The Role of Coherence in Climate Change Science: A methodological proposal

Abstract

Even about climate change, where there is a majoritarian consensus about its causes and effects, science proves to be a matter of polyphonic discursive constructions, competitive storytelling and creative narratives, where coherence and contradictions play a major role in persuading of the “truthiness” of a scientific account.  This work aims at showing it empirically, through a systematic discourse analysis carried out applying a new revisitation of the Toulmin’s Model (1959) to a negationist publication promoted by the Climate Change Intelligence Group (Clintel). The findings confirm that counternarratives on climate change check coherence in mainstream arguments, looking for contradictions between evidence and models (be their descriptive, explanatory, or predictive) and between competing models. In addition, deniers detect some recurrent argumentative fallacies in the mainstream account advocated by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change): omissions, cherry picking from literature and databases, fallacies of relevance and accuracy (with regard to descriptions), logical mistakes (with regard to explanations) and statistical flaws (with regard to predictions), together with common rhetorical expedients, like hiding good news and presenting only worst-case scenarios. A discussion of the advantages and limitations of the model closes the essay, together with the prospect of possible research avenues to further understand the current epistemological debates about climate change “science”.