Climate stories: Why do climate scientists and sceptical voices participate in the climate debate?

Public perceptions of the climate debate predominantly frame the key actors as climate scientists versus sceptical voices; however, it is unclear why climate scientists and sceptical voices choose to participate in this antagonistic and polarised public battle. A narrative interview approach is used to better understand the underlying rationales behind 22 climate scientists’ and sceptical voices’ engagement in the climate debate, potential commonalities, as well as each actor’s ability to be critically self-reflexive. Several overlapping rationales are identified including a sense of duty to publicly engage, agreement that complete certainty about the complex assemblage of climate change is unattainable and that political factors are central to the climate debate. We argue that a focus on potential overlaps in perceptions and rationales as well as the ability to be critically self-reflexive may encourage constructive discussion among actors previously engaged in purposefully antagonistic exchange on climate change

Seriously personal:The reasons that motivate entrepreneurs to address climate change

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is freely available from Springer Verlag via the DOI in this record.Scholars increasingly argue that entrepreneurs and their small- and medium-sized enterprises should play a central role in reducing the rate and magnitude of climate change. However, evidence suggests that while some entrepreneurs recognize their crucial role in addressing climate change, most do not. Why some entrepreneurs nevertheless concern themselves with climate change has largely been overlooked. Some initial work in this area tentatively suggests that these entrepreneurs may engage with climate change because of their personal values, which either focus on financial or socio-ecological reasons, or a combination of both. Yet, it is unclear if all for-profit entrepreneurs engage with climate change for the same reasons, or if indeed their motivations vary across business types. Over a period of four years, we examined entrepreneurs’ motivations to engage with climate change through a variety of qualitative research methods. Our findings illustrate how entrepreneurs who address climate change have motivations specific to their business activity/industry and level of maturity. In each instance, we link these motivations to distinct conceptualizations of time and place. We contend that, through a more differentiated understanding of entrepreneurial motivations, policy-makers can draft climate change-related policies tailored to entrepreneurial needs. Policies could both increase the number of entrepreneurs who already engage in climate change mitigation and leverage the impact of those entrepreneurs already mitigating climate change.This study was funded by the European Social Fund (09099NCO5). We acknowledge with thanks the participation of the entrepreneurs and the support of Business Leaders for Low Carbon, Cornwall Council, and Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project. The authors wish to thank Professor John Amis, Professor Kenneth Amaeshi and the anonymous reviewers who provided useful feedback on earlier versions of the article

Critical discourse/discourse analysis

Discourse analysis (DA) conceptualizes language as performative and productive, central to the construction of social reality and subjectivity. This chapter examines two identifiable, but overlapping, schools of DA, discursive psychology (DP) and Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA). DP draws on the practices of ethnomethodology and conversations analysis and focuses on the action orientation of talk and text in social practice: what is the text doing, rather than what does the text mean, or “what is the text saying?” Analysis focuses on “interpretive repertoires” or “discourses”: sets of statements that reflect shared patterns of meaning. Foucauldian discourse analysis (FDA) originates within poststructuralist theory, influenced by the philosophical work of Michel Foucault. Within FDA, language is deemed to be constitutive of social life, making available certain subject positions, which influence and regulate subjectivity and experience – the way we think or feel, our sense of self, and the practices in which we engage. FDA is thus concerned with identifying discourses, the subject positions they open up (or disallow), and the implications of such positioning for subjectivity and social practice, rather than the form or structure of interaction within talk or text. Following discussion of a range of DP and FDA research studies, a detailed example of feminist FDA is provided, including steps of analysis, based on a study of women’s accounts of PMS (premenstrual syndrome). It is concluded that there is no one correct method of DA, as multiple methods have been identified, and practitioners interpret and present analyses in a range of different ways