Parasites and Post-Truth Climate

Bibliographic Data

ID2286268
AuthorsRobyn Holly Taylor‐neu (0000-0002-7978-0913, University of California, Berkeley)
Year2020
Volume30
Issue1
Pages4-26
Publication date2020-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1055-1360 • E-ISSN: 1548-1395
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jola.12257
OpenAlexW2996689996
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited11

This article argues that the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), an exemplary climate change skeptical organization, attains persuasive power by striking up a parasitic relation to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and associated discourse genres. Drawing upon theories of citationality and genre, along with conceptual accounts of the parasite (Serres 2013 [1980]; Nakassis 2013; Kockelman 2010, 2017), I construe parasitism as an asymmetric structure of relation that recurs across various sites and scales. As parasitic actors, corporate climate change skeptics like the NIPCC imitate and incorporate host institutions and discourses in order to mine scientific authority while undermining scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change. At the same time, this relation between organizations and their respective discourse genres generates informatic noise or static (French parasite) within established channels of popular science communication. In the case examined here, the NIPCC interrupts an economy of expertise within which the UN-sponsored IPCC holds a privileged position. An uncanny resemblance between the two organizations, between parasite and host, erodes the latter's claims to authority, just as a counterfeit coin erodes public trust in the currency it mimics

Climate Change Communication and Perception · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance

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