Deus ex Machina in the Climate Code? And other questions from the Humanities (Scenarios Forum 2022)
Channel: ModLab: Digital Humanities Laboratory at UC Davis
Date: 2022-06-17

Presented as part of ICONICS Scenarios Forum, June 20-22, 2022, Laxenburg, Austria.

You can view the poster at:
https://tinyurl.com/IgnoreThisPoster

Authors: 
LM Bogad (UC Davis), 
Samara Hayley Steele (UC Davis), 
Alisha Chan (UC Davis).

Title: Dues ex Machina in the Climate Code? (And other questions from the Humanities)

Abstract:

If the truth were self-evident, there would be no need for tact. ~Cicero 

How might the artful tools of the humanities aid us in the process of developing scenarios, models, and plotting data? At what point should we be thinking about things like rhetoric and audience? 

In this presentation, we offer a playful critique that reflects a common misreading of the plotted SSP data, a misreading experienced by ordinary people, politicians, and even some scientists… Our critique points us to reconsider the presence of what we call “deus ex machina” in the scenarios, or moments of optimistic emissions reductions that do not reflect the course we are on or that are clearly connected to evidence-based, actionable social organizing practice. These perhaps unfoundedly optimistic “dips” in emissions projections have been used rhetorically by those who pooh-pooh the idea that climate change must be taken seriously. Our hermeneutic analysis would seem to indicate a need to always include a clearly marked “Path We Are On” scenario, lest any of our graphs be taken out of context by climate science detractors (as they frequently, unfortunately, are).

As humans amble down the path of locking our planet into more and more extreme temperature increases, might we likewise do well to offer a more reflexive approach to predictive emissions modeling? What might we learn, for example, from the way company growth data is presented to corporate shareholders? Imagine if our approach included quarterly emissions reports that center a “Path We Are On” scenario that uses the last 3 months of emissions data to plot what would happen if we continued down the same track for the next 8 or so decades? Such a tool would be prone to wild fluctuations in futures, yet these fluctuations would be quite based in the reality of actual emissions data. Could such a reflexive approach make emissions reduction as compelling as playing the stock market is currently? How might emissions "ticker numbers" bring the reality of emissions into a higher level of social regard–while likewise improving public understanding of this simple fact: We are all a captive audience to climate change.

LM Bogad, 2022, Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia (Routledge)