This paper addresses the representation of scientific uncertainty about global warming and climate change in the U.S. popular press. An examination of popular press articles about global warming from 1986 to 1995 reveals that scientific uncertainty was a salient theme. The paper describes several forms of uncertainty construction and means through which it was managed. I argue that scientific uncertainty was used to help construct an exclusionary boundary between “the public” and climate change scientists. This rhetorical boundary delegitimated lay knowledge by suggesting that the public did not hold appropriate reverence for scientific uncertainty and the need for more research.
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References
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My concern is not to identify some baseline state of uncertainty in science and compare it to popular press accounts, nor to distinguish among different sources of scientific uncertainty. Rather, it is with how scientific uncertainty is constructed and the implications of those constructions. This approach draws upon Stocking and Holstein, “Constructing and reconstructing scientific ignorance,” which clearly articulates the constructivist position on scientific ignorance.
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A slightly longer period of time was included for the popular press than the newspapers because of limitations in my searching tools for the latter.
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Ibid.
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Ibid.
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Ibid.
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Ibid.
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74.
This led to difficulties in bringing closure to the controversy because the problem kept expanding to new issues for which research was not yet completed. This practice is hardly new, as implied in Aronson's studies of nineteenth century American nutrition scientists who defined the “labor problem” as a matter of proper nutrition and economy of workers. N. Aronson, “Nutrition as a social problem: a case study of entrepreneurial strategy in science,”Social Problems29 (1982): 474-487.
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77.
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R. Monastersky , “Haze clouds the greenhouse,”Science News141 (11 April 1992): 232-233.
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Smith , writing for Business Week, highlighted a lowered estimate range for future global warming.
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E. T. Smith , “Global warming: the debate heats up,”120.
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R. Jastrow , “Letter to the Editor,”Science247 (5 January 1990): 15.
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Usually in quotes from Stephen Schneider.
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and J. A. Ahladas, “Global warming: fact or science fiction?”Vital Speeches of the Day55 (1 April 1989): 381-384, for very similar examples.
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B. L. Campbell , “Uncertainty as symbolic action in disputes among experts.”
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T. Atlas , “Lacking direction from Washington, Missouri plots global warming course,”Chicago Tribune (4 June 1992): C, 18.
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and C. L. Harper Jr., “Time to phase out fossil fuels,”Wall Street Journal (26 December 1995), for other good examples.
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M. T. Wald , “Watkins defends policy on warming,”The New York Times (9 February 1990): A, 16.
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B. V. Lewenstein , “Public understanding of science.”
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T. F. Gieryn , “Boundaries of science.”
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W. K. Stevens , “Global warming: search for the signs,”The New York Times (29 January 1991): C, 1.
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S. Shackley and B. Wynne, “Representing uncertainty in global climate change science and policy.”
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J. K. Lazo , J. Kinnell, T. Bussa, A. Fisher, and N. Collamer, “Expert and lay mental models of ecosystems: inferences for risk communication,”Risk: Health, Safety and Environment10 (1999): 45-64.
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Ibid., 214.
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Ibid.
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S. H. Stocking , “On drawing attention to ignorance,”Science Communication20 (1998): 165-178.
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See R. D. Lipschutz, Global Civil Society and Global Environmental Governance: The Politics of Nature from Place to Planet (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996) for more extensive discussion of this issue.
