Like many people in our society, I live in a politically divided community. As I drive through different neighborhoods, I like to notice how political yard signs and bumper stickers shift from zip code to zip code. The closer I get to downtown, the local college, and the best coffee, the more I start to see signs that signify liberal political persuasions.
I think one sign that effectively summarizes contemporary, liberal discourse begins with “In this house, we believe.” In the middle of the sign, in some of the largest print, you will read “SCIENCE IS REAL.” After years of vaccine denial, pandemic skepticism, and stalled action on climate change, belief in science has become a common political talking point. Indeed, on one of Biden’s first executive orders he wrote that “the policy of my Administration [is] to listen to the science.” Here, something called “science” speaks for itself, broadcasting objective and authoritative truths. Is it really this simple?
Environmental sociologists have long contemplated the political nature of scientific belief and the ways in which “science” is done and disseminated across society. In this brief post, I will highlight two currents of environmental sociological critique that I hope can provide some cautionary perspective for practitioners and scholars of equitable ocean development. First, I take issue with the implicit notion, articulated in statements like “listen to the science,” that the failure to address environmental challenges chiefly stems from poor education and/or a dearth of information on the issues. Second, the notion that “science is real,” reduces science to its most objective and lab-like imaginaries. In what I view as problematic for equitable, just development, this reductive view of science provides an overly simplified understanding of knowledge production that is vulnerable to elite co-optation.
First, the notion that more information will lead to greater environmental awareness or activism is limited. Sociological studies of environmental concern indicate that prior political ideology, socioeconomic status, and concern for other issues—notably the economy—all have significant effects on environmental beliefs even when adjusting for level of education (Longo and Baker 2014; McCright and Dunlap 2011; Xiao, Dunlap, and Hong, 2019).
Environmental sociologist Kari Marie Norgaard notes that a wide variety of sociological studies, ranging from global to local, indicate that belief in climate change and perceptions of environmental risk are not heavily influenced by additional knowledge. In Norgaard’s case study, she found that her highly educated participants “did know about global warming, but they did not integrate this knowledge into everyday life.” For some, as many in Norgaard’s ethnographic research, it is relatively easy to separate abstract thought from everyday action or behavior. This capacity for cognitive dissonance may reflect social power and privilege. Indeed, these findings pair well with broader, cross-national work from quantitative environmental sociological research, which indicates that those in more affluent, less polluted areas demonstrate lower levels of stress and concern for environmental problems.
Regarding social equity, this bevy of research indicates that political and social factors strongly shape how people digest and respond to scientific information. To advance action on sustainable development, it is thus necessary to form political alliances capable of empowering concerned but often marginalized groups.
Science is also not an objective terrain in itself—the process of doing science is political and historically contingent. And the association between society and scientific knowledge production is often counterintuitive. For example, environmental sociologist Caleb Scoville observes that advancements in scientific knowledge are often associated with ecologically harmful technological developments. “Claims of endangerment,” necessary to enforce the United States’ Endangered Species Act are often “made possible by the fulfillment of the very engineering needs and extractive relations,” understood to cause endangerment, Scoville argues. Thus, both contemporary environmental problems and the ways in which we come to understand them are shaped by broader social forces. It is impossible to fully understand many major tenets of modern conservation science, from the protection of endangered species to the management of invasives, without a grasp of modernization, global capitalism, and other socio-historic forces.
Environmental sociologists thus argue that a purely “objective” characterization of science as “real” overlooks how scientific jargon and research can become co-opted by politically powerful forces. Longo et al. apply this logic to their critique of ‘corporate biosphere stewardship,’ whereby elite firms incorporate scientific terminology to justify their political economic power. For some, the growing power of oligopolist firms positions them as “keystone actors,” analogous to keystone species within an ecosystem. It is posited that “keystone actors,” or massive, powerful firms, can be steered with better scientific guidance. As massive firms “listen to the science,” these keystone actors’ decisions will then have “cascading effects” that ultimately shift the ecological decision-making processes across the corporate ecosystem.
Here, scientific lingo like “keystone species” or “cascading effect” work to naturalize a series of social relationships that are actually quite unique across human history and absent across non-human natures. Whereas keystone species serve important ecological functions that help maintain biodiversity, modern corporations tend to reduce competition, buy-out competitors, and ultimately limit economic diversity. Further, empirical work illustrates that these tendencies of concentration and consolidation generally drive ecological impacts, not reduce them. Also, from a sociological perspective, the individual views and values of particular firms matter less compared to the broader, socio-structural drivers associated with commodification and growth. These socially contingent imperatives drive investment and share-holder behavior, which are still strongly shaped by the ‘bottom-line.’
The tendency to justify unequal socio-economic relationships using supposedly immutable scientific laws is traceable back to social Darwinism and the emergence of industrial capitalism. In his seminal Great Transformation Polanyi’s historical analysis (which has influenced much contemporary environmental political economy) underscored the convergence of natural and social scientific terminologies, especially within the field of economics. Suffice to say, there exists a long history that illustrates the thorny nature of uncritically listening to science—enough to know that science does not speak for itself and cannot simply be “listened to” as a clear, authoritative guide.
If science speaks for itself, then powerful forces will invariably try to justify inequality and injustice on scientific grounds. Rather, it is important to understand that science is done by people living in societies. As environmental sociologists have long argued, we must therefore understand society if we are to understand science.
References
Longo, S. B., & Baker, J. O. (2014). Economy “versus” environment: The influence of economic ideology and political identity on perceived threat of eco-catastrophe. The Sociological Quarterly, 55(2), 341-365.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011). Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conservative white males in the United States. Global environmental change, 21(4), 1163-1172.
Xiao, C., Dunlap, R. E., & Hong, D. (2019). Ecological worldview as the central component of environmental concern: Clarifying the role of the NEP. Society & natural resources, 32(1), 53-72.