Book review: The Seasons Alter

A few days ago, I finished reading The Seasons Alter: How to Save Our Planet in Six Acts, by Philip Kitcher and Evelyn Fox Keller.  In case it isn't obvious, its subject matter is climate change.

I read the book because, as I said here, it was mentioned in an interview and sounded interesting.

If you have read the interview with Kitcher that I linked to, it should come as no surprise that this book is not a primer on climate science.  That's not its purpose.  Its purpose is to help us non-climate scientists to structure and clarify our thoughts on how to understand the social and political issues relating to climate science, and to be more informed participants in the discussion.  A bit of an understanding of climate science is necessary, but just as important is getting our heads clearer about the social environment surrounding the science data, and what (if anything) we should be doing about it.

We can treat it like a division of labour.  To get up to speed on climate science would take a person years of detailed study.  Some people do it, and good on them.  But we don't all need to do it.  We don't all need to know the detailed scientific data to be able to be good public citizens and get involved in the issues.

So, this book is about how we, as informed public citizens, can take responsibility for our part, without becoming climate scientists ourselves.

The book is structured as a series of six dialogues.  This is because one of the recurring themes throughout the book is the need for continued conversation.  It is not about a small group of people talking at the rest of us and dictating what is to be done (or not done).  It is about everyone, from all different backgrounds, getting together and talking together, figuring things out as we go along.

In each dialogue, we see the fictional characters of Jo and Joe chatting together in a friendly way.  They often disagree with each other, but they listen to each other and build on each other's ideas in a productive way.  They acknowledge doubts in their own views as well as strengths in the other's views, and try to work together towards a better understanding, if not agreement.  The dialogues are sometimes pretty corny and idealised, but they are meant to be a model of how people who disagree on a subject can nonetheless do so politely but also substantively.  Polite conversation need not be empty, and tackling the tough questions need not be a competitive battle.

The first dialogue is probably the most predictable.  It is the chapter that sets out the climate science.  The book was published in 2017, so it is fairly up on the the current information.  In the dialogue, Jo takes the view that climate change is real, humans caused it, and it is going to continue.  Joe is the sceptic.  This allows us to step through the back and forth of the overall structure of the scientific evidential debate -- what the evidence is, and what it tells us.  We get some good examples of the key concepts and methodologies for climate science data gathering and interpretation.  We also get the current best evidence, which largely supports Jo's view.

But in this chapter we also get into the question of what counts as expertise and who can we trust when we are not climate scientists ourselves and so cannot check all the data.  How do we deal with imperfect evidence in a non-ideal world?  The book nicely steps us through the reasoning of how we, as non-experts, can still fairly assess the evidence to make reasoned judgments one way or the other.  It explains why we don't need to think sitting on the fence is the only reasonable position, even when we hear all those talking heads disagreeing in the media.

The next five chapters follow on from the work done in chapter 1.  That is, they take it that the best evidence and reasoning shows us that we non-experts should believe that climate change is real, humans caused it, and it is going to continue.

These five chapters then step us through a series of follow-up questions, and how we should go about answering them.  These include:

• how serious climate change is, compared with other global concerns such as poverty, disease, etc,
• why we, as individuals, should care, and how to weigh its importance against our own personal cares, such as family,
• what can be done, physically, to improve things to reduce the bad effects of climate change,
• who should pay, and
• what sorts of (global and local) political decision-making structures might work best.

Overall, I think the book did a pretty good job of addressing these questions.  It is a book primarily about helping clarifying our reasoning, and as such it does what it set out to do.  I pretty much agree with each of its conclusions, and I appreciated the authors' skill in so clearly setting out the issues and addressing them.  Readers who want to focus on the detailed science (perhaps thinking that that is all there is to this issue) will come away disappointed (however, the book does provide a good bibliography that points us to further readings).  Also, readers who already have a background in critical thinking may find the going a bit slow, and the logical terrain covered already quite familiar.  But nonetheless, a worthwhile book and I recommend it.