Post-normal science and the global climate change issue

Science has recently faced a new challenge in that it must now provide its best knowledge to support the urgent policy-making concerning, e.g., risks of technology, environmental pollution, or the climate change. However, this knowledge unfortunately often can host high uncertainties as the natural systems are complex. How to proceed when the facts given by the scientists are diverging and uncertain, while the decision-making is urgent? Funtowicz and Ravetz (1992, 1993) argue that in this case traditional 'Normal' science (described by Kuhn (1970)) becomes inappropriate and that science should become 'Post-Normal' in order to more effectively cope with these contemporary problems. The philosophy, or methodology, of Post-Normal Science is briefly introduced and its corelation with the climate change issue, specifically with the compilation process and summary content of the Second Assessment Report (SAR) from the Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 1996a), is viewed. It seems that climate science around IPPC can, to a relatively large extent, be characterized as `Post-Normal'. Moreover, results from some related studies indicate that the elements of Post-Normal Science in the IPCC have enhanced the problem-solving in the climate change issue.