Friday, August 25, 2017
LCT Roundtable
Title: Constellations of Scepticism: Contesting Climate Science with Hyper-Knowledge Codes
Mathew Toll, PhD Candidate, LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building
Abstract: Report after report assessing climate science details a growing mountain of evidence that climate change is indeed happening and that it is human caused. Considering this: how do climate sceptics maintain their scepticism? What can the LCT concept of constellations reveal about their belief systems and inform strategies of engagement with climate sceptics? This roundtable will employ constellations analysis to three central climate sceptic blogs and propose an extreme form of knowledge code that impedes knowledge-building. The climate sceptic blogosphere is a key venue for the development and distribution of climate misinformation. Recent political events have underscored the importance of understanding how climate denial is cultivated and legitimated online. Malcom Robert’s maiden speech to the Australian Senate, for instance, acknowledged the contribution to the public debate made by climate sceptic bloggers. While in the U.S. the election of Donald Trump has seen a concern with a new ‘post-truth’ politics online and an embracing of climate denial.
Rather than a rejection of truth or science, central climate sceptic blogs position themselves as ‘auditors’ of climate science and demand technical competence as the basis of legitimacy, while the presence of any social features that deviate from an idealized conception of scientists is condemned. They therefore construct a form of knowledge code that establishes idealized – and potentially unattainable – standards of legitimate knowledge and knowers which provide a basis to contest knowledge without providing alternative explanatory power. Climate sceptics construct a constellation in which climate scientists are alarmist who fail to meet the norms of science, while climate sceptics defend these displaced norms with a hyper-knowledge code.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
A short Goodreads Review of Sun and Steel by Yukio Mishima that I wrote a little while ago. I have to say – I do not quite get the adorat... -
The emergence and consolidation of the Tokugawa Bakufu between 1600 and 1603 marked the end of continual military conflict, which had en... -
At the dawn of the 20th century large colonial powers had carved up the world between themselves. ‘Core’ zones were marked by their lev... -
The relationship between the indigenous people of Australia and their native lands are essential to their traditional culture. The coloni... -
Western Marxism has often laid considerable stress upon the ideology of modern capitalist societies. This focus upon ideology stems from ... -
During a lecture before the Eugenics Society in 1937, British economist John Maynard Keynes stated that “a greater cumulative increment... -
“That was the gift of the French. They gave Americans a language they did not need. It was like the Statue of Liberty. Nobody needs French ... -
In the 1832 Report of the Colebrooke Commission , Mr. C.H. Cameron outlined his view that Ceylon represented: “the fittest spot in our Ea... -
The role and significance of sub-cultural style and its relationship to mainstream culture, moreover its political connotations have bee... -
“[A]nd each day hundreds of new orphans, Arabs and French, awakened in every corner of Algeria, sons and daughters without fathers who w...
