Depth-psychological aspects of the public debate about climate change

2021 ◽  
pp. 94-116
Author(s):  
Dieter Flader
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Depth Psychological ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals Climate emotions and emotional climates: The emotional map of ecological crises and the blind spots on our sociological landscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 053901842199626
Author(s):  
Sighard Neckel ◽  
Martina Hasenfratz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Climate Change ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Environmental Destruction ◽  
Ecological Problems ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Blind Spots

The public debate on climate change and environmental destruction belongs to those social conflicts that are carried out with an especially great emotional intension. In these disputes, the facet of emotions ranges from negative feelings such as shame, guilt and grief, to positive ones such as hope and compassion. In our paper, we put a focus on these feelings, drawing a conceptual map of emotions triggered by ecological crises. In doing so, our aim is to highlight the ambivalences of the intense emotionality of climate change and its societal effects. The great attention and the reflexivity accorded to ‘climate emotions’, however, should not obscure the view towards those emotional dynamics that are responsible for concealing and denying ecological problems. Based on ethnographic and other empirical studies from social sciences we outline that it is precisely these little-illuminated aspects of emotional re-framing and public emotional silence, which often turn out to be particularly consequential moments in politics. Hence, the emotional motives behind the scene should not go unnoticed in sociological research on emotions within the ecological crises.

scholarly journals Tackling Climate Change Requires Organizational Purpose

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 177-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Henderson ◽  
George Serafeim
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Sufficient Condition ◽  
The Public ◽  
Organizational Purpose ◽  
Tackle Climate Change

The public debate about how to tackle climate change has been overwhelmingly dominated by the assumption that it can be solved through the adoption of an appropriate pricing regime. This paper argues that while the development of such a regime will be critical to slowing climate change, it is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition. We argue that it will also be important to accelerate rates of innovation and cooperation across the economy and that one important tool for doing this is the active encouragement of the development of authentically “purpose-driven” organizations.

People’s Conceptions and Valuations of Nature in the Context of Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gisle Andersen ◽  
Kjersti Fløttum ◽  
Guillaume Carbou ◽  
Anje M. Gjesdal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
Climate Change Issue ◽  
The Public ◽  
Change Context ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Nationally Representative

This paper investigates how people conceive and evaluate nature through language, in a climate change context. With material consisting of 1,200 answers to open-ended questions in nationally representative surveys in Norway, we explore what semantic roles and values the respondents attribute to nature as well as to how they interact with the public debate about climate change. We observe that different conceptions and valuations of nature are tied to different perspectives on the climate change issue: some address the responsibilities of causing climate change, others its consequences, and others yet its potential solutions. The study provides knowledge about the variety of conceptions of nature that can be mobilised by individuals and suggests that policy measures and public communication could benefit by taking this diversity into account.

The Influence of Modern Party System on the Development of Parliamentarism in Russia: Institutional, Political and Psychological Aspects

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 266-273
Author(s):  
Ivan S. Palitai
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Party System ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The People ◽  
Voting System ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Opinion Polls

The article is devoted to the modern Russian party system. In the first part of the article, the author shows the historical features of the parties formation in Russia and analyzes the reasons for the low turnout in the elections to the State Duma in 2016. According to the author the institutional reasons consist in the fact that the majority of modern political parties show less and less ability to produce new ideas, and the search for meanings is conducted on the basis of the existing, previously proposed sets of options. Parties reduce the topic of self-identification in party rhetoric, narrowing it down to “branded” ideas or focusing on the image of the leader. In addition, the author shows the decrease in the overall political activity of citizens after the 2011 elections, and points out that the legislation amendments led to the reduction of the election campaigns duration and changes in the voting system itself. The second part of the article is devoted to the study of the psychological aspects of the party system. The author presents the results of the investigation of images of the parties as well as the results of the population opinion polls, held by the centers of public opinion study. On the basis of this data, the author concludes that according to the public opinion the modern party system is ineffective, and the parties don’t have real political weight, which leads to the decrease of the interest in their activities and confidence in them. The author supposes that all this may be the consequence of the people’s fatigue from the same persons in politics, but at the same time the electorate’s desire to see new participants in political processes is formulated rather vaguely, since, according to the people, this might not bring any positive changes.

The Fight Against Doubt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inmaculada de Melo-Martín ◽  
Kristen Intemann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Vaccine Safety ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Scientific Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Consensus ◽  
Scientific Claims

Current debates about climate change or vaccine safety provide an alarming illustration of the potential impacts of dissent about scientific claims. False beliefs about evidence and the conclusions that can be drawn from it are commonplace, as is corrosive doubt about the existence of widespread scientific consensus. Deployed aggressively and to political ends, ill-founded dissent can intimidate scientists, stymie research, and lead both the public and policymakers to oppose important policies firmly rooted in science. To criticize dissent is, however, a fraught exercise. Skepticism and fearless debate are key to the scientific process, making it both vital and incredibly difficult to characterize and identify dissent that is problematic in its approach and consequences. Indeed, as de Melo-Martín and Intemann show, the criteria commonly proposed as means of identifying inappropriate dissent are flawed, and the strategies generally recommended to tackle such dissent are not only ineffective but could even make the situation worse. The Fight against Doubt proposes that progress on this front can best be achieved by enhancing the trustworthiness of the scientific community and being more realistic about the limits of science when it comes to policymaking. It shows that a richer understanding is needed of the context in which science operates so as to disarm problematic dissent and those who deploy it in the pursuit of their goals.

Climate Justice

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Policy Discourse ◽  
Mary Robinson ◽  
The Public ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
To Come ◽  
Run Up ◽  
High Level

Climate justice requires sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change and its resolution equitably and fairly. It brings together justice between generations and justice within generations. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals summit in September 2015, and the Conference of Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in December 2015, brought climate justice center stage in global discussions. In the run up to Paris, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, instituted the Climate Justice Dialogue. The editors of this volume, an economist and a philosopher, served on the High Level Advisory Committee of the Climate Justice Dialogue. They noted the overlap and mutual enforcement between the economic and philosophical discourses on climate justice. But they also noted the great need for these strands to come together to support the public and policy discourse. This volume is the result.

The SORS Decision-Making Support System: A statistical tool for better policy making in the Republic of Serbia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Miladin Kovačević ◽  
Katarina Stančić
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Monitoring And Evaluation ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
Statistical Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
System A ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Trusted Data

Modern society is witnessing a data revolution which necessarily entails changes to the overall behavior of citizens, governments and companies. This is a big challenge and an opportunity for National Statistics Offices (NSOs). Especially after the outbreak of COVID-19, when the public debate about the number of mortalities and tested and infected persons escalated, trusted data is required more than ever. Which data can modern society trust? Are modern societies being subjected to opinion rather than fact? This paper introduces a new statistical tool to facilitate policy-making based on trusted statistics. Using economic indicators to illustrate implementation, the new statistical tool is shown to be a flexible instrument for analysis, monitoring and evaluation of the economic situation in the Republic of Serbia. By taking a role in public policy management, the tool can be used to transform the NSO’s role in the statistical system into an active participant in public debate in contrast to the previous traditional, usually passive role of collecting, processing and publishing data. The tool supports the integration of statistics into public policies and connects the knowledge and expertise of official statisticians on one side with political decision makers on the other.

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