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.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.