Finnerty Samuel, Piazza Jared, Levine Mark
Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2025 Jan;64(1):e12840. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12840.
The climate and ecological crisis poses an unprecedented challenge, with scientists playing a critical role in how society understands and responds. This study examined how 27 environmentally concerned scientists from 11 countries construct the future in the context of climate change, applying a critical discursive psychology analysis. The degree to which the future is constructed as predetermined or transformable impacts both the urgency and scope of proposed actions. Along a temporal spectrum from fixed and inevitable to contingent and transformable, scientists drew upon shared discourses of social and ecological collapse. The degree of fixity or openness in scientists' talk about the future shaped the range of arguments available, demonstrating varying levels of argumentative flexibility when framing solutions to climate change. At the fixed end, the future was presented as beyond human intervention, echoing doomist discourse. By contrast, more open framings presented collapse not as inevitable but as transformable through human agency. Here, collapse discourses were presented as warnings, motivating arguments that drew upon a wide array of strategies from collective action to technological innovation. These constructions of the future highlight scientists' role in shaping societal discourse and framing what actions are seen as viable or necessary to address the climate crisis.
气候和生态危机带来了前所未有的挑战，科学家在社会如何理解和应对这一挑战方面发挥着关键作用。本研究运用批判性话语心理学分析方法，考察了来自11个国家的27位关注环境的科学家如何在气候变化背景下构建未来。未来被构建为既定的或可转变的程度，会影响所提议行动的紧迫性和范围。在从固定且不可避免到偶然且可转变的时间范围内，科学家借鉴了关于社会和生态崩溃的共同话语。科学家谈论未来时的固定程度或开放性塑造了可用论据的范围，在构建气候变化解决方案时展现出不同程度的论证灵活性。在固定一端，未来被描述为超出人类干预范围，呼应了末日论话语。相比之下，更开放的框架将崩溃描述为并非不可避免，而是可通过人类行动加以转变。在此，崩溃话语被视为警告，激发了一系列从集体行动到技术创新的策略性论证。这些对未来的构建凸显了科学家在塑造社会话语以及界定哪些行动被视为应对气候危机可行或必要方面的作用。
