Christopher Shaw
My work focuses on the language and politics of climate change. I have led on numerous projects examining how the construction of climate change risks shapes public and political responses to the climate crisis. The purpose of this work is to improve public representations of climate risk so that societies can organise more effectively to cope with the impacts of climate change. It will not be possible to do this without a shared and accurate understanding of the risks we face.
Subjects: Social Psychology
Biography
I research how policy and business elites work with intermediaries to construct narratives about climate change which are designed to legitimate and reproduce the privileges of the liberal bourgeois and their paymastersAreas of Research / Professional Expertise
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Sociology, social psychology, geography.
Climate policy, climate governance, public engagement.
Personal Interests
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Running, tennis, reading, the company of friends and family
Books
Articles
The Two Degree Celsius Target
Published: Apr 29, 2017 by Oxford Research Encyclopedia
Authors: Christopher Shaw
Subjects:
Environment and Sustainability
Climate scientists themselves maintain that while science can provide projections of possible impacts at different levels of warming, determining what constitutes an acceptable level of risk is not a matter to be decided by science alone, but is a value choice to be deliberated upon by societies as a whole. Hence, while climate science can inform debates about how much warming is too much, it cannot provide a definitive answer to that question.
Framing Risk and Uncertainty in Social Science Articles on Climate Change
Published: Aug 11, 2016 by Palgrave Macmillan
Authors: Christopher Shaw, Brigitte Nerlich, Iina Hellsten
Subjects:
Communication Studies
While a large majority of climate scientists are increasingly certain about many aspects of their assessment of climate change many lay people still perceive climate science to be beset with or hiding uncertainties. Some social scientists and communication researchers have therefore begun to advocate moving from a language of uncertainty to a language of risk.