Post-normal Practices between Climate Service and Local Knowledge

Abstract

Recent surveys show that the communication about climate change between science and the public is severely disturbed. In this article we discuss this problem in focusing on both regional climate services and other, local forms of knowledge. The authors suggest that climate science and its public services have to critically revise their own practices and to acknowledge other forms of knowledge about climate as constitutive. Based on approaches from geography and anthropology, the article first discusses the short history and “normal practices” of regional climate services and how they approach the public. Outlining the potentials and constraints of this concept, the article focuses on the friction, on “its openness to change as it rubs up against society” (Hulme 2007). The focus then shifts to local knowledge systems and how they deal with the challenges of a changing climate. In addition to the “extended peer review” as a new option for climate research in a post-normal setup, the authors discuss the possibility of an “extended knowledge basis,” that is, the integration of different forms of climate knowledge with a special focus on regional populations.