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< | Climate Change, Lawyers and the Limits of Expertise |
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> | Climate Change, Creeds, and Expertise |
| | I. A problem: Climate change is a priority justice issue |
| | III. Climate change and the creed of expertise |
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< | Climate change brings the issues of expertise, the thinking man, and politics to a head. It's an issue that pits the scientific community against powerful status quo interests. This presents a dangerous temptation for many lawyers. Lawyers, especially of the type produced by self-styled elite law schools, have a soft spot for left-brained, linear arguments about policy and expertise. In fact, a section of Torts at Columbia this fall skipped intentional torts altogether, spending the bulk of the semester on products liability policy. |
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< | As Arnold observes, however, appeals to the thinking man rarely carry the day in American politics - because of the power of creeds over social psychology. Yet, as argued above, expertise can be conceptualized not only as a check on the influence of creeds on the thinking man, but as a creed itself. Scientists in the United States benefit not only from scientific authority emanating from their curriculum vitae, but also a kind of moral authority emanating from their white lab coats. |
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> | Climate change brings the issues of expertise to a head, since it pits the scientific community against powerful status quo interests. Yet Arnold is doubtful that the so-called “Thinking Man,” the notional rational citizen who is responsive to scientific pleas, has much political power. |
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< | This creed can be helpful, in certain contexts. Massachusetts v. EPA. "protect expertise from politics" |
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> | Yet, paradoxically, expertise can be a creed itself. Scientists in the United States benefit not only from scientific authority emanating from their curriculum vitae, but also a kind of moral authority emanating from their white lab coats. |
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< | BUT: mentioned above: ultimately a moral problem. About taking things from some people and giving them to other people who need them more. |
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> | Environmentalists can make use of the creed of expertise to advance stronger climate policies. It may be that complex scientific arguments, qua arguments, generate little political force, because most citizens will not be interested in assessing climatological arguments on the merits. However, being able to claim the mantle of science can help bolster claims about policy. The key issue is to avoid being drawn “down into the weeds” of scientific minutiae, but to articulate the big-picture message that the side of the environmentalists is the side supported by science. |
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< | Lawyers: cannot be bewitched by the science. Larry Lessig. The difference between a scholar and a lawyer. "When Eric Eldred's crusade to save the public domain reached the Supreme Court, it needed the help of a lawyer, not a scholar."
Examine the politics of Massachusetts v. EPA: the rationale of the decision was it was defending administrative expertise from executive-branch political interference. However, many observers believe the key to winning the 5-4 decision was the way in which the arguments were set up to win Anthony Kennedy's swing vote. Special solicitude to states. State attorneys general. |
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> | This is not to endorse postmodernist spin: the environmentalists possess the considerable advantage that the policies they advocate actually do accord with what the best science tells us about how to protect the conditions of human flourishing. The challenge will be to get that message out, quickly, and effectively. |