From AM (thanks, dude): Bruno Latour as quoted in the Koolworld Wired issue:

As a result, contemporary scientific controversies are emerging in what have been called hybrid forums. We used to have two types of representations and two types of forums: one, science, representing nature - here "representation" means accuracy, precision, and reference - and another, politics, representing society - and here "representation" means faithfulness, election, obedience. A simple way to characterize our times is to say that the two meanings of representation have now merged into one, around the key figure of the spokesperson.

In the global warming controversy, some of those spokespeople represent the high atmosphere, others oil and gas lobbies, others nongovernmental organizations. Still others represent, in the classical sense, their electors (with President Bush representing at once his electors and the energy lobbies!). The stark difference, which seemed so important, between those who represented things and those who represented people, has vanished. What counts is that all spokespeople are in the same room, engaged in the same collective experiment, talking at once about imbroglios of people and things.