Cooling down the future: A discourse analysis of climate change skepticism

ABSTRACT

Beyond its physical nature, climate change is also a social artifact manufactured through discourses that organize social reality by the meanings and practices they entail. The aim of this paper was to investigate the social construction of Romanian science-skeptical discourses regarding climate change. Ten online articles uploaded between 2017 and 2019 were selected for analysis. Discourse analysis was employed as a research method in order to assess the interpretative repertoires employed in online accounts. Among the cultural resources enacted, time-related arguments are extensively used in skeptical interpretative repertoires. Temporal cyclicity of climate, formed of frequent, discontinued sequences throughout history, frames climate change as a form of historical continuity. Acknowledgment of climate change as a natural phenomenon and rejection of its anthropogenic character form another repertoire. Skepticism towards scientific claims is cultivated as a characteristic of noteworthy scientists. Political considerations and religious references are other cultural resources used in the skeptical discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• Temporal perspective
• Discourse analysis
• Skepticism
• Romania

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.