Social concern about climate change in spain: a qualitative approach
Abstract
Using qualitative data provided by ten group meetings, inserted in a research on Uncertainty and Climate Change in Spain (2018-20), this paper addresses the problem of the relative deficit and ambivalence of Spanish society's concern about climate change. The meetings have been conducted among lay population, non-experts in matters related to the phenomenon. The analysis of the discursive material produced reconstructs the complex semantics of climate change and the way in which the axes of knowledge (ignorance vs. certainty) and of doing (powerlessness vs. potency) are configured. The space formed by these axes represents the different possible positions of society with respect to climate change and the concerns it raises. There are five variants of climate concern: the hegemonic one of Unconcerned Concern, differentiated from the clearer variants of Concern or Unconcern, as well as from the so-called Irresponsibility of the Prepotents and Tragic Clairvoyance. Above this static structure, the presence of a dynamic force that the speakers call Conscientiousness [concienciación] is emphasized.
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