ABSTRACT

Climate denial continues as a cultural epistemology for anthropogenic climate change in the United States, despite worsening impacts. This article offers an ethnographic account of rural areas in three states in the southern US – Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri – based on long-term participant observation and interview data. Engaging with the literature on agnotology, the social construction of ignorance, the argument is made that this literature as it pertains to climate denial does not go far enough in accounting for the persistence of the rejection of climate science. Theoretically drawing from anthropological work on the incommensurability of paradigms, the argument is based on a tripartite construction of denial as produced through an interaction of a cultural norm of radical empiricism, a political-media ecosystem funded by fossil fuel companies, and a cosmological schema derived from conservative white evangelicalism. The result of this process is an epistemological crisis in contemporary American society.

摘要

尽管影响日益恶化，但在美国，否认气候变化仍然是人为气候变化的一种文化认识论。本文根据长期参与观察和访谈数据，对美国南部三个州（亚利桑那州、路易斯安那州和密苏里州）的农村地区进行了人种学描述。通过研究关于不可知论（无知的社会建构）的文献，有人提出这样的论点：这些与气候否认有关的文献在解释气候科学的持续排斥方面还远远不够。理论上，借鉴人类学关于范式不可通约性的工作，该论证基于否认的三方结构，这种否认是通过激进经验主义文化规范的相互作用产生的，由化石燃料公司资助的政治媒体生态系统，以及源自保守白人福音派的宇宙图式。这一过程的结果是当代美国社会的认识论危机。