A lexicon for creating doubt

about climate change

Mai KuhaBall State University

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.

Climate change counter-movement books dealing substantially with

alleged deception

9

7

3

2 2

1…

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 (May)

The publishers

How influential might these books be?

Rank on Amazon

forcomparison

144,244 212,796 183,455 181,017

Rank on Amazon, continued

forcomparison

144,244 154,115 97,275 70,724

Rank on Amazon, continued

forcomparison

144,244 69,010 38,928 33,851

In what ways is it problematic that these books use terms such as these?

Frame semantics

Relevant frames and expressions that evoke them

Core elements in a key frame

“…these facts are generally ignored by agenda-driven researchers guilty of purposely concealing this historical climate record and coercing the naïve…” (Sussman 2010:25)

Who is constructed as the “victim”?

• the American people• the public• the ignorant

Who is constructed

as the “deceiver”?

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

Experiment

The gardener dug with a spade.

ace

Is the meaning of this word relevant to the sentence?

Gernsbacher & Faust 1991

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.

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…”

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).

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.

Climate change counter-movement books

More climate change counter-movement books

Sources