The Public Values Failures of Climate Science in the US

This paper examines the broad social purpose of US climate science, which has benefitted from a public investment of more than $30 billion over the last 20 years. A public values analysis identifies five core public values that underpin the interagency program. Drawing from interviews, meeting observations, and document analysis, I examine the decision processes and institutional structures that lead to the implementation of climate science policy, and identify a variety of public values failures accommodated by this system. In contrast to other cases which find market values frameworks (the “profit as progress” assumption) at the root of public values failures, this case shows how “science values” (“knowledge as progress”) may serve as an inadequate or inappropriate basis for achieving broader public values. For both institutions and individual decision makers, the logic linking science to societal benefit is generally incomplete, incoherent, and tends to conflate intrinsic and instrumental values. I argue that to be successful with respect to its motivating public values, the US climate science enterprise must avoid the assumption that any advance in knowledge is inherently good, and offer a clearer account of the kinds of research and knowledge advance likely to generate desirable social outcomes.     

Alternative Facts and States of Fear: Reality and STS in an Age of Climate Fictions

Minerva - In the decades since the Science Wars of the 1990s, climate science has become a crucible for the negotiation of claims about reality and expertise. This negotiation, which has drawn...     

The Impact of Individual Differences and Group Diversity on Group Interaction Climate and Satisfaction: A Test of the Effective Intercultural Workgroup Communication Theory

Abstract

This study examined individual- and group-level effects of culture and cultural diversity on group interaction climate and satisfaction. Employees from 41 workgroups completed self-construal, face concern, interaction climate, and satisfaction questionnaires. Though analysis of ethnic diversity indicated that group diversity was positively related to perceptions of interaction climate, and had no association with satisfaction, multi-level analysis indicated that as ethnic diversity of the group increased, members of majority and minority ethnic groups had different perceptions of interaction climate and satisfaction. Results demonstrate the importance of considering individual-level manifestations of culture, group-level diversity, and the multi-level combination for workgroup analysis.