The Facts Speak for Themselves: Climate Science as Contested Knowledge

Egenis seminar with Dr Susannah Crockford (University of Exeter)

In his Parliamentary testimony in response to the ‘Climategate’ scandal, Professor Phil Jones said: “The facts speak for themselves”. Jones was referring to the accuracy of his and other climate scientists’ measurements of increasing average global temperatures and other indicators of anthropogenic climate change. For Jones, the measurements scientifically validated the existential threat of climate change and were available to anyone who used the same instruments and methods. In my own research with climate scientists undertaken from 2018-2020, it was commonplace for them to suggest that their role was to provide accurate information that others could then act upon. However, this position assumes that action follows predictably from information. In this talk, I explore how the measurements and models of climate science have proved to be more than simple facts, they have also operated as a social force, a demand for change, and a disruption of existing power relations.

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