This is an oldie, but goodie, but worth revisiting in the context of today’s false belief that there is a 97% consensus. It would be interesting to see the exact same study done again today.
It seems that, inconveniently, a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all – but it isn’t the one you think.
In this 2012 peer-reviewed study published not long after Cook’s ridiculous 97% claim, only 36 percent of geoscientists and engineers believe that humans are creating a global warming crisis. Published in Organization Studies, a majority of the 1,077 scientists who responded to the survey believe that nature is the primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming will not be a very serious problem.
Here’s the abstract and the introduction:
Science or Science Fiction? Professionals’ Discursive Construction of Climate Change
Abstract
This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise, we make apparent the heterogeneity of claims, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.
Introduction
With all of the hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? (Inhofe, 2003)
Climate change profoundly challenges governmental, non-governmental and private organizations (Hoffman & Woody, 2008) by creating pressure for emission reduction goals and adaptation measures. Alongside these actions, the debate continues in some quarters as to the causes and consequences of global climate change – and, more importantly, potential directions of public policies and organizational strategies. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), representing the work of about 2,000 individuals, contends that recent global warming is a direct result of human activities for which we should mitigate the effects (IPCC, 2007a, 2007b). In contrast, ‘climate sceptics’ (as per Antonio & Brulle, 2011; Hamilton, 2010; Hoffman, 2011a, 2011b; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith & Braman, 2010; Levy & Rothenberg, 2002; McCright & Dunlap, 2000, 2011) have argued that the climate is changing due to natural causes and have countered with their own experts’ reports.
This Senate report is not a “list” of scientists [like that given by the IPCC; addition by authors], but a report that includes full biographies of … distinguished scientists … experts in..: climatology; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; astrophysics; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. (US Senate, 2009, p. 7)
Indeed, while there is a broad consensus among climate scientists (IPCC, 2007a, 2007b), scepticism regarding anthropogenic climate change remains. The proportion of papers found in the ISI Web of Science database that explicitly endorsed anthropogenic climate change has fallen from 75% (for the period between 1993 and 2003) as of 2004 to 45% from 2004 to 2008, while outright disagreement has risen from 0% to 6% (Oreskes, 2004; Schulte, 2008). This drop in endorsement may be a manifestation of increasing taken-for-grantedness (e.g., Green, 2004) of anthropogenic climate science; the rise in disagreement may be a result of increased funding of sceptics by fossil fuel industries, conservative foundations and think tanks (McCright & Dunlap, 2010). Yet, apart from discussions among scientists, public concern over climate change is also waning in the US (Leiserowitz, Maibach & Roser-Renouf, 2008, 2010; Maibach, Leiserowitz, Roser-Renouf, & Mertz, 2011; Pew Research Center, 2009), the UK (Jowit, 2010), and Canada (Berry, Clarke, Pajot, Hutton, & Verret, 2009).
The ability to build and maintain consensus on issues such as climate change fundamentally depends upon expertise, ensconced in professional opinion. Yet, given the complexity and magnitude of this problem (Weingart, Engels, & Pansegrau, 2000), the credibility of the claims-maker becomes central, i.e., the status, reputation and prestige of the scientists and professional experts who vouch for or against the different interpretations (Snow & Benford, 1988, p. 208) and construct ‘interpretive packages’ or frames (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989) that stand in for the ‘truth’. Besides defining the issue, framing is also the means by which professionals draw from broader values (Hulme, 2009), construct their self-definitions and expert identities (Beech, 2008; Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003; Thomas & Linstead, 2002) and legitimate their position within this social field (Dyer & Keller-Cohen, 2000; Grandqvist & Laurila, 2011; Meyer & Höllerer, 2010; Phillips & Hardy, 2002), and their ability to prescribe actions. Our aim is to examine the construction and disputation of expertise in a contested issue field and the consequences this has for the mobilization for or against regulation.
Several assumptions have stymied advancements in understanding claims of expertise in contested issue fields. A first stymying assumption within institutional work and professions literatures is that professionals are a homogenous group, sharing cultural-cognitive conceptions of what problems require solving (Knorr-Cetina, 1999), and collaborating on solutions to maintain their authoritative monopoly over a scope of practice (Abbott, 1988) against outside forces (Scott, Ruef, Mendel, & Caronna, 2000; Thornton, 2002). Even climate change research has assumed a cohesive ‘expert’ versus public or media discourse (Boykoff, 2008; Carvalho, 2007; Olausson, 2009; Weingart et al., 2000). Rather than presuming that they draw from one – professional – logic, we recognize their endogenous heterogeneity and ground our research in their internal contestations over expertise. Second, it is often assumed that those working to maintain institutions are primarily reproducing belief systems, ‘largely unaware of the original purpose, or ultimate outcome, of their actions’ (Lawrence & Suddaby, 2006, p. 234). However, defensive institutional work, i.e., the maintenance of institutions against disruptions, can be as deliberate and strategic as the efforts by proponents of change (Lawrence, Suddaby & Leca, 2009; Maguire & Hardy, 2009; Meyer & Höllerer, 2010). We contend that such defensive work can also be directed internally; professionals may simultaneously frame their own expert identities while defensively attacking fellow professionals as non-experts. In sum, the inter-institutional, discursive formation (or unraveling) of professionals’ expert consensus has not been examined within organizational theory or climate change research to determine who will defend institutions against internal challenges, why, and how.
To address this, we reconstruct the frames of one group of experts who have not received much attention in previous research and yet play a central role in understanding industry responses – professional experts in petroleum and related industries. Not only are we interested in the positions they take towards climate change and in the recommendations for policy development and organizational decision-making that they derive from their framings, but also in how they construct and attempt to safeguard their expert status against others. To gain an understanding of the competing expert claims and to link them to issues of professional resistance and defensive institutional work, we combine insights from various disciplines and approaches: framing, professions literature, and institutional theory. This addresses the call from Zald and Lounsbury (2010, p. 970) for a systematic re-engagement ‘of the critical and expanded role of experts and communities of expertise – especially the international dimension … [as] opportunities for scholarship in Organization Studies’. Using a qualitative methodology and induction, we find a variety of frames and the strategies used to promote them. Our study demonstrates that the majority of ‘command posts’ (Zald & Lounsbury, 2010, p. 963) within organizations, especially in the petroleum industry, seem to be manned with opponents to the IPCC and anthropogenic climate science who are actively engaged in defensive institutional work. We point out that in order to overcome the defense, a potent discourse coalition and a more integrative frame, for example by emphasizing climate change as a risk – a common enemy to be managed (per Kahan et al., 2010; Hoffman, 2011b; Nagel, 2011), has to be found.
…
The most defensive frames are ‘economic responsibility’ and ‘nature is overwhelming’ – both deny that climate change is a relevant problem and feel challenged by the IPCC positioning, which, as a counter-frame, puts these adherents in the defensive. As opponents to regulation, they have to stand against the inherently moral ‘comply with Kyoto’ frame, which they fear has become mainstream. Their opposition is reflected in their own framing activities: more affirmation of their own positioning as reflected in increased legitimation of their problem diagnosis and own expertise, more boundary work (per Gieryn, 1995; Branscombe et al., 1999; Hunt et al., 1994) and more adversarial framing (Gamson, 1999) as reflected in the de-legitimation and undermining of others’ expertise. Both frames buttress their position by normalizing climate change and rationalizing nature as uncontrollable, thus any action would be ineffective. While ‘economic responsibility’ adherents prescribe economic fixes, ‘nature is overwhelming’ adherents only support reducing pollution in general terms. Both liaise with ‘true scientists’ and de-legitimate the rationality of their opponents more than other frames: politicians (‘too dumb to realize that it will take many decades to put in place an infrastructure to improve energy efficiency’), media (‘media hype’ and ‘lack of unbiased information’), and – most of all – IPCC, and its supporters’ scientific grounding – ‘The holes left in the report by the IPCC leads me to form certain questions regarding the validity of claims made by the panel, the media and other alarmists.’
To determine the potential influence of these frames on policy responses, we compare the positions of the sponsors of these frames within their organization and the field (see Table 4). Adherents of frames that support regulation (‘comply with Kyoto’, ‘regulation activists’) are – in our study – significantly more likely to be lower in the organizational hierarchy, younger, female, and working in government. Indeed, in our study, only seven respondents using these frames are at the highest level in government. Conversely, adherents of those frames that are more defensive and oppose regulation (‘nature is overwhelming’, ‘economic responsibility’) are significantly more likely to be more senior in their organizations, male, older, geoscientists, and work in the oil and gas industry. Adherents of these two frames comprise 33.7% of our respondents overall, but 63.3% of top managers in the oil and gas industry as opposed to 19.1% supporting regulation. The majority of command posts within organizations, especially in the industry, seem to be manned with opponents to the IPCC and anthropogenic climate science. While it may not be overly surprising that industry executives support the industry’s interests, taking into consideration that we have analyzed experts’ frames that are founded on a claim of being independent and non-partisan, it is also important to note that the two frames that especially dwell on the point of ‘real science’ versus ‘hoax’ at the same time represent core economic interests.
Full study here: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0170840612463317
The survey questionnaire and resulting report to APEGA and its membership are available online at www.apegga.org/Environment/reports/ClimateChangesurveyreport.pdf.
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60 minutes said on their television program that the UN reports that 4 million people die every year because of cooking on charcoal stoves indoors. They have no other fuel source. There are efforts to supply them with small propane heaters and propane. As I am typing this i am in tears thinking that the all the greenies in the world don’t want anybody to use propane because it releases CO2 when it burns, but burning charcoal also releases CO2. All the greenies in the world want all fossil fuels to be shut down. Well the blood of 4 million people per year will be on their hands from now on. SHAME. That is equivalent to genocide to not want to help these people .
The numbers are staggering.the real numbers must be 40 million die every year because 2.5 billion people rely on biomass, to cook indoors. We have to provide electricity to these people. Electricity that is the cheapest and most reliable that we can obtain and that means some form pf fossil fuel plant. In the meantime we have to encourage and promote small propane stoves for these people. Something has to be done. The blood of 40 million people per year is on the greenies hands for opposing fossil fuels.
40 million people in the world die every year from using biomass to cook their meals because 2.5 billion cook with biomass. What is biomass? wood, charcoal, grasses,dung …. etc They have no other choice. China is helping to build coal plants in some of these countries because they want to sell coal. We could be helping to build liquified petoleum gas(LPG) plants in those countries. The economics are about the same between coal and LPG. LPG is a mixture of propane and butane. Both come from natural gas of which the world now has 190 trillion cubic metres in proven reserves which is good for at least 50 more years. However natural gas is always being found. The only reason we arent finding any more is we arent looking very much because the prices have drastically dropped. The world also has 50 years worth of oil in proven reserves. I predict we will never run out of either one. Whenever the reserves shrink the price goes up and we look for more and find it. Coal is even in better shape. We have 153 years worth of proven reserves.
Our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to impose a $35 billion carbon tax in the next 5 years in Canada to lower the world’s temperature in a 100 years time by 0.005C His most trusted advisor Gerald Betts wants every fossil fuel plant in the world to be shut down. 80% of the worlds energy comes from fossil fuels. With attitudes like Trudeau, Betts and all the other greenies they have the blood of 40 million people on their hands because instead of spending a $ trillion per year fighting a hoax like climate change the money should be spent helping those 2.5 billion people.
Hey, take a chill pill, Alan. It’s balderdash and you know it.
What’s the source of those statistics? Where is the backup?
I can pull numbers out of thin air, too, you know.
And last, but certainly not least, the whole thing is hogwash. It’s meant to hit every guilt nerve you own.
Maybe someone should hold their feet to the fire about this baloney.
This is a very strange article. The very first thing I noticed was that none of the citations – unless I missed one – were more recent than 2011. Speaking as some who stepped on board this particular blog-wagon in 2007, I just find it strange that Anthony can’t or didn’t cite anything more recent than than seven years ago if he is making a point in 2018 about the current state of affairs. I remember *reading* a number of these papers – back in the day. It just seems strange that there aren’t any more recent citations.
Anthony says at the very beginning of the article “This is an oldie, but goodie, but worth revisiting in the context of today’s false belief that there is a 97% consensus. It would be interesting to see the exact same study done again today. It seems that, inconveniently, a scientific consensus exists concerning global warming after all – but it isn’t the one you think. In this 2012 peer-reviewed study…” so why are you surprised that it is a reprise of an older article?
Abstract
This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals’ discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on ‘the truth’, and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of 1077 professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise, we make apparent the heterogeneity of claims, legitimation strategies, and use of emotionality and metaphor. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of ‘defensive institutional work’ by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.
My comment:
It appears the authors of this paper cannot write a coherent sentence or paragraph. This abstract is drivel.
“This abstract is drivel.”
Correct—see the oldie thread by Andy May criticizing it here (which I linked to above, but which was held back for review): https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/cagw-bias-in-academia-lesfrud-and-meyer-2013-revisited/
Thanks Roger, but that was by me, Andy West 🙂
And every engineer is qualified to speak to climate attribution? LOL
https://typesofengineeringdegrees.org
What are the qualifications to be called a scientist aside from paying dues to society for such? I wonder if Kenji is part of this…?
That underlies the question is anyone qualified to speak to climate attribution, how do we decide?
There are a lot of mathematicians, geologists, statisticians and biologists that call themselves Climate Scientists and most fail basic science problems.
In science, the ability to correctly predict is perhaps the only objective measure of one’s competence – and the greens have NEGATIVE CREDIBILITY based on their terrible predictive track record.
My expertise is in energy and the earth sciences, and I have an excellent predictive track record – see below for a partial list of our correct predictions from 2002.
The greens, however, have been WRONG about every major prediction they have made on global warming, wilder weather, ocean acidification, green energy, etc., etc.
Regards, Allan
____________________________________
TOLD YOU SO, 16 YEARS AGO:
We confidently wrote in 2002:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – THE ALLEGED WARMING CRISIS DOES NOT EXIST.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – THE WASTEFUL, INEFFICIENT ENERGY SOLUTIONS PROPOSED BY KYOTO ADVOCATES SIMPLY CANNOT REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS.”
Source:
DEBATE ON THE KYOTO ACCORD
PEGG, reprinted in edited form at their request by several other professional journals, THE GLOBE AND MAIL and LA PRESSE in translation, by Baliunas, Patterson and MacRae.
http://www.apega.ca/members/publications/peggs/WEB11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
… Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation….
… Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one….
Charles Mackay (1814 –1889)
This paper surveys experts from or associated with the petro-chemical industry (in Alberta, Canada), which changes expectations about what one would find. Nevertheless, the paper is deeply flawed. See analysis at link below as already supplied by Roger Knights (but the author is me, not Andy May).
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/cagw-bias-in-academia-lesfrud-and-meyer-2013-revisited/
I believe that every theory which is in need of a scientific vote for its credibility has only a small chance to turn out right.
Here are some questions a survey ought to ask:
I suspect that at least half the climatologists entered the field because of their environmentalism or their desire to strike out at key players in the capitalist system. IOW, they have a crusader’s conscience, not a scientist’s.
PS: Or they are careerists whose inclination is to jump on bandwagons.
What recent global warming? You speak of “primary cause of recent global warming and/or that future global warming” that is nothing but forgery. They show strong warming, climbing straight up through the eighties and nineties when in fact there was no warming there before the arrival of the super El Nino of 1998. The true temperature there is shown in figure 15 of my nook (What Warming). It is based on satellite values. UAH monthly temperature graph even now shows the same temperature that is in my book. NOAA and company have gotten away with murder showing this fake warming as official since 2008. And sadly there is no one competent among thousands who looked at it to wonder about the origin of heat that created the warmest year ever.
I live on Cape Cod and last summer we only had two days in the 90’s and most of the summer was in the 70’s.
It is now June 5th and it’s still cold.I wish we could have some global warming.
As a single tear runs down the face of ManBearPig..
There are legitimate environmental concerns, one of the worst being pollution of the oceans. We never hear about this from politicians, because they can’t use it to control and fleece people. They’ve latched onto CO2, the life blood of planet earth, because it is a by product of the most abundant and economically sound energy sources. Control and tax people’s energy use, medical care (0-care), and retirement income (SS) and you own them. Transportation takes a lot of energy, so to control people’s energy use is to control where they can go, another goal of the climate hoax.
“Our study demonstrates that the majority of ‘command posts’ within organizations, especially in the petroleum industry, seem to be manned with opponents to the IPCC and anthropogenic climate science who are actively engaged in defensive institutional work. We point out that in order to overcome the defense, a potent discourse coalition and a more integrative frame, for example by emphasizing climate change as a risk – a common enemy to be managed has to be found.” [Removed citations]. This statement bothered me. It seems to implicitly assume that anyone arguing against the IPCC is automatically wrong, and and must be “…overcome…”. No allowance at all that the IPCC might be wrong in any way. Clearly, anything that follows will be all voodoo science with no actual basis in reality even if the numbers at the end of the “analysis” don’t come to 97%. Thus, I stopped reading at that point.
Autism is strong in this one. 🤨
You seriously think that a poll of scientists, NONE of whom is a climatologist, compares with all papers published by actual climatologists. Which is where the 97% comes from. When a peer reviewed paper published by an actual scientist who actually studies climate makes a conclusion about AGW, then 97% of the time the conclusion is that Humans are the cause of GW. In your world of unbelievable stupid, all scientists are the same. In fact in your world of stupid, engineers are the same as scientists.
Hey here is something. The next time you have a serious heart problem, go to a neurologist, or an internist. Better yet, since everyone with medical training, just go to a physicians assistant. After all, all doctors, make that all people with medical training are the same, and we need fewer stupid people.