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| Author(s): |
Roger Domenech Colacios
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2014-05-05 |
| Examining board members: |
Maria Amelia Mascarenhas Dantes;
Jozimar Paes de Almeida;
Sílvia Fernanda de Mendonça Figueirôa;
Paulo Henrique Martinez;
Márcia Regina Barros da Silva
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| Advisor: | Maria Amelia Mascarenhas Dantes |
| Abstract | |
This thesis analyzes the controversies regarding the construction of the scientific fact of climate change in the journals Science and Nature from 1970 to 2005, guided by the hypothesis that politics is a defining element in the discussions. We circumscribe our analysis in the historical context of the United States of America, reckoning they both articulated the major political agreements and the biggest dilemmas in implementing them, besides the research groups on climate studied here being located in this country. We identified three main themes discussed under the name of climate change: global warming, depletion of the ozone layer and nuclear winter. Each had specific moments of hegemony, present in texts written by scientists, editors, reporters, bureaucrats and experts in various fields of knowledge. In 1970, the first theoretical discussions on the depletion of the ozone layer appeared causing extensive controversies related to the real possibility of such an event to happen. In the 1970s, global warming gained an initial period of hegemony as the validity of the statement was questioned in relation to global cooling. In 1983, nuclear winter overpasses both themes, disclosed by the group known as TTAPS, led by the American astrophysicist Carl Sagan. The enunciation stood in direct relation to the Cold War and was present in the first years of 1980s and gradually fading from the scientific scene in the early 1990s. From 1987 onwards, degradation of the ozone layer resumed its role in the controversy based on empirical studies when scientists identified a hole in the layer above Antarctica. Since 1988, the scientific community had discussed global warming but it comes back into focus only in 1998 as a result the Kyoto Protocol and the scientific consensus that this would have caused. We analyze the hegemony of global warming until 2005 when a series of questions puts consensus and the Kyoto agreement at stake. Finally, we seek to build this mosaic of enunciations and controversies on the theoretical ground of the History of Science (AU) | |