, China’s three warfares, the KGB, and most relevant- “disinformation.” There is great philosophical writings out there on dis/information.
Where we are talking about energy and climate it’s important to realize that the classic significance of disinformation is not to convince people of fake news but to deepen existing social fissures, sow discord, and create uncertainty.
It is interesting to me that Brazil has become a leading venue for NGO promotion of controlling a ‘climate disinformation.’ Equally interesting to me is the history of intrigue and documented cases of adversaries exploiting normal scientific processes particularly, in the study of climate.
Stay tuned.
Climate Risk
Roger Pielke Jr. blew the door open on the “climate risk” construct in a series of posts that clarify the problem in true Honest Broker fashion.
In 2023, I was following this story as it took tore through US institutions. The whole of the federal government was directed to embed the construct into all it does. From my archives:
How captured are financial regulators by the climate finance interest?
The Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee in the context of FACA
Now, the prestigious National Academy of Science is carrying a torch for mishigas and the EU is desperately trying to crawl out from under it. I suspect Brazil might be playing footsie with it. Though I wonder if they are being strong armed into it by rating agencies (e.g. here by S&P Global). Hmmm…
In October of this year I took a gamble on putting together a series of news reports on the state of the re/insurance industry- that state being they have gobs of money. Much of this they attribute to the expanding concept of climate change or in contemporary financial parlay, ‘climate risk.’ Lol.
I got some good kudos from people that know what’s what. Recently, the always fascinating The Econolog shared similar observations.
Expect more on all this.
Morals and Markets
I am not a student of Marx nor am I a big believer in dwelling too long on -isms. They muddle more than they reveal.
However, climate advocates’ exploitation of public struggles with insurance made these political economy theories relevant for discussion. I want to at least lay them out there. Some concepts on the to do list:
moral economy
embeddness and transformation
polycentricity
The terms come up a lot and they look like social science gobbledygook. In some cases, the theories really do provide insight into public conflicts with “abstract systems” and the technological elite that preside over them. Yet, in other instances, I’ve seen these terms used as highbrow cover for power grabs.
Also, I think that Marxist theories, and where they are currently emanating from, matter when thinking critically about the climate disinformation narrative in the context of political warfare.
We’ll take a look.
North Carolina Science Advice to Marine Fisheries Regulators
Since arriving in North Carolina in 2015, I’ve been fascinated with the heated conflicts over marine fisheries regulations. I am not a fisher and other things occupy most of my research time so, I’ve been learning a lot through my students.
Several of my all star graduate students took an interest in the advisory mechanism to the North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission. Together, we drafted an evaluation of the advisory mechanisms and some recommendations for improvement.
I’ll get that circulated soon.
Sea Level Rise
I have a thick manilla folder filled with good stuff on sea level rise and the fierce debate about acceleration- is it there?- at tide gauge data.
I’ll have some posts on this debate.
Conflicts of Interest in Climate Science
oooh, boy. What a journey. I’ve learned a lot.
A few weeks ago, my coauthors and I published an article related to this in Accountability in Research. There is still another article on this working its way through final review.
The article above is about journal disclosure policies- do they have them? They do, actually. Not the most fascinating finding but it matters when we consider day to day author disclosure practices.
I’ll approach these two papers in what I think will be three posts: 1) What are disclosure expectations? 2) What are disclosure practices? 3) What is a professor anyway?
In my opinion, a significant piece of the problem around the debacle regarding the Nature retraction of a paper underpinning recent work of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS; see also above at climate risk) is really terrible disclosure norms in the climate science community:
Along similar lines, but considering institutional relationships to philanthropic funders, I expect to be dipping my toe into the discussion on viewpoint diversity in universities.
More on all this to come.
So, looks like I have stuff to keep me busy for a bit. I hope you’ll read along with me.
It’s readers like yourself and the interaction that make it fun and worthwhile. It makes my day when someone reaches out with a kudos, a like, a disagreement, or a restack.
Cheers to the New Year 🥂
Jessica
Looks like you have a full plate or 2026. I hope you save room for dessert. ;-)
Good stuff. Just wondering what books you are reading about China 3 wars ? Read a lot about Mao and the cultural revolution but always interested in learning more.