Climate Change as a Trans-Scientific Question

Abstract

This article discusses that it is important that the issue of the climate change should be defined as one of trans-scientific questions. American famous nuclear physicist Alvin Weinberg who participated in Manhattan Project, wrote trans-scientific questions as “questions which can be asked of science and yet which cannot be answered by science” in “Science and Trans-Science” in Minerva in 1972. The characteristics of climate change risk include comprehensiveness, complexity, and ambiguous nature. As for such risk properties, climate change issues are the typical example of the problem of trans-scientific questions. For the solution to a problem of trans-scientific questions, “places (ba) of talks” by science (expert), politics (administration) and the collaboration with the society (citizen) are necessary. If the formation of “the place (ba) of talks” advances, it leads to brew the social acceptance and social understanding for the climate change policy.