scholarly journals Not ‘getting on the bandwagon’: When climate change is a matter of unconcern

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloe H Lucas ◽  
Aidan Davison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Embodied Experiences ◽  
Dominant Narratives ◽  
Depth Interviews

Extensive research into public attitudes about climate change commonly portrays those who do not express concern about this issue as unwitting victims of their own or others’ biases. Characterised as apathy, ignorance, scepticism or denial, absence of concern about climate change has been presented as being rooted in an individual’s lack of considered engagement with scientific reasons for concern. This ‘concern deficit’ is framed as a problem to be addressed through policy, education and communication that seeks to maximise concern about climate change. In contrast, we conceptualise unconcern about climate change as an expression of focal life concerns that are incommensurable with dominant narratives of climate change. Originating in active cognitive, social and experiential processes, we regard unconcern about climate change as inseparable from the lived contexts in which it is expressed and irreducible to the attitudes or attributes of individuals. Using narrative analysis of repeat in-depth interviews with Australians who express unconcern about climate change, we find that this unconcern has multiple sources, takes diverse forms and is entangled in epistemological and normative engagements with other issues. It is constituted through social relationships, discursive processes, moral values and embodied experiences that are overlooked in much existing research. We argue that respectful attention to the experiential conditions in which concern about climate change is resisted can enable constructive re-negotiation of narratives of climate change. Such agonistic processes could lead to more reflexive, pluralist and dialogical forms of discourse that better articulate climate science and policy with a wider diversity of lived concerns.

Self and world in lay interpretations of climate change

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Joy Denniss ◽  
Aidan Davison
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Lay People ◽  
The World

Purpose – This paper aims to report on an in-depth qualitative study that focuses on the convergence of the interpretive activities of knowing, living in and valuing the world in lay reasoning about climate change. Although awareness is growing that lay people interact with scientific knowledge about climate change in complex ways, relatively little is known about this interaction. Much quantitative research on public attitudes to climate change does little to draw out the cognitive and experiential processes by which lay people arrive at understandings of climate change. Design/methodology/approach – Through narrative analysis of qualitative interviews, this paper examines lay rationalities of climate change as a process of not only knowing the world (epistemology), but of being oriented towards the world (ontology) and valuing the world (axiology). Findings – The findings emphasise the extent of individual variation in lay interpretations of climate change, and their internal complexity. Almost all participants display differences in reasoning about climate change when considering their personal lives as compared to the wider, public world. Distinct accounts of self and world in lay rationalities are evident in the ways that participants imagine the future and express their feelings of culpability for and responsibility to act on climate change. Originality/value – This paper argues that lay reasoning about climate science does not just engage ways of knowing the world but also ways of being in and valuing the world so as to open up multiple trajectories for comprehension.

Making behavioral science integral to climate science and action

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
BARUCH FISCHHOFF
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Climate Research ◽  
Quantitative Estimates

Abstract The behavioral sciences were there at the beginning of the systematic study of climate change. However, in the ensuing quarter century, they largely faded from view, during which time public discourse and policy evolved without them. That disengagement and the recent reengagement suggest lessons for the future role of the behavioral sciences in climate science and policy. Looking forward, the greatest promise lies in projects that make behavioral science integral to climate science by: (1) translating behavioral results into the quantitative estimates that climate analyses need; (2) making climate research more relevant to climate-related decisions; and (3) treating the analytical process as a behavioral enterprise, potentially subject to imperfection and improvement. Such collaborations could afford the behavioral sciences more central roles in setting climate-related policies, as well as implementing them. They require, and may motivate, changes in academic priorities.

scholarly journals Consensus and contrarianism on climate change: How the USA case informs dynamics elsewhere

2016 ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Maxwell Boykoff
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Psychological Characteristics ◽  
Economic Factors ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contextual Elements ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
The Public Sphere

Against a contrasting backdrop of consensus on key issues on climate science, a heterogeneous group dubbed climate «skeptics», «contrarians», «deniers» have significantly shaped contemporary discussions of climate science, politics and policy in the public sphere. This essay focuses on the USA context, and explores some of the intertwined social, political and economic factors, as well as cultural and psychological characteristics that have together influenced public attitudes, intentions, beliefs, perspective and behaviors in regards to climate change science and governance over time. This article makes the case that the USA example can inform developments elsewhere; as such it is important to consider these contextual elements to more capably appraise «contrarian», «skeptic», «denier» reverberations through the current public discussions on climate change. 

scholarly journals Changing climate change: The carbon budget and the modifying-work of the IPCC

2020 ◽  
pp. 030631272094193
Author(s):  
Bård Lahn
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Carbon Budget ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Global Carbon Budget ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Global Carbon

Over the last 10 years, the concept of a global ‘carbon budget’ of allowable CO2 emissions has become ubiquitous in climate science and policy. Since it was brought to prominence by the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the carbon budget has changed how climate change is enacted as an issue of public concern, from determining the optimal rate of future emissions to establishing a fixed limit for how much emissions should be allowed before they must be stopped altogether. Exploring the emergence of the carbon budget concept, this article shows how the assessment process of the IPCC has offered scientific experts the means to modify how the climate issue is problematized, and discusses the implications of this ‘modifying-work’ for the politics of climate change. It finds that the ‘modified climate issue’ must be seen as an outcome of the ordinary work within established scientific and political institutions, and the agency these institutions afford scientists to enact the issue differently. On this basis, it argues that the case of the carbon budget holds important insights not only for the relationship between climate science and policy, but also for the pragmatist literature on ‘issue formation’ in STS.

ICNet Global: Infrastructure and Climate Networks of Networks

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Stoner ◽  
Jennifer Jacobs ◽  
Jo Sias ◽  
Gordon Airey ◽  
Katharine Hayhoe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Policy Research ◽  
Climate Extremes ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Transportation Infrastructure ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
The World

<p>Climate change is already impacting the performance and integrity of transportation infrastructure around the world and is anticipated to have serious ramifications for infrastructure safety, environmental sustainability, economic vitality, mobility and system reliability. These impacts will disproportionately affect vulnerable populations and urban locations as well as compromising the resilience of the larger interconnected physical, cyber, and social infrastructure networks. For this reason, increasing the resilience of transportation infrastructure to current and future weather and climate extremes is a global priority.</p><p>The complexity of this challenge requires a convergence approach to foster collaboration and innovation among technically and socially diverse researchers and practitioners. The multi-institutional <strong>ICNet Global</strong> Network of Networks unites domestic and international research and practice networks to facilitate integrated engineering, climate science, and policy research to advance the development of resilient transportation infrastructure and systems. ICNet Globalcollaborators represent networks based in Korea, Europe, United Kingdom, and the United States and link researchers at the forefront of scientific, engineering, and policy research frontiers, drawing expertise from many disciplines and nations to share and enhance best practices for transportation resilience.</p><p><strong>ICNet Global’s</strong> long-term mission is to prepare the world’s existing and future transportation infrastructure for a changing climate. To that end, we are working to: (1) build a network of existing research networks who are tackling the challenges climate change poses to transportation infrastructure; (2) establish a common base-level knowledge, capacity, and vision to support the convergence of novel and diverse ideas, approaches, and technologies for creating climate resilient transportation infrastructure; and (3) grow the next generation of critical and diverse thinkers with the expertise to address and solve climate-related infrastructure challenges. Although just one year into our work, and dispite challenges represented by COVID-19, we have surveyed over 100 potential members worldwide to learn about fields of interest and held five productive virtual workshops to discuss current research, how to encorporate climate change information into engineering education, and how practitioners are currently including climate information into planning and design. In this presentation we highlight our goals and recent accomplishments while laying out future plans and inviting interested researchers and practitioners to join us.</p>

scholarly journals Climate Change Scepticism: Reconsidering How to Respond to Core Criticisms of Climate Science and Policy

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 215824401774898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Van Rensburg ◽  
Brian W. Head
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Impact Of Climate Change ◽  
The Core ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Policy Proposals

The contextual drivers of climate change scepticism are well described and explained in the literature. A key assumption underlying most of the scholarly constructions of the sceptical phenomenon is that the key objections raised by sceptics to climate science and climate policy proposals represent some form of submerged deception or self-delusion on their part. This article refocuses attention on sceptics’ central criticisms, and argues that direct responses to these criticisms should not be neglected in favor of a primary focus on sceptics’ possible inner motivations. The article investigates the core objections raised by sceptics, with particular attention to the views of one prominent Australian sceptic, Andrew Bolt. We argue that some of these objections should be treated as legitimate forms of dissent, and that ongoing constructive responses to such criticisms are necessary to counter the impact of climate change scepticism.

Effects of TV and Cable News Viewing on Climate Change Opinion, Knowledge, and Behavior

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Feldman
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Television News ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Cable News ◽  
Fox News

For the general public, the news media are an important source of information about climate change. They have significant potential to influence public understanding and perceptions of the issue. Television news, because of its visual immediacy and authoritative presentation, is likely to be particularly influential. Numerous studies have shown that television news can affect public opinion directly and indirectly through processes such as agenda setting and framing. Moreover, even in a fragmented media environment largely dominated by online communication, television remains a prominent medium through which citizens follow news about science issues. Given this, scholars over the last several decades have endeavored to map the content of television news reporting on climate change and its effects on public opinion and knowledge. Results from this research suggest that journalists’ adherence to professional norms such as balance, novelty, dramatization, and personalization, along with economic pressures and sociopolitical influences, have produced inaccuracies and distortions in television news coverage of climate change. For example, content analyses have found that U.S. network television news stories tend to over-emphasize dramatic impacts and imagery, conflicts between political groups and personalities, and the uncertainty surrounding climate science and policy. At the same time, those skeptical of climate change have been able to exploit journalists’ norms of balance and objectivity to amplify their voices in television coverage of climate change. In particular, the increasingly opinionated 24-hour cable news networks have become a megaphone for ideological viewpoints on climate change. In the United States, a coordinated climate denial movement has used Fox News to effectively spread its message discrediting climate science. Coverage on Fox News is overwhelmingly dismissive of climate change and disparaging toward climate science and scientists. Coverage on CNN and MSNBC is more accepting of climate change; however, while MSNBC tends to vilify the conservative opposition to climate science and policy, and occasionally exaggerates the impacts of climate change, CNN sends more mixed signals. Survey and experimental analyses indicate that these trends in television news coverage of climate change have important effects on public opinion and may, in particular, fuel confusion and apathy among the general U.S. public and foster opinion extremity among strong partisans.

Sedimentation–upwelling: a model for the science–policy interface in the case of climate change and California water

Water Policy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-124
Author(s):  
Michael Kiparsky
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Policy ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
California Water ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Science Policy Interface

This paper sets forth a framework to describe the science–policy interface. The “sedimentation–upwelling model” is a two-part process through which scientific information gradually becomes part of resource managers' and policymakers' agendas. In this paper, sedimentation refers to a gradual process through which scientific information slowly permeates a policymaking body, often slowly and through multiple sources. Upwelling is a process by which policymakers, having become aware of scientific concepts in a general way though sedimentation, independently devise policy actions consistent with the scientific body of knowledge. The framework was tested in the case of climate change science and California water policy through an analysis of historical data and interviews with key players on the science and policy sides of this issue. A remarkably consistent scientific message over the course of fifteen years before 2003 was not followed by corresponding changes in water management, as a “linear model” in which policymakers act directly on scientists recommendations would predict. Instead, both sedimentation and upwelling operated in this case and the importance of the linear pathway was minimal. Viewing science in the context of the upwelling-sedimentation model does not imply that science is ultimately any less influential on policy. On the contrary, this work suggests that policymakers rely on general, widespread cues that come both directly from scientists and through intermediaries and that these cues can influence policy choices in important, but often indirect ways.

scholarly journals Metaphor use in the political communication of major resource projects in Australia

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Hamilton Healy ◽  
Paul Williams
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Science News ◽  
National Productivity ◽  
Metaphor Use ◽  
The Impact

This article explores the patterns of political communication surrounding the environmental regulation of major Australian resource projects during the Business Advisory Forum of April 2012. The Forum discussed business and government responses to major project approvals to improve national productivity at a time when these projects also posed significant implications for anthropogenic global warming. The article’s method is to examine print news articles published during this period. While the international literature has long demonstrated how the American fossil fuel lobby has employed metaphor to characterise climate change as a ‘non-problem’—therefore allegedly making regulation of greenhouse gas emissions economically and politically unnecessary—no Australian study of metaphor use in climate science news has been conducted. This article, in finding news stories on so-called ‘green tape’ environmental regulation were saturated with metaphor clusters, argues that journalistic metaphor use has made the complex issue of environmental regulation accessible to mass audiences. But, in so doing, we also argue this metaphor use has supported business and government’s position on environmental deregulation of major projects. Finally, this article also argues that some journalists’ use of metaphors encouraged policy-makers to adopt, and re-use, journalists’ own language and, in so doing, allow those journalists to be seen as complicit in the shaping of softer public attitudes to the impact of major projects on anthropogenic climate change.

scholarly journals Uncertainty and Dissent in Climate Risk Assessment: A Post-Normal Perspective

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 174-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen P. van der Sluijs
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Deep Uncertainty ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Policy Relevance ◽  
Science Policy Interface ◽  
Interface Science ◽  
Scientific Dissent ◽  
Political Configuration

Uncertainty complexity and dissent make climate change hard to tackle with normal scientific procedures. In a post-normal perspective the normal science task of "getting the facts right" is still regarded as necessary but no longer as fully feasible nor as sufficient to interface science and policy. It needs to be complemented with a task of exploring the relevance of deep uncertainty and ignorance that limit our ability to establish objective, reliable, and valid facts. This article explores the implications of this notion for the climate science policy interface. According to its political configuration the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted a "speaking consensus to power" approach that sees uncertainty and dissent as a problematic lack of unequivocalness (multiple contradictory truths that need to be mediated into a consensus). This approach can be distinguished from two other interface strategies: the "speaking truth to power approach," seeing uncertainties as a temporary lack of perfection in the knowledge (truth with error bars) and the "working deliberatively within imperfections" approach, accepting uncertainty and scientific dissent as facts of life (irreducible ignorance) of which the policy relevance needs be explored explicitly. The article recommends more openness for dissent and explicit reflection on ignorance in IPCC process and reporting.

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