Abstract:In this study, we review work which seeks to understand and interpret the place of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) within the science and politics of climate change in the context of a post-Paris polycentric governance regime and the culture of "post-truth" politics. Focusing on studies of how the IPCC has sought to maintain a boundary between the scientific and the political, we offer an historical account of "boundary work" within the IPCC which is instructive for thinking, in an anticip… Show more
“…Perhaps the only consistency across the climate change discourse is recognition that current approaches are not having the impact that climate experts believe is needed (IPCC, ). Given the failure of existing educative efforts (Wolf & Moser, ), there is need to extend consideration to include how experts' contribute to the making of allegedly inactive publics (Cornes & Cook, ; Cornes, Cook, Satizábal, & Melo Zurita, in press; Kamstra, Cook, Edensor, & Kennedy, ), which requires including experts and their boundary making as part of publics' (non)responsiveness (Beck & Mahony, ; Waterton, ). As Brian Wynne has argued“until a social agent, collective or individual [i.e., climate expert], is able to place their own ‘self’ into the frame of questioning in interaction with others, it will not be in a position to genuinely hear those others, because it is instead determinedly if inadvertently imposing its own projections of the imagined other into the inauthentic ‘listening’ relationship” (Wynne, , p. 219).As part of an expert‐inclusive review, there is need to explore the values that experts hold but are reticent to admit or negotiate (Davies, ; O'Brien, ; Oreskes, ).…”
Section: Behavior Change: Whose Behavior and How To Change?mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…With that research in mind, attacks on the deficit model represent attacks on experts. Recognizing these personally held feelings, as well as the underlying values, is critical for a reflexive reconsideration of expert boundary maintenance in the context of climate change (Beck & Mahony, ; O'Brien, ). As Lövbrand and Öberg (, p. 195) argue,“it is necessary to instigate a reflexive and philosophically informed discussion about the situated and provisional nature of scientific advice in environmental policy‐making among scientists themselves and those making use of scientific results.”In response, climate experts who accept the minimal impact of information transfer—coupled with its potential boomerang effects and the sophisticated ways that all individuals filter received information—require approaches that extend beyond publics already disposed to their messages (Howell et al, ) to include publics who, for any reason, may be resistant.…”
Section: Conclusion: the Expert's Dilemmamentioning
This review is written for climate experts dissatisfied with current approaches for contributing to societal responses to climate change via their interactions with publics. We review the origins and contemporary manifestations of the deficit model, showing that it is the underlying basis for how experts imagine and conduct their interactions with publics. Rather than simply raising awareness among experts concerning their role(s) in perpetuating the deficit model, we use experts and their assumptions to organize our synthesis. Our review will challenge climate experts by demonstrating that educative approaches are inadequate if their goal is to influence behavior by publics. We demonstrate that experts' prevailing means of contributing to socioscientific controversies are crippled, not by public indifference or ignorance, but by experts' allegiance to the assumption that information transfer can prompt behavior change. The transfer of climate experts' knowledge by itself has little chance of changing publics' behaviors. It may be that such approaches work with people already disposed to the information or who defer to experts, but it is unlikely to affect publics who are doubtful, those whose livelihoods are precarious, or those who do not want to consider the terrifying implications of climate change. We propose relationship building as an alternative that can avoid resuscitating the deficit model and its inherent problems. We argue that, to have the impacts that they are seeking, experts will need to negotiate their ends honestly, admit the values driving those ends, and coproduce the means that can accomplish the collaboratively chosen ends.
This article is categorized under:
Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication
Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge
“…Perhaps the only consistency across the climate change discourse is recognition that current approaches are not having the impact that climate experts believe is needed (IPCC, ). Given the failure of existing educative efforts (Wolf & Moser, ), there is need to extend consideration to include how experts' contribute to the making of allegedly inactive publics (Cornes & Cook, ; Cornes, Cook, Satizábal, & Melo Zurita, in press; Kamstra, Cook, Edensor, & Kennedy, ), which requires including experts and their boundary making as part of publics' (non)responsiveness (Beck & Mahony, ; Waterton, ). As Brian Wynne has argued“until a social agent, collective or individual [i.e., climate expert], is able to place their own ‘self’ into the frame of questioning in interaction with others, it will not be in a position to genuinely hear those others, because it is instead determinedly if inadvertently imposing its own projections of the imagined other into the inauthentic ‘listening’ relationship” (Wynne, , p. 219).As part of an expert‐inclusive review, there is need to explore the values that experts hold but are reticent to admit or negotiate (Davies, ; O'Brien, ; Oreskes, ).…”
Section: Behavior Change: Whose Behavior and How To Change?mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…With that research in mind, attacks on the deficit model represent attacks on experts. Recognizing these personally held feelings, as well as the underlying values, is critical for a reflexive reconsideration of expert boundary maintenance in the context of climate change (Beck & Mahony, ; O'Brien, ). As Lövbrand and Öberg (, p. 195) argue,“it is necessary to instigate a reflexive and philosophically informed discussion about the situated and provisional nature of scientific advice in environmental policy‐making among scientists themselves and those making use of scientific results.”In response, climate experts who accept the minimal impact of information transfer—coupled with its potential boomerang effects and the sophisticated ways that all individuals filter received information—require approaches that extend beyond publics already disposed to their messages (Howell et al, ) to include publics who, for any reason, may be resistant.…”
Section: Conclusion: the Expert's Dilemmamentioning
This review is written for climate experts dissatisfied with current approaches for contributing to societal responses to climate change via their interactions with publics. We review the origins and contemporary manifestations of the deficit model, showing that it is the underlying basis for how experts imagine and conduct their interactions with publics. Rather than simply raising awareness among experts concerning their role(s) in perpetuating the deficit model, we use experts and their assumptions to organize our synthesis. Our review will challenge climate experts by demonstrating that educative approaches are inadequate if their goal is to influence behavior by publics. We demonstrate that experts' prevailing means of contributing to socioscientific controversies are crippled, not by public indifference or ignorance, but by experts' allegiance to the assumption that information transfer can prompt behavior change. The transfer of climate experts' knowledge by itself has little chance of changing publics' behaviors. It may be that such approaches work with people already disposed to the information or who defer to experts, but it is unlikely to affect publics who are doubtful, those whose livelihoods are precarious, or those who do not want to consider the terrifying implications of climate change. We propose relationship building as an alternative that can avoid resuscitating the deficit model and its inherent problems. We argue that, to have the impacts that they are seeking, experts will need to negotiate their ends honestly, admit the values driving those ends, and coproduce the means that can accomplish the collaboratively chosen ends.
This article is categorized under:
Perceptions, Behavior, and Communication of Climate Change > Communication
Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge
“…In the climate arena, scientists increasingly feel dispossessed of their tools and their use in the making of meaning. Hélène Guillemot () suggested that coproduction in this arena increasingly turned from science‐driven coproduction to policy‐driven coproduction (see also Beck & Mahony, ; Figueres et al, ).…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Just as unsettling are the complexities of politics. An ethos of serving society with knowledge about climate change, an ethos shared by many modelers, and one in which they have invested so much for almost three decades, appears foiled by disagreement over effective climate politics (Beck & Mahony, ; Schellnhuber, ). Why have the messages of climate scientists apparently failed to facilitate and fuel purposeful political action?…”
This commentary provides a critical account of Earth system modeling history. It argues that Earth system modeling is not simply a domain of science but also a form of politics. Earth system science carries the ideas and social and cultural norms of the peculiar historical eras in which it emerged and grew. Systems thinking and a strong belief in the power of modeling have its roots in the early Cold War era. When the Cold War era gave way to a time characterized by economic stagnation, social unrest, and rising environmentalism, climate science absorbed the new cultural trend of environmental concern, while retaining an optimism and enthusiasm in the modeling paradigm. The post‐1990s era reveals particularly clearly the political power that climate scientists unleashed. The modeling paradigm assumed hegemonic status, seized economic and social processes, and created not only scientific knowledge but also conceptions of political management of the Earth. The modeling paradigm, once a scientific strategy largely in the hands of scientists, has turned into a political agent in its own right, beyond the full control of the scientific community.
“…It is an open question if we should be optimistic or pessimistic about the effects of the politicization of science and scientization of politics. As the pressure mounts on the IPCC to perform more solution‐oriented assessments (S. Beck & Mahony, ; Haas, ), these developments require scholarly attention. While sociologists have work to do in shedding more light on the nature of the mutual processes of depoliticization of climate politics and the politicization of climate science, climate modelers are called to self‐critically look into this mirror that Sociology provides.…”
How can we understand climate change from a sociological perspective? In asking this question, we assume that Sociology has something to contribute to such an enterprise. The argument that we put forward is twofold: We argue that Sociology provides a much needed alternative to two dominant approaches that have influenced public discourse, behaviorist theories, mainly employed in Economics, and a belief in the centrality of science in policy making ("evidence first"), mainly entertained by physical scientists. We critically discuss both approaches, showing the limits of behaviorism and the linear model of policy making and provide an alternative framework, which emphasizes the role of social action, of organizations, and of structural differences between different social worlds. We then apply our framework to assess the role of evidence at the climate science-policy interface and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a boundary organization in particular. We argue that science and politics follow different logics and that the IPCC is simultaneously both more political and less policy relevant than its self-description as "policy-relevant, never policy prescriptive" tries to make us believe. We conclude that a depoliticization of politics by IPCC expert advice and a politicization of climate science occur simultaneously and mutually reinforce one another. The result is a lack of progress in climate policy as science has taken center stage but is unable to offer political solutions.
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