SOC433H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Scientific Literacy, Inuit, Scientific Consensus
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Lecture 7
Fact making and climate change politics
• Instead of asking why climate change doesn’t matter or doesn’t matter enough for Americans, or
how to improve and foster scientific literacy, this book is based on research that asks how, why,
and when climate change does come to matter, what that looks like, and what roles there are for
journalists, scientists, and social movement
• It attends to these debates not only as struggles “matters of fact” but also as debates about
meaning, ethics, and morality. Focused then on the role of social movements, advocacy, and
media coverage in the ways that “facts come to matter” for diverse publics.
• Fact making; scientists making facts and journalists report it and normalize it
3 other ways of fact making
• inuit groups
o the terminology of climate change is useful for seeing the impact of climate change
o they associate the terminology of climate change with middle class politics that is
occurring in the U.S
• science journalists
• Christian evangelical journalists
o Typically associated with conservative politics which are normally skeptical about
climate change
o How they are trying to change their perspective on climate change because it is about
shepharding gods creation (the earth)
• Talks about how different groups are worried about climate change and what they are doing about
it
• What are the challenges these groups are facing
• How does climate change comes to matter, focuses on why it is seen as important
Form of life (Wittgenstein)
• Describes the totality of communal activities
• Had to do with the sharing of communication and language
• The Culture within which language is created and how it affects thought
• Forms of life don’t include background assumptions that allow people to communicate efficiently
• We cannot communicate without making assumptions based in societies
• Much of the meaning of a conversation is based on the context in which this interaction takes
place
• Thus she seperates the groups beause they have different forms of life and different contexts
Vernaculars
• Common language, and common colloquialisms, slang
• Tend to be shared among a small isolated groups
• Different ways of thinking about or talking about climate change is rooted in the vernaculars
o The inuit talk a lot about the effects of climate change rather than the term climate change
The reality of climate change among Canadians
• Canadian averages and U.S temperatures are somewhat similar but there are large differences in
belief of climate change
• Over time more people in the US are believing in climate change
• University of Montreal survey of over 5,000 Canadians over the last five years. - 79 per cent of
Canadians do not doubt the reality of climate change, 39 per cent don't believe it is caused by
human activity.
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