scholarly journals The Pathogenesis of the Modern Climate

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-98
Author(s):  
Michael Boyden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Historical Semantics ◽  
Climate Crisis

      This article offers an exploratory semantic analysis of the concept of climate through the lens of Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of historical semantics. After discussing reasons for its absence in Koselleck’s own scholarly investigations into the semantics of modernity, the article argues that the word climate acquired the properties of a freestanding concept in the course of the eighteenth century. The steep rise in the word’s relative frequency at that time is explained in terms of its relevance to contemporary perceptions of time, and more particularly the rise of the progress narrative as a driver of human-made history. The article equally traces the concept’s decline in the course of the nineteenth century by pointing to developments in the sciences and the secularization of eschatology. Finally, the article reflects on the concept’s revival since the latter half of the twentieth century. Focusing specifically on the recent emergence of collocations such as “climate crisis,” the article argues that, in its orientation towards an open future, climate change communication reveals its reliance on the temporal framework of accelerating progress that it at the same time holds responsible for our warming planet. The article concludes with a plea to pay closer attention to the temporal presuppositions underlying climate change communication. 

Climate Change Communication in Japan

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Midori Aoyagi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emission ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Communication Research ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Early Arrival ◽  
International Events

Climate change communication in Japan is characterized by governmental campaigns for carbon dioxide emission reduction and mass media coverage of international events on climate change issues. A series of governmental campaigns included “Cool Biz,” “Warm Biz,” and “Team Minus 6%” for the Kyoto protocol; “Challenge 25” for the Hatoyama initiative; “Fun to Share” and “Cool Choice” for the new mid-term Greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 26%. Those campaigns are popular among public. As for media coverage of international events on climate change issues, one of the biggest events was the COP3 in Kyoto, in 1997; another is the release of AR5 from 2006 to early 2007, and following events of the G8 summits of Heiligendamm, Germany in 2007, and of Toyako, Japan in 2008. Until now, not much attention has been paid to climate change communication research, as social scientists seldom join research projects concerning climate change science. But recent severe weather, such as stronger or early-season typhoons, heavier rainfalls, early arrival of spring (e.g., earlier bloom of cherry blossoms), and the bleaching of coral reefs bring awareness not only to the general public but also to social scientists. Lack of participation by social scientists in climate change communication research has meant a very narrow range of communication with the public. Experts try to “teach” the science of climate change, and actions such as “50 easy things for tackling global warming,” but it seems those are not what ordinary people want to know. Furthermore, there seems to be no debate on what climate change will bring us, what kinds of energy we should choose, who might be more vulnerable. Debate on ethical issues, justice issues, and sharing of responsibility will be need to be part of future climate change communication.

scholarly journals What Framework Promotes Saliency of Climate Change Issues on Online Public Agenda: A Quantitative Study of Online Knowledge Community Quora

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Shi ◽  
Changfeng Chen ◽  
Jie Xiong ◽  
Haohuan Fu
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Knowledge Community ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Public Agenda

Though scientists have achieved consensus on the severity and urgency of climate change years ago, the public still considers this issue not that important, as the influence of climate change is widely thought to be geographically and temporally bounded. The discrepancy between scientific consensus and public’s misperception calls for more dedicated public communication strategies to get climate change issues back on the front line of the public agenda. Based on the large-scale data acquired from the online knowledge community Quora, we conduct a computational linguistic analysis followed by the regression model to address the climate change communication from the agenda setting perspective. To be specific, our results find that certain narrative strategies may make climate change issues more salient by engaging public into discussion or evoking their long-term interest. Though scientific communicators have long been blaming lack of scientific literacy for low saliency of climate change issues, cognitive framework is proved to be least effective in raising public concern. Affective framework is relatively more influential in motivating people to participate in climate change discussion: the stronger the affective intensity is, the more prominent the issue is, but the affective polarity is not important. Perceptual framework is most powerful in promoting public discussion and the only variable that can significantly motivate the public’s long-term desire to track issues, among which feeling plays the most critical role compared with seeing and hearing. This study extends existing science communication literature by shedding light on the role of previously ignored affective and perceptual frameworks in making issues salient and the conclusions may provide theoretical and practical implications for future climate change communication.

Worlds apart, drawn together: Bears, penguins and biodiversity in climate change cartoons

2021 ◽  
pp. 096366252199250
Author(s):  
Sara Moreno-Tarín ◽  
Tatiana Pina ◽  
Martí Domínguez
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Biogeographical Distribution ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Positive Point

This study shows how cartoonists use iconic and stereotypical animals in their works to reflect society’s knowledge about the effects of climate change. Studying 1022 climate change cartoons including depictions of animals, we noticed that there is very little biodiversity depicted in cartoons. Cartoonists generally avoid using animals indigenous to their own countries; this point is especially true regarding the low presence of insects and other invertebrates. This text also encourages cartoonists to adhere to some recommendations to improve climate change communication. These guidelines are (1) using indigenous wildlife, (2) depicting invertebrate wildlife, (3) improving their knowledge about the biogeographical distribution of each species to avoid spreading misconceptions and (4) developing climate change communication from a positive point of view, appealing to potential improvements against the climate crisis, both for humans and for the rest of the species.

Communicating Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne C. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Recent Emergence ◽  
Public Consciousness ◽  
The Face

Communicating the impacts of climate change and possible adaptive responses is a relatively recent branch of the larger endeavor of climate change communication. This recent emergence, in large part, is driven by the fact that the impacts and policy/planning/practice responses have only recently emerged in more widespread public consciousness and discourse, and thus in scholarly treatment. This article will first describe the critical and precarious moment of when impacts and adaptation communication becomes important; it will then summarize proposed approaches to do so effectively; and discuss key challenges confronting climate change communication going forward. These challenges may well be unique in the field of communication, in that they either uniquely combine previously encountered difficulties into novel complexities or are truly unprecedented. To date, scholarship and experience in climate, environmental, or risk communication provide little guidance on how to meet these challenges of communicating effectively with diverse publics and decision makers in the face of long-term degradation of the life support system of humanity. The article will conclude with an attempt to offer research and practice directions, fit at least to serve as appropriately humble attitudes toward understanding and engaging fellow humans around the profound risks of an utterly uncertain and far-from-assured future.

What Framework Promotes Saliency of Climate Change Issues on Online Public Agenda: A Quantitative Study of Online Knowledge Community Quora

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen Shi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Science Communication ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Knowledge Community ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Public Agenda

<p>Though scientists have achieved consensus on the severity and urgency of climate change years ago, the public still considers this issue not that important, as the influence of climate change is widely thought to be geographically and temporally bounded. The discrepancy between scientific consensus and public's misperception calls for more dedicated public communication strategies to get climate change issues back on the front line of public agenda. Based on the large-scale data acquired from the online knowledge community Quora, we conduct a computational linguistic analysis followed by regression model to address the climate change communication from the agenda setting perspective. To be specific, our results find that certain narrative strategies may make climate change issues more salient by engaging public into discussion or evoking their long-term interest. Though scientific communicators have long been blaming lack of scientific literacy for low saliency of climate change issues, cognitive framework is proved to be least effective in raising public concern. Affective framework is relatively more influential in motivating people to participate in climate change discussion: the stronger the affective intensity is, the more prominent the issue is, but the affective polarity is not important. Perceptual framework is most powerful in promoting public discussion and the only variable that can significantly motivate public's long-term desire to track issues, among which feeling plays the most critical role compared with seeing and hearing. This study extends existing science communication literature by shedding light on the role of previously ignored affective and perceptual frameworks in making issues salient and the conclusions may provide theoretical and practical implications for future climate change communication.</p>

What we can learn from the parallels between the COVID-19 and the future climate change crises

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén D. Manzanedo ◽  
Peter Manning
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Substantial Portion ◽  
Preventative Measures ◽  
The Future ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Global Population

The ongoing COVID-19 outbreak pandemic is now a global crisis. It has caused 1.6+ million confirmed cases and 100 000+ deaths at the time of writing and triggered unprecedented preventative measures that have put a substantial portion of the global population under confinement, imposed isolation, and established ‘social distancing’ as a new global behavioral norm. The COVID-19 crisis has affected all aspects of everyday life and work, while also threatening the health of the global economy. This crisis offers also an unprecedented view of what the global climate crisis may look like. In fact, some of the parallels between the COVID-19 crisis and what we expect from the looming global climate emergency are remarkable. Reflecting upon the most challenging aspects of today’s crisis and how they compare with those expected from the climate change emergency may help us better prepare for the future.

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