A lexicon for creating doubt about climate change
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A lexicon for creating doubt
about climate change
Mai KuhaBall State University
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Signs of awareness in mainstream discourse about climate change: use of the expression “climate crisis” has increased in proportion to the total amount of text in Google Books.
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Climate change counter-movement books dealing substantially with
alleged deception
9
7
3
2 2
1…
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 (May)
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The publishers
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How influential might these books be?
Rank on Amazon
forcomparison
144,244 212,796 183,455 181,017
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Rank on Amazon, continued
forcomparison
144,244 154,115 97,275 70,724
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Rank on Amazon, continued
forcomparison
144,244 69,010 38,928 33,851
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In what ways is it problematic that these books use terms such as these?
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Frame semantics
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Relevant frames and expressions that evoke them
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Core elements in a key frame
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“…these facts are generally ignored by agenda-driven researchers guilty of purposely concealing this historical climate record and coercing the naïve…” (Sussman 2010:25)
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Who is constructed as the “victim”?
• the American people• the public• the ignorant
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Who is constructed
as the “deceiver”?
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Less direct allegations of deception
“agenda”a plan of action arising from a set of underlying
principles or motives
the underlying intentions or motives of a
particular person or group
“narrative”An account of a series of events, facts, etc.,
given in order and with connections established
between them
A representation in which a sequence of events has
been constructed into a story in accordance
with a particular ideology
Oxford English Dictionary
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Experiment
The gardener dug with a spade.
ace
Is the meaning of this word relevant to the sentence?
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Gernsbacher & Faust 1991
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In both Google Books and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, use of the expression liberal agenda is growing faster than use of the expression conservative agenda.
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Pacific Research Institute blog post: “The EPA and the Alarmist Narrative”
Forbes editorial: “…Global warming alarmists often misrepresent the peer-reviewed literature, claiming that virtually no peer-reviewed studies call the alarmist narrative into question. In order to make such a claim, they water down their narrative…”
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After mentioning people who regretted not standing up to Hitler: “do we have any excuse for not confronting those promoting this shameful scam of man-caused global warming?” (Sussman 2010:217).
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Main points• By using words such as
“hoax”, “scam”, and “fraud”, the climate change counter-movement evokes the Intentional Deception frame, reinforcing the claim that scientists and activists are deceivers.
• Since this claim is implicit, not explicit, arguing against it is difficult.
• Although “agenda” and “narrative” seem less accusing, they can have a similar effect, because their use activates the negative meaning for readers. • Readers with lower
levels of education might be particularly susceptible to the influence of the negative connotations of these words.
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Climate change counter-movement books
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More climate change counter-movement books
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Sources