Mansfield Ethics and Public Affairs Program National Science Foundation

Framing:

Geoengineering is usually presented to the public within a particular ‘frame.’ Common frames include ‘plan B,’ ‘insurance,’ and ‘technological fix.’ Because they conjure up a certain picture of what is going on, frames sometimes come with particular values and expectations built into them. Frames, in other words, are not often neutral.

Questions include: Are some frames more supportive of geoengineering than others? Are some frames deliberately misleading or inaccurate? Do people invent frames simply to generate public interest? Are there better frames for geoengineering that have not been discussed/created yet? Are there some geoengineering frames that are now obsolete? Are there some geoengineering frames that contradict each other? Do some frames appeal more to people from certain disciplines and less to people from others? What role does the media play in generating and promulgating frames? How can the public become more alert to frames and how they influence the discourse?

Bellamy, R., Chilvers, J., Vaughan, N., Lenton, T. (2012). Appraising Geoengineering, 153. Tyndall Centre Working Paper.

Buck, Holly Jean. (2013). Framing geoengineering in the media: Spectacle, tragedy, solution? In Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe, Benjamin Stephan (Eds.) Interpretive approaches to global climate governance: De-constructing the greenhouse (166-182). New York: Routledge.

Nerlich, B., & Jaspal, R. (2012). Metaphors we die by? Geoengineering, metaphors, and the argument from catastrophe. Metaphor and Symbol, 27(2), 131-147.

Nisbet, M. C. (2009). Communicating climate change: Why frames matter for public engagement. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 51(2), 12-23.

Scott, Dane. (2012). Insurance Policy or Technological Fix? The Ethical Implications of Framing Solar Radiation Management. In Christopher J. Preston (Ed.) Engineering the climate: The ethics of solar radiation management (151-168). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

Scholte, S., Vasileiadou, E., & Petersen, A. C. (2013). Opening up the societal debate on climate engineering: how newspaper frames are changing. Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences, 10(1), 1-16.

From the trenches,
Celeste