Slowing Down Climate Services: Climate Change as a Matter of Concern

Abstract

This article addresses the appropriate place for and design of climate services drawing upon a case study of three different forms of climate service delivery in a coastal landscape in Northern Germany. Each of these forms addresses different audiences and provides different types of knowledge about climate change and a different orientation toward policy support. The three-part case study includes a regional, a municipal and a social climate service. Drawing upon this comparative, case-based research, I develop the idea of ‘slowing down climate services’, based on the ‘slow science manifesto’ introduced by the science philosopher Isabelle Stengers, by postnormal science and by political ecology as suggested by Bruno Latour. How does climate change become a matter of concern? Slowing down climate services means following the social life of scientific facts, engaging with the public and exploring ways to improve democratic and place-based decision making. I argue that there is an urgent need to overcome the big science orientation of climate services and to add what Stengers calls ‘public intelligence’, the integration of a sense of place and of the social, cultural, political and other performative aspects of climate change in specific landscapes.