Climate Change at the Intersection of Science, Society and the Individual
by
Mark Christopher Vardy B.A., University of Victoria, 2005
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in the Department of Sociology – Cultural, Social and Political Thought
© Mark Christopher Vardy, 2007 University of Victoria
All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author.
Climate Change at the Intersection of Science, Society and the Individual
by
Mark Christopher Vardy B.A., University of Victoria, 2005
Supervisory Committee
Dr. Peyman Vahabzadeh, Supervisor
(Department of Sociology – Cultural, Social and Political Thought) Dr. William K. Carroll, Department member
(Department of Sociology – Cultural, Social and Political Thought) Dr. Karena Shaw, Outside member
Supervisory Committee
Dr. Peyman Vahabzadeh, Supervisor
(Department of Sociology – Cultural, Social and Political Thought) Dr. William K. Carroll, Department member
(Department of Sociology – Cultural, Social and Political Thought) Dr. Karena Shaw, Outside member
(School of Environmental Studies – Cultural, Social and Political Thought)
Abstract
Recent scientific investigations into ice sheet disintegration posit the possibility of rapid sea level rise and raise the social and political issue of how we, as individuals and
collectives, will respond to potential non-linear Earth-system events prompted by climate change. Should non-linear events in the Earth-system be experienced as crises in social, economic and political systems, they may provide opportunities for the establishment of authoritarian political orders. In light of this consideration, this thesis explores the contribution radical phenomenology, which theorizes the relation between non-linear events and dominant modes of understanding, makes to maintaining and extending democratic traditions in the face of potential non-linear Earth-system events. In-depth qualitative interviews with campaign and communication staff in two B.C. environmental movement organizations (David Suzuki Foundation and Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter) explore dominant themes in current public-political articulations of climate change that are then put into conversation with understandings offered through radical phenomenology.
Table of Contents
Supervisory Committee ... ii
Abstract ... iii
Acknowledgments ... v
List of Abbreviations ... vi
Chapter One: Introduction and Research Question ... 1
The Question of the Proper use of Science in Public Articulations of Climate Change ... 1
An Outline of the Thesis ... 12
Chapter Two: Literature Review ... 26
Framing and Ideology in Social Movement Theory ... 26
Science and Technology Studies: Investigation into the Co-production of Knowledge of Climate Change ... 32
The Politics of Re-presenting Climate Change ... 34
Chapter Three: Radical Phenomenology ... 56
A Reading of the Crisis ... 56
The Anti-Humanist Turn ... 61
Action and Language After Anti-Humanism ... 69
Chapter Four: Method ... 75
An Accounting of the Empirical ... 75
Chapter Five: Interview Data ... 88
The David Suzuki Foundation: Goals and Dynamics ... 88
The Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter: Goals and Dynamics ... 96
Chapter Six: Discussion and Conclusion ... 104
The David Suzuki Foundation: Discussion ... 104
The Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter: Discussion ... 112
Closing Thoughts ... 115
Works Cited ... 120
Appendix A ... 135
Letter of Introduction: Sierra Club of Canada, BC Chapter ... 135
Letter of Introduction: David Suzuki Foundation ... 136
Follow-up Information Letter: David Suzuki Foundation ... 138
Sample Interview Questions... 139
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to the individuals at the David Suzuki Foundation and the Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter who were interviewed for this thesis and who took the time to share their thoughts and insights with me.
I would also like to thank my supervisory committee who have taught me much. This thesis was generously supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Masters Scholarship.
List of Abbreviations
AR4: Fourth Assessment Report BAU: Business As Usual
DSF: David Suzuki Foundation GHG: Greenhouse Gas
GIS: Greenland Ice Sheet LIG: Last Interglaciation Period
IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change SCBC: Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter S&TS: Science and Technology Studies WAIS: West Antarctic Ice Sheet
Chapter One: Introduction and Research Question
The Question of the Proper use of Science in Public Articulations of Climate Change
A front-page news article in the December 7, 2006 Victoria Times-Colonist highlighted possible consequences due to anthropogenic global warming. The headline ―Dire warning‖ was followed by the subhead, ―We‘ll drown if globe warms: Most of Victoria will be submerged, Sierra Club predicts‖ (Bell, 2006: A1). Within 12 days, the
Times-Colonist printed a total of nine letters, one editorial and two columns that were all
spawned by the December 7 story.
At a December 6, 2006 press conference in Victoria B.C., the Sierra Club of Canada - B.C. Chapter (SCBC) released maps that depicted Victoria and the surrounding area under a projected rise in sea level due to the melting of polar ice sheets wrought by global warming. The maps, constructed with the help of Google Earth, showed two scenarios: a six-metre rise and a 25-metre rise. The Victoria mayor spoke at the press conference. A line in the subsequent Times-Colonist article reads: ―Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe said a six-metre jump in sea level would submerge about nine per cent of his municipality, while the 25-metre increase would put an estimated 74 per cent of the city under water‖ (Bell, 2006: A1).
One of the central concerns in the dozen related texts printed in the
Times-Colonist over the following 12 days is the confusion wrought by the lack of a specific
time frame accompanying the 25-metre rise scenario, a concern that gives voice to the more fundamental concern about the improper use of science in discussions of climate
change. The December 6, 2006 SCBC press release does not give an exact time frame for the 25-metre scenario. The only time frame mentioned in the press release is the
statement by SCBC executive director Kathryn Molloy: ―We are almost certain to see a six-metre sea level rise if we cannot keep the global average temperature rise below two degrees … This could happen within the lifetime of my grandchildren if we do not take significant global action immediately to curb global carbon emissions‖ (SCBC, 2006. emphasis added). Molloy‘s use of the word ―this‖ is ambiguous; it is unclear whether she is referring to a six-metre rise in sea level or the increase of average temperature by 2°C; the two conditions do not occur simultaneously. Without specifying the time frame, both the press release and the Times-Colonist article conflate present-day neighbourhoods and long-term processes to give the impression that the six-metre scenario could develop within the next century and the 25-metre scenario soon after that.
The day after the initial article appeared in the Times-Colonist, three letters to the editor were printed. One was penned by Andrew Weaver (2006), a University of Victoria climate scientist whose capacity in climate modeling and analysis has been recognized by numerous academic awards and distinctions. Weaver had been quoted in the
Times-Colonist article speaking about climate change. The three paragraphs in which he is
quoted are sandwiched between quotes from two SCBC staff. The positioning of Weaver‘s quotes within the overall text could easily indicate to someone reading the article that Weaver is in complete agreement with the article‘s presentation of SCBC‘s claims. His letter to the Times-Colonist, however, disrupts any notion given in the newspaper of an easy agreement between himself and SCBC. His letter states:
I was saddened to see the silly and counter-productive Sierra Club of B.C. story showing Victoria at risk of being under 25 metres of water. Climate change is a
serious issue and it is alarming that such an organization as the Sierra Club would so overstate the case as to make it ridiculous. … The science suggests serious societal consequences of global warming in the short term, while the changes in sea level that the Sierra Club tout happen over thousands of years. This clumsy story just makes it easy for the deniers to claim there is no problem. (Weaver, 2006: A19)
The other two letters, which were printed on the same day as Weaver‘s and included no institutional affiliations with the authors‘ names, made similar points. The first argues that the prediction of a near-term 25-metre rise in sea level is based on unsound science and in need of correction through recourse to legitimate science. The letter states: ―I urge you to read the 2005 joint statement by the science academies of the Western nations, including the National Academy of Sciences, which warned of possible sea-level rise of 10 to 90 centimetres in the 21st century‖ (Switzer, 2006: A19). The third letter criticizes both the Times-Colonist and SCBC for ―generating hysteria‖ when a calmer approach to the science of climate change is necessary (MacKinnon, 2006: A19). The same day that these letters appeared (December 8, the day after the initial story), a 253-word editorial concludes that climate change is happening and requires attention, but ―extreme predictions, even if they have some basis in truth, don‘t help‖ (Times-Colonist, 2006: A18).
These issues were fleshed out three days later, in the December 11 edition of the
Times-Colonist, in a column by Iain Hunter (2006). He lamented the departure of Vicky
Husband, an environmental campaigner who worked 18 years for SCBC. Hunter states: Vicky Husband … has become well-known -- a champion of the environment, more than a hugger of trees, something of a spirit bear in our forests, an advocate for the planet with a special brief for this corner of it. … For her efforts the United Nations gave her a Global 500 Award, her country has awarded her the Order of Canada, her province the Order of B.C., her city an honorary citizenship, her old alma mater an honorary doctorate. (2006: A10)
Extensively citing an October 11, 2006 Vancouver Sun column by well-known environmental journalist Stephen Hume (2006), Hunter argues the ―absurd Henny Pennyism‖ of the 25-metre maps can be pinned on the change in SCBC strategies from a ―heavy‖ reliance on science to a ―communications-based and people-focussed‖ strategy (2006: A10). It was precisely this transition away from a science-based approach that, according to Hume‘s article, forced Husband out of SCBC and resulted in what Hunter perceives as a botched attempt to motivate people to act in ways that mitigate climate change.
The next letter, printed on December 12, was a one-sentence missive, authored by someone with no apparent institutional affiliation, that denigrates SCBC‘s ―weird climate science‖ (Newcomb, 2006: A15).
A concern that SCBC is damaging the struggle to seriously come to terms with climate change through an improper use of science is evident in the first four letters, editorial and column. On December 13, however, a column by SCBC executive director Kathryn Malloy (2006b), which appeared in the space reserved in the Times-Colonist for opinion articles written by individuals not associated with the newspaper but who have known institutional affiliations, defended the maps and clarified the reasoning behind their production. Malloy points out that scientists agree anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are driving up earth temperatures to a point where positive feedback loops will increase temperatures by 3-5C by the end of this century. She continues:
Determining the impacts of these temperature increases is devilishly complex. However, one way of trying to understand the implications for our planet is to ask the question: What did the world look like the last time it was at this point? Well, the last time Earth became 2C warmer was 130,000 years ago, and sea levels were roughly six metres higher. Estimates by scientists of how quickly this could occur range from a century to thousands of years. The last time the Earth
was 3 to 5C warmer, which is what we're heading for if we continue with ‗business as usual‘ levels of greenhouse gas emissions, was three million years ago and sea levels were approximately 25 metres higher.
No one alive will see a 25-metre sea level rise -- but whether or not the Earth warms enough to experience one will be determined, in the next 20 years, by the actions of everyone alive. We have to prevent greenhouse gases going much beyond present levels, and certainly not beyond doubling. This is a massive undertaking and the Sierra Club believes a demonstration of the consequences of failure is a valid motivator to get on with the job.
[… ] Recent polls show British Columbians and Canadians increasingly understand the threat [of global warming] and are ready to make the changes necessary. In its soon-to-be-released energy plan, the B.C. government has the opportunity to demonstrate that it, too, is ready to meet the moral and technical challenges posed by global warming. The people of B.C. demand nothing less. (Malloy, 2006b: A13)
Malloy‘s political concerns, that the B.C. government should take up the ―moral and technical challenges posed by global warming,‖ are backed up by referring to the authority of science. In her 703-word article, she refers seven times to the authority of science through statements such as ―Climatologists the world over concur …‖,
―climatologists believe …‖ and ―estimates by scientists …‖. She also refers to the ―NASA climate scientist James Hansen‖ and to the SCBC website where a document explaining the science behind the SCBC sea level maps is available.
The next letter in the Times-Colonist, which was printed on December 14 and was authored by an individual with no apparent institutional affiliations, made light of
SCBC‘s claims. The author suggested that 25 metres of water would bring a new meaning to the phrase ―Colwood crawl‖, that being the term by which rush-hour
commuter traffic to the satellite community of Colwood is colloquially known (Morrison, 2006: A11).
Guy Dauncey, a long-time environmental activist and author of books such as
a Sustainable World, wrote the next letter, printed on December 16. Dauncey‘s (2006)
letter warrants more examination as it quotes three paragraphs from an article by James E. Hansen, who authored the work that SCBC cites for its 25-metre claims.
Hansen is the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, one of the most prestigious climate modeling centres in the U.S.A. In 1988, his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that he was 99% confident that greenhouse effect was real and anthropomorphic in origin was an integral part of the large amount of publicity the issue of climate change achieved in that year and the next (Weaver 2004: 14; Hecht and Tirpak 1995: 383-4). He has also spoken out publicly, in mainstream newspapers, about interference from the U.S. administration with the science of climate change as it is taken up by policymakers and government (c.f. Revkin and Wald, 2007). The Sierra Club‘s December 6, 2006 press release states: ―The 25-metre scenario is based on information from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies‖ (SCBC 2006a). The press release does not cite specific sources, but the postcard that is part of their map campaign cites, as the specific source of the 25-metre claims, the transcript of a speech given by Hansen. Dauncey quotes a different article by Hansen, albeit one which makes similar claims, which he wrote for the February 17, 2006 edition of The Independent (Hansen 2006). In this article, which is freely available via Internet access, Hansen discusses recent evidence that suggests that the previous generation of scientific studies on Greenland ice sheets are unable to capture certain key features. Previous analysis considered glaciers and ice sheets as single blocks of ice that only disintegrated through simple melting, but scientists are now realizing that the actual dynamics of the ice sheets entail much more than that. Recent data gathered from
Earth-observation satellites generate a picture that show that melted ice is essentially acting as a lubricant, forming rivers under the ice sheets that speed up the rate with which they slide into the ocean and disintegrate. Hansen writes that Greenland ice sheet is losing 200 square kilometres of ice each year, much more than was thought previously. In a passage that Dauncey quotes in his letter to the Times-Colonist, Hansen asks:
How fast can this go? Right now, I think our best measure is what happened in the past. We know that, for instance, 14,000 years ago sea levels rose by 20m in 400 years - that is five metres in a century. This was towards the end of the last ice age, so there was more ice around. But, on the other hand, temperatures were not warming as fast as today. How far can it go? The last time the world was three degrees warmer than today - which is what we expect later this century - sea levels were 25m higher. (Dauncey, 2006: A15; see also Hanson 2006)
The source the SCBC cites as its claim for the 25-metre rise is a speech Hansen gave to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on December 6, 2005, entitled ―Is There Still Time to Avoid ‗Dangerous Anthropogenic Interference‘ with Global Climate?: A Tribute to Charles David Keeling‖ (Hansen 2005a). In the introduction with which he opened his speech Hansen stated:
the Earth‘s climate is nearing, but has not passed, a tipping point, beyond which it will be impossible to avoid climate change with far ranging undesirable
consequences. The changes include not only loss of the Arctic as we know it, with all that implies for wildlife and indigenous peoples, but losses on a much vaster scale due to worldwide rising seas. Sea level will increase slowly at first, as losses at the fringes of Greenland and Antarctica due to accelerating ice streams are nearly balanced by increased snowfall and ice sheet thickening in the ice sheet interiors. But as Greenland and West Antarctic ice is softened and lubricated by melt-water and as buttressing ice shelves disappear due to a warming ocean, the balance will tip toward ice loss, thus bringing multiple positive feedbacks into play and causing rapid ice sheet disintegration. The Earth‘s history suggests that with warming of 2-3°C the new equilibrium sea level will include not only most of the ice from Greenland and West Antarctica, but a portion of East Antarctica, raising sea level of the order of 25 meters (80 feet). Contrary to lethargic ice sheet models, real world data suggest substantial ice sheet and sea level change in centuries, not millennia. (2005a: 1).
Importantly for this thesis, Hansen continues to state: ―Ice sheet growth may be a dry linear process, but ice sheet disintegration is a wet process that can become very non-linear‖ (2005a: 9).
Let us return to the letters in the Times-Colonist. On December 18, two days after Dauncey‘s letter, another text authored by SCBC executive director Kathryn Molloy, this one a letter to the editor, appeared in which she addresses Hunter‘s column. Echoing her column that appeared five days previously, Molloy denies Hunter‘s claim that SCBC is no longer science-based and states: ―Our strategic plan, The Nature of Our Future, outlines our commitment to ‗science-based policy‘‖ (Molloy, 2006a: A9; italics added). Molloy points out that their ―staff members include a palaeontologist, a forester, an economist, a resource management specialist and a land-use planner‖ (ibid.), presumably because such vocations are considered scientific. In her conclusion, Molloy again stresses the scientific basis of the SCBC by referencing one of their current campaigns that
―provides science-based information about sustainable seafood choices‖ (ibid.). Of the final two letters (December 18 and 19), written by individuals who do not have
institutional affiliations attached to their names, one speaks, in a wry tone, of the need to locate a proposed sewage treatment plant high on a hill to prevent it from backing up when sea-levels rise (Dolling, 2006: A11). The other letter writer is in favour of the SCBC maps as an effort to ―jolt the public into action and out of apathy‖ (Stokes, 2006: A9), echoing the statement from Malloy‘s column: ―the Sierra Club believes a
demonstration of the consequences of failure is a valid motivator to get on with the job‖ (2006b: A13).
It is worthwhile, at this juncture, to review the source of SCBC‘s claims for their six-metre rise scenario. Their press release states: ―The 6-metre scenario is based on a series of articles on climate change in the March 2006 issue of the journal Science‖ (SCBC, 2006a, italics added). That March 24, 2006 edition of Science, whose front cover photograph shows a massive collection of small chunks of ice floating freely in Nansen Fjord, Greenland, and bears the heading, ―Climate change: breaking the ice,‖ contains a series of articles that focus on, broadly speaking: sea level heights during previous historical periods when the climate was similar to ours today; the rate at which ice sheets and glaciers melted in those periods; and, the rate at which they are melting today. In more specific terms, the articles focus on: an increase in seismic activity in Greenland‘s glaciers that corresponds to an increase in the speed with which they are flowing into the ocean (Ekström, Nettles, and Tsai, 2006); the recent tracking, through measuring the force of gravity exerted by the ice sheets on a pair of satellites, of the recent loss of ―152 ± 80 cubic kilometres of ice per year‖ from the Antarctic, primarily from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (Velicogna and Wahr, 2006: 1754); the dynamics with which warmer oceans interact with glaciers, which results in contributing to the increased rate at which they flow into the sea (Bindschadler, 2006); and, computer modeling and paleoclimatic observations of the Last Interglaciation period1 (LIG) as this period of time saw a climate similar to our own period, the Holocene, which extends to about 10,000 years ago (Otto-Bliesner et al., 2006). The latter article reported that both computer models and
paleoclimatic observations of the LIG found that ―the Greenland Ice Sheet and other circum-Arctic ice fields likely contributed 2.2 to 3.4 meters of sea-level rise during the Last Interglaciation‖ (ibid.: 1751). But of particular note is the article ―Paleoclimatic
Evidence for Future Ice-Sheet Instability and Rapid Sea-Level Rise‖ (Overpeck et al., 2006), which considers both the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), the two most significant sources of potential sea level rise.
During the LIG, sea levels were four to six metres higher than they are today. Previous work has found that, should greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at 1% per year, by the year 2100 temperatures will be at least equal to what they were during the LIG and be sufficient to melt the GIS entirely and substantial parts of the WAIS (Overpeck et al., 2006: 1747). Given the projection of a 1% per year increase in greenhouse gas emissions, the question is: How long will the melting of the ice sheets take? After the last ice-age, between about 13,800 and 7,000 years ago, the rate of sea level rise was 11 mm per year (ibid: 1748). And: ―Although a well-constrained record of sea-level rise leading to the LIG high stand is not yet available, there is well-dated yet controversial coral evidence that sea-level rise over this interval may have occurred at rates higher than 20 mm/year, perhaps right up to the LIG sea-level high stand‖ (ibid: 1749). In other words, some paleoclimatic evidence suggests that sea levels can rise at a rate of two metres in 100 years.
There is clear evidence that at some point in the next few decades we may well pass the point at which substantial disintegration of the GIS and WAIS becomes irreversible (Overpeck et al., 2006: 1750). A news article in the edition of Science considered here focuses on the recent attention given to ice-sheet dynamics and includes both findings from the articles mentioned above as well as interviews with some of their authors (Kerr 2006). This article captures some of the overall sense of what is at stake:
The greenhouse gases that people are spewing into the atmosphere this century might guarantee enough warming to destroy the West Antarctic and Greenland ice
sheets, says Oppenheimer, possibly as quickly as within several centuries. That would drive up sea level 5 to 10 meters at rates not seen since the end of the last ice age. (Kerr 2006: 1698)
There is a lag between positive radiative forcing and increased temperatures. Thus the increase in ice sheet disintegration has been brought about by a warming that is a manifestation of only part of the radiative imbalance in solar energy that has entered the Earth-system. Calculating the difference between the energy represented as Watts per square metre of incoming solar radiation and the energy represented by increased temperatures indicates that there is a further 0.6C of warming that has yet to manifest (Hansen et al, 2005). Given that the recently increased ice sheet disintegration is a result of the 0.6C increase in global average temperatures that has already manifested over the past century, Kerr (2006) points out that scientists are uncertain about how the ice sheets will respond to the increase in temperatures that is known will manifest over the coming decades. Not only is the recently discovered fact that ice sheets are disintegrating much more rapidly than previously thought of great concern, but also this new state of affairs casts the ability of current science to predict future sea level rise with certainty into doubt. And, Kerr states, ―That uncertainty is unsettling‖ (Kerr, 2006: 1698).
The findings in the Science issue cited by SCBC, whether derived from
paleoclimatic or computer modeling evidence, are put forth with their hypothetical nature made clear. For example, Overpeck et al in their article on rapid sea rise, state: ―Recent assessment of future climate change … indicates that the amount of future warming is highly dependent on the model used, with some models less sensitive to elevated atmospheric GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations than others. The model we used has midrange sensitivity and appears reasonably accurate‖ (2006: 1748). This awareness of
possible social influences (i.e., expert decision making) on science is also present in the lead editorial to the March 24, 2006 edition of Science in which the editors state:
The central question of today‘s climate policy discussions centers on whether the change in average global temperature over the past century represents the result of new climate forcing or instead simply reflects natural variation. That question invites us to examine recent statistics on climate variation and then test the current excursion for significance. But if one is interested in risks and in preparing to meet them, the more interesting question is what the deep historical record can tell us about the circumstances under which climates have changed rapidly in the past and the severity of the consequences. Considered in that way, accelerated glacial melting and larger changes in sea level (for example) should be looked at as probable events, not as hypothetical possibilities. (Kennedy and Hanson 2006: 1673)
According to the editors of Science, then, the scientific findings of the articles under consideration here should be considered as being situated within the social context of current discussions about the preparation to meet potential future risks. The editors, it seems to me, recommend that readers relate the findings of the scientific investigations under consideration here to the networks of texts and discourses that comprise the field of scientifically informed understandings of potential consequences of climate change in such way that a particular meaning becomes intelligible. It would seem that the social context of scientific understandings affects how such understanding should be
interpreted. It is precisely the ways in which science is interpreted within social contexts
that this thesis is interested in.
An Outline of the Thesis
In the weeks between time in which the research interviews conducted for this thesis were completed, and about seven months after the controversy in the
Times-Colonist outlined above appeared, two scientific journals published two peer-reviewed
reports by Hansen and colleges that substantiate concerns about non-linear disintegration of the ice sheets and subsequent rapid sea level rise (Hansen et al, 2007a, 2007b). The difference between linear and non-linear representations of ice sheet disintegration is important to this thesis because it introduces the question of unexpected Earth-system events, events that could be experienced as crises, crises in which social structures could be destabilized and anti-democratic regimes instituted. Thus a concern of this thesis is the question of how to respond to events in the Earth-system, such as rapid sea level rise, by extending and strengthening democratic traditions and without imposing violence. Following the work of Gianni Vattimo (2002; 2004), violence is defined as the imposition of normative foundations.
The small corpus of text presented above is an example of the confluence of the science, mass media, environmental movement organizations and individual expressions that is involved in the production and framing of climate change as an issue that demands attention and action. Considering these texts, it seems to me that there is a disjuncture between, on one hand, the actual scientific practices that yield a sense of the interactions between the Earth-system (the Earth‘s total, biophysical processes and exchanges, including those in and between the atmosphere, biosphere, oceans, and ice sheets) and climate change, and on the other hand, the way the social authority of science is taken up in the public discussion of climate change in the Times-Colonist as a ground for political
claims or calls for action. This disjuncture is located in the social context that, as the
editors of Science implied above, must be considered when interpreting scientific
climate change can be articulated. If we take the network of texts cited above as an example of a public-political sphere in which the struggle to articulate a meaningful response to climate change takes place, then examining the factors that influence the relationship (for ―disjuncture‖ implies ―relationship‖) between understandings yielded by
scientific investigations and the use of science as an authoritative ground can help
achieve a more nuanced understanding of the challenges climate change presents. An understanding of the factors that influence the relationship between scientific
understandings and the public-political articulation of actions refer to the authority of science is crucial, I argue, because of the radically different futures projected by the Business As Usual (BAU) and alternative climate change scenarios. Global greenhouse gas emissions have been rising at an average of 2% per year over the past decade (Hansen et al, 2007a: 2303). Although differences exist between projections of future impacts of climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states, should this BAU scenario continue much longer: ―Many millions more people are projected to be flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the 2080s,‖ (IPCC, 2007e: 8, emphasis added). BAU scenarios, as the name aptly implies, require nothing more than the maintenance of the current trajectory of the economic and social forces that produce GHG emissions. Alternative scenarios are possible, but they require shifts in collective and individual action (Monbiot, 2005; Hansen et al, 2007a). The problem is that the possibility exists for us, as individuals and collectives, to continue on the BAU path while making public-political arguments that we are responding to climate change in a
responsible way. If there is a process of interpretation that takes place in the disjuncture between scientific understandings and calls for action that reference science as a ground,
the individual or collective failure to respond to climate change in accordance to alternative scenarios cannot be corrected only by pointing this disjuncture out. Rather, what seems important to me is to examine more closely what factors influence this process of interpretation, and then to include these factors in the public-political
discussion about climate change. This thesis argues that making explicit the factors that
influence the interpretations that take place between scientific understandings and the use of science an authoritative ground for action may contribute to the public-political discussion about how best to respond to potential non-liner Earth-system events.
This thesis first approaches this topic through two bodies of sociological
literature. To provide an overall context in which to place the two sociological literatures, the thesis then turns to the theory of radical phenomenology. One body of sociological literature this thesis employs is the sociology of scientific knowledge, or science and technology studies (S&TS). One of the aims of S&TS is to render explicit the
interactions, assumptions, relationships and dynamics through which concepts of science, nature, politics and culture are co-produced. As such, it strives to not ―black-box‖ any processes or categories so as to exempt them from further analysis (Jasanoff, 2004: 20). This thesis uses selected studies from S&TS literature, as well as some studies that are related but do not fall strictly within S&TS, as a context in which to discuss what I take to be important elements of the public-political sphere in which both scientific
representations of climate change and calls for action, or inaction, are at play—an example of a textual representation of this public-political sphere is that nexus of text centring around the Times-Colonist article (Bell, 2006: A1) discussed above. What was described above as a disjuncture between scientific understandings and calls for action
that reference science as an authoritative ground is similar to the site many S&TS explorations situate themselves within. Several S&TS investigations yield compelling examples of the social dynamics that, playing out in the disjuncture between scientists and policymakers, influence accounts of climate change as they move from scientific communities to policy communities. One aspect of these dynamics between scientists and policymakers is that scientists‘ understandings of ―uncertainty‖ as referring to the
unpredictable quality of events that arise in an open and indeterminate system, can be conflated with policymakers‘ understandings of ―uncertainty‖ as referring to the unknown quality of events that arise in a closed system along a known range of
possibilities. Some S&TS literature questions the implications of climate change policy that has rendered scientific uncertainty as quantifiable levels of risk probabilities (Shackley and Wynne, 1996, 1997; Shackley et al, 1998, 1999). Turning to the public-political field that includes mass media and environmental movement organizations, this thesis then pursues a line through S&TS literature that explores aspects of the
relationship between science and politics (Demeritt 2001, 2006). The relationship between science and politics takes its arguably most vulgar form in the conservative movement in the United States, which is found to employ scientific language while lobbying against scientific understandings of climate change (McCright and Dunlap, 2000, 2003; Lahsen, 2005a, 2005b).
This thesis takes up the sociology of social movements literature to provide its research strategy and rationale. As will be discussed in greater detail in the following chapter, certain strands of social movement theory conceptualize framing as a process of interaction and negotiation that actors within social movement organizations undertake
when trying to articulate their goals in such a way that they resonate with the
organizations‘ target audiences. In other words, framing is a process by which social movement organizations link their messages to ideas, concepts, cultural understandings, values and beliefs—what the literature calls ideologies—that are already existent in the larger public (Snow et al, 1986). The concept of framing is a powerful analytical tool in social movement theory because framing is taken as an interactive and social process— not only a cognitive process—that is empirically observable. While the values, beliefs, and norms that comprise ideologies are harder to capture empirically, the interplay between framing and ideologies is the stuff of everyday work for individuals in social movement organizations, and is thus available for observation (Snow and Benford, 2000).
For this thesis, I conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with campaign and communications staff of two B.C. environmental movement organizations: the David Suzuki Foundation and the Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter. The individuals I interviewed are involved in the production and distribution of climate change campaign materials, including those that generated the above Times-Colonist news article. I wanted to interview these individuals because they, in their everyday, working, professional lives, are presenting climate change as a public-political issue. I reasoned that they consciously and deliberately attempt to frame climate change in such a way that their target audiences will respond to it as an issue that needs to be dealt with. Thus, it seemed to me, qualitative interviews with these individuals could reveal, through accounts of their individual experiences of professionally presenting climate change as a public-political issue, a picture of the larger social terrain, or public-public-political sphere, in which scientific understandings of climate change and the use of science as an authoritative
ground play out. I hypothesised that an analysis of qualitative interviews with the individuals I interviewed might reveal an understanding of the factors environmental movement staff consider in their work framing climate change. I further hypothesized that an analysis of these factors, and the way that they influence the public-political discussion of climate change, as seen through the example provided by the environmental moment organizations considered here, would enable an understanding of the larger public-political sphere—an understanding that may be useful in preparing for future non-linear Earth-system events.
Before posing the actual research questions, consideration must be given to a crucial point: there is a danger, manifested in many social movement studies, of reifying ideologies as stable entities (Snow and Benford, 2000). Framing analysis, in a manner similar to the co-production idiom found in S&TS, is rooted in a constructivist
perspective that pays particular attention to the way meaning arises from the social relations and interactions that involve individuals and objects (Jasanoff, 2004: 19; Snow and Benford, 2000). The shared constructivist roots enable a basic correspondence between these two literatures; however, there is an important difference when it comes to analytic tools: from the perspective of S&TS, it is doubtful whether ideology, even as an analytic category, can be taken as a given. S&TS, by showing the radical heterogeneity and local singularity of conceptions of science and society, deconstructs the conceptual framework that would posit framing activities of environmental movement activists on one hand, and ideologies ‗out there‘ in larger society on the other.
[Early work in S&TS] assumed, along with mainstream scholarship in economics and political science, that society can be unproblematically conceptualized as composed of interest groups with clearly articulated (exogenous) positions and preferences. These interests, or stakes, were then invoked to explain the positions
taken by different actors concerning knowledge claims and their technological embodiments. Newer work recognizes the inadequacy of interests as a primary explanatory category. Interests themselves have a social history: how they arise and are sustained are matters to be investigated, not taken for granted. (Jasanoff, 2004: 20)
There is a tension here: on one hand, social movement theory provides a structural schematic that can be usefully employed to begin researching the social forces
(ideologies) that influence the way in which environmental movement activists frame climate change as an issue that demands attention, but on the other hand, S&TS provides insight into the contingent and irreducible singularity of events and issues, and thus does not assume any a priori structures that would determine the shape of the political, freeing it to assume radically new shapes. As Sheila Jasanoff points out, the very aspect of the co-production idiom that makes it a powerful tool—the focus on regional, heterogeneous and singular processes of co-production—can work against the effort to place it within ―macro-social analyses of culture and power‖ (2004: 37-42). This thesis attempts to conceptualize the unique, singular, heterogeneous articulations about climate change— whether they are put forward by scientists, environmental movement activists or lay individuals—within a larger framework that allows for a useful analysis of the overall dynamics that are at play in this moment in Western history when individual and
collective shifts in behaviour are called for as a response to climate change. Here is where the theoretical framework this thesis employs, radical phenomenology, enters the picture.
As will be discussed in greater detail in the chapter devoted to it, radical phenomenology is a theory of Western history that situates singular events within a horizon of intelligibility (Schürmann, 1987; Vahabzadeh, 2003). It thus answers the need for a theory that allows singular events to exist according to their own logic while
providing a reading of the historical, cultural and political dimensions in which such events occur. Furthermore, in as far as the origin of phenomenology can be found within the work of Husserl (1970), phenomenology began as an attempt to think through the very tension running through the nexus of texts centering on the Times-Colonist article (Bell, 2006: A1) discussed above: between singular events perceived as matters of fact through scientific practice, and the capacity of scientific reasoning to provide a sense of meaning for humankind as individuals and collectives. This problematic remains central in the development of phenomenology from Husserl, through Heidegger, to Reiner Schürmann‘s interpretation of Heidegger; which forms the basis of radical
phenomenology.
Further details that fill in the development of radical phenomenology are provided in the chapter devoted to it. One crucial element of radical phenomenology needs to be noted here: radical phenomenology challenges the operation of the principle of sufficient reason as the arbiter of what is allowable, tenable, legitimate and intelligible within the public-political sphere. That is to say, speaking in broad and general terms, radical phenomenology first theorizes that the principle of sufficient reason is taken up and deployed, almost without question or further reflection, in the silencing of certain public-political articulations of how we, as individuals and collectives, can best arrange our affairs in the time and space in which we find ourselves. Still speaking in broad and general terms, radical phenomenology then hypothesises that the principle of sufficient reason, which was established at the origin of the modern era, is slowly losing the capacity to be used in this way and that, rather than be taken as the unquestioned ground that it once was, its ability to order affairs in the public-political sphere is now open to
contestation. According to this hypothesis, which is called the hypothesis of metaphysical closure, because the principle that deems what is intelligible in the public-political sphere is open to contestation, there is every chance for a politics to be expressed that is not
subsumed to universal categories sustained by this principle. This point must be
emphasised: according to the hypothesis put forward by radical phenomenology, in these many decades in which the principle of sufficient reason is possibly losing its hold, public-political articulations can potentially be expressed in ways that are not governed by the logic that has ordained, throughout the modern era, what is intelligible. In other words, radically new, heterogeneous, and singular events can be articulated outside the hegemonic operation of principles that, because it is in decline, can now be seen
operating in the past. This could start alarm bells ringing in readers unfamiliar with this concept; a theory that argues the foundations of Western society are possibly in decline and that the political is open to radically new articulations could be taken as arguing for the abandonment of democracy. This is not so. This theory argues we must take the
reduction of violence as a quasi-normative guiding principle (Vattimo 2002, 2004). If we
define violence as the silencing of questions, this means that politics becomes a conversation in which preferences are voiced, and not a dogmatic clash of principles. ―The call is thus not for a society with no values but for a society without supreme and
exclusive values. On this model, cultures are complex conversations among varying
conceptions of the world. Such dialogue can, and must not, shift into a dogmatic clash between conflicting truths‖ (Vattimo 2002: 454).
Radical phenomenology shares with S&TS the concern for analysing the co-production of singular events and issues without placing them, vis-à-vis ideology, into an
already determined location in the public-political field. Radical phenomenology always returns to uproot its own foundations. This deconstructive force means that the
―principles‖ discussed in relation to radical phenomenology cannot be strictly equated with the ―ideologies‖ discussed in relation to the concept of framing in social movement theories. However, there is a certain correspondence between ―principles‖ and
―ideologies‖: they both situate action. That is, in radical phenomenology action takes place in reference to principles, while in framing theory action takes place in reference to ideologies. Thus they both share a similar structural perspective that enables a normative reading of Western history; however, radical phenomenology, as intimated above, ―lets go of ultimacies ... [therefore it] perpetually ‗steps back‘ from its own postulates‖ (Vahabzadeh, 2003: 187-8). This allows the correspondence with S&TS.
Radical phenomenology is a theory of the horizons in which interpretation takes place. It does not attempt to determine beforehand the content, shape or expression of particular interpretations. Speaking in broad in general terms, it conceptualizes hegemony as the subsumption of singular events, issues and interpretations by universal categories that reference metaphysical principles—in this case the principle of sufficient reason. The goal of radical phenomenology is twofold: to explore the regional manifestations of the enactment of hegemony, and to voice to events, issues and interpretations that arise outside of such hegemonic arrangements. Importantly for this thesis, the hypothesis of metaphysical closure posits that the current era is one in which two fields—fields that can be thought here as the source and reference point for language—overlap: the principial field in which metaphysical principles govern over what is intelligible, and the anarchic field in which events and issues can be articulated in terms that do not reference
metaphysical principles. Both these fields can potentially occupy the disjuncture between scientific understandings and calls for action that reference science as an authoritative ground. In this way, radical phenomenology offers a way of thinking about the logic that has maintained the BAU trajectory up to this point; it also prepares a potential way through which alternative scenarios can be thought. Proceeding from this theory, this thesis situates its exploration at the juncture of these two overlapping hypothetical fields. It posits that the factors that influence the framing of climate change as a public-political issue that demands attention and action can be located in these fields. In other words, the factors that influence the relationship between singular understandings yielded by
scientific investigations and calls for action that employ science as an authoritative ground can be discussed in terms of how they relate to the principial and anarchic fields.
The nexus of text that centres around the Times-Colonist article described above represents a certain public-political sphere. This thesis could use the theory of radical phenomenology as a guide and undertake an analysis of these texts in the attempt to explicate the ways in which metaphysical principles influence the arguments that are being put forward therein. Such an interpretation, based solely on the reading of texts available in the public domain, would be valuable, but it would only be from the
perspective of the consumer of the texts and thus would overlook a crucial dynamic. The
individuals who produce the texts in question, in their everyday working lives, consciously make strategic decisions to frame climate change in particular ways.
Framing theory tells us that these choices are made in reference to understandings of the values and beliefs that are perceived to be operative in the target audience (Snow and Benford, 2000). Thus the individuals who research, write and edit textual claims about
climate change may be very well aware of the (hypothetical) hegemonic operation of metaphysical principles, but make the strategic decision to adhere to them for the purposes of framing their textual arguments in such a way that they resonate with the target audience. Following this line of thought, it is entirely possible that other possible ways of framing climate change as a public-political issue are discussed among
individuals in environmental movement organizations, but these other ways of framing climate change are consciously left unarticulated in public texts for strategic reasons. An interpretation of the texts in the public domain can say nothing of such unarticulated alternative ways of framing climate change. However, qualitative interviews with
communications and campaign staff who, on a daily and professional basis, frame climate change as public-political issue may yield insight not only into the rationale for framing climate change as they do, but also into possible alternative ways of framing climate change. Thus the research questions this thesis asks are: What factors are at play in
framing climate change as an issue that demands attention? Do these factors prohibit articulation of alternative ways of framing climate change?
The answers to these questions should be of interest to those scientists, journalists, environmental movement activists, academics, and lay individuals who are interested in responding to climate change through democratically informed processes without enacting violence. If there is a process of interpretation that takes place between scientific investigations and public-political calls for action based on the authority of science, then understanding what influences such interpretations is crucial to responding to climate change in a responsible way. The purpose of this thesis is not, however, to provide a blueprint for environmental movement organizations enacting climate change
campaigns; this thesis will not deliver a recommended plan of action for environmental movement organizations to follow. Rather, the purposes of this thesis are: (1) to offer up an interpretation of climate change that may be interesting in its own right; and (2) to present radical phenomenology as one way of thinking about the tensions identified in S&TS and social movement theory between singular instances of scientific investigation and a normative framework in which to understand climate change.
Clearly I entered this research with an already established worldview. What assurances can I offer my reader that I have interpreted and presented the data gathered in the research interviews accurately? What assurances can I make as to the veracity of my research? First of all, it should be noted that the presentation and analysis of interview data takes a narrative form and can only be regarded as an interpretation of the world, not as a representation of objective fact. This is not to say, however, that I did not strive to represent data gathered in the research interviews accurately. Greater detail is provided in the chapter on methods, but here let me offer two ways by which the reader can judge the veracity of my research. First, by declaring outright the ontological presuppositions of the thesis (radical phenomenology), the reader is made aware of the direction from which possible bias could creep into the interpretation of data. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, is the concept of ―reflexivity,‖ which is generally understood as critical self-reflection undertaken by the researcher in the attempt to make his or her possible biases explicit to the reader (Ritchie and Lewis, 2004, 20). Thus in the Methods chapter, I discuss how my thinking and approach to this thesis has changed throughout the process of writing it.
Chapter Two: Literature Review
Framing and Ideology in Social Movement Theory
This thesis engages with social movement theory for the purpose of orientating its research strategy. In this sense, then, this thesis stands guilty of isolating one aspect of a larger set of discussions and theories, and applying it elsewhere in a different context. The only answer to this charge is that this thesis remains true to the original intent of framing analysis, even if the context in which that original intent is expressed has shifted. A brief overview of the sociology of social movements helps locate the aspect of it I am engaging with.
For the past several decades, Western sociology of social movement theories have split along a rough divide between structuralist approaches, such as resource mobilization and political opportunity (or political process), on one side and constructivist approaches, such as new social movement theories, on the other (Goodwin and Jasper 2004: vii-viii and 3-5). Political opportunity theories posit that oppressed groups, or groups with grievances, will only mobilize when opportunities arise. Such opportunities include situations when: (1) elites within the governing body are sympathetic to their aims; (2) elites are not unified in their rule; and (3) levels of repression are diminishing (Kurzman 2003: 38). Resource mobilization theories share the thesis with political opportunity theories that grievances, because they are ubiquitous are thus not alone sufficient causes of mobilization. They pay particular attention to, as the name suggests, the money, labour and skills that a social movement has as its disposal (McCarthy and Zald 2003).
Within the constructivist paradigm, the school of new social movement theory treats the rise of identity and interest based movements in the West in the 1960s, such as the peace movement and feminism, as ―new‖ because such movements are not class-based. One of the central themes that run through diverse new social movement theories is the conception that new social movements challenge institutionalized politics as the terrain of social change (Della Porta and Diani 1999: 11-13). New social movement theorists often contend that identity and the symbolic construction of a collective is neither a by-product nor a precursor of rational action; rather, the symbolic construction of collective identity itself is often taken as a challenge to the dominant order (Gamson 2004: 336-7).
As discussed in the Introduction, this thesis employs the particular concept of
framing as the rationale for its research question and strategy. The concept of framing
posits that one of the principle activities social movement organization (SMO)
participants engage in is portraying SMO goals in such a way that they resonate with the target audience public (Snow et al, 1997). In a process of ―frame alignment,‖ SMOs try to communicate grievances to the target audience by appropriating and deploying cultural codes and symbols in such a way that members of the public come to see that the SMO possesses a viable way of addressing the problem that the SMO has articulated (Della Porta and Diani 1999: 69-77). Both the structuralist and constructivist paradigms introduced above have incorporated the concept of framing (Goodwin and Jasper 2004: vii-viii and 3-5). This incorporation has tended to come in the form of an
acknowledgement that individuals must necessarily undergo processes of interpretation for any objective opportunity or resource to be seen as such (cf. Gould 2004). Benford
and Snow (2000) argue that framing is an everyday process of group interaction. More specifically, it is an active and ongoing practice that involves communication, negotiation and perhaps disagreement between members of the SMO about what are the best ways to articulate the SMO‘s goals to its target audiences. Snow and Benford state the rationale behind their development of framing analysis thus:
we sought to specify the relationship between belief systems and framing activities – for example, how various characteristics of belief systems constrain the production of meaning and thus can affect the mobilizing potency of framings. [...] In short, our objective was to attempt to specify the interactive processes by which frames are socially constructed, sustained, contested, and altered, the phenomenological and infrastructural constraints on those processes, and the consequences of these processes for aspects of mobilization. (2000: 3-4)
While this thesis keeps the above concept of framing as an orientation to its research, it is worthwhile to pursue the literature a little further, as doing so reveals two related factors that must be considered. One is the concept of ideologies, which is often taken up in tandem with the concept of framing. The other is the rationale Mayer N. Zald (2000b) gave for his proposal that ideologies be considered as central to social movement theory.
A debate in a 2000 issue of Mobilization centered around the questions: what is signified by ―ideologies‖?; what is the relationship between ideologies and framing?; and what is the use of these distinctions for understanding society? Mayer N. Zald (2000a), who co-authored a paper that established resource mobilization theory as a central paradigm in social movement theory (McCarthy and Zald, 1977), argued that ideologies should be considered as a central feature in the way that social movement organizations (SMO) mobilize resources. That is, ideologies, which he takes as containing ―views of what is wrong with the world and how to make it right‖ (Zald, 2000a: 5), should be seen
as influencing the specific tactics SMO employ when recruiting adherents and engaging with political authorities. Zald offers up this view as a ―corrective‖ to what he perceives as the sociology of social movement‘s ―over-identification with protest events‖ (ibid.: 13). In other words, employing the concept of ideologies is a way of trying to integrate theories of culture with resource mobilization analysis.
Echoing this view in his response to Zald (2000a), Mario Diani (2000) points out that social movement theory is somewhat closed and inward looking, and as a now-established as a subfield of sociology it should make more effort to engage across
disciplines. Addressing Zald‘s (2000) concept of ideology, Diani argues that to get out of the current ―stalemate‖ (of being a closed, self-referencing subfield), social movement theory needs to incorporate theories of culture from across disciplinary boundaries. But he is wary of Zald‘s argument for the centrality of ideology, in part, because of the risk of ―conflating culture to the set of structured principles and values which one usually
associates with ideology‖ (Diani, 2000: 19). Diani argues that the danger in treating ideologies as central is that it may lead to a focus on social movements as entities, instead of on the cultural processes that social movements are part of. As an alternative, he puts forward a ―relational‖ concept of social movements that considers them as networks of relations configured through members‘ mutual recognition of a collective identity. ―Then we have a social movement process in motion instead of a social movement as a specific empirical object‖ (ibid.: 22). This focus on the social relations guards against taking ideology ―for granted‖ and ―using it as a starting point for an analysis of movement actors and behaviour‖ (ibid.: 22-3).
Zald (2000b: 35) responded to Diani‘s relational concept by arguing that: (1) such a relational concept of networks is ill-equipped to deal with ―institutional logics,‖ such as SMO standing in government tax policy; and (2) it cannot account for ―deeper cultural analyses that are necessary when we try to see how ideologies develop and are
embedded.‖ In his response to Diani, Zald makes clear that his intention in putting ideology forward as a key component of social movement theory was to try to
accommodate philosophical, theoretical and phenomenal developments that have arisen outside of Western sociology of social movement theory:
As an ongoing epistemic community, so far the social movement/collective action community has not engaged with the lessons to be learned from debates in
philosophy of science and in the social studies of science. We cite Kuhn, but superficially; we do not cite Rorty, nor Latour, nor Pickering, and on and on. Most of us proceed in a standard logical positivist mode—abstract definitions and concepts are developed into propositions, tied through implicit or explicit
procedures and rules to observational languages and hence to the world. We have not recognized enough that our concepts are formed not in a deductive manner detached from the history of concept formation and object definition, but in an abductive [sic] process in which concepts and practices of research and
observation interact to generate concepts and practices over time. (2000b: 32) As well as framing analysis, there are two themes here that are important for this thesis. Firstly, this thesis takes Diani‘s point that the concept of ideology, as it has been used in social movement theory, can come perilously close to ―black-boxing‖ processes and assigning them agency (Jasanoff, 2004: 20). Even with the proviso that ideologies are socially constructed products of practical activity (Snow and Benford, 2000), ideologies remain things that can be counted, sorted, and catalogued. In this way, the concept of ideologies is in danger of always already establishing the limit on the shape of the public-political field. The second theme that is important for this thesis is stated plainly in the above excerpt (Zald, 2000b: 32): knowledge is constructed through regional social
processes, not through gaining access to some universal Truth, and this finding needs to be accounted for in theories of collective action. But, however remarkable Zald‘s reworking of ideology and social movements is in this regard, it remains bound by the limits indicated by the first theme just mentioned: the fact that ―ideologies‖ refer to distinct entities. But as Zald (2000b) himself indicates, perhaps incorporating social studies of science, or S&TS, can enable a more dynamic and powerful understanding of the cultural forces that undergird social movement activity. One school of thought in S&TS proceeds from the premise that the scientific understandings operational in policy circles are co-produced through complex matrices comprised of (but not limited to) social interactions involving scientific and non-scientific communities (Jasanoff and Wynne, 1998; Jasanoff, 2004; Wynne, 2003; Sismondo, 2003). In this view, the ways in which science and society are stabilized and taken as normal can be subjected to scrutiny. ―[The co-production idiom] sweeps back into the analyst‘s field of vision connections between natural and social orders that disciplinary conventions often seek to obliterate, thereby doing injustice to the complexity as well as the strangeness of human experience‖ (Jasanoff, 2004: 42). It would seem that Jasanoff is offering precisely what Zald (2000b) is asking for: an approach to studying the world that is not bound by disciplinary dictates and that can accurately analyse the social forces involved in the stabilization of such concepts as ―nature‖ and ―society‖ that may hide the workings of power. However, incorporating S&TS means abandoning the concept of ideologies, because as mentioned above, ―ideologies‖ tends to refer to already established entities. The deletion of the concept of ideologies by S&TS and its focus on singular events or issues deconstructs the normative framework offered by social movement theory. A concern with the dissolution
of a framework that can offer normative cultural understandings can be read above in Zald‘s (2000b) second objection to Diani‘s (2000) ―relational‖ concept of social movement organizations. As mentioned in the Introduction, this thesis takes up radical phenomenology as a theoretical framework to provide a horizon in which singular events can be situated. Radical phenomenology is discussed in the Theory chapter; next we turn to S&TS literature to see what specific contributions can be made there.
Science and Technology Studies: Investigation into the Co-production of Knowledge of Climate Change
I want to achieve two broad goals with the remainder of this chapter. The first goal is to sketch in selected empirical elements that appear in the public-political sphere in which the Sierra Club of Canada – B.C. Chapter (SCBC) and the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF) are operating. The first three empirical elements that I treat are: (1) Hansen et al‘s (2007b) account of sea level rise; (2) the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s (IPCC) recent statement regarding rapid ice sheet disintegration (IPCC 2007e); and, (3) the presence of a conservative American countermovement funding climate sceptics (McCright and Dunlap, 2001, 2003). I posit that these elements can
potentially be engaged with by DSF, SCBC and, as seen in the nexus of text surrounding
the Times-Colonist (Bell, 2006: A1) article discussed in the Introduction, the journalists, politicians, scientists, and lay individuals who are also articulating understandings of climate change in this public-political sphere. The second goal of the remainder of this chapter is to explore the insight constructivist critiques within the sociology of science, or
S&TS, literature shed on the boundaries drawn between science and politics. Such
critiques trouble the assertion that clear delineations can be drawn between the two. Some of the studies in this vein examine the relationship between scientists and policymakers (Shackley and Wynne, 1996; Shackley et al, 1998; Demeritt, 2001) and provide a specific example of instances in which social process and relations come to influence
authoritative conceptions of climate change. The purpose of introducing this literature is not to suggest that these process take place in a similar way outside of the specific site treated by the literature; rather, it is to explore one of the ways in which some
conceptions of climate change are accorded a ―social authority‖ (Yearley, 1995) through their association with science. This then relates to the first goal stated above: I take the ―social authority‖ of science put forward by Yearley (1995) as another element in the public-political sphere SCBC and DSF are operating within.
The purpose of both the above goals is to explore what is at play in the disjuncture between scientific understandings and calls for action that take science as an authoritative ground. Clearly this thesis cannot fill in all the empirical elements that appear in the public-political field SCBC and DSF operate in, so it must be selective. It seems necessary to treat is the IPCC, which has been described as ―widely accepted as representing an authoritative scientific consensus‖ (Harrison, 2004: 109). The IPCC 2
often figures prominently in public and academic textual accounts of the history of climate change science and policy (c.f. Weart, 2003; Monbiot, 2006; Flannery, 2005;
2
The IPCC, which is sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World
Meteorological Organization, contains three Working Groups that focus on different areas. Working Group I: ―The Physical Science Basis‖; Working Group II: ―Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability‖; and Working Group III: ―Mitigation of Climate Change.‖ At the time this thesis was written, the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) was in the process of being released. A ―Summary for Policymakers‖ was released by all three Working Groups, but only Working Group I had released a full report (which contained 980-plus pages). See http://www.ipcc.ch/.
