Professor Martin Manning - How should we deal with uncertainty?
Channel: NZ Skeptics
Date: 29/01/2014

Skeptical science versus precautionary principles versus inertia in adapting to change: How should we deal with uncertainty?

Galileo produced hard evidence that the Earth did orbit around the Sun, and about thirty years later was excommunicated from the church because some did not like that idea. The potential for serious consequences of climate change has now been documented in peer reviewed science journals for about thirty years and some would like to get rid of all those who say so.

Governments have agreed to precautionary principles, but when and how they should be applied remains controversial. Worse still, science has got some things wrong in the past, and it now has to address situations that are unparalleled, not just in the history of social development, but even in the history of physics and chemistry for our planet. On the sidelines to all of this, over the last fifty years, there has been a significant evolution in ways of considering uncertainty in science, and it has become clear that part of this will always be psychological, rather than analytical. So the question is now whether better ways of addressing inevitable and increasing uncertainties about our future can lead to more consensus on global risk management.

Professor Martin Manning

Professor Martin Manning has stepped down as the founding director of the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, but is still engaged in a range of interdisciplinary research programmes. From 2002 to 2007, he worked in Colorado, USA, as Director of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I Technical Support Unit which produced the Fourth Assessment Report on Climate Change for governments.