Environmental Communication
ISSN: 1752-4032 (Print) 1752-4040 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20
The Union of Concerned Scientists on the Uncertainty of Climate Change: A Study of Synecdochic Form Mark P. Moore To cite this article: Mark P. Moore (2009) The Union of Concerned Scientists on the Uncertainty of Climate Change: A Study of Synecdochic Form, Environmental Communication, 3:2, 191-205, DOI: 10.1080/17524030902916657 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524030902916657
Published online: 12 Jun 2009.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 341
View related articles
Citing articles: 4 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=renc20 Download by: [37.44.207.96]
Date: 27 January 2017, At: 05:27
Environmental Communication Vol. 3, No. 2, July 2009, pp. 191205
The Union of Concerned Scientists on the Uncertainty of Climate Change: A Study of Synecdochic Form Mark P. Moore
This essay examines the function of synecdochic form in the rhetoric of the Union of Concerned Scientists that first exposes the construction of uncertainty about the reality of global climate change sustained by the Bush Administration, and then builds an opposing view based on a scientific consensus of certainty instead. Previous research on synecdoche in environmental communication has focused on the ways in which it fosters conflict among competing groups through representations of irreconcilable world views that can become ironic to outside observers. However, this essay argues that synecdoche in the discourse over climate change can serve as the master of tropes to overcome irony by stressing interconnectedness as a key to understanding the construction of uncertainty and promoting alternatives to it. Keywords: Synecdoche; Irony; Uncertainty; Climate Change; Union of Concerned Scientists In 2001, Time magazine ran ‘‘Global Warming’’ as the cover story of its April 9th issue, illustrated by a fried egg in an iron skillet, with the USA dead set in the middle of a yolk shaped as planet earth. Citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the issue explained that global warming and human contributions to it were no longer theoretical possibilities, as they may have been only a decade before, but now facts (Lemonick, 2001, pp. 2526). Why, the magazine therefore asked, was not Washington ‘‘feeling the heat?’’ Five years later, this same mainstream publication ran a reminder of global warming as a cover story with a polar bear adrift on a shrinking piece of ice, but this time warning that it is ‘‘damaging the planet at an alarming rate’’ and that we should ‘‘be very worried’’ (Time, April 3, 2006). One story in the issue even described the problem as a ‘‘planet taken ill by human activity’’ Mark P. Moore is a Professor of Speech Communication at Oregon State University. Correspondence to: Mark P. Moore, Department of Speech Communication, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-6199, USA. Email:
[email protected] ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/17524030902916657
192 M. P. Moore
(Kluger, 2006, p. 35). Washington, however, remained nonchalant even though President Bush admitted for the first time in June 2001 that global warming is real and ‘‘due in large part to human activity’’ (President Bush discusses global climate change, 2001, p. 1). If President Bush was willing to admit to the problem of global warming as early as in his first year of office, why then was Washington not feeling the heat? Although he said that the greenhouse effect was due in large part to human activity, Bush warned, ‘‘we do not know how much effect natural fluctuations in climate may have had on warming,’’ or ‘‘how much our climate could change in the future,’’ or ‘‘how fast change will occur, or even how some of our actions could impact it’’ (President Bush discusses global climate change, 2001, p. 2). In addition to the argument that it is merely a theory, other replies to global climate change in recent years submit that the scientific community lacks complete agreement, the data are not reliable, and further research is necessary, but they all point to a general assumption of uncertainty, the central feature of Bush’s discursive construction of global climate change.1 Uncertainty raises fear about change, but it is not just a matter of questioning certainty that concerns antagonists, but how certainty is questioned, and in this case, how uncertainty is constructed. One notable organization that challenged the Bush Administration’s construction of uncertainty about climate change was the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).2 Formed originally as a protest group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969, the UCS is concerned primarily with the misuse of science and technology in society and advocates for the ‘‘redirection of scientific research to pressing environmental and social problems’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2006, p. 1). In 2004, the group released a comprehensive report on its investigation into the misuse of science in the Bush Administration that included an attack on what they considered to be deceptive views and practices of science on climate change and other environmental concerns. The report challenged Bush’s uncertainty argument as a construction based on suppressed and distorted facts that undermined scientific integrity and distorted public knowledge. The rhetoric of the UCS that exposes both the weakness of uncertainty as a reason to avoid serious efforts to confront climate change and how that uncertainty was constructed can be identified in terms of two master tropes, synecdoche and irony, that frame and inform the Bush Administration as an obstacle to change that everyone needs but no one wants.3 This essay examines the rhetoric of the UCS regarding the Bush Administration’s misuse of scientific research on climate change and argues that it constructs a critical ground for social and political resistance to the status quo on global warming that is framed by irony, but constituted with synecdoche. The irony of relying on uncertainty about climate change to calm fear and maintain the status quo (particularly with regard to energy) dissociates and polarizes the UCS from the Bush Administration, which encourages even more partisanship. However, this serves as a first step that can allow for a greater understanding and acceptance of changes needed to deal with climate change. That is, the framing of a problem like climate change in ironic terms on the part of some creates opportunities to see it in synecdochic, part-for-whole and
Uncertainty of Climate Change
193
whole-for-part, relationships for others. More than any other environmental problem, ironies of climate change demand synecdochic constructions, because everyone is a part of it. The essay begins by challenging the assumption established by Kenneth Burke in rhetorical theory that irony is the perspective of perspectives that guides human action, by subordinating it to synecdoche, which offers a solution to the ironic situation at hand. To support the assertion that synecdoche provides an antidote for the ironic situation, the essay proceeds with a brief summary of the Bush Administration’s position on climate change, followed by the UCS’s rhetoric of resistance, which identifies the misuse of science in government and business by connecting the two synecdochically with its reports on scientific integrity in policymaking and on ExxonMobil’s construction of uncertainty about climate science. The essay ends with a discussion of the potential ways in which synecdoche can serve as a valuable rhetorical resource for confronting the irony of uncertainty and the status quo of climate change politics. Synecdoche and Irony in View of Climate Change Burke’s (1969) longstanding view of irony as the overall perspective of perspectives that is privileged in rhetorical theory needs to be re-evaluated with regard to discursive constructions of environmental conflicts such as those over climate change. In specific, the advantages of perpetuating an ironic disposition toward global warming can at best offer opportunities for a constructive response guided by a synecdochic view that connects the whole, the vastness of the problem, to its individual parts. If synecdoche is successful in establishing such a contingent relationship, it subsumes irony as a rhetorical force that can resist the politics of status quo. In other words, synecdoche can open doors to an ever widening space of resistance to the status quo that is guarded with a situational irony that not merely reacts to, but resists the resistance to change. Irony usually conveys a detached, unsympathetic attitude of superiority toward its victims through the knowledge shared by the ironic observers (Burke, 1969, p. 514). The attitude of superiority is contingent upon the particular situation at hand. This holds true in environmental discourse as well, where competing interests victimize one another by expressing the irony of the opposition’s position and action (Moore, 2003, p. 84). What Burke stresses in his discussion of irony, however, is how it can be associative as well as dissociative, when it is not used by one to maintain a position of superiority over another. Unlike dissociative or situational irony, Burke prefers the brands of irony that stress humility toward and unity with the victim (the manner in which we prosper will end prosperity for us all). In doing so, relationships formed with ironic discourse can instill a developmental process of interaction that encourages what Booth (1974, p. 28) refers to as ‘‘the building of amiable communities’’ and ‘‘communing with kindred spirits’’. This ‘‘dialectic’’ or ‘‘true’’ irony, as Burke (1969, p. 515516) portrays it, is associative in the sense that it attempts to overcome conflicts among disparate parts by emphasizing how they might recombine to create a more united ‘‘whole,’’ without sacrificing one part for another. As such, true or dialectic irony
194 M. P. Moore
promotes unity and cooperation between the observer and victim, where differences are viewed as necessary components or parts of the whole. Since situational irony reflects attitudes of dissociation, detachment, and superiority, it heightens conflict and increases divisions that reinforce ‘‘us versus them.’’ Moore (1993, 1997, 2003) demonstrated in previous studies that synecdoche in environmental discourse can also reinforce us versus them relationships. However, when viewed as the master trope of tropes, it can transform us versus them into us and them, by revealing the connectedness of parts polarized previously by what appears to be a natural tendency to arrive at solutions that create victims. As opposed to situational, dissociative irony, synecdoche does not just overlap with dialectic or true irony, but constitutes it with the ingredients that establish the necessary relationships and connections for overcoming guilt through deception (Burke, 1969, p. 509; Moore, 2003, p. 75). Such a problem could involve everyone, a problem in which, as Burke (1969, p. 517) views it, the victim and villain are inside us all, one like global climate change, where ‘‘the developments that led to the rise will, by the further course of their development, ‘inevitably’ lead to the fall’’. Synecdoche and irony are foundational tropes in both discursive constructions of environmental problems and solutions. When represented with true or noble synecdoche, environmental quality is a measure of quantity and vice versa. Identification of problems with climate change policies, as in the case of the UCS, relies on synecdochic patterns as well. However, if a synecdochic view of the environment stresses the interconnectedness of all its parts, synecdoche in the unmasking of environmental damage, with the potential for grave future harm, offers a representation of a part that constructs a world that not only stresses a quantity over quality, but defines quality in terms of quantity. Thus, the UCS operates on the basis of a noble synecdoche for the environment, that is, interconnectedness of the whole; but condemns the Bush Administration for its policies, which are influenced by and connected to a devious part. Synecdoche functions, in this way, to represent the whole as well as to represent the damage to it. While the former is framed by dialectic irony (what led to the rise of humanity will lead to its fall), the latter reveals in the light of scrutiny a situational irony (constructing uncertainty in order to do nothing about something that is quite certain). The former is associational and the latter is dissociational. For the UCS, the associative irony that is constructed with true, noble synecdoche connects everyone, promotes change as it replaces the dissociative irony perpetrated by the Bush Administration, and fueled by the likes of ExxonMobil. Bush and the Uncertainty of Climate Change There can be little doubt that George W. Bush has been mocked and criticized to a greater extent than any other president in modern history.4 There is at least one sentiment that Bush and the public share, however, which involves the problem of climate change. Like Bush, most Americans accept that climate change or global warming is occurring, but most do not feel it is serious enough to do anything serious about at present.5 This complacency also coincides with and arguably has been
Uncertainty of Climate Change
195
reinforced by the discursive construction of uncertainty that the Bush Administration portrays on climate change, but that uncertainty may not remain a source of comfort in light of the increasing preponderance of scientific facts. It functions merely as a temporary strategy that avoids the inevitable, a stall tactic that at best gives everyone a little more time. In this way, Bush perpetuates uncertainty and subsumes the irony of it with a false synecdochic pattern. Bush rarely discussed climate change during his first presidential campaign, but when asked about it in his first debate with Al Gore, he responded by saying: What the heck. I*of course there’s a lot of*I mean, look, global warming needs to be taken seriously. But science*there’s a lot of*differing opinions and before we react, I think it’s best to have the full accounting, full understanding of what’s taking place . . . (Miller, 2002, p. 175, emphasis added)
After six months as president, Bush continued to assert that much is unknown about ‘‘the science of climate change,’’ but nevertheless admitted for the first time that ‘‘the earth is warming,’’ that the increase in ‘‘greenhouse gases, especially CO2,’’ contribute to the rise in temperature, and that the increase is due ‘‘in large part to human activity’’ (President Bush discusses global climate change, 2001, p. 1). His objections to the Kyoto protocol remained unaltered by this acknowledgment, but he now sought ‘‘to work cooperatively’’ with other developing nations ‘‘to reduce greenhouse emissions and maintain economic growth’’ (Bush discusses global climate change, 2001, p. 2). A brief summary of the Bush Administration’s effort to offer full accounting and reach full understanding of climate change shows that it lacks accountability and subverts understanding ironically by constructing uncertainty instead. The dual synecdochic role that energy use plays in its connection to both a warming planet and a healthy economy controls this uncertainty. Without economic incentives to burn fossil fuels, construction of uncertainty over climate change lacks political purpose. Therefore, the synecdoche of (fossil fuel) energy-for-economy covers up the irony of uncertainty as a political strategy for maintaining comfort. Bush engaged this strategy in part by appointing key officials from the oil industry to oversee climate change policies. For example, soon after Bush admitted the reality of climate change, he appointed Philip A. Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute with no background in science, as chief of staff and ‘‘climate team leader’’ for the White House Council on Environmental Quality to promote policies on environmental issues, according to History Commons (2008) which compiles an ongoing record of the Bush Administration’s environmental record reported by widely disseminated sources including the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Associated Press (p.1). He then appointed Larisa E. Dobriansky, former lobbyist for ExxonMobil on climate change, as deputy assistant secretary for national energy policy at the Department of Energy, to run the Office of Climate Change Policy (History Commons, 2008, p. 4). While the reduction of uncertainty about climate change has serious implications for energy use and the oil industry, Bush continued to cover the irony of that uncertainty in February 2002, when he announced a joint plan to combat global climate change and promote economic growth along with a ‘‘Clear Skies’’ initiative that would surpass
196 M. P. Moore
efforts of the landmark Clean Air Act of 1970 (Bush, 2002, p. 226). Raising both plans at once could give the impression that they were related, but even if, as proposed, the Clear Skies Act would reduce sulfur, nitrogen oxide, mercury emissions, and clean the air beyond the Clean Air Act, it would not reduce carbon dioxide emissions or in any specific way deal with climate change. This, he asserted, ‘‘presents a different set of challenges and requires a different strategy,’’ since ‘‘the answers are less certain; and the technology is less developed’’ (Bush, 2002, p. 228). Thus, he said, ‘‘we need a more flexible approach,’’ because ‘‘Our immediate goal is to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions relative to the size of our economy’’ (Bush, 2002, p. 228). To keep uncertainty at the helm, Bush faced obstacles from within, such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which sent a report on climate change in May 2002 to the United Nations that admitted the human role in global warming (History Commons, 2008, pp. 78). But in October 2002, Philip Cooney, as chief of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, edited its ‘‘Our Changing Planet’’ report by adding the word ‘‘extremely’’: creating, ‘‘The attribution of the causes of biological and chemical changes to climate change or variability is extremely difficult’’ and added that the authors of the report were ‘‘straying from research strategy into speculative findings/musings’’ (History Commons, 2008, p. 9). Moreover, in October 2002, Harlan L. Watson, the State Department’s chief climate negotiator, recommended to the head of the US Climate Change Science Program that references to climate change by the National Academy of Science (NAS) on climate change should be removed, because the NAS did ‘‘not include an appropriate recognition of the underlying uncertainties and the tentative nature of a number of assertions’’ (History Commons, 2008, pp. 910). After the Bush Administration removed information on climate change from the EPA’s 2003 Report on the environment, the report said that ‘‘The complexity of the Earth system and the interconnectedness among its components make it a scientific challenge to document change, diagnose its causes, and develop useful projections of how natural and human actions may affect the global environment in the future,’’ and that ‘‘the potentially profound consequences of climate change’’ make it a ‘‘capstone’’ issue for this generation or even beyond (History Commons, 2008, p. 11). The Bush Administration announced in the following month a 10-year Climate Change Science Program Strategic Plan to reduce the ‘‘uncertainties’’ associated with climate change by improving methods for determining risks and measuring impacts (History Commons, 2008, p. 11). Meanwhile, the UCS responded. The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on Bush’s Construction of Uncertainty Unlike the Bush Administration’s privileging of the economy and oil industry as the key part of the whole climate problem, the UCS positions climate change distortion as the key part of a larger (whole) pattern of scientific misuse regarding environmental problems. In addition to climate change, which it foregrounds, the report also identified the ‘‘suppression and distortion’’ of federal research findings on air quality,
Uncertainty of Climate Change
197
reproductive health issues, airborne bacteria, endangered species, forest management, as well as many other areas of concern (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. i). In other words, the Bush Administration’s misuse of science in climate change, according to the UCS, not only misrepresents the certainty of climate change for the whole planet, but also constitutes a larger body of misrepresentation about its interconnected parts.6 In essence, the UCS identified the misuse of science as a misuse of synecdoche to misrepresent part and whole relationships for the purpose of inflating the uncertainty of climate change. In doing so, the UCS based its accusations in what they consider to be true synecdochic relationships that connect whole to part and part to whole. Accusations by the group focus more on the misrepresentation of facts than the facts themselves. As a result, the irony of uncertainty constructed by the Bush Administration is the product of a synecdochic pattern of scientific misuse that disconnects global climate change from the interconnectedness of the environment. For the UCS, misuse is representative and serves as synecdoche for the Bush Administration on scientific research. As depicted by Project Censored in 2005, the UCS charged the Bush Administration with no less than ‘‘purging, censoring, and manipulating scientific information in order to push its pro-business, anti-environmental agenda’’ (Project Censored, 2005, p. 1). According to the UCS, this pattern represents the whole of the Bush Administration’s manipulation of facts: Since taking office, the Bush Administration has consistently sought to undermine the public’s understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gases are making a discernible contribution to global warming. (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 5)
The facts of misuse and manipulation served as the basis for a political effort on the part of the UCS to remove Bush from office, by supporting John Kerry in the 2004 election. The pattern of manipulation was striking, indeed.7 After receiving confirmation from the NAS, the IPCC, the American Geophysical Union (noted the world’s largest organization of earth scientists), and the EPA, that human activity was largely responsible for global warming, the administration continued ‘‘to contend that the uncertainties in climate projections and fossil fuel emissions were too great to warrant mandatory action to slow emissions’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 5). President Bush dismissed the warning by the EPA as ‘‘a report put out by the bureaucracy,’’ even though he had already admitted publicly that his own scientific agencies had confirmed the human role in global climate change (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 5). The capstone (representative anecdote) of manipulation cited in the report by the UCS was the well documented case of the Bush Administration’s tampering in June 2003 with the EPA’s draft report on the environment (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 5). The draft explained that human activity contributes significantly to climate change but, from an internal memo included in the UCS report and interviews from various EPA staff members (current and former), the White House Council on
198 M. P. Moore
Environmental Quality and the Office of Management and Budget demanded amendments, including the deletion of a temperature record covering 1000 years, the elimination of any reference to the NAS review that confirmed human activity is contributing to climate change, the insertion of a ‘‘discredited’’ temperature record funded in part by the American Petroleum Institute, and the removal of the summary statement that climate change holds global consequences for both human health and the environment (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, pp. 56). Overall, according to the EPA internal memo quoted by the UCS, ‘‘White House officials demanded so many qualifying words such as ‘potentially’ and ‘may’ that the result would have been to insert ‘uncertainty . . . where there is essentially none’’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 6). ‘‘Despite widespread agreement in the scientific community that human activity is contributing to global climate change,’’ the UCS proclaimed repeatedly in their report that the ‘‘Bush administration has sought to exaggerate uncertainty by relying on disreputable and fringe reports and preventing informed discussion on the issue’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 7). A government official admitted anonymously that, ‘‘it’s not just a case of micromanagement, but really censorship of government information’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004a, p. 8). The Bush Administration still disagreed, and in April 2004, its legal Science Advisor, John Marburger, offered a detailed statement in response to the ‘‘errors, distortions, and misunderstandings in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ document,’’ calling the UCS’s claims ‘‘false’’ and ‘‘untrue’’ (Statement of the Honorable John H. Marburger, III on scientific integrity in the Bush Administration, 2004, pp. 36). In June 2004, the UCS wrote ‘‘An open letter to the American People’’ in support of Senator John Kerry for president, signed by over 60 leading scientists, Nobel laureates, medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2004b, June 21). The Bush Administration’s dissociative irony of uncertainty manifested itself in two forms. First, the president ironically maintained the uncertainty of climate change even though the consensus of science as well as scientific knowledge derived in his own administration told him the opposite. Bush’s uncertainty reinforced his opposition to and superiority over those with reasonable certainty. Second, there is irony in the fact that the construction of uncertainty, which by now even defies common sense, served rhetorically to reinforce attitudes of complacency, inertia, and comfort about a problem that calls for immediate, if not drastic change. Uncertainty in the case is constructed and controlled in synecdochic terms on the basis of selective parts that, according to the UCS, misconstrue the whole. In other words, Bush relied on synecdoche, the master trope in environmental discourse, to misrepresent the whole problem of climate change, by suppressing essential parts that better represent it. The situational irony of uncertainty is limited as a rhetorical strategy in this climate change discourse, because it is constructed on faulty synecdochic reasoning that represents an uncertain whole, by eliminating the crucial parts that are certain. After explaining how synecdoche subordinates irony to create comfort, the UCS offered another view with a synecdochic pattern that reflects dialectic irony.
Uncertainty of Climate Change
199
Dialectic Irony in the Building upon Consensus The expanded view of synecdoche as representation described by Burke (1969, p. 509) ‘‘stresses a relationship or connectedness between two sides of an equation that extends, like a road, in either direction, from quantity to quality or from quality to quantity’’. In this sense, quality and quantity serve as a ‘‘synecdochically related pair’’ that represent each other at the same time (Burke, 1969, p. 509). Quality represents quantity and quantity represents quality, because either side can be treated as a sign for the other. Scientific realism, according to Burke (1969, p. 508), reduces this twoway equation by following only one direction, from quality to quantity, as opposed to what he called the ‘‘ideal’’ or ‘‘noblest synecdoche,’’ whereby a microcosm is identified with macrocosm and vice versa. However, an exception must be taken with the UCS’s discursive construction of climate change, which stresses the connectedness between part and whole, such that part represents whole and whole represents part. In doing so, the UCS build upon public and scientific consensus to confront climate change with a turn toward dialectic irony, based on an ideal synechochic relationship of partfor-whole and whole-for-part that serves as a heuristic aid to correct climate change by revealing how we are all involved in it together. This turn toward dialectic irony must be considered, however, within the context of the existing relationship between the UCS and the Bush Administration, which is not synecdochic in an ideal sense, but oppositional. Scientific views of the environment may be based on a synecdochic relationship of interconnectedness, but discursive construction of global climate change by the UCS attempts to associate parts of the problem, in terms of an interconnected whole, while dissociating itself from the Bush Administration’s use of science. If situational irony can describe a current condition, perhaps dialectic irony is a future state yet to be realized. In an extended synedochic form, a ‘‘disease’’ like Bush’s misuse of science could be viewed as the ‘‘cure’’ that eventually forces change through its exposure. There is a hint of dialectic irony here, for where would the UCS be on climate change without the Bush Administration to kick around? Could the UCS be fortunate in finding and exposing Bush’s misuse of science, and therefore indebted to it, as a way of pushing forward the issue of climate change? Could Bush in this way be viewed as part of the solution as well as one who becomes an agent of change through the way in which he resists change? When the UCS focuses its attention on the problem of climate change itself, it is described in synecdochic terms that establish the grounds for dialectic irony. Humans in their ability to increase the quality of life by providing certain solutions to economic and energy needs, have now, through the implementation of those solutions, endangered the quality of life for the sake of those economic and energy needs. In specific, UCS referred to a 2001 report by the IPCC to emphasize the contribution of energy production and use: ‘‘Carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning and land clearing has been accumulating in the atmosphere, where it acts like a blanket keeping Earth warm and heating up the surface, ocean, and atmosphere . . . ’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008, p. 1). Unlike natural volcanic events and some types of human
200 M. P. Moore
pollution, which lower temperatures and are considered ‘‘negative’’ forcings or drivers, and natural climate drivers, such as the sun’s energy output, aerosols from volcanic activity, and changes in snow cover, the human, or ‘‘positive’’ climate drivers include ‘‘heat-trapping emissions from cars and power plants, aerosols from pollution, and soot particles’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008, p. 2). Even when taking into account negative force drivers, the heat-trapping ‘‘emissions’’ from human activity ‘‘far outweigh any other current climate driver,’’ leaving ‘‘human activities as the main driver of our warming climate’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008, p. 5). The emissions from fossil fuel burning results, of course, from human activity that essentially covers the whole planet. Since the UCS considered this as the most influential of negative climate drivers, the group focused its attention in 2007 on what they viewed as the single, most integral part of the climate change problem in a report titled, ‘‘Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air,’’ on how ExxonMobil manufactures uncertainty about climate science (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007). The report states that ExxonMobil helped create a task force called ‘‘Global Climate Science Team’’ (GCST) in 1998, which was inspired by the Advancement of Sound Science, created by the Philip Morris tobacco company to manufacture uncertainty about the health hazards of second-hand smoke (see also Moore, 1997). According to a task force memo cited by UCS (with a full text), by emulating the ‘‘Big Tobacco’s disinformation strategy,’’ GCST asserted that ‘‘Victory will be achieved when average citizens understand (recognize) uncertainties in climate science’ and when ‘public recognition of uncertainty becomes part of the conventional wisdom’’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, pp. 910). UCS identified several tactics connected with and employed by ExxonMobil to manufacture uncertainty that followed those of big tobacco. Accordingly, ExxonMobil engaged in ‘‘information laundering,’’ to project ‘‘the company’s desired message through ostensibly independent nonprofit organizations,’’ some of which are well known, like the American Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 10). However, the oil company also funded several other organizations ‘‘that market and distribute global warming disinformation’’ that are rather obscure, such as the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the International Policy Network (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 10). The list of organizations is extensive and the UCS pointed to the synecdochic pattern of these parts in their representation of ExxonMobil’s disinformation campaign.8 In all, the UCS stated that ‘‘The network ExxonMobil created masqueraded as a credible scientific alternative, but it publicized discredited studies and cherry-picked information to present misleading conclusions’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 11). In addition to ‘‘underwriting multiple organizations with overlapping staff,’’ UCS also cited the oil company’s ‘‘promotion of a small handful of scientific spokespeople’’ to voice ‘‘doubt about human-caused global warming,’’ who were not representative parts of climate science (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 14). With the unsound science provided by a select few who were already predisposed against the possibility of human-caused climate change for one reason or another, the UCS also argued that ExxonMobil shifted the focus of debate away from its ‘‘irresponsible
Uncertainty of Climate Change
201
behavior toward global warming’’ by calling, much like President Bush, for ‘‘a positive concept of ‘sound science.’’’ In doing so, the oil company ‘‘helped delay action to reduce heat-trapping emissions from its company and products indefinitely,’’ because ‘‘scientists don’t know enough about global warming to justify substantial reductions in heat-trapping emissions’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 17). UCS pointed to the irony of an organization using a dubious synecdoche for climate science, with unrepresentative scientists, to promote sound science in order to delay action against itself. The UCS referred to ExxonMobil’s website to drive home the point: Taken together, gaps in the scientific basis for theoretical climate models and the interplay of significant natural variability make it very difficult to determine objectively the extent to which recent climate change might be the result of human actions. (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 17)
Finally, UCS observed that, like the tobacco industry, ExxonMobil has also fueled its disinformation campaign by ‘‘buying government access’’ and ‘‘exerting influence over government policy’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 19). The connectedness of tobacco, oil, and government as a problem is synecdochic for the UCS, and the irony of it brings the focus of attention back to the Bush Administration. Beginning shortly after the Bush inauguration in 2001, UCS asserted that ExxonMobil participated in Vice President Cheney’s ‘‘Energy Task Force’’ to establish goals for a national energy plan that urged the president to reject the Kyoto Protocol, and then lobbied to replace Robert Watson as chair of the IPCC (a well respected scientist appointed by Vice President Al Gore) with Harlan Watson (no relation), a climate advisor for Bush Senior who ‘‘steadfastly opposed’’ Kyoto (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 19). This was only the beginning. According to the UCS, from 2001 to 2005 ExxonMobil proceeded ‘‘to permeate the highest echelons of the federal government,’’ including, for example, White House Council on Environmental Quality, where chief Cooney ‘‘spent a significant amount of time censoring and distorting government reports so as to exaggerate scientific uncertainty about global warming’’ (pp. 1920). The connections between ExxonMobil and the federal government’s position on climate change are too numerous to detail at present.9 Suffice it to say that the report by the UCS not only connected Bush to ExxonMobil, but with the unscrupulous ways of the tobacco industry, to misrepresent the problem of climate change. With such connections, UCS revealed how uncertainty is constructed from a false (dubious) synecdochic pattern: Like Big Tobacco before it, ExxonMobil has been enormously successful at influencing the current administration and key members of Congress. From successfully commending the appointment of key personnel in the Bush administration, to coordinating its disinformation tactics on global warming with highranking Bush administration personnel, to funding climate change contrarians in Congress, ExxonMobil and its proxies have exerted extraordinary influence over the policies of the U. S. government during the Bush administration. (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 24)
To refute the Bush administration’s construction of uncertainty, UCS established the existence of an integral relationship between the administration and the oil industry based on a synecdochic pattern that connected the two through their dual efforts to
202 M. P. Moore
misrepresent the reality of climate change. This connectedness, according to UCS, stresses the quantity of energy-for-economy over the threatened quality of the environment as a whole. In addition, the UCS connected the oil industry with Big Tobacco to condemn the manner in which the Bush Administration manufactures uncertainty about climate change. In other words, the Bush Administration also connects with tobacco when it connects with oil. For the UCS, this connection sheds greater light on how the irony of uncertainty covers up an uncomfortable logic to sustain comfort. As the Bush Administration continues to sacrifice the quality of the whole for the quantity of a part by manufacturing uncertainty, UCS stresses connectedness between quality and quantity by highlighting what is certain. Raising the Heat for a Cooler Climate The purpose of UCS is not just to expose the truth about ironic uncertainty, but to encourage a change in policy, on the basis of a noble synecdoche and dialectic irony, that would reduce climate change. ‘‘Despite what ExxonMobil might want to tell you,’’ UCS noted, ‘‘there is widespread agreement among credentialed climate scientists around the world that human-caused global warming is well under way,’’ warning that, ‘‘Without a concerted effort to curb heat-trapping emissions, it spells trouble for the health and well being of our planet’’ (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2007, p. 30, emphasis added). With little uncertainty about human-caused global warming, or the connection between human activity and global warming (or global warming as a human activity), greater possibilities arise in the consideration of climate change as dialectic irony. Dialectic irony shifts the attention away from the victims and villains who stand outside an observer, to the victims and villains inside everyone. With ‘‘global’’ warming identified as ‘‘human’’ activity, there is no better way to frame the problem than with a dialectic irony. As long as uncertainty remains, humans can deny their part in this play. It is this construction of uncertainty, therefore, that the UCS opposes so adamantly first and foremost as misrepresentation, but it can also be viewed as one that is needed by the UCS to promote its view. The Bush Administration and ExxonMobil stand accused, but what about the rest of us, even the accusers? In this case, scientists who have determined that climate change is a physical reality, and have painted a realistic picture of it, have also identified ‘‘social’’ motivations in politics and business for perpetuating uncertainty. One assumption is that, from a scientific perspective, politics and big business represent causal agents in the lack of attention given toward reducing global warming. By removing these causes a suitable effect should follow. As the Bush Administration and ExxonMobil construct uncertainty in the same way as the tobacco industry, they are not representative of society as a whole, but the uncertainty continues to serve as a way to resist the inevitable. At the same time, Bush and ExxonMobil, as hands that serve and feed us, become the scapegoats of climate change. This does not mean government and big business are innocent, but that we should critically examine how their constructions of uncertainty serve and feed us. If addiction to oil is cooking the planet, then the oil pushers, like those of tobacco, are
Uncertainty of Climate Change
203
junkies as well, and should be treated as such. Addicts are serving addicts with uncertainty to perpetuate addiction for all and thus join together in a weak representative form of synecdoche that lacks the dialectic irony in which, as Burke (1969, p. 515) noted, ‘‘folly and villainy are integral motives, necessary to wisdom and virtue.’’ Bush and ExxonMobil connect their uncertainty to wisdom and virtue in what appears to be a representation of us all, but for the UCS, this uncertainty actually represents folly and villainy that can be reversed with discourse based in true synecdoche. Notes [1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
For discussions of uncertainty in science see Cooke (1991) and Dolby (1996). On constructions of uncertainty about climate change see Pollack (2003). For a discussion of climate change as public debate, see Russill (2008). The Union of Concerned Scientists is a non-profit organization of scientists and citizens that combines scientific analysis with innovative public policy development and public advocacy to achieve practical environmental solutions. See ‘‘Who We Are,’’ in About UCS (UCS, 2006). The UCS rejects Bush’s construction of uncertainty because its synecdochic form misrepresents the problem, and uses synecdochic reasoning to expose Bush’s view as one that suppresses essential parts and cherry-picks others. See Burke (1969, p. 509). For a sample ranging from wild sarcasm to serious indictment, see Ivins and Dubose (2003), Miller (2002), Waldman (2004), and Weisberg (2001). Between September 2001 and May 2008, Bush’s job approval ratings dropped from 90 to 28%. His approval among Republicans fell during this period from 92 to 60%. See Jones (2008), Newport and Carroll (2007), and Saad (2007). Eighty percent of Americans say they understand global warming and 60% believe the effects of it have already begun, but most do not believe global warming will pose a threat to them in their lifetime or worry much about it. See Gallup and Saad (1997), Newport (2008), and Saad (2004, 2007). The UCS (2004a) connected the Bush Administration to several environmental problems, including air quality, mercury emissions, air pollutants, endangered species, and lead poisoning. Gallup polled Americans after the release of this report on the impact of the criticism leveled by the UCS, and found that two-thirds had heard little or nothing about it. However, when asked who they tend to believe, 59% said the UCS, while 32% said the Bush Administration. See Dunlap (2004). For accounts of censorship, manipulation of research, and ‘‘irregularities in appointments to scientific advisory panels’’ by the Bush Administration, see Union of Concerned Scientists (2004a, pp. 2829). According to the UCS, ExxonMobil funded several groups to create legitimacy, such as the American Council for Capital Formation Center for Policy Research, American Legislative Exchange Council, Frontiers of Freedom, Global Science Climate Team, the Center for Science and Public Policy, the George C. Marshall Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Global Climate Coalition, and the Heartland Institute. See Union of Concerned Scientists (2007, pp. 914, 3135). The UCS details ExxonMobil’s influence in the federal government and explains how to put an end to it in ‘‘Smoke, Mirrors, & Hot Air.’’ See Union of Concerned Scientists (2007, pp. 1928).
204 M. P. Moore
References Booth, W. (1974). A rhetoric of irony. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Burke, K. (1969). A grammar of motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bush, G.W. (2002). Remarks announcing the clear skies and global climate change initiatives in Silver Spring, Maryland. In Public papers of the presidents of the United States: George W. Bush, Book I (pp. 226231). Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office. Cooke, R. M. (1991). Experts in uncertainty: Opinion and subjective probability in science. New York: Oxford University Press. Dolby, R. G. A. (1996). Uncertain knowledge: An image of science for a changing world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dunlap, R.E. (2004, April 5). Bush and the environment: Potential for trouble? The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, pp. 79. Gallup, A., & Saad, L. (1997, December). Americans concerned, not alarmed about global warming. The Gallup Poll Monthly, pp. 1315. History Commons. (2008, August 13). The Bush administration’s environmental record: Global climate change, 129. Retrieved August 13, 2008, from http://www.historycommons.org/ timeline.jsp?timeline the_bush_administration_s_enviro_record Ivins, M., & Dubose, L. (2003). Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America. New York: Random House. Jones, J.M. (2008, May 8). Bush approval rating down to 60% among republicans. The Gallup Poll Briefing, pp. 3132. Kluger, J. (2006, April 3). The tipping point. Time, pp. 3442. Lemonick, M.D. (2001, April 9). Life in the greenhouse. Time, pp. 2429. Miller, M. C. (2002). The Bush dyslexicon: Observations on a national disorder. New York: W.W. Norton. Moore, M. P. (1993). Constructing irreconcilable conflict: The function of synecdoche in the spotted owl controversy. Communication Monographs, 60, 258274. Moore, M. P. (1997). The cigarette as representational ideograph in the debate over environmental tobacco smoke. Communication Monographs, 64, 4764. Moore, M. P. (2003). Making sense of salmon: Synecdoche and irony in a natural resource crisis. Western Journal of Communication, 67, 7496. Newport, F. (2008, April 21). Little increase in American’s global warming worries. The Gallup Poll Briefing, pp. 8082. Newport, F., & Carroll, J. (2007, July 10). Bush job approval at 29%, lowest of his administration. The Gallup Poll Briefing, pp. 2729. Pollack, H. N. (2003). Uncertain science . . . uncertain world. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. President Bush discusses climate change. (2001, June 11). The White House: President George W. Bush, 14. Retrieved July 7, 2008, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/06/ 20010622-2.html Project Censored. (2005). Bush administration manipulates science and censors scientists. Retrieved July 21, 2008, from http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/3-bush-administra tion-manipulates-science-and-censors-scientists Russill, C. (2008). Tipping point forewarnings in climate change communication: Some implications of an emerging trend. Environmental Communication, 2, 133153. Saad, L. (2004, April 20). Global warming on public’s back burner. The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, pp. 2829. Saad, L. (2007, March 12). To Americans, the risks of global warming are not imminent. The Gallup Poll Briefing, pp. 4042.
Uncertainty of Climate Change
205
Statement of the Honorable John H. Marburger, III on scientific integrity in the Bush Administration. (2004, April 2). Retrieved September 9, 2004, from http://www.ostp.gov/ html/ucs/ResponsetoCongressUCSDocumentApril2004.pdf Union of Concerned Scientists. (2004a). Scientific integrity in policymaking: An investigation into the Bush administration’s misuse of science. Retrieved September 9, 2004, from http:// www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID 1322.pdf Union of Concerned Scientists. (2004b). An open letter to the American people. Retrieved September 16, 2004, from http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0621_2.pdf Union of Concerned Scientists. (2006). About UCS. Retrieved January 25, 2006, from http:// www.ucsusa.org/ucs/about/history.html Union of Concerned Scientists. (2007). Smoke, mirrors & hot air: How ExxonMobil uses big tobacco’s tactics to manufacture uncertainty on climate science. Retrieved July 31, 2008, from http:// www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/exxonmobil-smoke-mirror-hot.html Union of Concerned Scientists. (2008). Global warming human fingerprints. Retrieved July 31, 2008, from http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/Fingerprints.html Waldman, P. (2004). Fraud: The strategy behind the Bush lies and why the media didn’t tell you. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks. Weisberg, J. (2001). Bushisms. New York: Fireside.
