Climate Change and Artificial Doubt: Approaches to Reduce Misinformation

气候变化和人为怀疑：减少错误信息的方法

• 批准号: 2126408
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2126408
• 关键词: Climate; Change; Artificial; Doubt; Approaches

Despite the existence of an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change public perceptions of the phenomenon are still dominated by uncertainty, and the validity of scientific evidence is increasingly questioned. High levels of skepticism, along with the overarching perception that climate science is unsettled, can provide a barrier to the implementation of ambitious mitigation policies, particularly by undermining their perceived legitimacy (Cook et al., 2016; Ding Ding et al., 2011; Tvinnereim and Jamelske, 2016) Several scholars have suggested that this 'consensus gap' between the scientific community and the general public is not a naturally occurring phenomenon, but rather, it is the result of carefully planned misinformation strategies (Freudenburg et al., 2008; Lewandowsky et al., 2015; Cook et al., 2016) that have contaminated and polarised the debate on climate change, creating a deep divide between climate believers and climate skeptics (Banning, 2009). In this scenario, doubt is normally manufactured in a variety of fora, including the internet, newspapers and peer-reviewed literature (Niederer, 2013), where noise-creators generate doubt particularly by producing 'junk- science' (Michaels and Monforton, 2005), or by placing disproportionate weight on the uncertainties vis-a-vis the certainties, weakening the overall trust in scientific findings (Supran and Oreskes, 2017). Today, the presence of this type of 'noise' aimed at constructing doubt in the public perception of climate change presents an extremely interesting phenomenon in climate policy. In fact, doubt can provide climate skeptics, partisan media outlets and policymakers a renewed vigour in arguing in favour of delays in climate change regulation. For example, U.S. President Donald Trump recently claimed that 'no one knows whether climate change is real' (Eilperin, 2017) as a justification for political inaction on the matter. While this is indeed an undesirable outcome, it also follows that reducing this noise could lead to a greater public buy-in of current climate science, with a consequent greater support for climate mitigation policies, ultimately speeding up the regulatory process (Ding Ding et al., 2011). This may indeed prove a promising bottom-up political pressure strategy for the near future. Thus, the main aim of this Ph.D. will be to shed light on the complex and multifaceted phenomenon of noise-creation in climate policy, with the final goal of understanding how accurate knowledge itself can be a form of participative governance, and how reducing noise could become a powerful form of bottom-up political pressure for the future.

尽管气候科学家对气候变化的人为性质存在压倒性的共识，但公众对这一现象的看法仍然充满不确定性，科学证据的有效性受到越来越多的质疑。高度的怀疑，加上认为气候科学尚未解决的普遍看法，可能会为雄心勃勃的缓解政策的实施提供障碍，特别是通过破坏其感知的合法性(库克等人，2016年；丁仃等人，2011年；特维内勒姆和贾梅尔斯克，2016年)几位学者提出，科学界和普通公众之间的这种“共识鸿沟”不是自然发生的现象，而是精心策划的错误信息战略的结果(Freudenburg等人，2008年；莱万多夫斯基等人，2015年；库克等人，2016)，污染和两极分化了关于气候变化的辩论，在气候支持者和气候怀疑者之间造成了深刻的分歧(班宁，2009)。在这种情况下，怀疑通常是在各种平台上制造的，包括互联网、报纸和同行评议的文献(尼德勒，2013)，在这些场合，噪音制造者产生怀疑，特别是通过制造“垃圾科学”(Michaels and Monforton，2005)，或者通过不成比例地给予不确定性相对于确定性的权重，削弱对科学发现的整体信任(Supran and Oreskes，2017)。今天，这种旨在对公众对气候变化的看法产生怀疑的“噪音”的存在，在气候政策中呈现了一个极其有趣的现象。事实上，怀疑可以为气候怀疑论者、党派媒体和政策制定者提供新的活力，让他们支持推迟气候变化监管。例如，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普最近声称，没有人知道气候变化是否真实存在(Eilperin，2017)，以此作为在这个问题上不采取政治行动的理由。虽然这确实是一个令人不快的结果，但减少这种噪音也可能导致公众更多地接受当前的气候科学，从而更多地支持气候缓解政策，最终加快监管进程(丁仃等人，2011年)。在不久的将来，这确实可能被证明是一种有希望的自下而上的政治施压策略。因此，这一博士学位的主要目的将是阐明气候政策中制造噪音的复杂而多方面的现象，最终目标是了解准确的知识本身如何成为参与式治理的一种形式，以及减少噪音如何成为未来自下而上的政治压力的一种强大形式。