Pielke's Weekly Memo #18
A Trip on the Thames and My Oxford Lecture
I took the wonderful picture above of Steve Rayner in 2007, when he, I and Dan Sarewitz took a narrow boat up the Thames. For those who don’t know of Steve, (who died in 2020 after a long illness) he was — and still is — an incredible intellectual presence on a wide range of issues where science and society meet, including climate (for a deeper dive, see this edited volume). For me, he was also a close friend and incredible mentor.
Earlier this week in Oxford, at an event hosted by the Oxford Martin School and The Queen’s College, I lectured on “Catastrophes of the 21st Century” in an attempt to apply and take forward some of the ideas Steve left us with — including the “social construction of ignorance,” wicked problems, clumsy solutions and uncomfortable knowledge. I am appreciative of the full house and the spirited discussion that followed the talk, which carried over for hours during the dinner that followed. I am truly fortunate.
On that narrow boat trip in 2007, Steve shared with us that he wished he had more time to write, as the obligations of leading an institute and being an Oxford professor just took a lot of time. So I resolved to do what I could to help him out.
A few years later, I invited Steve to Boulder to give a keynote lecture for an event at the university center that I directed. When I invited him, I told him — Please no canned lecture, it has to be your newest and most interesting thinking. So Steve took on the challenge and gave a fantastic lecture on “uncomfortable knowledge: the social construction of ignorance.”
Steve did not know it at the time, but we recorded his talk and had it transcribed. Not long after his keynote, I emailed the text to him and said “Surprise! Here is the first draft of your next paper.“ Steve went to work and that paper (pictured below) was published in 2012. In the 10 years since has stimulated a lot of discussion, debate and further scholarship. When you read it, if it reads like Steve is talking directly to you … well, he is.
After the jump, paid subscribers can download a PDF of the full slide deck of my Oxford lecture.
In it I attempted two provocations, the first hopefully a short hurdle and the second perhaps a bit higher:
We experts are in the business of socially constructing ignorance
How we manage the social construction of ignorance will determine our collective capabilities to prepare for (and hopefully avoid) catastrophes of the 21st century
You can see my outline in the slide from my presentation below.
I call these “provocations” because — in the spirit of Rayner-like argumentation — my goal here is simply to get people to think, and perhaps differently than they did before encountering these ideas. As I tell my students, I don’t much care what you think, I do care about how you think.
The Oxford Martin School recorded the lecture and I will share the video here in due course. Meantime, I welcome your thoughts and comments.
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