TY - JOUR

T1 - Climate futures

T2 - Scientists' discourses on collapse versus transformation

AU - Finnerty, Samuel

AU - Piazza, Jared

AU - Levine, Mark

PY - 2025/1/31

Y1 - 2025/1/31

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - uncertainty

KW - activism

KW - environmental discourse

KW - climate change

KW - identity

KW - science

KW - temporality

KW - future

U2 - 10.1111/bjso.12840

DO - 10.1111/bjso.12840

M3 - Journal article

VL - 64

JO - British Journal of Social Psychology

JF - British Journal of Social Psychology

SN - 0144-6665

IS - 1

M1 - e12840

ER -