Climate Change and Artificial Doubt: Approaches to Reduce Misinformation

尽管气候科学家就气候变化的人为性质达成了压倒性的共识，但公众对这一现象的看法仍然充满不确定性，科学证据的有效性日益受到质疑。高度的怀疑态度，沿着气候科学不稳定的总体看法，可能会阻碍雄心勃勃的减缓政策的实施，特别是破坏其公认的合法性（Cook等人，2016; Ding Ding等人，2011年的情况; Tvinnereim和Jamelske，2016）一些学者认为，科学界和公众之间的这种“共识差距”不是一种自然发生的现象，而是精心策划的错误信息策略的结果（Freudenburg等人，2008; Lewandowsky等人，2015; Cook等人，2016年），污染和两极分化的气候变化的辩论，造成气候信徒和气候怀疑论者之间的深刻分歧（班宁，2009年）。在这种情况下，怀疑通常是在各种论坛，包括互联网，报纸和同行评议的文献制造（Niederer，2013年），噪音制造者特别是通过制造“垃圾科学”来产生怀疑（Michaels和Monforton，2005年），或者通过对不确定性与不确定性的不成比例的重视，削弱了对科学发现的整体信任（Supran和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，在气候政策中呈现出一种非常有趣的现象。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，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是真实的”（Eilperin，2017），以此作为政治不作为的理由。虽然这确实是一个不受欢迎的结果，但也可以得出结论，减少这种噪音可能会导致公众对当前气候科学的更大认可，从而对气候减缓政策提供更大的支持，最终加快监管进程（丁丁等人，2011年）。在不久的将来，这可能确实是一个有希望的自下而上的政治压力战略。因此，这个博士的主要目的。将阐明气候政策中噪音产生的复杂和多方面现象，最终目标是了解准确的知识本身如何成为参与性治理的一种形式，以及减少噪音如何成为未来自下而上政治压力的一种强大形式。

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.