Global warming versus ozone depletion: failure and success in North America

Climate Research

Sheldon Ungar¹ 

关键词: Climate change;    Ozone hole;    Hot crisis;    Social construction;   

DOI  :  10.3354/cr023263

来源: Inter-Research Science Publishing

【 摘 要 】

ABSTRACT: The success of ozone depletion as a social problem is used to examine and understand the relative failure of global warming. Starting with the (aborted) Œhot crisis¹ of the Greenhouse summer of 1988, this paper tries to show why, despite direscientific warning, advantages in claimsmaking, and the perceived emergence of strange weather, global warming consistently obtained lesser outcomes. Whereas global warming is a complex and uncertain scientific issue, the ozone hole was associated andresonated with easy-to-understand bridging metaphors derived from the popular culture. The latter problem not only gave rise to a hot crisis, but was also caught up in a cultural whirlwind‹a rapidly evolving and progressive sequence of dynamic and oftensurprising events that surge through a variety of public arenas with a strong conversational and practical presence. Effectively, ozone loss provided a sense of concrete risk with both strong emotional overtones and everyday relevance for talk andaction. Global warming, in contrast, is not amenable to bridging metaphors and did not lend itself to a cultural whirlwind.

【 授权许可】

Unknown