Climate, Science and Society

Zeke Baker is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University, USA. His research investigates how changes in climate knowledge relate to political dynamics, especially over the historical long term, in the United States and comparative contexts. Tamar Law is a PhD student at Cornell University in Development Studies and holds an MPhil in Human Environmental Geography from the University of Oxford. Her research in the United States and Southeast Asia examines the knowledge and land politics of climate adaptation and mitigation, centering questions of climate justice. Mark Vardy is a faculty member of the Criminology Department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Canada. He is interested in drawing from STS to contribute to discussions of climate justice in green criminology. Stephen Zehr is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Southern Indiana, USA. His past research focused on climate change scientific expertise and its representation in the media. He is currently researching maple syrup producers and their adaptation to technological changes, climate change, and labor supply and allegiances.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Zeke Baker, Tamar Law, Mark Vardy, and Stephen Zehr

PART I: Climate Change Science as a Social Issue: Introduction

Zeke Baker

1: Future Times and Spaces: Tracing Objectivity, Scale, and Politics in the Social Life of Climate Science

Zeke Baker

2: Meteorology, Climate Science, and Empire: Histories and Legacies

Martin Mahony

3: Rethinking Our Histories and Relations with Climate Change

Candis Callison

PART II: Theorizing Climate, Science, and Society: Introduction

Stephen Zehr

4: We Cannot Afford Not to Perform Constructionist Studies of Mainstream Climate Science

Myanna Lahsen

5: Political Economies of Climate Science: Beyond Technological Villains and Scientific Saviors

Zeke Baker

PART III: Media and Public Communication about Climate Change: Introduction

Stephen Zehr

6: Climate Change Communication: Simple, Right?

Stephen Zehr

7: Public Communication and Perceptions of Climate Change in Brazil

Eloisa Beling Loose and Anabela Carvalho

8: News and Social Media Imagery of Climate Change: Analyzing the Role and Impact of Visuals in Public Communication

Mike S. Schäfer and Xiaoyue Yan

PART IV: NGOs, Civil Society, and Social Movements: Introduction

Mark Vardy

9: Non-Governmental Organizations and the Environmental Movement: Challenges in Climate Change Framing

Steven Yearley

10: Expert Activists and NGOs: Understanding and Acting on Global Climate Change

Adam Fleischmann

11: Skirting the Frame: Prepping and the Conservative Politics of Climate Change

Allison Ford

PART V: Climate Justice: Introduction

Tamar Law

12: Postcards from Small Town India: Situated Climate Justice, Science, and Technology

Ankit Bhardwaj

13: Solar Affordances and the Struggle for Climate Justice in Southwest Asia

Kendra Kintzi

14: Upstream Engagement in the Era of Climate Change

Roopali Phadke

15: Climate Justice: Taking Back the Commons

Shangrila Joshi

PART VI: Climate Governance: Introduction

Mark Vardy

16: Climate Change as Ontological Unsettling: A View from the City

Hannah Knox

17: The IPCC as a Body of Expertise

Reiner Grundmann

18: Consensus, National Self-Interest, and the Shaping of Climate Knowledge in IPCC Assessment Processes

Mark Vardy

19: Trust at the Climate Science-Policy Interface

Tiago Ribeiro Duarte

PART VII: Energy, Sustainability, and Sociotechnical Transitions: Introduction

Stephen Zehr

20: Energy Transitions in a World of Polarized Politics

David J. Hess

21: Configuring Markets and Transactions for Energy System Transition: A Role for STS Research

Daniel Breslau

22: The Role of Users in the Energy Transition

Marianne Ryghaug, Tomas Moe Skjølsvold, and Robert Næss

23: STS and the Design of Futures

Clark A. Miller

PART VIII: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience: Introduction

Tamar Law

24: Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience: Sociotechnical and Knowledge Dimensions

Tim Forsyth

25: Rethinking Climate Change Adaptation

Marcus Taylor

26: Farming in Climate Crisis: Agricultural Adaptation(s) in Central New York State

Tamar Law

27: Climate Adaptation, Methodology, and the Case Study

Sarah E. Vaughn

PART IX: Art, Infrastructure, and Climate: Introduction

Mark Vardy

28: Amphibious Cities

Dominic Boyer

29: Aesthetic Encounters with the More-Than-Human

Désirée Förster

30: Averted Vision

Karolina Sobecka

PART X: Climate Engineering: Introduction

Zeke Baker

31: The Politics of Climate Engineering Research

Julia Schubert

32: The Intervention of Climate Science

Stefan Schäfer

33: Making the 1.5oC Aspirational Climate Target Tangible with Carbon Dioxide Removal and Boundary Work

Anders Hansson

34: Boundary Work in Solar Geoengineering Assessment and Experiments

Sean Low

PART XI: Climate Futures: Introduction

Zeke Baker

35: Futuring in Climate Politics: Activism and the Politics of the Imagination

Jeroen Oomen

36: The World Ocean and Climate Connectivities

Cymene Howe

37: From Controlling Global Mean Temperature to Caring for a Flourishing Climate

Andy Stirling

Index