riassunto How culture shapes the climate change debate, Sintesi del corso di Geografia Politica

Scarica riassunto How culture shapes the climate change debate e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Geografia Politica solo su Docsity! SUMMARY - HOW CULTURE SHAPES THE CLIMATE CHANGE DEBATE A Cultural schism In January 2014 the Eastern and Southern US experienced extraordinarily frigid temperatures, that according to the scientists were caused by the Polar Vortex, a large cyclone first studied in 1853 -> Fox News used the Polar Vortex to contradict the existence of global warming; on the other side, Climate central presented the phenomenon as an example of global warming, adding that melting Arctic ice was making sudden cold snaps more likely, and not less. In the middle of this debate, scientists tried to explain that the issue over climate change is about global temperature increases, not regional weather deviations, and that one weather event does not prove or disprove the science. Cultural change as a cultural issue: social scientists view the public understanding of climate change not as a lack of adequate information, but as the intentional or unintentional avoidance of that information; moreover, some studies have underlined that physical scientists do not have the final word in public debate. The avoidance is rooted in our culture and psychology, based on 4 central points: 1. We all use cognitive filters: we relate to climate change through our prior ideological preferences, personal experiences, and knowledge; 2. Our cognitive filters reflect our cultural identity: we are influenced by group values and will generally endorse the position that most directly reinforces the connections we have with others in our social groups; 3. Cultural identity can overpower scientific reasoning: when belief or disbelief in climate change becomes connected to our cultural identity, contrary scientific evidence can make us more result in resisting conclusions that are at variance with our cultural beliefs -> increased knowledge tends to strengthen our position on climate change, regardless of what that position is; 4. Our political economy creates inertia for change: there are strong economic and political interests that are threatened by the issue of climate change, thus there are strategies to confuse and polarize the debate in order to protect economic interests. The debate over climate change is not about carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas models, it is about opposing cultural values and worldview through which that science 1di9 is seen. In US, the debate assumes political borders: the majority of Democrats believe in climate change, the majority of Republicans do not. The scientific consensus on climate change: there is a scientific consensus that global climate is changing and that humans, in part, are causing it: -> first, it began in 1995 with the reports of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that concluded that the balance of evidence suggested a discernible human influence on the global climate; in 2007, it clarified that human activities were modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents; in 2013, it underlined that it was extremely likely that human influence had been the dominant cause. -> second, IPCC's statements have been endorsed by nearly two hundred scientific agencies around the world, including the scientific agencies of every one of the G8 countries. -> third, the consensus statements have been supported by independent reviews of scientific literature. -> fourth, surveys show that it is the concerted belief of the majority of practicing climate scientists that the change is real: in a survey of 489 members of the American Geophysical union in 2011, only 5% disagreed with the idea that human activity is a significant cause of global warming. -> fifth, the two leading scientific agencies in the US - the Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of science - use the word “consensus” when characterizing the state of the scientific literature on climate change. The lack of a social consensus on climate change: despite the scientific consensus, a 2013 survey by the Yale PCCC found that only 63% of Americans believed that global warming was happening; 49% beloved global warming was caused mostly by human activities, 30% mostly by natural causes. The belief in climate change has fluctuated over time, influenced e.g. by the 2009 “Climategate” scandal; since then, the gentle rise in belief has been attributed to increasingly sever weather conditions -> personal experiences with extreme weather increase individual belief in climate change. Moreover, social scientists have found that the demographics for climate change belief mirror the traditional demographics for environmental concern in general: more female than male, more young than old, more liberal than conservative, more college educated than less educated, more affluent than poor, more urban than rural, and more on the coasts than in the middle of the country -> connection between a position on the issue and cultural identity. Look at figure 1, p.11 -> “Six Americas”: Alarmed (16%), Concerned (27%), Cautious (23%), Disengaged (5%), Doubtful (12%), Dismissive (15%). 2di9 based forces in the policy arena looks less likely than domination by the forces of contrarianism, since the former have to “prove” their case while the latter merely need to cast doubt; 3. Consensus-based path (mixed-motive scenario): resolution is found through a focus on its integrative elements, moving away from positions and towards a consensus- based discussion around the multiple questions of the scientific models and the underlying interests and values that are at play. It's about values, not science: why would people send hate mail and demonize people they don't know over the science related to climate change? They are not engaging in a scientific debate over data and models; on the contrary, they are protecting some deeply held values that they believe are under attack. Sources of organized resistance A brief history of the public climate change debate: ->scientists first began debating whether human emissions of greenhouse gases could be changing the climate in the 19th century; for the next century, they sought to understand the changing nature of the atmosphere, the role o multiple variables as causal mechanisms, whether these mechanisms were leading to global warming or cooling, and the role of human activity. -> by the 1960s, scientists began to support the notion that carbon dioxide had an overall warming effect on the atmosphere. -> by the 1970s, the scientific literature coalesced around the warming viewpoint; the first use of the term “global warming” was in a 1975 Science article. ->in 1988 James Hansens, then head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, gave provocative congressional testimony that global warming had begun. -> in late 1996 and early 1997 global warming issue reemerged when the Clinton administration first began to seek public support for the Kyoto protocol -> partisan split on the issue: in 1997, nearly identical percentages of Republicans and Democrats (47% and 46%) indicated that global warming was already happening; by 2008, 41% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats agreed on the issue; in 2013, 50% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats believed that global warming evidence was solid. Climate change threatens economic and ideological interests: in 1997, British Petroleum became the first multinational fossil fuel company to break ranks with its industry peers, publicly acknowledging the need for mitigating climate change and setting out a strategic plan to respond to the issue -> corporations played central and complicated roles in the national debate e.g. other companies, most fossil fuel 5di9 companies, are uniformly obstructionist on climate issues, due to their economic interests. The second front is that of ideological think tanks and advocacy groups: “climate change counter movement” (Robert Brulle). For conservative groups, one concern is that climate policy is a covert way for the government to interfere in the market and diminish citizens’ liberty; for many there is a belief that climate change is tied to a liberal political ideology that borders on socialism or communism and hates the Western economy. Indeed, studies found that conservatives report significantly less trust in science that identifies environmental and public health impacts of economic production, and more trust in science that provides new innovations that support economic production. The role of the media in manufactured doubt: The ability of economic and ideological interests to cast doubt on science in the public debate is greatly aided b the changing face of the media and the widening availability of information sources -> the media, both mainstream and social, is a critical factor in how the public debate on climate change takes place. Part of the problem is that climate change is extremely complex and the public is losing its appetite for in-depth scientific reporting; as a result, most newspapers are dismantling their science and environmental reporting staffs. But media are not merely a conduit, they also become part of the rhetorical war when they alter and filter it. Moreover, the media landscape is also composed by the editorial and op-ed pages, letters to the editor and online comment section -> uncivil comments can distort reader understating of the article's primary points. The role of new social media, which have created outlets for material and information, influences the debate, in particular considering the explosive growth of pseudo- science in the blogosphere. Furthermore, social media allow us to find information to support any position we seek to hold and find a community of people that will share those positions -> process of “tribalism”. Bridging the cultural schism American physicist and historian Thomas Kuhn described the process of transformation in scions as a series of transitions from normal science to revolutionary science: a phase of normal science begins when a theory emerges as dominant to other existing theories and becomes the paradigm; established theories become challenged and ultimately change when anomalous events emerge which cannot be explains or solved by existing order -> revolutionary science; this period ends when a new theory is successful in proving a socially adequate response to the anomaly and becomes the basis of a new paradigm. The anomalous events can only be understood 6 di 9 in terms of the social context in which they happened, the political actors that were engaged and how it was framed for the public and in political debate. Tactics for bridging the cultural schism: The messenger is as important as the message -> we are more likely to accept a message if it is endorsed, and ideally presented, by someone we trust as representing our values. In order to bridge the cultural schism on climate change, individuals with credibility on both sides of the debate can act as “climate brokers”, but brokers must also emerge from the market and from the ideological right. Address the process by which the message was created -> as much as with the messenger, many who deny the science of climate change must gain comfort with the process by which scientists came to the message of climate change: one effective tactic might be to present the multiple instances of the consensus of the scientific community. Indeed, studies found that an individual’'s belief in climate change increases when presented with evidence of the scientific consensus on the issue. Moreover, cataclysmic scenarios can become “deactivating” for people, not just by evoking dismissal but also by leaving people without a sense of hope for a solution. Finally, those who craft messages should be sure to separate the problem from the solution. Choose messages that are personally accessible -> people process information both analytically and experientially: in short, people respond to what's salient and personal -> some works has found that most Americans believe that the impacts of climate change will have moderate severity and will most likely impact geographically and temporally distant people and places or nonhuman nature; on the contrary, those who report firsthand experience with extreme weather and environmental conditions have expressed more concern over climate change: making the reality of climate change palpable involves being mindful of when motivated reasoning is most likely to take place. Present solutions for a commonly desired future: too much emphasis on restraint, sacrifice and even “sin” and the need to atone has often led to a denigration of climate change science -> solutions must be based on a future that is optimistic and attractive, one that includes a life on meaning, security, prosperity and happiness for all humans. In order to do that, the author suggests to bridge the ideology of the political Left and Right. To sum up, the better goal is to change society to address the full scope of the climate change issue; we need to move beyond the us-versus-them framework for this debate. Historical analogies for cultural change 7di9