IPCC s Climate Communication

Transcription

1 IPCC s Climate Communication By associate professor, Pernille Almlund, Roskilde University, Denmark. almlund@ruc.dk Abstract In this paper, I will analyze how IPCC communicate about climate in their fifth assessment report s summaries launched between September 2013 and April 2014 (IPCC, 2013; 2014; 2014a) and their Synthesis Report (SYR) and summary for policymakers finalized and launched in Copenhagen Autumn 2014 (IPCC, 2014b). The research-question is: How is the scientific representation in this SYR and the four IPCC summaries based on the fifth assessment report? And how can we understand the priority of this specific representation? The work of IPCC is an important work and contribution to the global discussion and global challenge of climate change. But this work is primarily based on computer modelling, natural science, economic science and as a new perspective a stronger focus on the risk perspective than in earlier IPCC reports. This paper is based on a wonder of why the IPCC s analysis and reports are not, to a higher degree, based on social science and human science. Are these scientific perspectives with many different approaches not important to this global political awareness of climate change? Especially now when all the IPCC s assessment report have concluded that climate changes are human made and recently stated that 97 % of all climate researchers agree in that conclusion. Due to the theoretical work of Michel Callon, Lascoumes and Barthe (2011) and their ANT perspective, climate change can be observed as a socio technical controversy, due to Bruno Latour (2004; 1998a; 1998b; 1993) and his ANT perspective as a hybrid formation and due to Niklas Luhmann s system theory (2000, 1992, 1989) we meet the challenge of climate change within a series of structural couplings. The theoretical comparison of these concepts is the outset of this analysis.

2 Page 2 of 17 In the system-theory, climate problems and environmental problems fall between functional systems (Luhmann, 1989). In the ANT-perspective, climate problems and environmental problems are a result of the Modern perception of divisions and how the divisions have diverted our attention from the development of hybrids, and their complex formation until they have become (or will become) pressing problems (Latour, 2004; 1998a; 1998b; 1993). Both these falling in between can be part of the explanation as to why the problems of climate changes are not easily solved. The need to let these theories complement or supplement each other is the following: The System theory may need a more specific focus on materiality and thereby a more specific focus on heterogeneity (Noe & Alrøe, 2005) to describe structural couplings in the sphere of climate. By contrast, ANT may need a more specific focus on the formation, the differentiation and the virtuality (Farías, 2013) of society, which can easily be lost in the very situated perspective of tracing networks focusing on actuality. Both theories are descriptive and this is the methodological outset of the analysis which is a communication analysis (Luhmann, 2000) of the scientific representation in the report and the summaries and an actant analysis (Latour, 2005) of the report and the summaries. This paper will focus on the climate change problems and due to the complexity and the abstract character of climate change, the paper will use the latest IPCC-report as a representative of climate change. The latest sub report of this 5 th Assessment report was released in April 2014 and the final Synthesis Report was launched and released in Copenhagen, October The Panel is divided into three working-groups, which each has their specific focus relating to climate change and contribute to the final report with a sub report: The Working Group I contribution provides a comprehensive assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. The report includes a detailed assessment of climate change observations throughout the climate system; dedicated chapters on sea level change, biogeochemical cycles, clouds and aerosols, and regional climate phenomena; extensive information from models, including near-term and long-term climate projections; and a new comprehensive atlas of global and regional climate projections for 35 regions of the world. (

3 Page 3 of 17 The Working Group II contribution considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world. ( The Working Group III contribution assesses the options for mitigating climate change and their underlying technological, economic and institutional requirements. It transparently lays out risks, uncertainty and ethical foundations of climate change mitigation policies on the global, national and sub-national level, investigates mitigation measures for all major sectors and assesses investment and finance issues. ( Despite the fact that there are three different foci in the IPCC report, the dominant scientific angle is natural science. This is true whether the description is of the climates recent condition, how to adapt, how to mitigate or how to consider the risk of climate changes (IPCC 2014). This is paradoxical as 97% of the natural science climate researchers agree that the climate changes are human made. This paradox is an important sign of the complexity of climate change and as it should be elaborated in this paper a sign for the need of involving social and humanistic science in the illuminating, putting in to perspective, understanding and handling of climate change. This will be elaborated through the theoretical perspectives of Niklas Luhmann, Bruno Latour and Michel Callon. An important perspective within the system-theory developed by Niklas Luhmann is his underlining of the world s and the systems continuing increasing complexities. He is not alone on that point; also within the tradition of ANT (Actor-Network-Theory) we see complexity or multiplicity as one of the most fundamental points. In the work of Bruno Latour and Michel Callon their tracing of networks is an attempt to implicate and cope with multiplicity. Both traditions attempt to be descriptive and in that sense describe the complexity of the social a complexity that we also face empirically. In that sense, it is obvious to focus on complexity and multiplicity of the social and this is also what many researchers within these theoretical traditions do. It is important here to mention that the social in these theories encompass all sciences and do not build their work on the traditional divisions of natural, humanistic and social sciences.

4 Page 4 of 17 One of Luhmann s theoretical attempts to cope with complexity was his launching of the concept of structural coupling and in that sense it is not obscure or strange that structural coupling has had ever-increasing awareness since Luhmann died; this is because of his point that the world continually becomes more complex. In the ANT tradition, here represented by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon, a theoretical attempt to cope with complexity is their concept of hybrid formations and hybridity, which are also concepts used more and more in the description of complex phenomena. This prepares the ground for a further comparison of the concept of hybrid in the work of Latour with the concept of structural coupling in the work of Luhmann. In this paper, I will try to make this more comprehensive comparison and investigate if there are more complementary elements and possibilities of cross-illuminating blind spots in these two theories and thereby illuminate blind spots of IPCC s communication of climate change. Hybrids within the theory of ANT represented by Bruno Latour and Michel Callon Bruno Latour developed the concept of hybrid and hereby he refers to complex phenomena made of two or more different decisions, angles, scopes, materials, praxes etc. (Latour 1993; 2008). In comparison is a hybrid in biology an animal or a plant created by two different species. The point is that although we are not aware of it, many phenomena around us are actually hybrid formations. In the theoretical work of Latour, a hybrid formation is a result of many different and unpredictable relations and the only way to establish an understanding and a focus on these relations is to trace the relational network of the hybrid (Latour 2008). To trace the network of climate change would be to include all the actants which have any kind of relationship to climate change. The range of actants in the network of climate change consists of humans in varied formations like politicians, specific institutions employee, different kind of researchers, economists etc. and a varied spectrum of nonhumans like CO2, oceans, political decisions, economical terms, news articles, wind turbines, nuclear energy etc.

5 Page 5 of 17 This could possibly enable us to recognize the multiplicity and the hybrid character of climate change. Thus, we will possibly get an insight in the complexity of climate changes and some of the explanation of how they occurred, how they were produced, launched, used, problematized, refused, discussed etc. But to trace this network to fully recognize the complexity of this hybrid formation will take more than one women s work for a long time span and demand more than one paper to be discussed. Therefore the paper concentrates on IPCC s communication (as part of the climate change network and) as a hybrid formation giving a glimpse of the complexity and the need of new insights according climate change. In the work of both Latour and Callon, actants are to be understood both as humans and nonhumans these are not diverted into subjects and objects. The concept actant is chosen to avoid the use of actor, which is normally understood to be a human actor (Latour 2008). This is a central point in ANT that humans are not more interesting or important than materiality/nonhumans for the development and, thereby, the understanding of the social. This is what both Callon (1986 p. 200) and Latour (2008 p. 99; 1992) refer to as the symmetrical principle. An actant is defined as something which does something to or with other actants. An actant will thus always make a difference, and in that connection, a network is the trace that remains after an actant has been in relative motion (Latour 2008). To trace a network is then to focus on the relations among actants and then to show the hybrid character of most, if not all, actants. Not many actants are solely a result of causal relations; they are much more likely to be the result of various relations with rhizomatic character (Latour 2008). In an effort to trace a network and thereby try to understand the hybrid formation of a specific actant or phenomena, Latour and Callon recommend following the controversies (Callon 1986; Callon et al. 2011; Latour 2008). This is because controversies leave empirical traces and help us to get a step further into the zones of ignorance, which are a condition we are not fully able to eliminate: Controversy focuses on these zones of ignorance. It explores them and occasionally helps to reduce them through the game of confrontations to which it gives rise and through the information it generates and circulates. (Callon et. al p. 26). In continuation of this point, Callon has introduced the concept of socio-technical controversies. A socio-technical controversy is, as the title indicates, a controversy going beyond the boundaries of science, technique and the social, and these kinds of controversies are, according to Callon et. al. (2011 p. 19), most common in the domains of the environment and health. Also climate change can be understood as a socio-

6 Page 6 of 17 technical controversy or maybe more clearly as a multiplicity of socio-technical controversies, which, in fact, underlines the complexity of climate change. According to Latour, this complexity is not illuminated in the traditional investigations and political decisions about climate changes due to the fact that natural science together with the specific understanding of nature represented in typical green political parties have patented the understanding of climate changes (Latour 2004; 1998). An example of this, is, as mentioned, that nearly all the analysis assembled in the IPCC s assessment reports are based on natural science perspectives as modelling, calculations, risk-assessment based on statistics, cost-benefit analysis and the like (IPCC 2014). Latour points out that we need a broader and more cohesive perspective in our perception of nature and writes: As soon as we add to dinosaurs their monitoring instruments, to energy systems their standards and the hypothesis on the basis of which calculations are made, to the ozone holes their meteorologists and their chemists, we have already ceased entirely to speak of nature; instead, we are speaking of what is produced, constructed, decided, defined, in a learned City whose ecology is almost as complex as that of the world it is coming to know. (Latour 2004 p. 35) What Latour and Callon do in their work is to bring awareness of the hybrid formations of the social exactly because this awareness, according to them, was, and still is, lost in the perception of modernity: Instead of finding ourselves facing a nature without history and a society with a history, we find ourselves thus already facing a joint history of the sciences and nature. Each time one risks falling into fascination with nature, one has only, in order to sober up, to add the network of the scientific discipline that allows us to know nature.(latour 2004 p. 35) The point is, that we are not aware of hybrids because the modern division between humans and materiality, between natural science, social science, technical science and humanities and between nature and society do not take these complexities into account until they have become pressing problems (Latour 1993). This is perhaps where the climate changes are positioned now; it is already or imminently will be a pressing problem, which we are aware of, but are not yet able to look at as a hybrid complexity. The modern divisions have diverted our attention from the development of

7 Page 7 of 17 hybrids. Therefore the understanding of climate change falls in between research-areas and in between the divisions of modern perception. According to Latour this shows that We have never been modern, a concept addressed in his sotitled 1991 book (In French that year), at least not in the way modernization is typically defined (Latour 1993). With this statement, Latour indicates that the modern differentiation or division has been the dominant perception in and of the western world, but simultaneously he won t accept this perception to be the right perception and we shall see ANT as a break from that perception. With climate changes in mind, the problems of the modern perceptions are easily recognized. What is not easily understandable is that Latour simultaneously describes the modern perception as the dominant perception and ignores this in his suggestions to trace networks. Even though he might be correct that this is not the right way to understand the world s development and the social, this perception must be an important factor in the understanding due in fact to its dominance. How should a network then be traced without awareness of the modern perception of division? 1 With the words of Ignacio Farías (2013), we can say that ANT could and should be more aware of the virtual and not only aware of the actual. We will return to that point below. Structural couplings and meaning within the Systems Theory represented by Niklas Luhmann Luhmanns systems theory is, as mentioned, based on the assumption that society becomes more and more complex and therefore has developed itself into a functional differentiated society. The differentiation is thus society s coping with complexity and means that every functional system, and every other system, is operationally closed and that every operation in systems is internal and autopoietic (Luhmann 2000). The consequence is that per example the economic system operates within its own logic and codes without the possibility of coping or understanding other systems codes and complexities. In that sense the environment is system specific and there is no system 11 I think that Latour would say that tracing networks is the way to be aware of the importance of the modern perception of divisions and shows how this perception is false due to the character of hybrid formations. Simultaneously this is the reason why the question is important to pose and elaborate on, not to take the visibility of the false modern perception for granted.

8 Page 8 of 17 without an environment. Luhmann s theoretical work is based on empirical observations and is a search to describe society as it appears. Based on his descriptions society can be observed as functionally differentiated in to the political system, the economic system, the scientific system, the religious system, the pedagogical system, the media system etc. (Luhmann 2000, 1989) Functional systems should together with interactions and organizations be understood as social systems in the terminology of Luhmann and social systems consist of communication. Therefore we must observe communication if we will observe what is going on in society and in the systems and according to Luhmann communication is the combination of three selections and we can only speak of communication if all three selections are conducted (Luhmann 2000). These are the selection of information, the selection of utterance and the selection of understanding. In this way communication demands the attendance of at least two persons. Even though the systems are operationally closed and thereby also communicative closed, they should be seen as dynamic and developing and communication should be seen as contingent. The contingency of the communication builds on the contingency of meaning or sense making, which in the Luhmanian perception is an opening up to potentiality. Meaning is by Luhmann defined as actuality differentiated from potentiality, which means that there is no actuality without potentiality like there is no system without an environment (Luhmann 2000). Luhmann puts it this way: actuality that is certain but unstable, and potentiality that is uncertain but stable we have no access to stable certainty (Luhmann 1985 p. 102) Even though Luhmann define systems as operationally closed, he gives the possibility of external reference through structural coupling between two or more systems, In theoretical terms, the ultimate problem always consists of combining external and internal references, and the real operations which produce and reproduce such combinations are always internal operations. Nothing else is meant by closure. (Luhmann, 1992 p. 1431, Luhmann s own underlining) In this quotation Luhmann shows what is meant by operational closure and how it is interconnected with structural coupling; this is what he states as the problem of combining external and internal references. The important point is that the combination or structural coupling is always system specific and consists of internal operations. Structural couplings are forms of simultaneous, and not causal, relations and,

9 Page 9 of 17 The system in its normal dealings does not observe its structural couplings, but it has to contend with perturbations, irritations, surprises, and disappointments channelled by its structural couplings. and further, But perturbations are purely internal constructs because they appear only as deviations from expectations; that is, in relation to the structure of the system. The environment does not contain perturbations or anything that in a semantical sense is similar to them. (Luhmann, 1992 p. 1432). By this Luhmann expresses that structural couplings have to be compatible with the autopoiesis of the irritated systems. Furthermore, he accentuates the high selectivity of structural couplings because only some elements in the environment are selected for this compatibility while other elements are excluded. The entire environment is not structurally coupled with the system (Luhmann, 2007). Hence, structural couplings, along with system internal complexity are a precondition for building up regularities. This is because increasing complexity calls for more reduction of complexity and, thereby, establishes the possibility of more complexity in a continuing process which produces regularities and expectations. Luhmann states it like this: Hence, structural coupling, together with sufficient internal complexity, is a precondition for building up regularities to construct order from noise or redundancy from variety. (Luhmann, 1992 p. 1433). The interconnectedness of operational closure and the systems autopoiesis, on the one hand, and structural coupling, on the other hand, should then be understood as an important aspect of both dynamicity and regularity of social systems and is stated by Luhmann as the twin concepts of closure and structural coupling (Luhmann, 1992). Even though the observations of climate changes possibly have been initiated in the scientific system, the scientific system is not driven by a force to solve the climate change problems but by its binary code truth/false and, hereby, the internal logic of scientist s publication in scientific journals to document their research and gain prestige within the logic of truth/false. In that way, the scientific system is, according to Luhmann, more a multiplier of ecological problems than a rationality to solve the problems (Luhmann 1989). And even though, we could expect the political system to be the driving force in the search for solutions to the climate change problems, the internal logic of the political system is not in accordance with that solution. Some reasons for this is

10 Page 10 of 17 that politics are primarily national and have their own, in some sense, short temporal function while climate changes are global and long-termed (Almlund 2012; Luhmann 1989). Luhmann writes about this lack of resonance: When environmental changes trigger resonance in self-referential function systems this is an exception. Only in these cases do environmental changes disturb and change the conditions of the continual reproduction of system-specific communication (Luhmann 1989 p. 116). Luhmann underlines that environmental changes, and hereby climate changes, fall in between systems. The consequence is that climate change problems are not the prioritized issue in any system. Looking at the IPCC report, this can clearly be understood as a structural coupling between the scientific system, the economic system, the political system and climate changes. In this perspective, we are not able to find a specific system of climate change having its own specific binary code. What we see is different functional systems being irritated and coupled to the climate change problems as part of their environment either directly to this part of the environment or through other functional system s considerations about climate change. What is not immediately understandable is what actually makes this coupling possible if all the systems coupled only have the capacity to understand the other systems within their own specific system logic. The coupling of theoretical perspectives To understand the scientific representation in IPCC s reports and understand the priority of this representation it is worth to see how the important findings of Niklas Luhmann regarding the environment and of Bruno Latour regarding nature can complement each other. As it is illuminated above through the questions posed, there is a simultaneously need for understanding both the hybridity and the differentiation of structural couplings and both the actuality and the virtuality of hybrid formations and in this case climate change. Both Luhmann and Latour describe the society as differentiated: Luhmann describes it as differentiated into functional systems (Luhmann 2000) and Latour describes it as differentiated due to the modern perception of differentiations (Latour 1993; 1998a; 2004) as mentioned above. Luhmann describes the choice of functional differentiation as the path modern society seems to have taken and assumes it to be pointless to ask whether there could have been other possibilities

11 Page 11 of 17 and, furthermore pointless to ask whether we are in a transition into a postmodern period (Luhmann 1989). In that way, he builds his system theory on the condition of modern differentiation. In comparison to that, Latour breaks away from the modern differentiation, but this break is with a different description of the society s differentiation than we see within the system theory of Luhmann. Their different opinions of modernity are not solely a question of whether to be for or against modernity, but are a question of being descriptive of society in different manners. In that sense, they are based on quite different assumptions, but it is still interesting to investigate how these two different assumptions of modernity and society both have a focus on phenomena falling in between systems (Luhmann 1989) or in between the divisions of modern perceptions (Latour 1993; 1998a; 2004). Climate change is an example of a hybrid formation falling both in between systems (Almlund 2012) and in between the divisions of modern perceptions. With a primarily system theoretic approach Gunther Teubner (2007) suggests illuminating the complexity with structural couplings by highlighting the gap between the systems in the structural coupling, the blind spot of the structural coupling, etc. To cope with this, or to give another insight in structural couplings, he suggests that we find other theoretical aspects orthogonal to the perspective of systems theory. This theory must be complementary and not supplementary, incorporative, mutual, or the like and the criteria for this complementarity is that each of the theories must be able to illuminate the other s blind spot. Teubner writes: We may imagine a way of enhancing the compensation of blind spots in different direction. The inspiration might be two diametrically contradictory theories, each, however, resting exactly on the other s blind spot, so that they cannot be integrated into a sunthesis. (Teubner 2007 p. 60) According to Teubner, something escapes our attention in the continuing process of operational closure, which he refers to as, a never-ending process of creating differences (Teubner 2007 p. 60), and structural coupling because we are not able to grasp the glue of structural coupling, which he refers to as the interdiscursive relationship, or the blind spots of the continuing differentiations. Teubner points out how structural coupling can then be seen as a false unity compensating for the blind spots of the differences. For him the reason we need a complementary theory is to illuminate these blind spots of structural couplings.

12 Page 12 of 17 Each system in the structural coupling, then makes an imperialistic interpretation of the coupling, as Teubner asserts as false imperialistic interdisciplinarity (Teubner 2007 p. 54). We can talk about four different autonomous understandings of IPCC s report, namely a scientific report, an economic report and a political report. The understanding of the report as a climate change report will more be an overall description than a system specific understanding as there is no climate system or environmental system to maintain climate communication as its own perspective (Luhmann 1989). With a little transformation of Teubners words, we can say that The single report is always already a multiplicity of differing processes, structures, operations (Teubner 2007 p. 54). These differentiated and imperialistic interpretations cannot explain why the coupling continues with the continuing development of IPPC s work and production of reports. What becomes clearly exposed with the systems theory then is that the structural coupling/hybrid of the IPCC and their report continues despite the systems autopoietic logics. Moreover, systems theory visualizes that the systems, according to the autopoietic logics and the building of regularities, do not change dramatically in short time spans and, thereby, radical changes should not be commonly expected. In that way, the systems theory helps us to understand that the hybrid formation happens based on differentiation, imperialistic interpretation and autopoietic expectations, which are easily recognized empirically by analyzing the report of IPCC. The political system might be the dominant system of IPCC s work, due to the fact that the primary intention of IPCC is to establish a global political solution of climate change. In that sense IPCC s work cannot be observed as a hybrid falling in between systems. Despite this affiliation to the political system, we can recognize the different systems autopoietic logic in the hybrid formation of the report where the scientific logic is to identify and document the amount of the climate change problem; the economic logic is to determine which solutions are payable and which not; and the political logic is to handle the situation in a responsible way which makes the politicians voteworthy. Within the systems theory, the IPCC report can be observed by the effects of each of the three systems, but the report cannot be observed as the relation between them. Furthermore, it is easily recognized that each of these logics, and their following imperialistic understandings, are the logics on which the report, as a hybrid, can be developed. What is not easily recognized is: Firstly, how they continue to couple on the condition of differentiation; secondly, how some of the imperialistic interpretations dominate others; and thirdly, how it is possible to change the internal logic of systems and of structural couplings/hybrids.

13 Page 13 of 17 Amongst other theories, Teubner mentions the Actor Network Theory as presented by Bruno Latour as a possibility and draws from that the concept of hybrid. Teubner works within the juridical field of contracts, and thereby he underscores how the concept of hybrid from Bruno Latour can illuminate the blind spot of structural couplings and gives us another complementary understanding of that complexity. With a primary, and in this connection opposite, approach in ANT, Ignacio Farías (2013) suggests to let Niklas Luhmann complement ANT with his focus on communication and social differentiation. Farías writes: On the one hand, ANT makes present socio-material networks and practices that Luhmann s sociology is not really able to distinguish or describe. On the other hand, ANT has difficulty when it comes to doing what communication theory does so well, that is, producing descriptions of the ways the social differentiates. (Farías, 2013 p. 12) With this he calls for more awareness of contingency and potentiality in ANT. Even though ANT should be understood as being based on the idea of contingency it has according to Farías such a strong focus on the actual and the presence that contingency is showed into the background. Therefore he suggests a stronger focus on communication, potentiality and sense making as we find it in Luhmann s system theory. According to Farías because this is exactly how we can be more aware of the process and formation of differentiation: The possibility of becoming economic, politic, artistic, touristic, legal and so on is not inscribed in any actual socio-technical arrangements, but depends on the actualization of sense-making problems. (Farías, 2013 p. 6) And he continues two pages later: Each communication is thus an actual operation that occurs in the virtual medium of sense. (Farías, 2013 p. 8). This could lift ANT s awareness of the dominant modern perception of division also in the tracing of network. Some final remarks The idea of letting ANT and systems theory complement each other, is to investigate if these works can establish better descriptions of climate change problems than the theoretical perspectives do apart. The comparison shows that this is plausible, because they illuminate blind spots of each

14 Page 14 of 17 other description of society. To illuminate how the theory of ANT and systems theory can benefit from each other, I will elaborate on the questions posed in the former sections: How can a network be traced without awareness of the modern perception of division? How can hybrids continue to couple on the condition of differentiation? How can some of the imperialistic interpretations dominate other imperialistic interpretations in the structural coupling? How is it possible to change the internal logic of systems and of structural couplings/hybrids? Does the climate change example show that Luhmann s theory offers an effective way to describe the conditions of climate change problems, but that we need a complementary or even supplementary theory to open up to the possibility of solutions? Can we search for this solution in the descriptive tracing of network within the work of Latour and Callon? Climate change is, as described above, an example of a hybrid formation and a row of different structural couplings, as we see it with the continuing process and institutional function of IPCC, on the condition of differentiation. Within the systems theory we can understand it as a dynamic development based on a continuing process of self-reference and external reference, which gives us a good and important description of the differentiation. This does not give us an answer to how the hybrid formation is possible, which shows us the necessity of investigating this hybridity further. This is why there is a need for a complementary and supplementary theory such as the ANT. To trace such narrow networks and not take any structures or categories in consideration is, according to Latour, to describe the social and thereby allow explanations come forth (Latour 2008). But one should be aware, that explanations never easily occur and specific explanations must never be the driving force in tracing a network (Latour 2008). Still this narrow and situated type of analysis will help us to get a picture of how some imperialistic interpretations become more dominant than others, and then what the driving force of structural coupling becomes. Within the systems theory, this is a blind spot, even though, empirical investigations can indicate this.

15 Page 15 of 17 It is also this narrow tracing of networks, which can help us to understand how the internal logic of systems and of structural couplings change and thereby the selectivity of the structural coupling. The systems theory makes us able to describe these changes but not to explain them. Even though ANT is also a descriptive theory, ANT opens up for the possibility of explaining these changes. This situated focus and the focus on both humans and materiality can maybe even be a way to disturb the network in another, not causal, direction and though establish new types of relations. In that sense ANT may possibly help us to change the internal logic of systems and of structural couplings/hybrids 2. This kind of insight could be necessary to wake up the resonance of climate change in the different functional systems. Here we shall, however, be extra aware that this part of Latour s work is a supplement to the work of Luhmann and not a replacement. This is because we must not ignore Luhmann s description of ecological problems, hence climate change problems, as a structural coupling falling in between systems, in the tracing of networks and understanding of climate changes as hybrid formations. This is due to the fact that Luhmann shows how dynamicity is not typically revolutionary without being structuralistic and causal in his description, while an investigation within an ANT perspective could have a tendency to forget that tracing a network is maybe not a strong enough revolutionary force to be aware of this falling in between systems and in between the modern perception s divisions. This is why networks must be traced with the awareness of the modern perceptions division and also with awareness of the functional differentiation as an awareness of virtuality. References Almlund, P. (2012). Negotiating and communicating climate. Rethinking Climate Change Research. Clean Technology, Culture and Communication, Almlund, P.; Jespersen, P. H. & Riis, S. (Eds.). Ashgate. 2 I am absolutely aware, that neither Luhmann nor Latour, with their respective descriptive approaches, are up to bringing in specific solutions. An opposite view could, however, be that Luhmann s descriptions of ecological problems, as problems without enough resonance in the different functional systems is a description of a problem in need of solutions. Turning then to Latour, his description and suggestion of a Parliament of things is a search of a solution to solve the problems of the modern perception s diverting attention from the development of complex hybrids consisting of both humans and materiality.

16 Page 16 of 17 Callon, M., Lascoumes, P. & Barthe, Y. (2011). Acting in an uncertatin world. An essay on technical democracy. The MIT Press. Farías, I. (2013). Virtual attractors, actual assemblages: How Luhmann s theory of communication complements actor-network theory. European Journal of Social Theory, online May 13 th: IPCC (2013). IPCC WGI AR5 Summary for policymakers IPCC (2014). IPCC WGII AR5 Summary for policymakers IPCC (2014a). IPCC WGIII AR5 Summary for policymakers. IPCC (2014b). Climate Change Synthesis Report (SYR). Latour, B. (2005). Reassempling the Social. An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford University Press. Latour, B. (2004). Politics of nature: How to bring the sciences into democracy. Harvard University Press Latour, B. (1998a). To modernize or to ecologies? That is the question in Braun, B. & Castree, N. (red.): Remaking Reality nature at the millennium. London: Routhledge. Latour, B. (1998b). From the world of science to the world of research?. Science, 280(5361): Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Harvard University Press. Luhmann, N. (2007). Indføring I systemteorien. Unge Pædagoger. Luhmann, N. (2000). Sociale systemer. Grundrids til en almen teori. Hans Reitzels Forlag. Luhmann, N. (1992). Operational closure and structural coupling: The differentiation of the legal system. Cardozo law review, 13: Luhmann, N. (1989). Ecological Communication. Polity Press.

17 Page 17 of 17 Luhmann, N. (1985). Complexity and Meaning in Prigogine, Zeleny, Marin and more (eds.), The Science and the Praxis of Complexity. The United Nation University, Tokyo. Noe, E. & Alrøe, H. F. (2005). Combining Luhmann and Actor-Network Theory to See Farm Enterprises as Aelf-organizing Systems. Cybernetics And Human Knowing. Vol. 13, no. 1, pp Teubner, G. (2007). In the Blind Spot: The Hybridization of Contracting. Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Vol. 8 no. 1.