Book contents
- Environmental Expertise
- Reviews
- Environmental Expertise
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What Is Science? (And Why Does This Matter?)
- 3 Frames: Beyond Facts Versus Values
- Case A Framing Climate Change
- 4 Science, Politics, and the Public in Knowledge Controversies
- Case B What Does ‘Climategate’ Tell Us About Public Knowledge Controversies
- Case C Whose Deficit Anyway? Institutional Misunderstanding of Fracking-Sceptical Publics
- 5 The Limits to Knowledge
- Case D Angry Bulbs
- 6 Usable Knowledge
- Case E Expertise for European Fisheries Policy
- 7 Interdisciplinarity and the Challenge of Knowledge Integration
- Case F Knowledge Integration in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- Case G Integrated Assessment for Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
- 8 Lay Expertise
- Case H Lay Expertise and Botanical Science
- Case I The Loweswater Care Project
- 9 Environmental Experts at the Science–Policy–Society Interface
- Case J Groupthink and Whistle Blowers in CO2 Capture and Storage
- 10 Environmental Knowledge in Democracy
- 11 Conclusion
- Index
- References
5 - The Limits to Knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2019
Book contents
- Environmental Expertise
- Reviews
- Environmental Expertise
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 What Is Science? (And Why Does This Matter?)
- 3 Frames: Beyond Facts Versus Values
- Case A Framing Climate Change
- 4 Science, Politics, and the Public in Knowledge Controversies
- Case B What Does ‘Climategate’ Tell Us About Public Knowledge Controversies
- Case C Whose Deficit Anyway? Institutional Misunderstanding of Fracking-Sceptical Publics
- 5 The Limits to Knowledge
- Case D Angry Bulbs
- 6 Usable Knowledge
- Case E Expertise for European Fisheries Policy
- 7 Interdisciplinarity and the Challenge of Knowledge Integration
- Case F Knowledge Integration in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
- Case G Integrated Assessment for Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
- 8 Lay Expertise
- Case H Lay Expertise and Botanical Science
- Case I The Loweswater Care Project
- 9 Environmental Experts at the Science–Policy–Society Interface
- Case J Groupthink and Whistle Blowers in CO2 Capture and Storage
- 10 Environmental Knowledge in Democracy
- 11 Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter deals with the limits to our knowledge. In spite of our high expectations of science for the solution of environmental problems, scientific results are fringed with uncertainties. Measurement equipment always has a limited precision, even though it is continuously improving; shifting oil prices make it difficult to assess the cost-effectiveness of alternative energy sources; unpredictable human behaviour might off-set potential ingenious technical solutions; and so on. We show the differences between risk and uncertainty and provide you with the conceptual tools to distinguish different types of risk and uncertainty. We also describe the consequences of uncertainty for environmental policy and of the social response to uncertainty in environmental knowledgeThis will provide you with the tools to recognise forms of uncertainty, to recognise typical reactions, and to understand strategies and debates addressing uncertainty and risk.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Environmental ExpertiseConnecting Science, Policy and Society, pp. 104 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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