Reconstructing boundaries and reason in the climate debate

▶ The recent climate controversies can be viewed as a contest about the nature and authority of science. ▶ Three changes appear to have intensified this contest in the climate change. Domain: public scrutiny of practices in science; the intensification of climate politics; and opportunities the new media gives dissident opinions to play a role in public discourses about climate change. ▶ Ways of reconstructing a more open and interactive boundary between science and public discourse are discussed. In this article I argue that the climate controversies of 2009 and 2010 should be seen as a contest about the boundaries of science; a contest which sociologists argue has long been important in establishing claims about the nature and authority of science. This boundary typically comes under pressure where science is asked to contribute to public policy. Three changes appear to have brought pressure on this boundary, and therefore on the authority of science, in the domain climate change: public scrutiny of practices in science, such as peer review; the intensification of climate politics, especially around the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit; and the opportunities provided by new media for dissident opinions to play a role in the international public discourse about climate change. These changes explain the intensity of the recent climate controversies. They seem to confront climate science and science generally with uncomfortable questions about its own procedures, about the status of scientific knowledge claims in the public realm and about the role of expertise. At the end of the article I speculate about how to reconstruct a more open and interactive boundary between science and public discourse as a basis for more reasoned debate about climate change.