Echo Chambers of Denial: Explaining User Comments on Climate Change

Although there is a broad consensus among scientists and journalists about the existence of anthropogenic climate change as a global problem, some segments of the population remain doubtful about the human impact on it. The internet provides citizens with opportunities to publicly voice their doubts and user comment sections of online media are a popular form of user-generated content. This study identifies factors that foster comments that are sceptical or supportive of basic assumptions of anthropogenic climate change, drawing on online news in the US, the UK, Germany, India, and Switzerland. The results show that users adapt to the dominant opinion within the respective media outlet: user comment sections serve as echo chambers rather than as corrective mechanisms. Climate change denial is more visible in user comment sections in countries where the climate change debate reflects the scientific consensus on climate change and user comments create niches of denial.     

Media and Climate Change: Four Long-standing Research Challenges Revisited

This paper suggests some further avenues of empirical and theoretical investigation for media research on climate change. “Old” suggestions, whose significance, as we see it, needs to be further reinforced, are included, as are “new” ones, which we hope will generate innovative research questions. In order to integrate the analysis with knowledge generated by media research at large, we revisit four research challenges that media scholars have long grappled with in the investigation of journalism: (1) the discursive challenge, i.e. the production, content and reception of media discourse; (2) the interdisciplinary challenge, i.e. how media research might engage in productive collaboration with other disciplines; (3) the international challenge, i.e. how to achieve a more diverse and complex understanding of news reporting globally; and (4) the practical challenge, i.e. how to reduce the theory–practice divide in media research.     

Exploring the Use of Online Platforms for Climate Change Policy and Public Engagement by NGOs in Latin America

The engagement of environmental non-governmental groups in collaborative communication efforts and decision-making about climate change remains a significant challenge. In Latin America, the website Intercambio Climático was set up to attempt to play a breakthrough role in the region's discussion of climate change. This case study focuses on the development, accomplishments, and challenges of this unique online communication initiative among non-governmental organizations working in climate change issues in Latin America with a US-based partner, as a vehicle to achieve their goals. We used secondary data and in-depth interviews to examine this platform's role in disseminating information and influencing decision-making. The results suggest that generally the participants perceive the website positively, but there are also problematic aspects of the collaboration that are not fully recognized by the members, which prevents a more functional and effective communication strategy.     

Global Journalism in Decision-Making Moments: A Case Study of Canadian and American Television Coverage of the 2009 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen

Climate change is a phenomenon with global causes but local effects, and thus global climate change decision-making moments provide ideal opportunities to examine how local and global discourses work together—or do not—through global journalism. This case study investigates the globally focused vs. culturally bound frames used in television news coverage, in Canada and the USA, of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Initial quantitative findings that Canadian media used many more culturally bound sources than did American media contradict the past findings and suggest Canadian media engaged less in producing global journalism than did American media. A follow-up qualitative analysis not only found more global framing in the American stories, but also concluded that global sources did not necessarily create global journalism; instead, a global orientation is required.     

Metaphors in Guardian Online and Mail Online Opinion-page Content on Climate Change: War,Religion, and Politics

In climate change-related media discourses metaphors are used to (re-)conceptualize climate change science as well as climate change mitigation/adaptation efforts. Using critical metaphor analysis, we study linguistic and conceptual metaphors in opinion-page content from the British online newspapers Guardian Online and Mail Online, while paying attention to the arguments they advance. We find that Guardian Online employed war metaphors to advance pro-climate change arguments. War metaphors were used to (1) communicate the urgency to act on climate change and (2) conceptualize climate change politics. Mail Online employed religion metaphors to furnish skeptic/contrarian arguments. Religion metaphors were used to (1) downplay the urgency to act on climate change and (2) conceptualize transitions from climate change belief to skepticism. These findings raise concerns about sustained policy gridlock and refute expectations about novelty in climate change-related media discourses (as both war and religion have a history of use).     

Democratic Debate and Mediated Discourses on Climate Change: From Consensus to De/politicization

Starting from a risk conflicts perspective, this article challenges two common assumptions of existing research on climate change in public and media discourses. It argues that the evaluation of these discourses on the extent to which these either accurately reflect a scientific consensus or contribute to achieving social consensus insufficiently takes account of the exclusionary mechanisms it starts from. A conceptual and empirical framework is subsequently put forward which allows one to evaluate mediated discourses in terms of the extent to which democratic debate and citizenship are encouraged. Such analysis can reveal the discursive strategies underlying processes of politicization and depoliticization. This perspective is illustrated by an analysis of a local case study: the “Sing for the Climate” campaign. We conclude by calling for a broad systematic research agenda revealing the extent to which de/politicizing discourses are found to influence public and media discourses.     

It is Always Dry Here: Examining Perceptions about Drought and Climate Change in the Southern High Plains

ABSTRACT

Drought is defined, experienced, and communicated about in multiple ways. This case study examines individual definitions of drought (timing, impacts, and severity) and attitudes about climate change. Household surveys (n?=?120) were conducted in Cimarron County, Oklahoma and Union County, New Mexico using a stratified random sampling method to select farmers, ranchers, and town residents. Information about drought is primarily communicated between neighbors, friends, and family, as well as media and local governing agencies. Residents perceive the recent drought to be the worst drought on record, regardless of previous drought experiences. Residents reported widespread drought-related impacts on agriculture, environment, and society. Most residents see drought as cyclical and driven by natural causes, rather than human causes. We recommend adaptive drought communication engage more fully with identity, place, and history. Climate information should be presented in a relevant manner to diverse agricultural stakeholders with differing attitudes about climate change, management, and climate information.     

Strategic Framing of Climate Change by Industry Actors: A Meta-analysis

This study uses framing theory to analyze 38 studies on industry actors' climate change communication between 1990 and 2010. It identifies three consecutive phases, each characterized by one dominant master frame: in the early and mid-1990s the US fossil fuel and coal industry pushed the frame of scientific uncertainty. With the rundown to the Kyoto negotiations in 1997, the strategy shifted toward the socioeconomic consequences of mandatory emission reductions, particularly in the USA and Australia. At the same time, European industry actors started to promote industrial leadership in a climate protection, which today dominates across all the world regions. The study discusses potential triggers for the regional differences as well as the implications for further research.     

Ecolinguistics,GIS, and Corpus Linguistics for the Analysis of the Rosemont Copper Mine Debate

This article details an integration of geographical information system (GIS) and corpus linguistics (CL) techniques for an ecolinguistic analysis of a contentious, environmental debate in Arizona, USA. The application of GIS and CL procedures enabled the mapping of place name mentions present within two interest group corpora as well as the mapping of particular meanings and representations of specific places prominent in the debate, that is, maps representing both places and the discursive representations of those places were produced. The corpus-aided analysis and the GIS visualizations exhibit how different interest groups refer to and represent geographical places within their texts and how these references to and representations of places index ideological positions towards the mine and the environment. This integrated CL–GIS approach to the study of environmental discourse provides insights into the discursive representation of place and the importance that references to places serve within environmental discourse. The article briefly discusses the ecolinguistics framework underpinning the work, explains the GIS–CL approach, displays and interprets corpus findings and GIS visualizations, and details implications for additional GIS–CL research for environmental discourse.     

Media Representations of Climate Change: A Meta-Analysis of the Research Field

A flurry of studies in recent years has analyzed the role of media in climate change communication. This article provides a systematic, large-scale, and up-to-date overview of the objects and characteristics of this research field through a meta-analysis. It identifies 133 relevant studies and analyzes them empirically. The results show that research activity has risen strongly over time, and that the analytical spectrum has expanded to include an increasing number of countries, more types of media including online and social media, and different methodological approaches. The analysis also demonstrates, however, that scholarship in the field still concentrates strongly on Western countries and print media.     

企业管理人员气候变化意识的统计分析

本文首先总结了气候变化意识的定义和内涵,认为气候变化意识包括对气候变化的原因、影响和应对措施等问题的认知和应对气候变化的行为意愿两部分.其次基于问卷调查的数据,统计了企业管理人员对气候变化问题的认知和应对气候变化的行为意愿的各项问题的得分率.在气候变化的认知方面,受访者对于气候变化的原因的认知水平比较低,对于气候变化的全球协议和中国政策的认知水平非常低,对于气候变化的原因和减缓气候变化的措施的认知水平比较高,对于适应气候变化的各项措施的认知程度则有明显的差异;在应对气候变化的行为意愿方面,大多数受访者愿意在日常生活中采取行动减缓气候变化,也有大部分受访者认为企业是应对气候变化的主要利益相关方之一,企业应对气候变化的最主要的推动力是强制性的标准和法令的执行以及经济激励政策的引导,中国企业已经采取的应对气候变化的措施主要是节能减排取得了明显成效、淘汰了落后产能、开展了清洁生产及循环经济等.     

Between Guilt and Obligation: Debating the Responsibility for Climate Change and Climate Politics in the Media

ABSTRACT

The “common but differentiated responsibility” of developed and developing countries to mitigate climate change is a core principle of international climate politics—but there is disagreement about what this “differentiated responsibility” amounts to. We investigate how newspapers in developed countries (Australia, Germany, United States) and emerging economies (Brazil, India) covered this debate during the UN climate summits in 2004, 2009, and 2014. Newspapers in both types of countries attributed more responsibility to developed than to developing countries. In line with social identity theory, however, media in developed countries attributed less causal responsibility (blame) to other developed countries than media in emerging economies. The latter countries’ media, in turn, attributed less responsibility to other developing countries than media in developed countries. At the same time, in line with the “differentiated responsibility”, media in developed countries attributed more responsibility to their own countries than media in emerging economies.     

Tipping Points and Climate Change: Metaphor Between Science and the Media

Over the past decade, scientists and journalists have prominently utilized the metaphor of a tipping point for drastic, irreversible and dangerous climate change. This paper shows how the tipping point metaphor became a multi-purpose bridge between science and the news media, describing how its meaning and use developed and diversified in interaction between these two domains. Within the scientific domain, the metaphor developed from a rhetorical device conveying a warning of drastic, irreversible and dangerous climate change to a theoretical concept driving empirical research. The news media soon picked up the tipping point metaphor for abrupt and dangerous climate change, turning it into a common part of the journalistic lexicon. Moreover, both science and the news media developed another, societal use of the tipping point metaphor, calling for radical societal change to avoid climate change catastrophe. The tipping point metaphor is hence not a monolithic notion but a highly versatile concept and expression, allowing it to be used for various communicative purposes by distinct stakeholders in different contexts.     

Climate capacity:the measurement for adaptation to climate change

This article proposed the concept of"climate capacity"as a way of measuring human’s adaptiveness to climate change.This article also focused on the related concepts like ecological carrying capacity,water resources carrying capacity,land carrying capacity as well as population carrying capacity.The concept of climate capacity was articulated against a background of global climate and environmental change.Essentially,China’s efforts to adapt to climate change was a matter of improving climate capacity,which is the ecosystem as well as the frequency,the intensity and the scale of human’s social activities that the climatic resources of a particular geographic area were supposed to support.The climate capacity has two components.One is the natural climate capacity,which includes temperature,sunlight,precipitation,extreme climatic events,etc.The other is the derived climate capacity,which includes water resources,land resources,ecological systems,climatic risks,etc.The climate capacity can be developed or be transferred between regions by taking engineering,technology or regime-based adaptive measures.However,these adaptive measures must be implemented under the principle of economic rationalism,ecological integrity,climate protection,and social justice.It is expected that by combining the climate capacity and its threshold value with the assessment of climate change risks,we are able to predict the optimal population carrying capacity and the scale of socioeconomic development,and furthermore,provide policy support for the socioeconomic development strategy and adaptive planning.In the regions with high climate capacity,there is a symbiotic relationship between adaptation and socioeconomic development.But,in the regions with limited climate capacity,irrational development may further damage the environment.Taking the Yangtze River delta,a region with high climate capacity,and a region of Ningxia,a region with limited climate capacity,as illustrative examples,the authors of this article analyzed the policy implications of climate capacity and further made suggestions on the problems of capacitylimited adaptation and development-driven adaptation.This article argued that the concept of climate capacity can not only be used as an analytical instrument of climate change economics,but also it can provide research support for planning regional adaptation and development with climate change impact and risk assessments.     

Nature Articulations in Norwegian Advertising Discourse: A Depoliticized Discourse of Climate Change

This article deals with how nature is articulated in public discourse and more specifically how humans’ relationship to nature is constructed via such articulations. Based on critical cultural analyses of ads presented in a Norwegian context, the article claims articulations of nature serve to a depoliticization of nature, which silence social differences and reduce environmental politics to individual moral action. Several rhetorical patterns of particular relevance to the articulation of nature are discussed, pointing out how disparate, sometimes conflicting, understandings of nature are rhetorically configured and aligned in ways that benefit a global market economy. There is a discursive distancing of nature and everyday life, even as nature remains valorized and very much central to national identity. This constrains citizens’ political engagement and undermines understandings of how to govern nature.     

中国生物多样性保护适应气候变化的对策

基于气候变化对生物多样性影响的总结分析,初步提出了我国生物多样性保护适应气候变化的对策。气候变化对生物物候、分布、迁移活动、群落结构、栖息地质量、生态系统和景观多样性都产生了一定影响,未来将产生更深刻的影响。我国生物多样性保护适应气候变化需要从物种有效保护、自然保护区规划与管理、灾害防御等方面进行。     

The Vandaclim Simulation Model: A Training Tool for Climate Change Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment

This paper describes a training course on climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment. The course, developed in partnership with the CC:TRAIN Programme of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), aims to enhance the capacity of developing countries to make their national communications to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The paper focuses on a simulation model called VANDACLIM, which was developed as a pedagogical tool to facilitate the training. Four sectors are modelled within VANDACLIM (agriculture, public health, water resources, and coastal zone) and are used as a basis for helping to conduct an integrated, multi-sectoral assessment for the imaginary, sub-tropical country of Vanda. The learning-by-doing approach, encapsulated in the application of VANDACLIM to complete a mini-assessment for Vanda, proved to be very successful when trialled at a training workshop in Zimbabwe. Both the training course and VANDACLIM have been adapted subsequently for application in small island states and plans are underway for extension to other environments and regions of the world.     

Meeting the Climate Change Challenge (MC3): The Role of the Internet in Climate Change Research Dissemination and Knowledge Mobilization

This paper explores the role that Internet and online technologies played in research dissemination and knowledge mobilization in a recent climate change research project, MC³. In addition, the team looked at the potential of online expert-practitioner research collaborations for these purposes. Electronic communication was seen as a key element for creating distributed networks essential to the project and for building new practitioner/research knowledge collaboratives. The paper discusses how online communication strategies and technologies were used for wide dissemination of its research outcomes. MC³'s research dissemination and knowledge mobilization strategies are analyzed, using engagement as the primary measure, to gain insights on the effectiveness and challenges of using Internet-based tools for communicating climate change innovations and actions.     

中国在气候变化谈判资金机制演变进程中的挑战及应对

气候变化是当今人类社会面临的最严峻的全球性环境挑战之一,气候变化谈判关乎各国在气候秩序中的权力与义务,涉及到各国经济发展的根本利益,已经成为国际政治博弈的新舞台.根据联合国气候变化框架公约和巴厘路线图精神,发达国家应承担起历史责任,向发展中国家提供新的、额外的、可持续的、可预测的资金支持,帮助其应对气候变化的不利影响.但是,由于发达国家缺乏履行公约义务的政治诚意,长期以来在资金问题上同发展中国家展开了艰苦的斗争.哥本哈根会议后,全球应对气候变化资金呈现出资金来源多样化,资金规模逐渐缩水,资金治理机制对发达国家出资约束力近一步降低的趋势.各利益集团围绕资金机制谈判展开激烈博弈,欧盟与美国正在逐步突破“共同但有区别的责任”原则,争夺气候变化谈判领导权并力图将我国拉入出资国之列,发展中国家阵营逐步分化为“基础四国”、“小岛屿国家”、“最不发达国家”等,保持共同立场难度日渐增大.尽管绿色气候基金在德班会议后正式启动,若无资金注入,也只能为未来资金机制谈判带来不确定性.面对上述形势,我国应坚持公约基本原则,坚持发展中国家定位,加强综合研究及前瞻性判断,以积极的姿态和务实的态度参与应对气候变化的国际谈判,以争取自身的发展权益,维护国家核心利益.同时,探索在当前发展阶段下发展低碳经济和建立低碳社会的路线图,不断提高减缓和适应气候变化的能力,实现自觉减排,为全球应对气候变化做出积极贡献.     

A Climate for Change: Millennials,Science and the Humanities

The rise and pervasiveness of post-truth and alternative facts posit fundamental questions for the current epistemic authority of scientific knowledge. In conjunction, complex and multi-scalar problems of the likes of climate change call for research that transcends traditional disciplinary silos, upon which much of that authority was built. As such, we call for a greater involvement of the humanities in environmental research and communication. We suggest that young researchers wishing to pursue academic careers (including ourselves) may be well-equipped to reconfigure and reconcile science and the humanities within the context of their PhDs and beyond – taking a frontline position in the constant struggle to overcome longstanding antagonisms between the scholarship of fact-finding and that of meaning-making. We do so by exploring examples – within academia and beyond – where those collisions have been successful, including the works of a millennial scientist/artist and a dystopian video game.