How should we ask questions about the social status of climate change knowledge

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12929673
AutoresAnita Engels (0000-0003-4974-6607, Universität Hamburg, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume10
Fascículo4
Data de publicação2019-03-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoWiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1757-7780 • E-ISSN: 1757-7799
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/wcc.584
OpenAlexW2920604451
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas42

The community of climate scientists seems to be experiencing growing frustration and feelings of crisis in regard to reflecting on the link between climate change knowledge and climate change action. Despite decades of producing climate change knowledge and engaging in science communication and policy advising, there is still no discernible structural shift, globally speaking, from a high- to a low- or even zero-carbon-emissions development pathway (IPCC, 2018; UNEP, 2017). This situation goes hand in hand with more general science- and society-related dynamics, with entire publics ceasing to trust science as a reliable source of knowledge (Mann & Brevini, 2017; van der Linden, Leiserowitz, Rosenthal, & Maibach, 2017) and the deliberate diffusion of fake news as a new mass phenomenon (Lazer et al., 2018; Rohn, 2018). It also coincides with the growing recognition among climate scientists that the climate problem is not universally perceived as humanity's foremost global problem (Goklany, 2012). All these observations seem to indicate a problem of status. However, what does “status problem” mean when we apply this term to a specific science or a particular type of knowledge, as is implied by the title of this domain in WIREs Climate Change (the social status of climate change knowledge)? Social status is first and foremost a relational concept, most prominently used in sociology. It can be based on indicators of prestige, relevance, influence, and so on, which are then used as a measure of the relative social position of an entity (typically a person or a group) in the hierarchically stratified structure of a given society (Hollingshead, 1975). This would transform the question into what position climate change knowledge has in the hierarchy of things, an issue often tightly connected to questions of dominance and influence. If we follow this line of thinking, we can already carve out a more nuanced understanding of how the current situation of climate change knowledge might be analyzed. We could consider the types of hierarchies in which climate change knowledge can be positioned. The status hierarchy could refer to different fields of knowledge and expertise. In this case, we would ask what the social status of climate change knowledge is in relation to other fields of knowledge (i.e., medical knowledge). If we tried to establish this hierarchy through either a general social survey or an expert ranking, its position in the ranking would probably vary in each disciplinary field that is in some way associated with climate change knowledge: we might find different results for climate physics, atmospheric chemistry, soil sciences, climate economics, and climate communication studies (Abbott, 2001; Hoenig, 2017). These differences invoke perceptions of the “hardness” or “softness” of the respective disciplines, but they would also be connected to institutional indicators such as funding for specialized research institutes; the number of dedicated university chairs; the volume of resources available to these chairs and institutes in terms of staff, office space, and research money; and the allocation of Nobel Prizes. The latest Nobel Prize in economics, awarded to William D. Nordhaus for integrating climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis, can definitely be seen as a status boost for climate economics, as this was the first Nobel Prize in economics awarded with specific mention of the climate change problem. These examples are all from the inner world of science and scientific disciplines or fields. Another way to ask status questions is to look more broadly at how our understanding of the world comes about and how we make sense of it (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). We could then discuss the relative importance of climate change knowledge compared to other types of sensemaking (i.e., political values and ideologies) or, similarly but nevertheless distinctly, we might ask how scientific knowledge influences climate action compared to other forms of knowing (such as religious faith) (Schnegg, 2014). We might equally be interested in the position of academic research institutions producing climate change knowledge in relation to other locations of knowledge production, that is, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or think tanks (Ruser, 2018). All these possibilities are informed by the well-established consensus that in contemporary knowledge-based society, science as an institution does not have a monopoly on producing knowledge, generating plausible explanations, and providing guidance for responses to difficult societal problems (Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2003). For the climate science community, two nonscientific forms of knowing or sensmaking have become relevant in recent years: strong religious beliefs in opposition to scientific claims and, alternatively, local forms of knowledge as a corrective for the abstract formalized knowledge created in the global mainstream of science. First, religious faith can appear to be in direct competition with science. Studies show that most individuals favor either scientific or religious ways of understanding (O'Brien & Noy, 2015) and that there is a possible negative correlation between levels of religiosity and performance in science and mathematics at the country level (Stoet & Geary, 2017). Though the relation between identity-based polarization and education or scientific literacy can be very complex (Drummond & Fischoff, 2017), these studies point to the possibility that different forms of knowing can become mutually exclusive. This can become status threatening for climate change knowledge and is often discussed as undermining the case for climate change action. Second, alternative or local forms of knowledge are discussed as a potentially beneficial enrichment of climate change knowledge. In this context, it is often assumed that indigenous knowledge provides additional insights or corrective observations on, for example, the practical implications of local climate change phenomena (Fernández-Llamazares et al., 2017; Nyong, Adesina, & Elasha, 2007). Attempts to institutionalize the systematic inclusion of local and/or indigenous knowledge can be found at various levels, with the IPCC as a very prominent example (Ford et al, 2016). Along this line of reasoning, many forms of practical, local, citizen, and stakeholder knowledge have been recognized in past years and were subject to methodological discussions of the coproduction of knowledge (Roux, Nel, Cundill, O'Farrell, & Fabricius, 2017; Shawoo & Thornton, 2019). It would be interesting to search for a wider perspective on forms of knowing and sensemaking that would be able to integrate these different types of alternative knowledge in a common framework. This perspective would have to include the role of storytelling and narratives, together with identity formation and relationship building, both in analytical intention and with an eye toward improved communication strategies for the scientific community (Cook & Overpeck, 2019). To summarize so far, asking questions about the social status of climate change knowledge can teach us something about its power and influence compared with that of alternatives inside and outside of institutionalized science. This could provide us with hints about the amount of public attention attracted by the climate change issue, the salience of climate change as a political topic, or the dominance that climate change action can gain in any political agenda. However, in this journal 8 years ago, Daniel Sarewitz warned in a comment that the expectation of a strong relation between climate science and climate action is naïve (Sarewitz, 2011). “Does climate change knowledge really matter?” was his simple and provoking question, leading to a clear “no” as an answer. What does that mean, and what are the implications for the question of the social status of climate change knowledge? Sarewitz mainly discussed two different levels of observation. The first was at the level of climate change mitigation policies and programs. In 2011, he had already noticed an “evidentiary embarrassment: after 20 years of rapidly increasing knowledge about the climate system, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unabated” (Sarewitz, 2011, p. 477). He linked this to the—unrealistic—expectation that a sound scientific definition and identification of the problem through the IPCC would eventually lead to rational action deduced from this knowledge base to avert climate change (denoted by Sarewitz as “the plan”). His understanding of why this plan failed was that the climate change problem is not about knowledge but about politics. A substantial reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions would only be achieved if many alternative policy goals could be aligned with it and if political alternatives would be openly discussed instead of always centering on the attempt to convince opponents that the science about climate change is true (Stehr & Ruser, 2018). Major policy changes are inevitably controversial because they always threaten the status quo, regardless of scientific knowledge. This line of reasoning was already expressed in the so-called Hartwell Paper (Prins et al., 2010; see also Hulme, 2009). Sarewitz also looked at the individual level to emphasize the relatively low importance of scientifically sound climate change knowledge, reflecting on how one of his neighbors might “know” about climate change: “[...] this view of things is made up of an incredibly complex mélange of confirmed facts (his direct observations), accepted facts (from authorities he trusts), beliefs, superstitions, nonsense, norms, and values which he integrates into what is for him a coherent world view” (Sarewitz, 2011, p. 476). Similar observations can easily be generated in the form of anecdotal evidence or honest introspection. However, much of the research on the foundations for climate change action at the individual level is still based, at least implicitly, on the assumption that knowledge influences attitudes and thus behavior (Pardo & Calvo, 2002; Shove, 2010). Against this view, Dan Kahan confirms in a very detailed methodological critique that we do not consistently and coherently “know” as individuals what is true about complex problems such as climate change. He distinguishes between science comprehension and identity protection (Kahan, 2015). The problem with many “truths” about climate change is that they incite antagonistic cultural meanings and that individuals are constantly evaluating information both for its scientific accuracy and for the implications of this information for their personal life. “Forced to choose, individuals predictably attend to information as identity-protective reasoners because of the greater impact that their personal actions and words have on their group status than they do on the risks that they or anyone else faces” (Kahan, 2015, p. 29). This raises a number of important insights for questions on the social status of climate change knowledge and for science communication. If the identity aspect of any piece of information can overturn any other aspect of the information, we need to understand climate change knowledge in multiple nonscientific ways. We need to start our analysis from the plurality of perspectives in society, which implies a multipolar, perhaps fragmented world of pluralistic beings. We should not expect the science to unify these pluralistic worlds. If we look at the complex relations of science and society, we should not only assume that science forms society but at least in the same strong sense that society creates the grounds for how scientific knowledge is interpreted, validated, and built into collective and individual worldviews—which then create (or prevent the creation of) space for action (Jasanoff, 2004). Crucial questions then arise: How can alliances be formed, beyond truth claims? How can identities be formed around climate action? Thus far, reviews and opinion pieces in this domain have not been limited by a narrow understanding of a status perspective on climate change knowledge. Quite the contrary, this domain has tried to cover multiple aspects of the complex relations of climate change knowledge and society—or climate science and climate practice (see also Lahsen, 2010). For example, we find several articles on climate science and decision-making (Gillard, Gouldson, Paavola, & van Alstine, 2016; Hoppe, Wesselink, & Cairns, 2013; Monteiro, Seixas, & Vieira, 2014; Pepermans & Maeseele, 2016). Another group of articles addresses technological aspects, with an especial emphasis on geo- and climate engineering (Bellamy, Chilvers, Vaughan, & Lenton, 2012; Belter & Seidel, 2013; Cairns, 2014; Linnér & Wibeck, 2015; Reynolds, Contreras, & Sarnoff, 2018). The domain has extended into other domains and coproduced articles on communication (Goodwin & Dahlstrom, 2014; Mitchell, Burch, & Driscoll, 2016; Nerlich, Koteyko, & Brown, 2010) and perception (Capstick, Whitmarsh, Poortinga, Pidgeon, & Upham, 2015; Gagné, Rasmussen, & Orlove, 2014), and we also find very broad topics such as the sociology of climate change (Zehr, 2015) and gender and climate change (Pearse, 2017). To conclude, this domain seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relations between climate change and social change by providing solid reviews on the social status of climate change knowledges in the plural, embedded in a broad understanding of the coevolutions of science and society. The author has declared no conflicts of interest for this article. The author wants to thank Mike Hulme and Georg Krücken for valuable comments. The Cluster of Excellence EXC 2037: Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CliCCS), funded by the German Research Foundation DFG (2019–2026) provides the institutional environment for the author's scientific work on climate change and social change. The social status of climate change knowledge: an editorial essay WIREs Climate Change 2018: An editorial essay

Climate change · Environmental ethics · Feeling · Global warming · Political science · Scientific consensus · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of scientific knowledge · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Psychology · Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy · Social Psychology · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Ecology