Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
FrancoAngeli Journals

Papers

No. 2 (2021)

From climate denial to save nature: reductionism in the narrative of climate change

  • Sara Bonati
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa2-2021oa12032
Submitted
giugno 4, 2021
Published
2021-06-18

Abstract

The concept of nature is often abused and exploited in the storytelling of climate change. What can follow is disinformation and misinformation. Therefore, this contribution aims to discuss the different ways in which the concept of nature is (ab)used in relation to climate change, starting from the social construction of nature. To this end, the discussion focuses on the role of reductionism in the promotion of an anthropocentric idea of nature, in which different narratives of climate change are placed: on the one
hand, the rhetoric of ‘save climate/nature’, in which climate/nature are understood as a resource to be saved; on the other hand, the negationist theories, which exploit a concept of nature built to question the evidence offered by science

References

  1. Armitage K.C. (2005). State of denial: The United States and the politics of global warming. Globalizations, 2, 3: 417-427. DOI: 10.1080/14747730500368064
  2. Bagliani M., Pietta A. e Bonati S. (2019). Il cambiamento climatico in prospettiva geografica. Aspetti fisici, impatti, politiche. Bologna: Il Mulino.
  3. Beck U. (2010). Climate for change, or how to create a green modernity?. Theory, Culture & Society, 27, 2-3: 254-266. DOI: 10.1177/0263276409358729
  4. Blaikie P., Cannon T., Davis I. e Wisner B. (1994). Disaster pressure and release model. In: Blaikie P., Cannon T., Davis I. e Wisner B., a cura di, At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability, and Disasters, 21-45. DOI: 10.4324/9780203428764_chapter_2
  5. Bonati S. (2015). Multiscalar narratives of a disaster: from media amplification to western participation in Asian tsunamis. Journal of Current Cultural Research, 7, 3: 496-511. DOI: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1572496
  6. Ead., Tononi M. e Zanolin M. (2021). Social nature geographies/Geografie sociali della natura. Rivista Geografica Italiana, 127, 2: 5-20.
  7. Caserini S. (2009). Guida alle leggende sul clima che cambia. Come la scienza diventa opinione. Milano: Edizioni Ambiente.
  8. Castree N. (2013). Making Sense of Nature. London: Routledge.
  9. Id. (2017). Speaking for the ‘people disciplines’: Global change science and its human dimensions. The Anthropocene Review, 4, 3: 160-182. DOI: 10.1177/2053019617734249
  10. Id. e Braun B. (Eds.) (1998). The construction of nature and the nature of construction: analytical and political tools for building survivable futures. In: Braun B. e Castree N., a cura di (1998). Remaking Reality: Nature at the Millenium. London: Routledge.
  11. Id. e Id. (2001). Social Nature: Theory. Practice, and Politics. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
  12. Comfort L., Wisner B., Cutter S., Pulwarty R., Hewitt K., Oliver-Smith A., Wiener J., Fordham M., Peacock W. e Krimgold F. (1999). Reframing disaster policy: the global evolution of vulnerable communities. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, 1, 1: 39-44. DOI: 10.1016/s1464-2867(99)00005-4
  13. Demeritt D. (1996). Social theory and the reconstruction of science and geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 484-503. DOI: 10.2307/622593
  14. Id. (2001). The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91, 2: 307-337. DOI: 10.1111/0004-5608.00245
  15. Id. (2002). What is the ‘social construction of nature’? A typology and sympathetic critique. Progress in Human Geography, 26, 6: 767-790. DOI: 0.1191/0309132502ph402oa
  16. Dunlap R.E. e Catton W.R. (1994). Struggling with human exemptionalism: The rise, decline and revitalization of environmental sociology. The American Sociologist, 25, 1: 5-30. DOI: 10.1007/bf02691936
  17. Escobar A. (1996). Constructing nature: Elements for a poststructural political ecology. In: Peet R. e Watts M., a cura di, Liberation Ecology. New York: Routledge.
  18. Gleick P.H. (2017). Climate, water, and conflict: Commentary on Selby et al. 2017. Political Geography, 60: 248-250. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.009
  19. Goemans M. e Ballamingie P. (2013). Forest as hazard, forest as victim: community perspectives and disaster mitigation in the aftermath of Kelowna’s 2003 wildfires. The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien, 57, 1: 56-71. DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-
  20. 2012.00447.x
  21. Hacking (1999). The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  22. Hejny J. (2018). The Trump administration and environmental policy: Reagan redux? Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, 8, 2: 197-211. DOI: 10.1007/s13412-018-0470-0
  23. Hulme M. (2011). Reducing the future to climate: a story of climate determinism and reductionism. Osiris, 26, 1: 245-266. DOI: 10.1086/661274
  24. Jacques P.J. (2012). A general theory of climate denial. Global Environmental Politics, 12, 2: 9-17. DOI: 10.1162/glep_a_00105
  25. Kaiser J. e Hagan J. (2015). Gendered genocide: The socially destructive process of genocidal rape, killing, and displacement in Darfur. Law & Society Review, 49, 1: 69-107. DOI: 10.1111/lasr.12122
  26. Kelley C., Mohtadi S., Cane M., Seager R. e Kushnir Y. (2017). Commentary on the Syria case: Climate as a contributing factor. Political Geography, 60, 1: 245-247. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.013
  27. Kelly P.M. e Adger W.N. (2000). Theory and practice in assessing vulnerability to climate change and Facilitating adaptation. Climatic Change, 47, 4: 325-352.
  28. Kelman (2017, 29 agosto). Don’t blame climate change for the hurricane Harvey disaster - blame society, The Conversation, testo disponibile sul sito: https://theconversation.com/dont-blame-climate-change-for-the-hurricane-harvey-disaster-blame-society-83163.
  29. Id., Gaillard J.C., Lewis J. e Mercer J. (2016). Learning from the history of disaster vulnerability and resilience research and practice for climate change. Natural Hazards, 82, 1: 129-143. DOI: 10.1007/s11069-016-2294-0
  30. Kevane M. e Gray L. (2008). Darfur: rainfall and conflict. Environmental Research Letters, 3, 3: 034006. DOI: 10.1088/1748-326/3/3/034006
  31. Klein N. (2019). On Fire: the (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal. New York: Simon &Schuster.
  32. Latour B. (2018). Tracciare la rotta. Come orientarsi in politica. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.
  33. Lester L. e Cottle S. (2009). Visualizing climate change: Television news and ecological citizenship. International Journal of Communication, 3: 17.
  34. O’Brien K., Eriksen S.E., Schjolden A. e Nygaard L.P. (2004). What’s in a word? Conflicting interpretations of vulnerability in climate change research. CICERO Working Paper.
  35. Oels A. (2012). From ‘securitization’ of climate change to ‘climatization’ of the security field: comparing three theoretical perspectives. In: Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict. Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer, 185-205.
  36. Oliver-Smith A. (1999). What is a disaster? Anthropological perspectives on a persistent question. The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective, 18-34.
  37. Osti G. (2019). Above, beside, under: three ways social technical disciplines can work together in the energy transition. In: Giardullo P., Pellizzoni L., Brondi S., a cura di, Connencting dots: multiple perspectives on socio-technical transition and social practices. Tecnoscienza, Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 10, 2: 127-139.
  38. Schneider S.H. (2001). A constructive deconstruction of deconstructionists: a response to Demeritt. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 91, 2: 338-344. DOI:10.1111/0004-5608.00246
  39. Selby J., Dahi O.S., Fröhlich C. e Hulme M. (2017). Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited. Political Geography, 60: 232-244. DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.05.007
  40. Slettebak R.T. (2012). Don’t blame the weather! Climate-related natural disasters and civil conflict. Journal of Peace Research, 49, 1: 163-176. DOI: 10.1177/0022343311425693
  41. Smith N. (1984). Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. New York: Blackwell.
  42. Id. (2006). There’s not so much thing as a natural disaster, testo disponibile al sito: https://items.ssrc.org/understanding-katrina/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-natural-disaster.
  43. Steinberg T. (2006). Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America. Oxford University Press.
  44. Sunga L.S. (2011). Does climate change kill people in Darfur?. Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, 2, 1: 64-85. DOI: 10.4337/jhre.2011.01.04
  45. Swyngedouw E. (1996). The city as a hybrid: on nature, society and cyborg urbanization. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 7, 2: 65-80. DOI: 10.1080/10455759609358679
  46. Uggla Y. (2010). What is this thing called ‘natural’? The nature-culture divide in climate change and biodiversity policy. Journal of Political Ecology, 17, 1: 79-91. DOI: 10.2458/v17i1.21701
  47. Verhoeven H. (2011). Climate change, conflict and development in Sudan: global neo‐Malthusian narratives and local power struggles. Development and Change, 42, 3: 679-707. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7660.2011.01707.x
  48. Whatmore S. (2002). Hybrid geographies: Natures Cultures Spaces. London: Sage.
  49. Williams J. (2007). Thinking as natural: another look at human exemptionalism. Human Ecology Review, 130-139.
  50. Wisner B., Gaillard J.C. e Kelman I. (2015). Disaster Risk. London: Routledge.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...