Overview: main characteristics and ontology of the discourse
Climate change is understood as an ‘environmental’ issue, specifically in terms of human harm to the natural world and changes to the physical world. Climate change is related to other environmental issues that are understood to be connected with it: pollution, stratospheric ozone depletion, and forms of environmental degradation (e.g. deforestation).
The environmental harm discourse is considered to be an over-arching or ‘hybrid’ discourse, on account of its incorporating material spanning concerns which are both physical (e.g. relating to the natural world) and social (e.g. relating to the role of human actions). It is nevertheless considered to constitute a discourse in its own right, for portraying climate change as a particular
‘environmental’ issue. This is represented diagrammatically in figure 4.3, chapter 4.
183 Metaphors, rhetorical devices, recurrent motifs
- Ozone depletion (e.g. ‘ozone hole’) and associated causes (e.g. ‘aerosols’, ‘CFCs’) - ‘Pollution’, especially related to air pollution (e.g. ‘smog’, ‘fumes’) and its consequences
(e.g. asthma)
- Harm inflicted upon the natural world, e.g. deforestation, damaging ‘the Earth’
Characteristics of the discourse
i. Ozone conflation: continuity and change
Associations made between ozone depletion and climate change are of two main types: lack of distinction between the two phenomena, which may include association/conflation between causes (e.g. CFCs) and consequences (e.g. warmer temperatures); and a more technical conflation, whereby a conceptual model drawing on both phenomena is integrated (usually, relating to the notion of an ozone ‘hole’ permitting increased sunlight to permeate and so raise surface temperatures).
From the first groups in 1997, climate change is associated with ozone depletion. For example,
“the ozone layer” is given as a stated explanation for why global warming is occurring (P6-1997).
A clear example of technical conflation - wherein the notion of damage to a protective ozone layer permitting radiation to Earth which leads to the planet “warming up” is given by P1-1997:
You’ve got the atmosphere… it protects the Earth from the sun’s rays, they bounce off this ozone layer. Now we’ve got a hole in it, some of this heat, this extra radiation, is getting in.
It’s not letting any of it out because this reflective thing works both ways… so the planet is slowly warming up… That’s what I understand as global warming.
In contrast to later groups, in 1997 the causes of climate change/ ozone depletion are aligned with more authentically ozone-depleting causes. For example, participants refer to ‘CFCs’, ‘hairsprays’,
‘aerosols’ and ‘fridges’ with reference to the causes of climate change.
In 2000, the ozone-climate association persists: for example, where asked by the moderator whether the ozone layer hole is “linked in some way” to climate change, P19-2000 replies “oh yes… it’s a big cause, if it gets any bigger it’s going to cause a lot of climate change”.
A generalised ozone-climate association persists into 2002. P11-2002 for examples remarks “I don’t know much about it [climate change] but I think I tend to interpret it as the hole in the ozone and just rays from the sun and all that kind of thing” (P11-2002).
184 Limited references to ozone and ozone depletion occur across the 2003 interviews, though references are still made in terms of a technical conflation (emphases added):
The reduction in ozone layer… allows more of the sun’s rays to penetrate… and to dry up certain parts of the Earth… (P2-2003)
As far as my understanding is, there will be more powerful sun rays get through, and the temperature on Earth is rising gradually and possibly the polar ice cap is melting. (P18-2003)
2007 excerpts reveal that this type of conceptual model endures. One exchange indicates that this is indeed socially shared to the degree that it is able to be developed in conversation:
P12-2007: The ozone layer…. acts like a blanket protecting the Earth and it’s the ozone layer is being depleted so it allows more…
P12-2007: UV rays.
P11-2007: UV from the sun.
P12-2007: Heating the Earth up.
P18-2007: That’s why allegedly it’s supposed to be hotter in the summer.
A number of references continue in 2007 to be made to typical ozone-depleting actions, for example: P56-2007 refers to “aerosols and things like that”; P23-2007 to “hairsprays and perfume”; P11-2007 to “cans of deodorant”.
Behaviours and activities more associated with climate change are applied to ozone depletion: for example, car use, aeroplanes, power generation and recycling all feature in one participant’s account:
I can’t see how doing recycling is going to change anything, when they’ve got more cars, more aeroplanes, and more stuff adding to it, power stations. So by me recycling and no car, I don’t think it’s going to make much difference to the ozone layers is it? (P2-2007)
Evidence for a further linkage between climate-relevant behaviour (‘4X4 cars’) and ozone depletion emerges in a separate 2007 group, where P71-2007 asserts in response to the moderator prompt “what do you think about the climate change idea?”: “That's different things like the ozone layer and stuff like that, isn’t it… emissions from these 4x4 cars and stuff like that…
deodorants squirting under your arms and stuff”.
A clear dissociation between climate change and ozone depletion only becomes noticeable in 2010.
Ozone is rarely mentioned – not appearing at all in two of five groups. In a third group, mention is only made briefly in passing. In the remaining two instances where ozone is referred to, a distinction is made by participants between the two phenomena. In the following exchange,
185 participant P25-2010 responds to another’s remarks by arguing that the now-resolved matter of ozone depletion in fact illustrates that addressing environmental problems is possible:
P23-2010: …aerosol cans and things like that now, you very rarely see them. But there was a time it was the latest thing, we all used aerosol…
P25-2010: The aerosol thing is something that shows we can actually change things, because they stopped using aerosols, they stopped putting them in- CFCs in fridges, and the ozone layer has been repaired.
A second passage from a separate 2010 group refers to the matter of ozone depletion as something which has ‘disappeared’, and contrasts this specifically with climate change:
no one mentions that hole in the ozone layer any more. I thought it was some kind of precursor to the whole climate change thing… So… what’s happened to the hole in the ozone layer? It’s disappeared from the news. It’s all climate change now… what’s happened to the hole and is that just irrelevant or was that a red herring?
These excerpts, particularly participants’ own reflections upon the passing of ‘ozone’ as an issue, and the lack of spontaneous emergence in the 2010 groups – in contrast to ozone featuring in discussion in the majority of pre-2010 transcripts – suggests that ozone-climate conflation has diminished by the most recent transcripts.
ii. Pollution: continuity and change
An association between climate change and ‘pollution’ is found across the transcripts. The main way in which this occurs is through connection with ideas concerned with air pollution. There are many instances of climate change being equated with ‘fog’, ‘smog’, ‘fumes’ etc.
For example, P18-2000 makes a direct connection between climate change, and with wider environmental issues including those connected with ozone depletion (‘skin cancer’) and air pollution (‘asthma’):
P18-2000: ...skin cancer is close to my heart, but what I was thinking of was the sort of asthma and allergies… those sort of health things and how much of that might have to do with you know with the atmosphere…
Moderator: Do you qualify pollution as part of the climate change?
P18-2000: I think, yes, I think they’re related.
186 The idea that climate change is connected to more general notions of pollution, is expressed again in a 2002 group. After the moderator’s introduction to the topic of climate change, the discussion between participants turned to a variety of matters, concluding with the following exchange:
P2-2002: I think, sort of a local environment issue regarding… power and waste. You know the canal which runs at the back here... over the last… thirteen years, the pollution...
All of a sudden it went from clear to disgusting.
Moderator: So in a way this whole kind of climate change is part of a bigger pollution…?
P2-2002: Yeah, oh yeah.
There are many other instances across the 2002 groups where air pollution of various sorts is referred to. Associations between (air) pollution and climate change also persist into the 2003 interviews. For example, P21-2003 remarks (possibly making a technical linkage) that “it’s all linked, it’s the whole air pollution includes greenhouse gases, which promote global warming”.
P17-2003 also notes that addressing climate change entails dealing with “forms of pollution, which presumably are a contributory factor”.
Connections between (air) pollution and climate change, are also found in the 2007 focus groups.
As P31-2007 puts it: “I just think it is the way that we live that is causing climate change, all the stuff we’re polluting into the atmosphere, I think that’s why it’s changing”.
A connection between ‘smog’, air pollution and climate change is again made in a 2007 group:
I'd probably say the biggest cause of, if you want to say that we're to blame, would be coal.
Coal has been burned for many years. It used to cause the famous smogs, like the London smog… Years ago there was more pollution than what there is now, I'd say coal was probably the biggest cause of it.
In a separate group, with respect to action which could be taken on climate change, P71-2007 suggests that: “You see some of these taxis driving around, you know, the fumes coming off them, you think that can't be right”.
Across the 2010 groups, there is less spontaneous reference to pollution as associated with climate change, than in previous years. When it does emerge, there seems to be a more dissociated or technically-oriented connection. For example, P32-2010 notes that: “aircraft are quite a symbol aren’t they of pollution and climate change. People see more and more planes in the sky, and…
easier and cheaper to get places, then aren’t we polluting the planet more for that simple reason?”
In a separate 2010 focus group, participant P28-2010 asserts that reducing pollution in itself is important for addressing climate change, where he argues that: “We have to reduce pollution… by curbing our lifestyles…. Pollution including waste and landfill… I’d classify that as pollution”.
187 Overall, however, these sorts of associations between ‘pollution’ and climate change are less prevalent in 2010 than previously.
iii. Harm to the natural world: continuity across the datasets
A further means by which climate change is associated with a wider environmental harm discourse, concerns ideas about damage to natural environments and deforestation.
Scientific/technical connections are acknowledged by participants. For example, P16-2010 asserts that the following are to ‘blame’ for climate change: “Industry in the developed world, industry in the developing world, and nations that are now large-scale burning rain forests”.
Elsewhere, however, associations are made which draw upon more general ideas of what constitutes ‘harm’ to the natural world. P59-2007 for example asserts that:
Because they're chopping all the trees down you're losing the animals that were there, and you're changing the whole of the Earth… and to me it's all wrong, they shouldn't be allowed to do the deforestation that they're doing, because I think it's harmful to the planet.
In a separate 2007 group, P68-2007 refers to ‘logging’ in response to a question about human responsibility for climate change – the associations made are beyond simply ‘causes’ of climate change, however:
I thought of tree logging and… the environment and the people who suffer for it, like the tribes who [have] lived there for years and now they’ve got to move and go into cities.
Similarly, in 2000 P5-2000 refers to “spoiling all the habitats not only for wildlife but… also for the old [indigenous] Indian families and cultures that exist there”.
The idea that ‘using up’ the Earth’s resources is intuitively harmful – to ‘the planet’ as well as the climate – emerges again in other places. Thus P41-2010 argues that:
People [are] using up the Earth’s resources and creating a huge amount of waste, and using up resources, taking it away from the animals which are then becoming extinct and it makes sense to think that if you’re depleting the Earth of its resources and creating a huge amount of waste, that you’re going to have an impact on climate.
Similarly in a 2007 group, P80-2007 argues that “we have a huge impact on everything” and then in response to another participant’s question (“that’s making a mess of the planet, but is it actually
188 changing the climate?”) states: “yes, I think it is. Look what we’re doing to the rainforests. If you take one thing from one you’re mucking around with the balance constantly”.
Functions and consequences
With climate change seen as an ‘environmental’ issue (by the mass media and even indeed within the academic literature) it is not surprising that it has come to be associated with ideas such as ozone depletion, pollution and deforestation in people’s perspectives. The ‘environmental harm’
discourse seems to be a means by which various salient environmental concerns are integrated in an intuitive and common-sense manner with climate change.
A consequence of the discourse is that climate change is classified as such: it is an ‘environmental problem’ in a manner similar to other environmental problems. A further set of consequences (well-known in the literature) concern conflation: inaccurate models of what climate change ‘is’ are influenced by the ozone-depletion understanding. The idea that damage and despoliation inflicted upon the Earth is a characteristic of climate change, is also a consequence of this discourse.
189 8.2 Ethics and climate change
Overview: main characteristics and ontology of the discourse
Climate change is interpreted as an ethical matter, with the causes, consequences and responses to it seen in terms of value judgements and moral principles. These may be abstract and absolute (e.g.
concerning justice and fairness) or more personalised and concrete (e.g. that one has an obligation to act with consideration towards others).
A discourse of ethics permeates many of the other discourses previously discussed – particularly those concerning personal and social dimensions of climate change – and as such is considered an overarching set of ideas which are often subsumed within the personal and social domain (see figure 4.3, chapter 4). Nevertheless, the ethical dimension to climate change understanding is also often made explicit in relation to abstract principles such as justice. As such, it is useful to consider how these ideas are discussed and applied in their own right, within a self-contained ethics discourse.
Metaphors, rhetorical devices, recurrent motifs
- Universal ethical principles, applied to climate change (e.g. justice, regard for others) - Ideas about correct living (e.g. sustainable consumption, minimising waste)
- Normative assertions (e.g. ‘duty’, ‘obligation’, ‘responsibility’) - Ethical failures as causes of climate change
Character, change and continuity in the discourse i. Custodianship
A theme commonplace across all the datasets is termed here custodianship. This represents an ethical obligation upon people to protect the planet and its environment, and by extension the climate.
190 A view of custodianship is often asserted as an absolute principle to which people should adhere.
As P5-2000 asserts:
I was brought up to believe that you came into this world and you lived in it for a certain length of time but then you were the custodians of this world… you [have] a great responsibility towards it and how you [leave] it… you’re only a custodian of whatever you have in this world.
Similarly P52-2007 argues “we have a duty to protect [the Earth]. We don’t have a duty to change it or destroy it” and P44-2010 that “we should start taking… responsibility for the whole planet”.
The problem of climate change may indeed be seen to arise from a failure to act on this ethic, whereby “we the human <sic>, the inhabitants of this community… are out of synch with nature, have abused our custodianship” (P4-2003).
The idea recurs that one’s moral duty extends beyond one’s own lifespan. For example, P16-2002 asserts “for my lifetime it probably won’t matter, but obviously it’s of concern for the future of the planet”, and P47-2010 that “when you’re dead and buried, [material concerns] mean nothing. You want to be creating something for future generations”.
This perspective is contextualised (and personalised) in many places to participants’ own real or potential family. Thus P5-1997 explains “my concern basically is a very human concern. What about my grandchildren and what about their children, what are we doing to preserve the world for them?”; P14-2000 that “I think [climate change] is very relevant for my grandchildren which I’d like to do something about”; P2-2007 expresses ‘worry’ “not so much for us, but our kids’ kids’
kids”; and P34-2010 states that he is “frightfully aware” that “I’m not going to be impacted by [climate change] but I know my kids and their kids potentially will be”.
In several places custodianship is connected with versions of a precautionary principle, such as in a 2002 group:
P22-2002: We should just do something anyway. It’s only going to make things better isn’t it.
P24-2002: It’s not going to make anything worse.
P21-2002: If we’re not sure then you shouldn’t just carry on, should you.
A precautionary approach is advocated even where the likelihood of a climate disaster is considered to be low, where P25-2010 argues “even if it was a ten percent chance of the world becoming uninhabitable, then I think it’s up to us to do something about it”.
191 ii. Justice and fairness
A second ethical framework through which climate change impacts and responses are commonly understood, is in terms of justice and fairness. However, whilst ideas in respect of custodianship are used almost exclusively to make the case that action on climate change is important, justice and fairness arguments may at times be presented in terms of a moral dilemma: action on climate change may sometimes be seen to be in direct contrast to questions of justice.
A case in point is the argument that addressing climate change at an international level could impinge economic development in less developed countries. This is articulated by P15-2003:
“You’re effectively asking… developing economies not to develop because basically we’ve caused climate change… it’s a double standard argument”. P7-2002 similarly argues that “they’re growing like billio, these countries… they all want what we’ve got, and you can’t blame them”.
A participant in a 2010 group also alludes to the notion of double standards applied internationally, using the analogy of “hippy parents” to emphasise an economic justice argument:
The attitude of the developing countries seems to be that the developed West, having already polluted the world, is now telling them they can’t join in... It’s like sort of middle-aged hippy parents telling their children they can’t smoke dope. ‘We did it but you mustn’t!’ (P7-2010)
In a separate 2010 group, P34-2010 similarly refers to China and India to suggest that “their argument is: we’re only just catching up… why should we pay the price when America has had this for the last fifty years?... So you can understand their position, and… they’ve got 1.5 billion mouths to feed.”
The consequences of climate change are themselves seen as breaching principles of social justice.
For example, P65-2007 notes “the very poorest people… don’t consume enough resources and have enough power to be polluters, and they’re quite often disproportionately the victims of a lot
For example, P65-2007 notes “the very poorest people… don’t consume enough resources and have enough power to be polluters, and they’re quite often disproportionately the victims of a lot