Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Evaluating Arguments About Climate Change

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Perspectives on Scientific Argumentation

Abstract

Despite the overwhelming body of evidence showing that human activity is altering the global climate, debates about climate change are characterised by an enormous amount of uncertainty. Some of this uncertainty stems from the science itself: important questions about the extent and impact of climatic changes remain unanswered. More uncertainty arises from policy debates about what constitutes ‘dangerous’ climate change and what mitigation and adaptation measures will be required to prevent it. However, among ordinary members of the public, a substantial amount of uncertainty remains about the reality of human-caused climate change. Why is it that a significant proportion of international public opinion has not been persuaded by arguments about climate change? In this chapter, I will outline some possible answers to this question. With reference to analyses of popular climate change media narratives, empirical data on climate change argument evaluation and the first-hand experiences of climate change communication experts, I will examine the way that people evaluate arguments about climate change.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    That the experiment contrasted the prospect of people in Bangladesh losing their homes with people in the United Kingdom losing their homes does not indicate that the housing security of British citizens is of greater value than that of Bangladeshi citizens. Rather, it was an attempt to render the negative outcome not only more negative (in the sense that 10,000, rather than 1,000 people’s homes were at risk and in 5, rather than 50 years time), but also more relevant (based on the assumption that a typical 16–18-year-old British citizen has more empathy with the security of houses in their own country within the next 5 years than the security of houses in a foreign country within the next 50 years). Bangladesh was selected as a comparison country simply because as a geographically low-lying nation, it faces very real threats from rising sea levels attributable to human-caused climate change.

  2. 2.

    An additional difference between changing light bulbs and refraining from using aeroplanes (other than the magnitude of the sacrifice) is that they may impact on the prevention of the outcome in different ways. If people were to stop using aeroplanes, this would reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than swapping over to energy efficient light bulbs. This difference in the efficacy of the sacrifice is not present in the non-scientific argument – walking 2 minutes to the shop is no less effective as a method of buying batteries than walking 3 miles; it is simply more of a sacrifice. However, there are two indications that this potentially confounding effect does not seem to have influenced the outcome of the experiment. Firstly, if participants in the experiment were paying attention to this difference in efficacy, the arguments containing big sacrifices should have been rated as more compelling than the arguments containing small sacrifices. However, this was not the case. Secondly, no differences were observed in the impact of the level of sacrifice variable between the scientific and non-scientific arguments. It would seem, therefore, that participants treated the arguments as representing greater and lesser sacrifices, rather than more or less effective methods of avoiding the negative outcome.

References

  • Adams, S. (1999). Critiquing claims about global warming from the world wide web: A comparison of high school students and specialists. Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 19(6), 539–543.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. (2009). Psychology and global climate change: Addressing a multi-faceted phenomenon and set of challenges. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonnefon, J. F., & Hilton, D. J. (2004). Consequential conditionals: Invited and suppressed inferences from valued outcomes. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 30(1), 28–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bord, R. J., O’Connor, R. E., & Fischer, A. (2000). In what sense does the public need to understand global climate change? Public Understanding of Science, 9, 205–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bows, A., Upham, P., & Anderson, K. (2005). Growth scenarios for EU & UK aviation: Contradictions with climate policy. Report for Friends of the Earth Trust Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boykoff, M. (2007). Flogging a dead norm? Media coverage of anthropogenic climate change in United States and United Kingdom, 2003–2006. Area, 39(4), 470–481.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • British Broadcasting Corporation. (2010). BBC Climate Change Poll – February 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2010, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/05_02_10climatechange.pdf

  • Budescu, D. V., Broomell, S., & Por, H. (2009). Improving communication of uncertainty in the reports of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Psychological Science, 20, 299–308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, C., & Pidgeon, N. (2009). Media communications and public understanding of change – reporting scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. In T. Boyce & J. Lewis (Eds.), Climate change and the media (pp. 43–58). New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, H. M., & Evans, R. (2007). Rethinking expertise. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooper, J., & Fazio, R. H. (1984). A new look at dissonance theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 229–266). New York: Academic.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbett, J. B. & Durfee, J. L. (2004). Testing public (un)certainty of science: Media representations of global warming. Science Communication, 26, 129–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner, A., & Hahn, U. (2009). Evaluating scientific arguments: Evidence, uncertainty & argument strength. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 15(3), 199–212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner, A., & Hahn, U. (2010). Message framing, fallacy & normative advocacy. Argumentation, 24(2), 153–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corner, A., Hahn, U., & Oaksford, M. (2006). The slippery slope argument: Probability, utility and category boundary re-appraisal. In Proceedings of the 28th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 1145–1151). Vancouver: Cognitive Science Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Corner, A., Whitmarsh, L., & Xenias, D. (in press). Trust, uncertainty and attitudes towards climate change. Climatic Change.

    Google Scholar 

  • Defra. (2008). A framework for pro-environmental behaviours. Retrieved January 8, 2010, from http://www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/social/behaviour/documents/behaviours-jan08-report.pdf

  • de Vries, N., Ruiter, R., & Leegwater, Y. (2002). Fear appeals in persuasive communication. In: G. Bartels & W. Nelissen (Eds.), Marketing for sustainability: Towards transactional policy making (pp. 96–104). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: IOS Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doran, P. T., & Zimmerman, M. K. (2009). Examining the scientific consensus on climate change. EOS, Transactions American Geophysical Union, 90(3), 22–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M., & Wildavsky, A. (1982). Risk and culture: An essay on the selection of technological and environmental dangers. Berkley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunlap, R., & McCright, A. M. (2008). A widening gap: Republican and democratic views on climate change. Environment, 50(5), 26–35.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, W. (1961). Behavioural decision theory. Annual Review of Psychology, 12, 473–498.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, S. M., Dunwoody, S., & Rogers, C. L. (Eds.). (1999). Communicating uncertainty: Media coverage of new and controversial science. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, U., Harris, A. J. L., & Corner, A. (2009). Argument content and argument source – and exploration. Informal Logic, 29(4), 337–367.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, U., & Oaksford, M. (2006). A Bayesian approach to informal fallacies. Synthese, 152, 207–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hahn, U., & Oaksford, M. (2007). The rationality of informal argumentation: A Bayesian approach to reasoning fallacies. Psychological Review, 114, 704–732.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harris, A. J. L., & Corner, A. (2011). Communicating environmental risks: Clarifying the severity effect in interpretations of verbal probability expressions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0024195

    Google Scholar 

  • HM Government. (2008). Climate change bill. London. Retrieved January 2010, from http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldbills/087/2008087.pdf

  • Hogg, M., & Shah, H. (2010). The impact of global learning on public attitudes and behaviours towards international development and sustainability. Development Education Authority, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hoog, N., Stroebe, W., & de Wit, J. B. F. (2005). The impact of fear appeals on processing and acceptance of action recommendations. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 24–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hulme, M. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change: Understanding controversy, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Irwin, A., & Wynne, B. (Eds.). (1996). Misunderstanding science? The public reconstruction of science and technology. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahan, D. M., Braman, D., Slovic, P., Gastil, J., & Cohen, G. (2009). Cultural cognition of the risks and benefits of nanotechnology. Nature Nanotechnology, 4(2), 87–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Keeney, R. L., & Raiffa, H. (1976). Decisions with multiple objectives: Preferences and value tradeoffs. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Korpan, C. A., Bisanz, G. L., Bisanz, J., & Henderson, J. M. (1997). Assessing literacy in science: Evaluation of scientific news briefs. Science Education, 81, 515–532.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lakoff, G. (2010). We are the polar bears: What’s wrong with the way the environment is understood. In From Hot Air to Happy Endings: How to inspire public support for a low carbon economy. London: Green Alliance.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lord, C. G., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1979). Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 37(11), 2098–2109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lorenzoni, I., Nicholson-Cole, S., & Whitmarsh, L. (2007). Barriers perceived to engaging with climate change among the UK public and their policy implications. Global Environmental Change, 17, 445–459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lorenzoni, I., Pidgeon, N. F., & O’Connor, R. E. (2005). Dangerous climate change: The role for risk research. Risk Analysis, 25(6), 1287–1398.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maio, G., Verplanken, B., Manstead, T., Stroebe, W., Abraham, C., Sheeran, P., & Conner, M. (2007). Social psychological factors in lifestyle change and the relevance to policy. Social Issues & Policy Review, 1(1), 99–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Malka, A., Krosnick, J. A. & Langer, G. (2009). The association of knowledge with concern about global warming: Trusted information sources shape public thinking. Risk Analysis, 29, 633–647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKenzie-Mohr, D., & Smith, W. (1999). Fostering sustainable behavior: An introduction to community-based social marketing. Canada: New Society Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, A. G., McHoskey, J. W., Bane, C. M., & Dowd, T. G. (1993). The attitude polarization phenomenon: Role of response measure, attitude extremity, and behavioural consequences of reported attitude change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 64(4), 561–574.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munro, G. D., & Ditto, P. H. (1997). Biased assimilation, attitude polarization, and affect in reactions to stereotype-relevant scientific information. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin , 23(6), 636–653.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nisbett, M. (2009). Communicating climate change: Why frames matter for public engagement. Environment, 51(2), 514–518.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norris, S. P., Phillips, L. M., & Korpan, C. A. (2003). University students’ interpretation of media reports of science and its relationship to background knowledge, interest and reading difficulty. Public Understanding of Science, 12, 123–145.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, S., & Nicholson-Cole, S. (2009). “Fear won’t do it”: Promoting positive engagement with climate change through visual and iconic representations. Science Communication, 30, 355–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheimer, M. (2005). Defining dangerous anthropogenic interference: The role of science, the limits of science. Risk Analysis, 25(6), 1399–1407.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pachauri, R. K., & Reisinger, A. (Eds). (2007). Climate change 2007: Synthesis report. Geneva: IPCC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Patt, A. (2007). Assessing model-based and conflict-based uncertainty. Global Environmental Change, 17, 37–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patt, A. G., & Schrag, D. P. (2003). Using specific language to describe risk and probability. Climatic Change, 61, 17–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press. (2009). Fewer Americans see solid evidence of global warming. Retrieved January 2010, from http://people-press.org/report/556/global-warming

  • Pidgeon, N. F., Kasperson, R. K., & Slovic, P. (2003). The social amplification of risk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pollack, H. N. (2005). Uncertain science . . . uncertain world. Cambridge, U K: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Randall, R. (2009). Loss and climate change: The cost of parallel narratives. Ecopsychology, 1(3), 118–129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ratcliffe, M. (1999). Evaluation of abilities in interpreting media reports of scientific research. International Journal of Science Education, 21, 1085–1099.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Risen, J. L., & Gilovich, T. (2007). Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 12–22.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savage, L. J. (1954). The foundations of statistics. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shome, D., & Marx, S. (2009). The psychology of climate change communication: A guide for scientists, journalists, educators, political aides and the interested public. Columbia: Centre for Research on Environmental Decisions.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spence, A., Pidgeon, N., & Uzzell, D. (2009). Climate change – psychology’s contribution. The Psychologist, 22, 108–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spence, A., Poortinga, W., Butler, C., & Pidgeon, N. (2011). Perceptions of climate change and willingness to save energy related to flood experience. Nature Climate Change, 1(1). doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE1059

    Google Scholar 

  • Stern, P. C. (2000). Towards a coherent theory of environmentally significant behavior. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 407–424.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tannert, C., Elvers, H. D., & Jandrig, D. (2007). The ethics of uncertainty: In the light of possible dangers, research becomes a moral duty. European Molecular Biology Organisation Reports, 8(10), 892–896.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thøgersen, J., & Crompton, T. (2009). Simple and painless? The limitations of spillover in environmental campaigning. Journal of Consumer Policy, 32, 141–163.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UK Climate Impacts Programme. (2009). Adapting to climate change: UK climate projections. Retrieved November 2009, from http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/content/view/824/517/

  • Upham, P., Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., Purdam, K., Darnton, A., McLachlan, C., et al. (2009) Public attitudes to environmental change: A selective review of theory and practice. A research synthesis for the Living with Environmental Change Programme, Research Councils UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Uzzell, D. L. (2000). The psycho-spatial dimensions of global environmental problems. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 20(4), 307–318.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walls, J., Rogers-Hayden, T., Mohr, A., & O’Riordan, T. (2005). Seeking citizens’ views on GM Crops – Experiences from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Environment, 47(7), 22–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, E. U. (2006). Evidence-based and description-based perceptions of long-term risk: Why global warming does not scare us (yet). Climatic Change, 77, 103–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, E. U. (2010). What shapes our perceptions of climate change? Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change. doi:10.1002/wcc.41

    Google Scholar 

  • Western Strategies & Lake Research Partners. (2009). Climate and energy truths: Our common future. Washington, DC: EcoAmerica.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitmarsh, L. (2008). Are flood victims more concerned about climate change than other people? The role of direct experience in risk perception and behavioural response. Journal of Risk Research, 11(3), 351–374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitmarsh, L. (2011). Scepticism and uncertainty about climate change: Dimensions, determinants and change over time. Global Environmental Change , 21, 690–700.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • WRAP/WI. (2008). Love food champions report. Retrieved June 2009, from http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/case_studies_research/report_love_food.html

  • Zehr, S. (2000). Public representations of scientific uncertainty about global climate change. Public Understanding of Science, 9, 85–103.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ulrike Hahn, who co-designed the experiment reported in this chapter, and Lorraine Whitmarsh and Rob Evans for helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, CF10 3AT, UK

    Adam Corner

Authors
  1. Adam Corner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adam Corner .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bahrain Teachers College, Manama, Bahrain

    Myint Swe Khine

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Corner, A. (2012). Evaluating Arguments About Climate Change. In: Khine, M. (eds) Perspectives on Scientific Argumentation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2470-9_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation