Debating Climate Change: Pathways Through Argument to Agreement

As greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated and contentious voices fill the air, the question gains urgency: How can people with widely varying viewpoints agree to address climate change? Each participant in the debate seems to have a different agenda, from protecting economic growth in developing countries to protecting the energy industry in industrialized countries, from those aghast at the damage done to the Earth to optimists who think we just need to adjust our technological approach. Debating Climate Change sorts through the tangle of arguments surrounding climate change to find paths to unexpected sites of agreement. Using an innovative sociological approach - combined discourse and social network analyses - Elizabeth L. Malone analyzes 100 documents representing a range of players in this high-stakes debate. Through this she shows how even the most implacable adversaries can find common ground - and how this common ground can be used to build agreement. Written in a clear, accessible style, this original research and insightful use of communication analysis will help advance understanding and negotiation on climate change throughout the pivotal times to come. Published with Science in Society

Climate change may have begun as a scientific issue, but it is also a political issue, a manifestation of the problems associated with modernization, industrialism, capitalism and globalization. The climate change debate raises questions about whether global consensus or cooperation about the environment (or anything else) is possible, how the environment fits into and underlies the current ways people live their lives, and what counts as knowledge within the world system. As the world moves into a new era of international climate negotiations and increasing public awareness, understanding the complex debates and disagreements becomes ever more crucial so that ways forward can be found.

Debating Climate Change uses an innovative approach to the climate change debate, combined discourse and social network analyses, to examine how we talk about the issue in both scientific and non-scientific ways. Analyzing 100 documents, from top level climate scientists and international negotiators to energy company perspectives in the mass media, Elizabeth L. Malone illuminates all sides of the debate and finds agreement between varied and seemingly opposed parties. She then shows how we can build upon these areas of agreement to tackle climate change.

Written in a clear, accessible style, this original research and insightful use of communication analysis will help advance understanding and negotiation on climate change throughout the pivotal times to come.

Elizabeth L. Malone is a sociologist and Senior Research Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington and has been doing research on climate change as a dimension of human change for over a decade. She co-edited with Steve Rayner the four volume set 'Human Choice and Climate Change' (Battelle Press, 1998).