npr is doing a series on security problems caused by climate change. the first thing i note is that "security"=state authority, so that "security problems"=destabilization of state power. and i will just register this: you don't have to be anarchist to see that sometimes destabilization of the state is a good thing, namely when the state is profoundly repressive.

anyway the first piece, linked above, was a completely incoherent thing about a village in colombia that was destroyed in a flood. this was connected with ascendant drug gangs in the area, and both were connected to global warming and the melting of glaciers. each piece might be a story, but the reporter was completely unable to draw any causal connections. the supposed origin of the flood, much less the drug trade, in global warming - the premise of the piece - was a complete blank, filled in by mere politically-driven speculation or wishful thinking. in his defense, and remarkably, he actually said that he couldn't nail down the connections on which the piece was based. i think that two years ago, when npr was doing a more-or-less indistinguishable series of reports, they didn't mention or even conceive that they were merely asserting, without doing anything to show, that all the bad things happening were due to global warming. that is, there is a sudden chastening of the "movement." if that's due to climategate, then climategate is great: it's forcing people to try to produce evidence and to understand slightly that they have been grasping at mere dogma.

now notice that when i say things like this, i am not laughably opposing all the science. i am demanding empirical evidence, an explanation of chains of causation, whereas the basis of the report was: here are three things that are happening in the same place. they must all be causally connected, and the root cause must be global warming: a pathetic excuse for an account or even a story.

"climategate," in other words, will improve the science. as long as the unanimity was enforced, by mechanisms described in the emails, the science was mere dogma. where there are no doubts, there is no knowledge. i think this shows something about the role of consensus and dissent in human knowledge, about the dangers of epistemic backslapping etc. now that the thing is flowing the other way, there is the danger that we will fail to mobilize and save ourselves from the alleged scourge. right. but on the other hand, now it becomes possible actually to show that there is a scourge, so that if we were to mobilize, we might be able to do it on the basis of information instead of mere yearning after solidarity or collective wishing.