IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v12y2012i2p18-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Politicizing Environmental Science Does Not Mean Denying Climate Science Nor Endorsing It Without Question

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Forsyth

    (Tim Forsyth is Reader in Environment and Development at the London School of Economics and Political Science.)

Abstract

This paper argues that the resistance to climate science from so-called deniers cannot be explained by drawing an imaginary line between two fields of science and politics and then investigating each for malfunctions. Instead, there is a need to understand the co-evolution of scientific knowledge and political norms more holistically, and to identify how simple classifications of right and wrong reduce discussion about climate risks and policies. This paper makes three recommendations. First, the debate about climate denial is a question of how science and politics connect, rather than a moral choice in accepting or rejecting science. Second, different ideologies (including “deniers” or “acknowledgers”) will always make simplistic statements about climate science. Third, there is a need to open up the discussion of climate risks beyond one master statement that humans have caused global warming to consider how to reduce emissions and vulnerability, which can include industrialization in developing countries. © 2012 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Forsyth, 2012. "Politicizing Environmental Science Does Not Mean Denying Climate Science Nor Endorsing It Without Question," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 12(2), pages 18-23, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:12:y:2012:i:2:p:18-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/GLEP_a_00106
    File Function: link to full text PDF
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Olivia Gippner, 2016. "The 2 °C target: a European norm enters the international stage—following the process to adoption in China," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 49-65, February.
    2. Rolf Lidskog & Göran Sundqvist, 2015. "When Does Science Matter? International Relations Meets Science and Technology Studies," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-20, February.
    3. Anna Kukkonen & Tuomas Ylä-Anttila, 2020. "The Science–Policy Interface as a Discourse Network: Finland’s Climate Change Policy 2002–2015," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 200-214.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    climate denial; climate science; environmental politics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:12:y:2012:i:2:p:18-23. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.