The Rhetorics of Scale: What's So Global About Global Change?

Marvin Waterstone

University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Waterstone begins with the assumption that our interest in global change includes a policy perspective, and is not simply an effort to achieve a better understanding of Earth systems. He then asserts that better scientific understanding may not necessarily lead to better policies because certain issues may be transcientific, i. e., from a policy perspective, we may have as much scientific information as we need, and the resolution of the outstanding issues may rest primarily on issues beyond science, such as political will.

Science as Constructed Knowledge

Declaring that science is "constructed knowledge," Waterstone asks: How is it that one perspective becomes dominant? How do we interpret phenomena and how do we validate interpretations? There is a need, he says, to be explicit about the criteria we choose in adopting certain views over others and selecting one as the dominant discourse. This is related to issues of power; naming is taming, claiming, and in the case of global change, blaming.

The power of science comes from equating knowledge with truth. The truth claims of science are tied to its methodology. There is a public perception that scientists use prescribed empirical methods which are not subject to their own personal biographies or other factors. Science therefore represents itself through its procedures, presenting truth and methodological rigor as synonymous. Truth claims of science are also tied to the adequacy of scientific explanations, i. e., predictability and control of processes or phenomena. Therefore, science must be seen as immune from social and historical contexts. Further, only those inducted into the scientific community, by virtue of training and credentials, are competent to speak or offer legitimate critiques of science. The genius of science lies in the notion that truth is a set of descriptions of the world based on something we can only imply, not observe (e.g., the atom). The perception is created that science gives us "truth," as opposed to one and only one interpretation of nature.

The "Global" Construction of the Climate Change Problem

Are we all in this together? Who is the "we?" And what is the "this?" How are people differentially implicated in the causes and consequences of climate change? Who gains and who loses from the "we're all in this together" perspective? Those who have contributed most heavily to the problem in the past stand to gain from the notion that we must all contribute to the solution; the developed countries are thus absolved from some of their responsibility and can share the blame and burden of fixing the problem with the developing countries. The "we're all in it together" construction also sets up a moral imperative to do something about it, and to address the transgenerational issues. Thus, Waterstone contends that "global change" is a construct that serves some interests' purposes and that there are alternative constructs that would serve other interests.

From a policy perspective, we may have as much scientific information as we need, and the resolution of the outstanding issues may rest primarily on issues beyond science, such as political will.

What is lost, he says, are the difficult politics around this issue which get glossed over by the "we're all in it together" construction. If we accept the idea that the causal mechanisms and consequences are homogeneous, global or ubiquitous, that implies a stake for everyone, but this may not be so, or the stakes may be very different.

Not everyone subscribes to the construction of global scale environmental change. It is important to recognize the ways different material positions affect politics and the dominant construction of the problem as global. As an example of how differentiated some of the politics are, Waterstone presents a series of excerpts from a United Nations Special Session on the implementation of recommendations from the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

Tariq Aziz, Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq: Five years after the Rio conference, no substantial steps have been taken to reach goals which it established. On the contrary, attempts are being taken to marginalize and isolate developing countries through various modalities, such as depriving them of their resources, obstructing their scientific and technological development and withholding environmentally clean technology. Certain developed countries are reluctant to fulfill their obligations and resort to coercive economic measures as a means of political intimidation.

Ljerka Mintas-Hodak, Deputy Prime Minister of Croatia: Some 85 percent of the pollution which threatens Croatia's soils and forests ... come from external sources. Regionalization is an important method of implementing Agenda 21 because it addresses problems unique to each region.

Elfatih Mohamed Ahmed Erwa, of Sudan: Developed States continue to increase their production of carbon dioxide. They have not transferred environmentally-friendly technology and [have] used environmental pretexts to keep their markets closed to developing countries' exports. African States are being forgotten and marginalized.

How are people differentially implicated in the causes and consequences of climate change? Who gains and who loses from the "we're all in this together" perspective?

Ail Bin Said Al-Khayareen, Minister of Agriculture, Qatar: The international community should pay special attention to those affected by the implementation of measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and to those developing countries that are highly dependent on income generated from the production, processing and export of oil ... Developed countries should shoulder their historic responsibilities by honoring their financial commitments.

Bill Clinton, President of the United States: We humans are changing the global climate. ... No nation can escape this danger or evade its responsibility to confront it. We must all do our part - industrial nations that emit the largest quantities of greenhouse gases, and developing nations whose emissions are growing rapidly. Here in the Untied States, we must do better. ... In order to do our part, we must first convince the American people and Congress that the climate change problem is real and imminent.

Issues of Scale

A number of scale-related issues arise. There is a local-global continuum, i. e., continuous operations between the local and global scales, not a bipolar situation. And there are at least two ways environmental change can be thought of as global: one consists of systemic global-scale changes such as sea level rise and alterations in atmosphere chemistry; the other involves localized changes that occur in enough places to have global implications, such as loss of soil and biological diversity.

But do solutions to such global scale problems have to be global? Processes such as deforestation, drought, land degradation and migration of "environmental refugees" are shown to be, in their causes and their effects, social and environmental at one and the same time. The search for solutions leads readily to the consideration of local particularities and historical contingencies, and differential vulnerabilities. We are also led to consider the contextuality of local change. Local phenomena are influenced by institutions, processes and activities well beyond the immediate locale, and in turn, can have distant ramifications. It is through such interactions that various scales are constituted.

According to Waterstone, it is important therefore, to understand the ways in which such institutions and processes are constituted, and to illuminate the ways in which they are connected to issues of power and ultimately to vulnerability. One way to approach this matter, in the area of "global" change is through properly structured integrated assessments, and a better understanding of the opportunities to restructure individual and collective choices.

Do solutions to global scale problems have to be global? The search for solutions leads readily to the consideration of local particularities and historical contingencies, and differential vulnerabilities.
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