The Professional Ethics of - Ricerca sull'intelligenza artificiale specializzata al MIT

The Professional Ethics of
Witnessing Professionals

Dennis F. Thompson

Professionals have an ethical obligation to bear witness to climate change. They
should report, warn, criticize, and lobby to bring attention to the existential threat
that climate change poses. But they also have an obligation to respect the knowl-
edge that is the basis of their authority to witness. Witnessing carries risks to this
professional authority. Witnessing professionals should avoid letting bias distort
their advocacy, simplifying their statements excessively, overplaying the consensus
in the field, neglecting their own conflicts of interest, and claiming authority be-
yond their areas of expertise. To witness ethically, the professional should advocate
responsibly.

“W hat you have to say needs to be heard. . . . Are you willing to be a wit-

ness?”1 Rafe Pomerance, director of Friends of the Earth, put the
question to James Hansen, a prominent physicist turned climate
scientist whose research on global warming pointed to the dangers of rising sea
levels and other environmental changes with potential for catastrophic harm to
the planet. Hansen had earlier concluded that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
would lead to warming sooner than previously predicted. As a scientist working
at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, he had tried to stay focused on his re-
search and wrote mainly for his scientific colleagues. But then, recognizing that
politicians, the public, and even many other scientists did not appreciate the seri-
ousness of global warming, he accepted the challenge of the question that Pomer-
ance put to him.2 He became a witnessing professional. His testimony to Congress
In 1988 dramatically put global warming on the public agenda. His subsequent
advocacy furthered the cause, helping to make “the greenhouse effect” a familiar
term in the public discourse.

Hansen’s witnessing was widely praised but not all of his efforts were wel-
comed. The government agency he worked for censored his remarks, and he ul-
timately left government service. Later, he became an advocate for nuclear power
as an alternative to environmentally harmful fossil fuels.3 In the process, he pro-
voked the ire of many of his former allies in the climate change movement, some
of whom believed he was proposing a cure that was worse than the disease.4 He

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appeared to be going beyond his own area of expertise and pronouncing on sub-
jects on which he had no special authority to speak.

Hansen’s career exhibits to a high degree the ideal of witnessing, a professional
obligation that he admirably exemplified. But it also reveals one of the risks of wit-
nessing, the temptation to speak beyond one’s professional authority. It exposes
a particular aspect of the general tension between the obligation to witness and
the obligation to respect the knowledge that is the basis of professional authority.
I argue that professional ethics should include an obligation to witness: A
speak and act publicly to call attention to existential threats to the society and the
planet.5 But I also want to emphasize that this obligation poses challenges, non
simply personal ones such as risks to a career, but also professional ones, ad esempio
risks of misrepresenting the knowledge that gives the professional the authority
to speak. As professional ethics is broadened to include witnessing, this internal
conflict becomes more acute.

Professional ethics only recently and still fitfully accommodates this broader
notion of an obligation to witness. When we started the university-wide ethics
center at Harvard more than thirty years ago, one of our aims was to strength-
en teaching and research on ethics in the professions. Professional ethics was not
prominent in the professions, at least not the kind of ethics that required serious
theoretical and intellectual reflection, and even less ethics that included the obli-
gation to bear witness.

That began to change, not mainly because of our efforts, I admit, but largely
because of a wave of scandals that plagued many of the professions and business.
Our own center was located in a building named for Alfred A. Taubman, who went
to prison for price fixing in the auction business. Ethics courses began to be re-
quired in many law, medical, and business schools. Professional associations took
notice. Applied ethics journals sprang up. Degree programs appeared. The ethics
movement gained momentum not only among lawyers and doctors but also in the
training of police officers, veterinarians, accountants, even economists. I was sur-
prised myself just how far this movement has spread. Like many who teach ethics,
I receive many textbooks in the mail. So when I received a book called Undertaking
Ethics, I thought at first the title referred to “undertaking” as in “to begin” or “take
on.”6 But it turned out really to be about undertakers and the ethical dilemmas
they face. Professional ethics now goes from cradle to grave.

This growing interest in professional ethics tended to emphasize only one as-
pect of the ideal of service that characterizes the professions. The primary sub-
ject of the service was still the patient, the client, the shareholder, the research
community, and the cadaver. There was less attention to the other aspect of the
service ideal: the responsibility to the public or society more generally. Profes-
sional ethics has begun to attend to the obligations that professionals have to
bring their expertise to bear on issues of public welfare. It is increasingly rec-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals

ognized that they owe more to society generally, not only to the particular indi-
viduals they serve. Even undertakers ought to show some consideration for the
ambiente.

Professionals can engage in the climate debate just like any citizen. They can
step out of their professional role and speak as a concerned member of the public.
But the professional’s obligation to witness is different from and stronger than
the obligation that they may have as a citizen. Professionals have special expert
knowledge, hold positions of potential influence, and enjoy the privileges granted
by society to their profession. These three characteristics of professionals togeth-
er create an obligation to contribute more to preventing social harms than is usu-
ally expected of an ordinary citizen.

The obligation does not extend to all social harms. Because professionals have
other obligations–notably to their clients, patients, colleagues, and students–
their time for satisfying the demands of the service to the public is limited. It is a
scarce resource and should be deployed for compelling reasons. Climate change
understood as an existential threat surely qualifies as such a reason.

The strength of the obligation to bear witness varies in proportion to the
knowledge and the influence the professional possesses. The more the profession-
al knows or should know, and the more potential influence the professional has,
the greater the obligation. Also, the obligation is stronger to the extent that the
threat is being ignored or neglected by leaders (such as politicians and corporate
executives) who are in a position to bear witness but fail to do so. The obligation
applies in the first instance to some climate scientists, who are the examples com-
monly used in discussing witnessing. But it sometimes applies even more to oth-
er professionals such as lawyers and judges. Judges, Per esempio, do not have to
become climate activists, but they should at least be willing to acknowledge the
threat and accept the obligation to learn more about it. They should not act with
indifference as Justice Antonin Scalia did when he was corrected for confusing the
troposphere with the stratosphere. “Troposphere. Whatever. I told you before I’m
not a scientist. . . . That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, A
tell you the truth.”7

Medical professionals are in a position to call attention to the effects of climate
change on public health. Journalists, pure, have a role. They have a responsibility
to avoid false equivalence in their reporting on climate deniers and climate activ-
ist. Then there are the meteorologists on TV, who, though they are in a position
to bear witness before wide audiences, have been among the professionals most
reluctant to acknowledge the threat of climate change. Less than half of all U.S.
broadcast meteorologists believe that human activity is the primary cause of cli-
mate change over the past fifty years, and only 12 percent or fewer are very com-
fortable with presenting information about global climate impacts, mitigation
strategies, or future global climate projections.8

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149 (4) Fall 2020Dennis F. Thompson

There are many ways to bear witness. I mention four–all forms of advocacy–
in order of increasing activism. Primo, reporting: the professional simply but per-
sistently affirms the findings of climate science for the benefit of those who may
not have paid attention. Secondo, warning: the professional emphasizes the dire
consequences that climate change is likely to bring if action is not taken. This is
what Naomi Oreskes calls the role of “sentinel.”9 Third, criticizing: the profes-
sional directly confronts the climate deniers and corporate interests that stand
in the way of countering global warming. Fourth, lobbying: the professional ar-
gues for particular policies such as a carbon tax or reduction in coal production; O
more general and less controversial goals such as greater funding for research and
more accurate accounting of the costs of climate change.

There are also many possible audiences for witnessing. The general public is
the audience most often assumed by proponents of witnessing. But witnessing
can take place in small groups, professional associations, educational institutions,
and a wide variety of other settings. (I use “public forum” to refer to all of these
sites.) Witnessing can take the form of statements, testimony, reports, petitions,
media appearances, social media posts, podcasts, and other modes of communi-
catione. Witnessing can be solitary, but more often it is collective, as professionals
join with others to report, warn, criticize, and lobby.

Attempting to fulfill the obligation to witness is not easy. The reason is not
simply the practical limitations of time, resources, or the prospect of political
pressure. The reason I emphasize here is that service to the public may conflict
with the obligation to respect the body of knowledge that gives a professional the
authority to speak in the first place. Broadening the obligation to require profes-
sionals to bear witness (which includes speaking persuasively to a wider public)
creates a tension with the obligation to present their expert knowledge responsi-
bly (which is the essence of professing). Professionals who dare to enter the public
debate on climate change may face a conflict between witnessing and professing.
The needs of public communication are not always compatible with the obliga-
tions of professional authority.

This potential conflict poses five distinct challenges. The witnessing profes-
sional must be able to communicate without exhibiting undue bias, excessive
simplification, improper dependence, overplayed consensus, or misplaced exper-
tise. In each case, these vices result from carrying the legitimate demands of wit-
nessing too far, failing to find an equilibrium between witnessing and professing.
The aim should be to witness responsibly: to serve society and respect profession-
al authority at the same time.

I napposite advocacy. To be an effective witness in the public forum, a profes-

sional may have to act more like an advocate than like an “honest broker.”10
As an advocate (even when reporting), the professional may have to em-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals

phasize one side more than another in the debate–for example, the dangers of
climate change more than the uncertainties about its extent. The challenge is to
engage with this degree of advocacy, but to avoid bias that would distort profes-
sional knowledge. Witnessing professionals must maintain the distinction be-
tween emphasizing some facts rather than others (acceptable advocacy), E
making sure that the facts that are emphasized are not reported inaccurately (In-
apposite advocacy). Professionals need not tell the whole truth (as they would
seek to do in scholarly writings), but they must affirm nothing but the truth.
This distinction between the selection of facts and the presentation of facts is not
always easy to maintain. Facts do not stand alone, but require interpretation, E
may involve reference to other facts that the advocate might prefer to slight. Facts
that bear on the strength of the claims one is making should not be omitted. IL
challenge of maintaining this distinction is illustrated by the controversy over a
blog post by Roger Pielke, a prominent contributor to the climate debate who rec-
ommends that scientists assume the role of honest broker rather than act as an
advocate.11 As part of the inaugural edition of Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight site,
Pielke argued that weather disasters are not mainly caused by climate change. Lui
presumably thought he was acting as an honest broker, providing balance to what
he saw as the exaggerated claims of other scientists. Even if his factual claims were
true–and critics challenged them12–his post was seen as supporting climate de-
niers. (Some critics question whether he has been an honest broker in other in-
stances as well.)13 In any case, adopting the role of honest broker is not sufficient
if the aim is to alert the public to the dangers of climate change. Witnessing pro-
fessionals would do better to emphasize instead the long-term harms rather than
getting involved in controversies about the causes of particular weather disasters.
If professionals are to be advocates, what should they be advocating for? IL
role is protean. Sometimes it implies advocacy simply for more research on cli-
mate change, as Robert Socolow proposes.14 This goal is worthwhile provided it is
not used as an excuse to avoid undertaking more active measures. Sometimes the
role includes a more controversial form of advocacy, recommending policies such
as carbon caps or methods of geoengineering interventions or even nuclear pow-
er. The risk of bias becomes greater here, as the professional may find it harder to
avoid becoming embroiled in partisan battles. (Also, the temptation is greater to
make claims that go beyond one’s professional competence, as I discuss below.)

If this kind of advocacy is thought to compromise professionals’ standing as
impartial authorities, they may choose a more general kind that stands a better
chance of avoiding narrowly partisan politics. Environmental ethics scholar Dale
Jamieson, Per esempio, advocates for seven priorities, most of which could be ac-
cepted by a wide range of climate activists whatever their partisan affiliation.15
They include such general aims as integrating adaptation strategies with develop-
ment plans, adopting and diffusing technologies that are already “on the shelf,"

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149 (4) Fall 2020Dennis F. Thompson

and instituting full-cost energy accounting. Witnessing professionals addressing
climate change cannot (and should not) completely avoid political controversy,
but even when they advocate, they do not have to identify with a particular politi-
cal party or special interest group.

One of the most appropriate approaches for the witnessing professional would
be to adopt the role of Oreskes’s sentinel. The professional would accept the re-
sponsibility of alerting the public, in no uncertain terms, to the impending disas-
ters that climate change is bringing. This role does not abandon the commitment
to facts, but presents them in a way to call attention to the threat. The sentinel
does more than advocate for more research but less than lobby for particular poli-
cies (though some activists may of course seek to be lobbyists as well as sentinels).
Even as the witnessing professionals scrupulously respect the facts they use and
seek to remain neutral on policies they might mention, they do not have to allow
the uncertainties that are inevitable in climate science to weaken the forcefulness
with which their warnings are presented.

E xcessive simplification. The expertise the professional brings to the pub-

lic forum is not easily conveyed to a general audience. Some simplifica-
tion is necessary, but it can go too far. It is a “massive oversimplification”
to reduce “the complexity of climate change . . . into the sound bite of ‘climate
change means more extreme weather.’”16 This not only misrepresents the “true
state of science” but also risks discrediting valid claims about the effects of cli-
mate change. Not all simplifications are to be avoided, even when they are inexact.
F. Sherwood Rowland in 1974 used the phrase “hole in the ozone layer” to describe
the thinning of ozone in high latitudes.17 (The thinning is the result of the chemi-
cal action of chlorofluorocarbons, and it increases ultraviolet light at ground lev-
el, giving rise to an increased risk of skin cancer, among other harmful effects.)
The term quickly became a catch phrase. But technically, there is no hole and no
layer. Scientific journals at first resisted the phrase but even they eventually came
to accept it. The phrase describes a real problem in vividly accessible terms, E
while not literally true, it is not practically misleading. It does not carry any impli-
cations for policy that differ from those of an unsimplified picture of the depletion
of ozone. Refusing to simplify when it is appropriate as in this case is to risk being
overly punctilious, the opposite vice of excessive simplification.

How can witnessing professionals make their case without distorting the com-
plexity of their knowledge? Some professionals are more adept than others in
translating the science into messages that are accessible to a wider public. Divi-
sion of labor may be necessary. Professionals who are more comfortable in the
public sphere can work with their more cloistered colleagues to shape a message
that can be more accessible. It is important also to remember that there is not a
single audience. There are other scientists not specializing in climate science and

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals

even informed policy analysts who can follow technical discussions and help
translate the findings into language that journalists and commentators can follow.
The journalists and commentators can then prepare messages that are more read-
ily comprehensible. The process of communication is distorted if we think of the
witness as a lone climate scientist who has to bear witness all on his or her own.

The risk remains that in this translation process, the science will be simplified
excessively. It may be sensationalized in one direction or minimized in the other.
The best protection against this risk is to be found in the reactions of scientists
themselves. They are witness not only to climate change but also witnesses to how
the information is conveyed to the general public. Even the scientist who is not
adept at public communication may be in the position to call out distortions and
simplifications as they reach the end of the communication chain. This kind of
feedback loop already exists to some extent, but it should be explicitly recognized
and further reinforced.

O verplayed consensus. To support their claims in the public forum, witness-

ing professionals are inclined to appeal to the authority of professional
opinion. This is perfectly legitimate since they speak not for themselves
but for a body of knowledge that partly defines their profession. Tuttavia, under
pressure, some may be tempted to exaggerate the degree of consensus that exists
in the profession. They may be inclined to downplay, Per esempio, genuine differ-
ences that exist in the estimates of the rate at which global warming is occurring.
The more controversial the professional opinion, the more professionals feel the
need to enlist the support of fellow professionals, and the greater the temptation
to overplay the degree of consensus. The risk is real, though there is no evidence
that exaggeration is widespread among climate scientists themselves.

There may be a problem even when the consensus is strong. On climate change,
nearly all experts agree that global warming is real, and most agree that humans
are a principal cause. But when an activist asserts that 97 percent of climate scien-
tists agree about the cause of global warming, some scientists may recoil.18 Soco-
low argues that overplaying consensus can mischaracterize the way science pro-
ceeds; it neglects the role of scientific dissent in challenging conventional views
by bringing forward new evidence and new theories. As he writes:

If the goal is to persuade a scientist that some specific research community is conduct-
ing its work according to the norms of science, assertions that 97 percent of scientists
in that community believe X (no matter what X is) are counterproductive. . . . When a
scientist in another field hears “97 percent,” she worries whether this is a field seeking
consensus rather than searching for disruptive insights.19

Overplaying consensus may risk alienating some scientists, but the aim is not
only or mainly to raise the status of climate science within science. Scientists are

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149 (4) Fall 2020Dennis F. Thompson

only one audience. Claims of consensus (when well founded) are less likely to be
counterproductive with journalists and the general public.

The witnessing professional has to find the balance between appealing to con-
sensus and respecting the skeptical ethos of the scientific enterprise. In seeking
that balance, the professional should clearly identify degrees of consensus, and dif-
ferentiate issues on which there is agreement approaching consensus from those
on which there is not. The professional should acknowledge that any consensus
that might exist on broader questions of climate change breaks down as soon as
the discussion turns to policy: what exactly should be done, and who should do
Esso? But even when most climate scientists agree, professionals should not overplay
the consensus card. They should make clear that “science . . . isn’t about voting”
and that “every good scientist leaves room for doubt.”20 An early influential pa-
per documenting the scientific consensus on climate change proceeds in this spir-
it and strikes the balance that witnessing professionals should strive for.21

On some of the claims that the professional wishes to make, consensus is not
to be found. There is no consensus on what counts as a “climate emergency,”22 but
that should not stop the professional from arguing for the claim that we are facing
a crisis of that magnitude. If consensus is treated as the only or main basis of pro-
fessional authority, the scope for witnessing is drastically reduced. Professionals
should be prepared to bear witness in a realm of plausibility, in which the standard
is sufficient agreement rather than complete consensus.

I mproper dependence. Professionals can often be more effective if they work

with officials in government and corporations. They need funds to support
their research, and sometimes funds to publicize their findings. But if they
get too close, they risk sacrificing their independence. They end up serving special
interests rather than the public interest. The risk is well known in the case of fund-
ing from industry, though it is climate deniers who are more likely to receive such
support.23 But the motives of professionals have been questioned even when their
support comes from the government. A Heritage Foundation critic remarked: "UN
lot of people are getting really, really rich off of the climate change industry. . . .
The tidal wave of funding does reveal a powerful financial motive for scientists to
conclude that the apocalypse is upon us.”24

The witnessing professional may not be able to respond directly to this kind of
cynicism about their motives. The best answer is to defend one’s conclusions on
the merits in the public forum. But the ever-present doubts about motives under-
score the need for rigorous conflict of interest policies. These are familiar enough
in research funding, but that they are needed in witnessing is not so widely recog-
nized. Like the research scientist, the witnessing professional should take steps
to avoid conflicts of interest, or at least disclose conflicts if avoidance is not fea-
sible. The aim is not so much to prevent professionals from shading their conclu-

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals

sions to please their industry or government sponsors (which may happen) but to
reduce the chances that they will appear to be influenced by their sponsors even
when they are not. The purpose of conflict of interest policies is to maintain pub-
lic confidence. The policies are intended to give the public, most of whom cannot
personally know the professionals, some assurance that they are not being unduly
influenced. Disclosure of funding sources, affiliations with interest groups, E
professional background would be a worthwhile first step toward transparency.

M isplaced expertise. Professionals are typically specialized and their exper-

tise is limited to specific subjects. But climate change is a large sub-
ject, calling on the expertise of many different scientists, lawyers, E
health professionals. When speaking out, professionals may be tempted to make
pronouncements about matters beyond their area of expertise. Recall the criti-
cism that James Hansen encountered when he ventured from his expertise on cli-
mate science to his advocacy of nuclear power.

When professionals are thrust into the public forum, they may feel that they are
being evasive, even irresponsible, if they refuse to answer questions that are rel-
evant and reasonable but go beyond their limited area of expertise. Naomi Ores-
kes describes what must be a common experience of climate scientists in dealing
with the press.25 As a geologist, she is knowledgeable about such matters as car-
bon sequestration, but reporters treat her as an expert on everything to do with
climate change. She believes that “we need . . . to be witnessing professionals in
our domain of expertise, but we also need to act with respect for colleagues who
are the appropriate witnessing professionals in other domains.”26 She keeps a list
of experts in other fields, to which she refers reporters who ask questions that
go beyond her professional competence. She doubts that most reporters, under
deadline pressure, follow up. Her experience shows that even when scientists are
scrupulous about their obligation to limit their witnessing to their area of exper-
tise, journalists do not accept their claims of professional modesty. It is therefore
not only scientists but also journalists and other professionals who must avoid the
tendency to stretch expertise beyond its reasonable limits. That does not mean
that professionals should never speak on matters outside their own field, but that
if they do, they should make their qualifications clear. Misplaced expertise is a
peril of witnessing that deserves constant attention from all professionals.

S ome professionals are already responding to the call to bear witness to the

harms that climate change is visiting upon the planet. They are reporting,
warning, criticizing, and lobbying. We should encourage more to take up
the cause, and not only the climate scientists but also physicians, lawyers, judg-
es, public health officials, journalists, broadcast meteorologists, and undertakers.
Part of the professional ideal of service demands witnessing. But I have also em-

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149 (4) Fall 2020Dennis F. Thompson

phasized that, as professionals bear witness in the public forum, they should not
neglect the other aspect of the professional ideal: the respect for professional au-
thority. They must temper their witnessing with appropriate deference to the spe-
cialized knowledge that is the basis of their professional authority. The challenges
of witnessing are great, but so are the harms that climate change threatens.

author’s note

I am grateful to Robert Socolow, Naomi Oreskes, and Nancy Rosenblum for com-
ments on an earlier version of this essay.

about the author

Dennis F. Thompson, elected a Fellow of the American Academy in 1994, is the
Alfred North Whitehead Professor of Political Philosophy, Emeritus, and Professor
of Government, Emeritus, in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard Universi-
ty and a Professor of Public Policy, Emeritus, at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is
the Founding Director of the University Center for Ethics and the Professions (now
the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics) at Harvard University. He is the author of
The Spirit of Compromise: Why Governing Demands It and Campaigning Undermines It (con
Amy Gutmann, 2012), Restoring Responsibility: Ethics in Government, Business, and Health-
care (2004), and Why Deliberative Democracy? (with Amy Gutmann, 2004).

endnotes

1 Nathaniel Rich, Losing Earth: A Recent History (New York: MCD, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

2019), 70.

2 James Hansen, “Why I Must Speak Out about Climate Change,” transcript, TED Talk,
Febbraio 2012, https://www.ted.com/talks/james_hansen_why_i_must_speak_out_
about_climate_change?language=en.

3 James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira, and Tom Wigley, “Nuclear Power Paves
the Only Viable Path Forward on Climate Change,” The Guardian, Dicembre 3, 2015,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the
-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change.

4 Jim Green, “Don’t Nuke the Climate! James Hansen’s Nuclear Fantasies Exposed,"
The Ecologist, novembre 20, 2015, https://theecologist.org/2015/nov/20/dont-nuke
-climate-james-hansens-nuclear-fantasies-exposed; and Robert H. Socolow and Alex-
ander Glaser, “Balancing Risks: Nuclear Energy & Climate Change,” Dædalus 138 (4)
(Autunno 2009): 31–44.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals

5 “Professionals don’t have to serve the cause of malignant normality. They are also capable
of using their knowledge and technical skills to expose and bear witness to such nor-
mality, to become witnessing professionals.” Robert J. Lifton, The Climate Swerve: Reflec-
tions on Mind, Hope and Survival (New York: New Press, 2017), 98, 93–100.

6 Funeral Ethics Association, Undertaking Ethics (Springfield, Ill.: Funeral Ethics Associa-

zione, 1998).

7 Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 NOI. 497 (2007), oral argument, http://

www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2006/2006_05_1120/argument.

8 Edward Maibach, David Perkins, Zephi Francis, et al., UN 2016 National Survey of Broadcast
Meteorologists: Initial Findings (Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Center for Climate
Change Communication, 2016), https://ccentralassets.s3.amazonaws.com/pdfs/2016
_AllMetsSurvey_ClimateMatters.pdf.

9 Naomi Oreskes, “What Is the Social Responsibility of Climate Scientists?” Dædalus 149

(4) (Autunno 2020).

10 Roger A. Pielke Jr., The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007). Jessica Green rightly criticizes Pielke for limiting
the role of a professional to that of honest broker, but she goes further and urges aca-
demics “to lay bare the entrenched economic interests that prevent us from a transition
to fossil-free energy.” Promoting a radical program of reform may be justified but it is
not the only alternative to acting as an honest broker, and not the only way to bear wit-
ness, as indicated above. Jessica F. Verde, “Why We Need a More Activist Academy,"
Chronicle of Higher Education, Luglio 15, 2018.

11 Keith Kloor, “Roger Pielke Jr. on FiveThirtyEight and His Climate Critics,” Discover
Magazine, Luglio 28, 2014, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/collideascape/2014/07/
28/roger-pielke-jr-fivethirtyeight-climate-critics/#.XGwvaS3MzOQ; and Dana Nuccitelli,
“FiveThirtyEight Undermines Its Brand by Misrepresenting Climate Research,” The
Guardian, Marzo 25, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus
-97-per-cent/2014/mar/25/fivethirtyeight-misrepresents-climate-change-research.

12 Nuccitelli, “FiveThirtyEight Undermines Its Brand by Misrepresenting Climate

Research.”

13 Dale Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time: Why the Struggle Against Climate Change Failed–And

What It Means for Our Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 68–69.

14 Robert H. Socolow, “Witnessing for the Middle to Depolarize the Climate Change Con-

versation,” Dædalus 149 (4) (Autunno 2020).
15 Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time, 228–235.
16 Vladimir Janković and David M. Schultz, “Atmosfear: Communicating the Effects of
Climate Change on Extreme Weather,” Weather, Climate, and Society 9 (1) (2017): 35,
27–37.

17 Rich, Losing Earth, 102–103.
18 John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A. Verde, et al., “Quantifying the Consensus on
Anthropogenic Global Warming in the Scientific Literature,” Environmental Research
Letters 8 (2) (2013): 024024. For a critical comment, see Earl J. Ritchie, “Fact Checking the
Claim of 97% Consensus on Anthropogenic Climate Change,” Forbes, Dicembre

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149 (4) Fall 2020Dennis F. Thompson

14, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/uhenergy/2016/12/14/fact-checking-the-97
-consensus-on-anthropogenic-climate-change/#65db94cc1157.

19 Socolow, “Witnessing for the Middle to Depolarize the Climate Change Conversation.”
20 Ibid.
21 Naomi Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science 306 (5702)

(2004): 1686.

22 Jamieson, Reason in a Dark Time, 221–222.
23 Vedere, for example, Justin Gillis and John Schwartz, “Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash
for Doubtful Climate Researcher," Il New York Times, Febbraio 21, 2015. On the im-
portance of disclosure, see Naomi Oreskes, Daniel Carlat, Michael E. Mann, et al.,
“Viewpoint: Why Disclosure Matters,” Environmental Science and Technology 49 (2015):
7527–7528.

24 Stephen Moore, “Follow the (Climate Change) Money,” The Heritage Foundation,
Dicembre 18, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/follow-the
-climate-change-money.

25 Oreskes, “What Is the Social Responsibility of Climate Scientists?"
26 Ibid.

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesThe Professional Ethics of Witnessing Professionals
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