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# Global Warming in Local Discourses

How Communities around the World Make Sense of Climate Change

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Global Warming in Local Discourses

How Communities around the World Make Sense of Climate Change

*With an interdisciplinary scope and a weaving together of global and local climate change concerns, this book provides an excellent example for the type of collecton urgently*

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*This book brilliantly shows how the idea of climate change performs many diferent cultural and politcal functons as it travels around the world, meetng a sheer diversity of*

*I recommend this book to everyone working to make sense of how we, as a global community, can more efectvely learn from each other and utlize common ground to*

Global news on anthropogenic climate change is shaped by internatonal politcs, scientfc reports and voices from transnatonal protest movements. This tmely volume asks how local communites engage with these transnatonal discourses. Looking at communites from Greenland to Tanzania, it illuminates how diferent understandings evolve in diverse cultural and geographical contexts while also revealing some common paterns of how

This book is a valuable resource to those studying climate and science communicaton; those interested in understanding the various roles played by journalism, NGOs, politcs and science in shaping public understandings of climate change, as well as those exploring the intersectons of the global and the local in debates on the sustainable transformaton

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# GLOBAL WARMING IN LOCAL DISCOURSES

# Global Warming in Local Discourses

How Communities around the World Make Sense of Climate Change

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# Contents

*Shameem Mahmud*

Editing this book would not have been possible without the continuous support from a number of people whom we thank very much. Obviously, the volume would be nothing without the chapter authors' willingness to condense bigger research projects into book chapters and going through several rounds of revisions. We also acknowledge the great support of our student assistant, Joana Kollert, in putting this book together. Thank you to the anonymous reviewers of the individual chapters and overall book concept, and to our colleague in Hamburg, Michael Schnegg, who has provided valuable feedback on the introduction. Kelley Friel has provided support in copy-editing the chapters into better English. We are indebted to Sven Engesser who has taken up the responsibility for this book among the editors of the Global Communications Book Series. Also, we thank Alessandra Tosi from Open Book Publishers who has supported the book and the book series over the years, and who never lost patience with us as the project proceeded slower than expected. We would also like to thank the support team at Open Book Publishers: Adele Kreager, for copy-editing, Anna Gatti, for cover design, and Melissa Purkiss, for typesetting. Finally, we acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy—EXC 2037 'CLICCS—Climate, Climatic Change, and Society'—Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), Universität Hamburg.

**Dorothee Arlt** has been teaching and researching at the Institute of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Bern as a Senior Assistant since 2013. Her research focuses on political communication, media in the context of flight and migration, science, energy and climate communication, as well as media reception and impact. Dorothee Arlt studied Applied Media Science at the Technical University of Ilmenau.

**Michael Brüggemann** is Professor of Communication Research, Climate and Science Communication at Universität Hamburg and Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS (Climate, Climatic Change, and Society). His research explores the transformations of journalism, political and science communication from a comparative perspective. For recent publications, see www.bruegge.net. Commentary on climate communication may be found at www.climatematters.de.

**Fenja De Silva-Schmidt** received her MA in Journalism and Communication Studies at Universität Hamburg, where she is also currently working as a Research Associate to the Chair of Communication Research, Climate and Science Communication. In her PhD dissertation, she analyzes how media coverage and interpersonal communication influence knowledge acquisition about climate politics.

**Sara de Wit** joined the Institute of Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), University of Oxford, as a postdoctoral Research Fellow in 2017. She is currently part of the Forecasts for Anticipatory Humanitarian Action (FATHUM) project. Trained in Anthropology and African Studies, Sara has a strong empirical orientation and has carried out "ethnographies of aid"—at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS), development theories, environmental anthropology and postcolonial studies—in which she broadly focused on how globally circulating ideas (such as climate change and notions of "modernity" and "development") travel, and what happens when they are translated by varying actors along the translation chain.

**Freja C. Eriksen** holds an MA in Journalism, Media and Globalization from Aarhus University and Universität Hamburg. Since concluding her thesis on sense-making of climate change in Greenland, she has become a climate and energy transition correspondent for *Clean Energy Wire* in Berlin. Before this, she worked as an editor at a Danish online news site covering the public sector. As a freelance journalist, she has researched the illegal international trade in electronic waste. She holds a BA in Rhetoric from the University of Copenhagen.

**Thomas Friedrich** received his doctorate in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Universität Hamburg within the framework of the interdisciplinary Cluster of Excellence "Climate System Analysis and Prediction". Previously, he was a fellow of the research group "The Cultural Constitution of Causal Cognition: Re-Integrating Anthropology into the Cognitive Sciences" at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld. He was a lecturer at the University of Cologne and the Ruhr-University of Bochum, and is now a researcher at the Institute for Social-Ecological Research in Frankfurt.

**Imke Hoppe** is a senior researcher at the Chair of Journalism and Communication Science at Universität Hamburg. She holds a PhD in Communication Science from TU Ilmenau. Her research interest lies in climate change and sustainability communication, with a special focus on digital media. Her research methods combine qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical communication research.

**Shameem Mahmud** works as a part-time lecturer in Media and Communication Research Methods and Journalism Cultures at the Institute of Journalism and Communication Studies, Universität Hamburg. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies from Universität Hamburg and specializes in public perceptions and communication of climate-change risks. Shameem also studied at the Universities of Dhaka, Bangladesh; Aarhus, Denmark; and Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His research focuses on environmental communication and journalism cultures. He previously worked at the University of Dhaka, and as a journalist in Bangladesh.

**Friederike E. L. Otto** is the Acting Director of the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford and an Associate Professor at the ECI Global Climate Science Programme. Her main research interests are extreme weather events and improving and developing methodologies to answer the question "whether, and to what extent, external climate drivers alter the likelihood of extreme weather to occur". She furthermore investigates the policy implications of this emerging scientific field. Friederike earned a Diploma in Physics from the University of Potsdam and a PhD in the Philosophy of Science from the Free University Berlin in 2012.

**Simone Rödder** is Assistant Professor of Sociology of Science and Principal Investigator in the Cluster of Excellence CLICCS at Universität Hamburg. She has an academic background in biology and sociology and is trained as a journalist. Her research explores communication across boundaries and focuses on science communication, science journalism, inter- and transdisciplinarity, and the science-policy interface. For recent publications see https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/en/fachbereichsowi/professuren/roedder/publikationen.html.

# 1. We are Climate Change: Climate Debates Between Transnational and Local Discourses

*Michael Brüggemann and Simone Rödder*

Local discourses around the world draw on multiple resources to make sense of a "travelling idea" such as climate change, including direct experiences of extreme weather, mediated reports, educational NGO activities, and pre-existing values and belief systems. There is no simple link between scientific literacy, climate-change awareness, and a sustainable lifestyle, but complex entanglements of transnational and local discourses and of scientific and other (religious, moral etc.) ways of making sense of climate change. As the case studies in this volume show, this entanglement of ways of sense-making results in both localizations of transnational discourses and the climatization of local discourses: aspects of the travelling idea of climate change are well-received, integrated, transformed, or rejected. Our comparison reveals a major factor that shapes the local appropriation of the concept of anthropogenic climate change: the fit of prior local interpretations, norms and practices with travelling ideas influences whether they are likely to be embraced or rejected.

Silla […] means the weather. Silla means also the human intelligence. So the weather and human intelligence are connected in our mythology, […] the bigger intelligence that means the universe. So the universe, the weather of the globe, our weather […] but also the human intelligence are connected.

*Interview with Inuit representative on a United Nations climate summit, as quoted in Roosvall and Tegelberg (2018: 69).*

The work of literary scholars, anthropologists, cultural historians, and critical theorists over the past several decades has yielded abundant evidence that "nature" is not nearly so natural as it seems. Instead, it is a profoundly human construction. This is not to say that the nonhuman world is somehow unreal or a mere figment of our imaginations far from it. But the way we describe and understand that world is so entangled with our own values and assumptions that the two can never be fully separated. What we mean when we use the word "nature" says as much about ourselves as about the things we label with that word.

*Cronon (1995: 25), as quoted in Jasanof (2010: 245).*

Echoing the first quote, it is a key proposition of the social sciences that representing nature entails representing humans (e.g. Jasanoff 2010; Jasanoff 2004; Luckmann 1970; Berger and Luckmann 1966). Anthropogenic global warming is a case in point: our physical environment, including the climate and the landscape, shapes our social realities; our social realities, in turn, influence our perceptions of our physical surroundings. These perceptions shape our practices and ways of living—which again affect the climate system.

 "We are the climate", states ethnographer de Wit in Chapter 5, Tanzania. The phrase is echoed in different studies assembled in this book, including Maasailand in northern Tanzania, the capital city of Greenland, Nuuk, and the Philippine Island of Palawan.

There is, thus, a threefold connection between society and climate change.  We are climate change, as our lifestyle is based on the massive emission of greenhouse gases. Thirdly, and this is a major finding from the empirical studies presented in this book: the notion of a complex entanglement between society and nature, climate, and climate change is shared among many communities around the globe.

Given that climate change exists and will proceed regardless of what we think about it, why is it important to study how local communities make sense of climate change? As has long been argued in sociology (Luhmann 1989), the physical and biogeochemical processes described by terms such as *climate* and *climate change* have to be distinguished from the patterns of interpretation related to these processes that find resonance in society. In this sense, the concept of climate change is a social construction (Stehr and von Storch 1995). Interpretations of climate change, such as those that stress individual and collective efficacy (the belief that "we can make a difference"), may motivate people to change their lifestyles and, more importantly, mobilize political action, while feelings of fear and shock may overwhelm, paralyze actions or lead to risk denial (Feldman and Hart 2015; O'Neill and Nicholson-Cole 2009). Responsibility for action may be attributed to individuals or to political and economic decision-makers. Different causes of action may be advocated. All of these factors will ultimately influence how societies react to climate change. This is why it is not only of academic interest, but also of practical importance to study local discourses about climate change.

This book investigates sense-making as a process of social construction. Sociologists Berger and Luckmann (1966) have famously argued that society is composed of social constructions of reality in the myriad of day-to-day interactions in which we define, perform, and negotiate individual and collective selves. Social representations theory from social psychology likewise posits that there are patterns of meaning embedded in media content as well as in direct communication processes that shape social interactions (Höijer 2011, see also Chapter 2, Greenland). Combining this meaning-based approach with the idea of social differentiation, human geographer Hulme has described the scientific concept of climate change as "an idea that now travels well beyond its origins in the natural sciences. And as this idea meets new cultures on its travels and encounters the worlds of politics, economics, popular culture, commerce and religion—often through the interposing role of the media—climate change takes on new meanings and serves new purposes" (Hulme 2009: xxvi; see also Chapter 3, Philippines).

Important factors that influence both the individual and collective sense-making of climate change include the encounter of (1) transnational and local discourses and (2) scientific and other ways of sense-making. The two dimensions are empirically not distinct, yet it makes sense to distinguish them analytically and discuss them one by one.

**(1) Transnational and local discourses:** The climate debate is shaped by strong transnational (cutting across national borders) actors and institutions. The transnational character of climate research has been institutionalized in the set-up of and reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is communicated based on a consensus policy (Hoppe and Rödder 2019). Another driver of transnational elements of climate debates is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its annual climate summits (Conferences of the Parties, COPs). COPs have been found to be the most salient events in media coverage of climate change (Schäfer, Ivanova, and Schmidt 2013); they have become political media events reaching broad audiences (Brüggemann et al. 2017; Wessler et al. 2016).

Two observatories of media coverage of climate change at the Universities of Colorado (Media and Climate Change Observatory, MeCCO) and Hamburg (Online Media Monitor on Climate Change, OMM) confirm the relevance of COPs and transnational science events in drawing attention to climate change. They also show that climate change was heavily debated in the years 2007 to 2009, when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore, and when the climate summit in Copenhagen attracted high hopes for transnational climate governance. The failure of Copenhagen led to a decade of public neglect of the issue, reflected in waning media attention to the topic (Boykoff et al. 2018; Brüggemann et al. 2018). The media debate on climate change has re-emerged in 2018 and 2019 after summers of heat and drought and the transnational climate strikes inspired by teenage activist Greta Thunberg (Mahl et al. 2020). The media debate is thus driven by transnational events and actors, including transnational NGO networks, as well as strategies of denial and downplaying the issue, fueled by the interests of carbondioxide-emitting industries (Oreskes 2017; Dunlap and McCright 2015).

While strong transnational discourses may lead us to expect similarities in local discourses about climate change, there are also good reasons to expect diversity. Local discourses are embedded in national political contexts that clearly also matter for the debate on climate change, as different content analyses have shown. National government positions tend to set the frames in national media outlets (Wessler et al. 2016; Grundmann and Scott 2014; Grundmann 2007). Ethnographic research has shown that local communities do not just mirror global climate discourses but develop their own interpretations of nature and/ or climate change (Stensrud and Eriksen 2019; Baer and Singer 2014; Crate and Nuttall 2009).

**(2) Scientific and other ways of sense-making**: The global governance approach of the climate regime resonates well with the prevailing scientific framing of the climate problem as global temperature rise (Aykut, Foyer, and Morena 2017; Aykut and Dahan 2015). Yet, scientific debates clash with the logics of other social worlds (Grundmann and Rödder 2019). The emergence of the concept of anthropogenic climate change has sparked entangled discourses in science, politics and journalistic media (Weingart, Engels, and Pansegrau 2000). National politics, as mentioned above, shapes national climate debates, as do the logics of journalism and political leanings of news outlets (Brüggemann and Engesser 2017; Boykoff 2011). Political ideologies overshadow scientific sense-making of climate change. Denying and downplaying the risks of anthropogenic climate change has become a defining feature of being Republican in the United States (Hoffman 2015; Dunlap and McCright 2008).

The impersonal and universal abstractions of science do not resonate well with local discourses. Jasanoff argues that the scientific-political representation of the climate problem as a global phenomenon is at odds with the sensations and memories through which local communities make sense of climatic change (2010: 237). The scientific meaning of climate change, as a decades-long increase in average global temperature, is not something that individuals can experience: "Global warming is not founded on everyday experience, has no immediate effects, and is not readily observable" (Ungar 1992: 489). Exposure to extreme weather or changes in vegetation or seasons can, of course, be experienced, yet it is an act of interpretation to link them to climate change (see also Rudiak-Gould 2013 on the controversy of whether climate change is visible). It has been shown that political concern about climate change has benefited from weather anomalies since the 1970s: "With a little help from Mother Nature […] climate change research reached the agenda of top US policy-makers" in 1971-75 (Hart and Victor 1993: 665, as quoted in Grundmann and Stehr 2012: 120). Yet, extended phases of extreme summer heat (e.g., in 1988, 2012, and 2018/19) have only partly found resonance as "social scares" (Ungar 2014, 1992).

Communities do not necessarily draw a link between experiences of extreme weather and global warming, and indeed, connecting everyday experiences of weather phenomena to climate change has long been regarded as a misunderstanding of the scientific concept. Yet, as Jasanoff (2010) points out, this is an obvious way to help individuals make sense of the concept. Moving on from the misunderstanding-paradigm, a research field has recently emerged in climate sciences that explicitly aims to assess the connection between extreme weather phenomena and climate change, the science of event attribution (see Chapter 7, Attribution Science). To turn the link between extreme weather events and climate change into a new focus of climate research may be interpreted as a scientific response to the mismatch of scales between climate science and every-day experiences in both time and space.

Following Jasanoff, we assume that "the impersonal, apolitical and universal imaginary of climate change projected by science comes into conflict with the subjective, situated and normative imaginations of human actors engaging with nature" (2010: 233). This book addresses these tensions based on in-depth studies of how communities around the world make sense of climate change: How do local discourses relate to global discourses of science and politics? The volume's case studies extend beyond the well-researched Anglo-Saxon sphere and include both industrialized nations as well as perspectives from the Global South. Each case explores three dimensions of climate-change discourse.

The first dimension is *patterns of communication* related to climate change. Information about climate change often comes to us in mediated form, and the type of media influences the message that is conveyed (see, e.g., traditional media theories going back as far as McLuhan 1964). Therefore, each chapter analyzes who is communicating climate change messages—and using which media, including mass and social media, as well as interpersonal communications.

Second, we are interested in *patterns of interpretation* about climate change that emerge from the different flows of communication. Local recipients may engage in oppositional readings of media coverage (Hall et al. 1978): their sense-making might depart from the frames provided by elite sources that populate media coverage. Therefore, each chapter probes whether climate change is viewed in the study location as anthropogenic or not, and as a severe problem or not. Additional questions include: Who is held responsible for mitigating and/or adapting to climate change? Do people self-identify as victims of, or as contributors to, anthropogenic climate change? What solutions do they advocate?

The third dimension is the *entanglement of meanings* originating at the local or transnational level including how the scientific and other framings of climate change speak to each other.

We suggest grasping entanglements of meanings with the concepts of *localization of transnational climate discourses* and *climatization of local discourses*, respectively. The first term invokes the precedence of local patterns of interpreting concepts from afar. It has been used to describe processes or strategies that counter trends of homogenization through globalization and emphasizes the relevance of local factors of influence (see, e.g., Escobar 2001). The second term, climatization, stresses changes in local discourses induced by transnational climate-change discourses. It was developed in the context of studies on transnational climate policy making (Aykut, Foyer, and Morena 2017). Foyer and colleagues diagnose a "climatization" of the policy world whereby participants in various discourses present issues that were formerly unrelated to the climate problem through a "climatic lens", leading to the treatment of a variety of issues according to the dominant logics of the global climate regime (Foyer, Aykut, and Morena 2017).

Beyond this framework, the individual chapters draw on a variety of analytical perspectives. Each presents findings from an in-depth study (mostly PhD theses) conducted within different disciplinary traditions, including anthropology with its focus on detailed description (Geertz 1973, see Chapter 3, Philippines, and Chapter 5, Tanzania) and media and journalism studies, from both interpretive (see Chapter 2, Greenland, and Chapter 6, Bangladesh) and more standardized approaches (see Chapter 4, Germany). All share a solid grounding in fieldwork, and all prioritize local discourse, asking how communities around the world re-contextualize and reframe transnational discourses on climate change. As expected, all case studies demonstrate that local communities relate their everyday experiences of changing seasons and extreme weather events to climate change. Notably, the attribution of weather events to climate change has come full circle and refocused attention in climate science on event attribution. We therefore asked a climate scientist to introduce the field of event attribution science by presenting the current state of knowledge on how climate change affects extreme weather events and seasonal phenomena in the world regions discussed in this volume (see Chapter 7, Attribution Science). This final chapter can itself be read as a piece of scientific discourse—written with a broad audience in mind—that speaks to the other chapters' explorations of local communities' sense-making.

In the following, we summarize each study, explain its approach and case-specific findings and eventually discuss some common patterns that emerge from the case studies.

# Climate Change as a Vehicle for Hopes and Fears in Greenland

While the Arctic regularly serves as a poster child for dangerous anthropogenic climate-change impacts in media reports, its citizen's perspectives on both the impacts and their media representation have so far received much less attention (but see Nilsson and Christensen 2019; Nuttall 2009). Chapter 2, written by communication scholar Freja Eriksen, helps fill this gap by studying how Greenlanders make sense of climate-change impacts through both media exposure and personal experiences. Her analysis is based on social representations theory and on five focus group interviews involving fifteen inhabitants of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.

Eriksen finds that while iconic images of melting icebergs portray Arctic citizens as climate change victims, her interviewees do not selfidentify as victims. The local discourses she describes diversify the global imaginary of Greenland "melting away", even including the positive image of a future capital "Costa del Nuuk". The notion of "Costa del Nuuk" is an example of naming and anchoring the unclear future of a warming Greenland with well-known concepts such as summer holidays on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. These humorous replies confirm previous findings by Nuttall (2009), whereby political aspirations for self-governance and independence are linked to a warming climate that opens up chances for future development (while Denmark, the former colonizer, might become flooded).

Eriksen's findings also echo Nuttall's (2009) argument that in Greenland, the climate is widely understood to be permanently changing and intrinsically unstable. Similar to perceptions among the Maasai (see Chapter 5, Tanzania), unreliable seasons and a changing climate are thus not believed to be extraordinary, new, or necessarily manmade.

Notably, for the inhabitants of Greenland, who we might expect to have direct experiences with climate change, the topic appears heavily mediated by news coverage. As one high school student puts it: "We live in Greenland but we don't see icebergs break off every day". While the interviewees criticize too stereotypical media descriptions of climatechange impacts, media coverage remains a major reference point. And while some interviewees oppose the dominant journalistic story of harmful climate change with Greenland as one of the most heavily affected countries, Eriksen points out that the alternative narrative put forward—politically and economically beneficial climate change—may also be taken from the media.

The chapter highlights that both media and local discourses cannot be treated as homogeneous entities. Eriksen found that an individual's professional background influenced whether they stressed the potential economic benefits or environmental risks of climate change. Also, groups of older people were more likely to doubt that humans have triggered current climate change and to believe that the media exaggerate climate change. Younger interviewees asserted that the media underestimate the true dangers of man-made global warming. Yet both age groups shared a distrust and criticism of media coverage, albeit for different reasons. Some inhabitants called for more local Greenlandic perspectives on climate change in the media.

The chapter clearly illustrates both the clash between transnational and local discourses and the conflict between the scientific view and self-assessments of climate-change impacts. While science warns that the Arctic is more heavily affected by climate change and is warming faster than most other world regions, and transnational media stereotypes propagate iconic images of polar bears and melting ice, local discourses emphasize that the climate has always been changing, that warmer temperatures might actually be better for Greenland and that Greenlanders have been able to adapt to these changes throughout history.

# Recontextualizing a Travelling Idea: Climate Change on the Philippine Island of Palawan

Chapter 3, written by social and cultural anthropologist Thomas Friedrich, studies the case of the Philippine island of Palawan to shed light on how climate change is perceived on an island where environmental protection is popular. Employing multi-method ethnography, the chapter explores how the idea of climate change is locally reframed based on personal experiences, and embedded in pre-existing ways of knowing nature and cultural practices including an already strong environmentalism.

Conceptually, the chapter draws on Hulme's interpretation of climate change as a "travelling idea" (2009), and argues that the notion of climate change has evolved predominantly in a top-down direction, from global IPCC knowledge via networks of media and politics to local people with diverse cultural backgrounds and epistemologies who try to make sense of it. Friedrich combines this notion with a Science and Technology Studies-informed distinction between knowledge and meaning, reiterating Jasanoff's point that scientific climate knowledge arises from impersonal observation whereas cultural meanings emerge from embedded experience in specific environmental, social and cultural contexts (Jasanoff 2010).

Because the island of Palawan has been exposed to severe environmental destruction, the government has pursued a vigorous environmental discourse and a determined environmental policy since the 1990s, which has also contributed to a consensual view of the perception of climate change.

The chapter examines educational theatre performances to demonstrate how the production and dissemination of a local notion of climate change takes place. The communicator of knowledge about climate change that the ethnographer examined in this case is a local NGO. In all their plays, natural disasters were linked to morally wrong environmental behavior such as cutting mangroves for charcoal production, an illegal but widespread practice on the island. The author thus argues that activities like the theatre "contribute to maintaining the popularity of tree planting as a means of environmental and climate protection". Recommending already widespread activities helps to secure the popularity of environmental protection measures, as opposed to discourses that brand popular practices, such as eating meat or driving cars, as environmentally harmful.

As for the question of entanglements between local and global discourses, the chapter shows that there is no linear relationship between climate knowledge and environmentally friendly behavior. On Palawan, climate change is perceived as one natural hazard among many, and "the discourse on climate change may have served more as post-hoc justification than original motivation for past and present behavior". It is thus neither knowledge of, nor belief in, anthropogenic climate change that makes a behavioral difference. Rather, the global discourse reinforces pre-existing beliefs, values, and practices. On Palawan, "it strengthens people's traditionally strong environmentalism and validates their strong rejection of, for example, cutting trees or burning garbage". In such a situation, the climate may be protected 'accidentally' while communities pursue other goals.

# Climate Change Comes Closer for Locals in Northern Germany

In Chapter 4, a media and communication studies author team (Imke Hoppe, Fenja De Silva-Schmidt, Michael Brüggemann, and Dorothee Arlt) reports findings from a broader research project at Hamburg University that explored audience reception of the COP 21 climate summit in Paris. The chapter compares how the Paris summit has been perceived and interpreted in an urban (Hamburg) and a rural setting (Otterndorf), both located in Northern Germany. The small town of Otterndorf is situated at the end of the Elbe estuary on the North coast, and the metropolis of Hamburg is located upstream along the Elbe River. The authors explore how space, both as a physical and a social concept, influences interpretations of climate change, with a focus on the role media reception plays in the process. The chapter draws on data from focus group discussions and media diaries, and uses an online panel survey from the wider project to contextualize the qualitative analysis presented in the chapter.

The results show that both media use and interpretations of climate change are fairly similar in both settings. Respondents in both settings criticized local media coverage of the summit. Apparently,

local newspapers failed to explain the complex matter of transnational climate governance and make it locally relevant. Locals were aware of the summit but claimed that the media did not explain what the international negotiations were about.

Spatial differences mattered as residents of Hamburg and Otterndorf differed in the extent to which they were personally concerned about potential climate-change impacts. Even though sea level rise is a tangible consequence of climate change for residents of Hamburg as well, they hold strong beliefs that it will not affect them personally. Historical floods (devastating parts of Hamburg in 1962) are no longer viewed as a threat. People in Otterndorf, with the rising tides of the North Sea behind the dikes, felt more personally concerned about climate change and worried that coastal protection was insufficient. Local discourses found in Hamburg thus provide evidence of the belief that Hamburg (e.g., through the harbor) contributes to climate change, but is not really affected. The local discourse in Otterndorf, taking place among the inhabitants and apparently being neglected by local media, was more about climate change as a threat to some of their villages.

An unexpected finding was the role of local roots and connection: long-term inhabitants drew stronger links between climate change, climate policy making, and their local community. The study thus concludes that the longer an individual lives in a place and the more connected he or she feels to it, the more relevant spatial factors become for her or his experience of climate change. While the science of anthropogenic climate change is widely accepted, the global policy discourse remains remote to local communities in Germany.

## Resistance to the Idea of Anthropogenic Climate Change among the Maasai

Chapter 5 travels south into Maasailand. It draws on fourteen months of ethnographic work conducted by anthropologist Sara de Wit for a PhD dissertation at the University of Cologne. She studies the ways in which climate-change discourse is translated, communicated and received in a rural village in Northern Tanzania, exploring how villagers who have no experience with Western life and whose culture is shaped by religion translate the story of climate change.

Conceptually, the chapter draws on cultural theories of risk perception (e.g., Douglas 1992) that emphasize that our models of nature and risk are not value-neutral scientific descriptions but are influenced by moral and political considerations. The chapter reconstructs the translations of the transnational discourse about climate change driven by the mass media (represented by the local radio station), the (Christian) church and NGOs. It finds that the ways in which climate science is translated do not sit well with the Maasai's religion and culture. The absence of awareness of and talk about climate change is not primarily rooted in a lack of knowledge, argues de Wit, but constitutes an "attempt to remain faithful to one's own set of norms, values, beliefs".

The first reason for the Maasai to oppose the scientific narrative about climate change is that it is perceived as an attack on their religion. In the local language, the same word (*Eng'ai*) denotes God, sky (or heaven), and rain. Drought and rain are the domain of God. Now NGOs—in an educational movie described in the chapter—are telling the Maasai that it is climate change that brings about drought and that humans cause climate change. Hence, it is of no use to pray for rain. Scientists are viewed as secular prophets propagating their apocalyptic tale. Also, discussing the future meets resistance among the Maasai, who "refuted any attempt to probe future climate scenarios or ideas of the future in any sense. Questions related to futurology were always cast away with laughter, followed by 'we cannot know', or 'only God knows'".

The second reason why the message of anthropogenic climate change meets opposition is that the local community views changing weather and unreliable seasons as normal conditions of life. The idea of stability as the "natural" state of nature seems strange (see also Chapter 2, Greenland). A third reason is that the Maasai currently have to deal with a deep cultural change following a switch from a nomadic to a semi-nomadic lifestyle: "Perhaps the weather has changed, but we have changed, too". The deterioration of climatic conditions is furthermore interpreted as a consequence of the decline of culture and morals.

De Wit points out that in this context it is "not fruitful to disentangle climatic and societal changes"—a marked contrast to the scientific attribution approach as outlined in Chapter 7, which focuses on isolating the contribution of climate change to extreme weather events. She concludes that the story of climate change is not doomed to be rejected locally, if it respects the "inclusive ontology in which society, morals and nature are interwoven—a way of living that ceases to make sense when purged of *Eng'ai*".

## Climate Change and Other Troubles along Bangladesh's Coastline

In Chapter 6, Bangladesh-born communication scholar Shameem Mahmud focuses on the country's coastal region to explore how communities at the forefront of climate-change risks make sense of the concept. Thus, the chapter deals with yet another group that is often dubbed "climate victims" in Western discourses.

The chapter studies the community's major information sources on climate change and how it understands climate change in the context of constant exposure to regional geo-hazards such as tropical cyclones, floods, salinity in the water and soil, storms, and coastal erosion. The conceptual part of the chapter is based on the climate change communication and risk perception literature. Methodologically, the study draws mainly on interviews with thirty-eight citizens of a coastal district in Bangladesh, located close to the world's largest mangrove forest. Almost half of the participants were illiterate.

The study finds that interviewees obtained climate change information from a number of sources, including mass media (radio and television), NGO advocacy programmes, and local opinion leaders. This acquired knowledge focuses on topics such as salinization and sea level rise as local impacts of climate change. It is interesting to note that, just as in Greenland (see Chapter 2, Greenland), the local communities in this climate-change-affected country still learn about the concept through the media. An interesting aspect of this chapter is the role of NGOs in framing the climate issue for the coastal community. There are 250 active NGOs in the region, and attributions to climate change are often induced by NGO officials who conduct awareness programmes for farmers and fishermen. "I have heard this might be because of climate change" was a standard narrative among community members in response to the interview questions.

Mahmud identifies two major patterns of sense-making of climate change within the community. First, a "regional geo-hazard pattern", which contextualizes risks from climate change with well-known local geo-hazards, namely "climate change as increased and unprecedented storms", "climate change as drowning in the sea", and "climate change means increased salinity". The second pattern is "weather and seasonal variance". It describes how the interviewees attribute their personal experiences of changes in local weather and seasons to climate change. The communities' direct exposure to extreme weather events and experiences of seasonal change and other vagaries of the weather clearly influence how they make sense of mediated climate change information.

In their explanation of phenomena, such as increased salinity and rising tidal surges, the interviewees stated that the phenomena were "not new", but attributed the increase of the problem to the hitherto abstract concept of climate change—a phenomenon that social representations theory (see Chapter 2, Greenland, and Chapter 3, Philippines) describes as "anchoring" a new concept in familiar ones. The interviewees were also aware of local causes other than climate change: e.g. shrimp aquaculture as a source of increased salinization. Rather than attributing any ecological problem to the global issue of climate change, and in contrast to some of what they have heard from NGOs, the community members claimed agency, and responsibility: "We should not always blame others for the problem".

The study reveals complex entanglements between local and global discourses, including the question of responsibility for a problem like salinization. The chapter highlights the importance of analyzing NGOs' communication strategies, tools and content, as well as their role in creating awareness and motivating behavioral changes among rural communities. In conclusion, local "place identity" formed through experiences of regional geo-hazards, in combination with media information and NGO communication, make climate change a salient risk in this coastal community of Bangladesh.

# Attributing Extreme Weather Events to Climate Change: The Perspective of Science

In Chapter 7, physicist and climate modeler Friederike Otto describes the kinds of changes that are already being experienced locally and those that we are likely to see in the future. As one of the pioneering researchers in the emerging field of event attribution, she shows how research has recently advanced in exploring the link between extreme weather events and climate change. The chapter also exemplifies how science produces knowledge that is subsequently considered as authoritative in society. The process starts with a "landmark paper" that proposes a new methodology, which is followed by peer scrutiny and results in published claims of relevant knowledge.

The chapter translates the question of links between climate change and extreme weather into the scientific language of changing probabilities: climate change has increased the likelihood of particular types of events by a certain percentage. It also emphasizes that attributable changes in these probabilities are associated with a number of uncertainties, and that the robustness of various studies varies strongly depending on the types of events and geographic region investigated.

Nonetheless, there are some basic facts that climate scientists now treat as known for certain, including the fact that the current global warming trend is anthropogenic. This warming causes rising sea levels and increases the risk of some extreme weather events. This link is more evident for heat waves and large-scale rainfall, while at this time droughts and other events can only be linked to climate change in specific regions and seasons.

While Otto clearly stresses advances in this field, she also highlights limitations such as the complexity of weather phenomena like droughts and a lack of data, especially in the Global South. There are also natural variabilities in the climate system that influence how often extreme events occur. Furthermore, anthropogenic climate change interferes with other human impacts such as changing land use patterns and how communities manage rivers and water systems (see Chapter 6, Bangladesh). Otto explains that the damage caused by extreme events is understood as an outcome not only of the event itself, but local vulnerability and exposure are major risk factors in addition to the meteorological hazards. The methodological rationale of the scientific approach is to disentangle these factors in order to accurately attribute given effects to particular causes. This approach to disentangling different causes stands in marked contrast to how different factors (anthropogenic, natural) and considerations (scientific, religious, moral, and economic) are entangled in local debates about climate change.

This chapter draws on data gathered from around the world and provides a perspective that is shaped by the logic of scientific research. Although it holds insights on specific regions, its perspective is not that of a local community but of a distinct professional way of sense-making. Still, it illustrates how the media and public debates influence climate science, and thus provides evidence of what has been conceptualized as the medialization of science (Rödder et al. 2012; Weingart 1998). Individual perceptions and journalistic claims about links between extreme weather events and climate change have long preceded climate scientists' ability to draw this link. Public claims about possible links may have provided the impetus for the emergence of the science of event attribution—which has only very recently matured to make claims about the role of anthropogenic climate change in specific weather events.

#### Comparing Local Discourses

Local discourses on climate change are, in many ways, unique. Describing and understanding the specifics and details of each case is an endeavor that goes beyond the scope of book chapters and deserves full-length dissertations (De Wit 2017; Friedrich 2017; Mahmud 2016). Having summarized the cases with at least some of their specific results, we now briefly discuss them comparatively, looking at similarities and differences. We follow our framework of *patterns of communication*, *patterns of interpretation*, and *patterns of entanglement of transnational and local discourses*.

# Patterns of Communication: How Local Communities Use and Evaluate Sources of Information on Climate Change

Local communities typically distinguish between "us" (voices from my village, family, friends) and "them/others" (voices from afar, such as journalistic media, NGOs, and scientists) in the use and assessment of sources on climate change. Some sources, like local media outlets or local NGOs, may be situated in between these two categories, depending on how strongly they are rooted locally. "Other" sources are used to learn about the world beyond the local community ("I have seen it on TV", "It was on the news"), yet these sources are not trusted in the same way as those socially close to home. When asked whom they would rather believe about climate change, students from Greenland responded their local "elders" or "my grandmother" (see Chapter 2, Greenland). In more traditional societies, being socially close seems to overlap with spatial proximity, since families and communities tend to be located in the same village or in a limited area. In highly mediatized Western societies, particularly in urban contexts, being spatially and socially close (in the sense of belonging to the same community) may or may not overlap. Yet, the distinction between familiar sources that are part of the community and voices from afar remains relevant in both settings.

Media coverage, in particular, is criticized, mainly for *not* being able to understand local concerns related to climate change. Being a *detached* observer (and therefore keeping distance) is, in fact, a core selfunderstanding of journalism (Hanitzsch 2011; Deuze 2005). Climate change as a travelling idea that comes from afar is typically mediated by journalistic media, as well as by the NGOs' educational and activist programmes. The localization of the transnational discourse may sometimes fail, and remain remote and irrelevant to local publics.

Explicit criticism of news reporting was salient in our Western case studies where interviewees claimed that the media (including local media) provided a stereotypical image of them as helpless victims of climate change (Greenland), or failed to make the issue of global warming locally relevant (Northern Germany). In line with the wellresearched phenomenon of a "hostile media" perception (Gunther and Schmitt 2004), some respondents assume that the journalistic media serve some kind of hidden agenda (such as protecting the profits of ocean liners in Hamburg, see Chapter 4, Germany). We also see plural (negative) evaluations of the coverage: while some inhabitants of Nuuk criticized the media for being too alarmist, others opposed them for neglecting the risks associated with climate change (see Chapter 2, Greenland).

Several chapters highlight the role of NGOs in bringing ideas of climate change to local communities. As the chapters describe, it is mainly through educational programmes and events that local or western NGOs try to create climate-change awareness and motivate behavioral change among local communities. The chapters about cases from the Global South do not relate any instances of explicit criticism of either media content or NGO activities.

Differences between northern and southern societies occur, possibly, due to the higher degree of mediatization in the northern societies, where all areas of life are shaped by digital media use (see, e.g., Couldry and Hepp 2016). Thus, the students from Greenland emphasize that they do not see melting icebergs in everyday life, but know about them from media coverage.

The direct information activities of NGOs were not mentioned in our western case studies. It may be—and this needs to be further studied that the NGO's local information activities in the Global South serve as a functional equivalent to mediated communication in western societies.

## Patterns of Interpretation: How Local Communities Make Sense of Climate Change

Many informants in the communities under study share the feeling of being affected by climate change. This is expressed as a change from a more stable and better past to an unpredictable present and a potentially threatening future. Most explicitly articulated among the Maasai, but also elsewhere, these changes are attributed to a moral decline in society. A complex nature-culture connection via morality and religion is a commonplace finding in the anthropological literature, typically idealizing the past in order to criticize the present (Schnegg 2019).

While the local communities analyzed in the case studies feel affected by climate change, they do *not* see themselves as victims. Rather, they claim agency and feel competent to fight climate change, for example by praying or planting trees. And they feel able to adapt. This finding is in line with other studies which have found that local communities self-identify as "designers of the environment", and is in stark contrast with the transnational discourse that casts them as "helpless victims of climate change processes" (Jurt et al. 2015). Yet, there is little denial of the anthropogenic nature of climate change (some Maasai and some respondents in Greenland are exceptions that we will return to below), and there is an overall willingness to address the problem.

Another cross-cutting finding is that local discourses are not homogeneous: they are divided by age group, social position of the interviewee, and degree of rootedness in the local community. Older people seem to be more inclined to resist new narratives such as climate change, and we find evidence of this in Greenland as well as among the Maasai. Studies have shown this for other countries, even though there are national differences in the relative importance of each of the factors influencing perceptions of climate change (Poortinga et al. 2019; Capstick et al. 2014).

#### Entanglement of Local and Transnational Discourses

The chapters report instances of both the localization of transnational discourses and the climatization of local discourses. Transnational climate discourses travel to communities some of which do not read or write and its meanings are transformed along the way, resulting in vastly diverging localizations around the world. The chapters on Greenland and Germany emphasize that local subgroups differ in how they make sense of climate change. The Greenland case study shows how younger audiences are more connected to transnational discourses through journalistic and social media. The German case study emphasizes differences between a village and a city, as well as between inhabitants with deeper or shallower roots in the local community. The localization of discourses in this case affects inhabitants with deeper roots in the community to a greater extent.

At the same time, we see instances of "climatized" local practices. Chapter 3 finds that the global climate discourse fosters the already popular practice of collective tree planting and thus "recycles" this practice "in climatic terms" (Foyer and Kervran 2017). The Maasai, however, mostly reject the idea of anthropogenic climate change, which conflicts with God's responsibility for rain, the weather, and the climate. This is notably similar to the views of some fundamentalist Christian communities in the United States (Shao 2017; Smith and Leiserowitz 2013). In Bangladesh and the Philippines, by contrast, the idea of climate change falls on culturally responsive grounds. Whether a scientific idea like climate change is embraced is thus linked to the respective community's prior beliefs about nature, humankind and the universe. Comparing the Maasai, the cases in Bangladesh and the Philippines hint at an important driver of the climatization of discourses: the *fit of prior local interpretations, norms and practices with travelling ideas* influences whether they are likely to be embraced or rejected.

We find an overall primacy of local concerns, which may be explained by drawing an analogy of local communities' sense-making with individual psychological mechanisms. Confirmation bias and avoidance of cognitive dissonance explain how individuals preserve their world views; similar processes may also apply to how local communities preserve their own discourses. New information is selectively used to confirm pre-existing cultural ideas, such as tree planting in the Philippines or urging people not to cut down the mangrove forest in Bangladesh.

All chapters confirm noticeable differences between the epistemologies employed by science and those of local communities, drawing, e.g., on religion and morality. The major feature of how people draw on different resources to make sense of climate change is indeed relating the idea of climate change from global scientific and policy discourses to personal or collective experiences of weather events or seasonal changes. It is interesting to note that climate science, with the field of event attribution, has adapted to this common-sense logic of relating the abstract (climate change) to the concrete experience (extreme weather event). Departing from emphasizing the difference between weather and climate, scientists now also focus on trying to explain how weather events and climate change relate (see Chapter 7, Attribution Science).

When discussing the changes they witness, local communities often express a sense of "shared responsibility" between carbon dioxide emissions from afar and ecologically deleterious local practices, such as shrimp farming (in Bangladesh), cutting trees (in the Philippines), or personal consumption patterns (in Germany). People on the coast of Bangladesh do not forget the local sources of some of their ecological problems (salinization), and do not attribute these problems solely to climate change. For this reason, the tendency of some NGOs to attribute a given local problem to global climate change at times clashes with the local communities' attributions of local problem causes. The attribution of a local problem to climate change and, often, the promotion of technical fixes as prime solutions, calls into question the communities' own ways of knowing, as well as claiming agency and attributing responsibilities. Thus, while climate protest movements may have the best of intentions, attributing concrete local problems solely to climate change depoliticizes practices on the local level and may help local authorities deviate attention and deflect responsibility away from their own failures and mismanagement.

Many ideas and practices in local discourses, like planting trees to avoid climate change, are not fundamentally at odds with scientific scenarios of mitigating climate change, but an important aspect is often lost in translation: the scale of the issue. Politicians and scientists talk about global challenges, while individuals integrate their conclusions from this global discourse into their local day-to-day activities. While some interviewees in the Philippines and Bangladesh assume that the problem can be tackled if they plant some trees, some current climate scenarios would require transforming areas the size of entire countries into industrial tree-growing plantations. There is again a mismatch between the scale of scientific forecasts on the infrastructure changes necessary to combat climate change and the actions people can take within the constraints of their everyday lives.

Finally, we find that individuals' reception of the idea of climate change does not depend on their education. The majority of respondents from Bangladesh and the Philippines may be less educated and may have more pressing concerns than climate change, but they do not doubt its existence. Partly, they engage in climate protection 'accidentally', by continuing the cultural practice of tree planting that preceded their awareness of climate change (see Chapter 3, Philippines). These cases once more confirm the finding that there is no simple link between scientific literacy, climate-change awareness, and a sustainable lifestyle (Grémillet 2008).

#### Outlook

Local discourses around the world draw on different resources to make sense of climate change, including mediated reports, experiences of extreme weather, and pre-existing values and belief systems. This results in both localizations of transnational debates and the climatization of local discourses and practices.

One may think about this research not only for the purpose of understanding local discourses and their entanglement with scientific and political climate debates, but it may inspire communication practice, as well. When communicating climate change, one should be ready to accept that people have more urgent concerns to deal with in their everyday lives—but sometimes climate change may be related to these more obtrusive concerns. Identifying links between the global problem and local concerns is useful for developing strategies for engaging people with climate change.  When trying to solve ecological problems on the coast of Bangladesh, an academic discussion of whether salinization is due to climate change or due to shrimp farming is beside the point, as *both* of these (and probably other) factors contribute to the problem. In local discourses, as De Wit's chapter shows, seemingly contradicting approaches to interpreting the world co-exist. Schnegg (2019), in a study on how pastoralists in Namibia explain rain patterns as opposed to how meteorologists explain the same phenomenon, finds that individuals do not have to rigorously decide between the two competing knowledge systems; they can relate to both, depending on their respective social context. They can "switch between ways of knowing, and thus between worlds". Whether people effectively do so is also likely to depend on whether one knowledge system (whether it is science or religion, for instance) claims precedence in all domains of life. This insight has consequences for how climate change should *not* be communicated: as a modern substitute for religious beliefs. This might be more easily achieved by a local communicator who can complement, and possibly, integrate, a scientific perspective with the belief systems (religious or not) of a local community.

We encourage our readers to draw their own conclusions on how to communicate climate change at home, wherever that may be. The following case studies show that knowledge about the locally salient discourses around nature and climate change is a precondition for understanding how to communicate climate change. They also, hopefully, inspire a more interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialogue on how local communities make sense of climate change.

# References

# 2. The Case of "Costa del Nuuk": Greenlanders Make Sense of Global Climate Change1

*Freja C. Eriksen*

This chapter investigates how fifteen inhabitants of the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, make sense of climate change and its impacts through media exposure and personal experiences. While Greenland's melting ice sheet has long served as a backdrop to the global climate debate, local public views of climate change have largely been overlooked. This study finds that, although the media is an important source of information about climate change for the inhabitants of Nuuk, their sense-making of the phenomenon is saturated by personal experiences. Alarmist media representations, for instance, are continuously challenged by references to personal experiences of positive local impacts of climate change. The chapter identifies six distinctions underlying the inhabitants' sensemaking of climate change—*natural/unnatural, certainty/uncertainty, self/ other, local/global, positive/negative,* and *environment/economy*.

<sup>1</sup> This chapter is based on the author's Master's thesis, submitted in 2016 at Universität Hamburg.

#### A "Poster Child" for Climate Change

"In a couple of years, you can come up here to visit 'Costa del Nuuk'"[laughs].

#### *Johannes*

This chapter presents a case study of how fifteen inhabitants of Greenland's capital, Nuuk, make sense of climate change and its impacts through media exposure as well as personal experiences. It opens with a quote from one of the study's participants, Johannes. He is fifty-nine years old, works at an airline in Nuuk, and cannot help but laugh at the thought of climate change transforming his hometown into a sunny holiday destination. This study contributes his and fourteen other interviewees' sense-making of climate change to the literature on public views of climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "human influence on the climate system is clear" (IPCC 2014: 2). However, there are several gaps in our understanding of how climate change is experienced, understood, and made sense of in its many contexts around the world. The case of Nuuk illuminates only one in a daunting range of cases yet to be studied (Schäfer and Schlichting 2014). It is, however, particularly pertinent due to the observable and rapid melting of Greenland's ice sheet and the country's status as a "poster child for Arctic climate change" (Holm 2010: 145).

Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat) and its melting ice sheet have for several years served as a backdrop to the international climate debate for politicians, environmental campaigners, journalists and researchers (Bjørst 2011). The annual shrinkage of the ice sheet, which covers 80% of the country's geography, has "increased four-fold from 1995–2000" (Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme 2012: 3). In the foreign media, Greenland regularly headlines stories, such as "Greenland is melting away" (Davenport et al. 2015) and "Climate change: Greenland loses a trillion tons of ice in four years as melting rate triples" (Harvey 2016). Studies of British tabloid and broadsheet newspapers have documented how images associated with Greenland, of "melting ice" and "polar bears", have come to dominate the coverage of climatechange impacts (Smith and Joffe 2009). The status of these iconic images is underlined by studies that show how laypeople's first associations of climate change in the USA, England, and Sweden were references to "melting glaciers and polar ice", "polar regions melting", "melting icebergs" and "rising temperatures" (Wibeck 2014b; Smith and Joffe 2013; Leiserowitz 2006). Through climate change science, international news coverage, and global institutions such as the IPCC, a "climate change crisis discourse" has developed, in which the Arctic nature, and, to a lesser extent, its citizens, play a leading role (Farbotko and Lazrus 2012; Bravo 2009; Martello 2004). While in this discourse "climate vulnerable populations are being positioned as victims, but also as evidence of the climate crisis", their own voices and perspectives are at risk of drowning (Farbotko and Lazrus 2012: 382). But although such narratives are prominent in global climate-change discourses, they may not necessarily represent Arctic citizens' views (Bravo 2009). Studying how the people of Greenland make sense of climate change and its impacts is therefore both relevant and compelling.

Greenland has arguably been on a path to "greater economic and political independence" (Government of Greenland) since the end of Danish colonization in 1953. Yet, its economy still greatly depends on an annual block grant from Denmark of about 470 million euro (Government of Greenland). The desire for economic and political independence is a powerful undercurrent in the country's public debate on climate change (Bjørst 2011; Nuttall 2009). In April 2016, Greenland opted for a territorial reservation to the Paris Agreement, as negotiated in December 2015, because the agreement did not take the country's economic development considerations fully into account (Government of Greenland). The disappearance of ice in Greenland has made valuable resources, such as oil, gas, mining and hydrocarbon development, both at sea and on land, more accessible (Ackrén and Jakobsen 2015; Nuttall 2009). Due to these possibilities for economic development, Nuttall (2009: 295) concludes that "Greenland is literally warming to the idea of less snow and ice". Greenland represents a particularly interesting case to study: in the global climate governance regime, it must balance its role as the voice of an Indigenous people, while campaigning for its right to produce emissions and thus contribute to climate change (Bjørst 2008).

I share Farbotko and Lazrus' (2012: 382) view of climate change as both a "discursive and material phenomenon", and find that Nuuk's inhabitants are affected by climate change in both a physical and a social sense. Nuuk's residents represent a "climate-exposed population" (Farbotko and Lazrus 2012: 382) whose voices and views are an important addition to the current literature; global climatechange narratives must take local discourses and individual experiences of climate-change impacts into account. According to Farbotko and Lazrus, the "[c]limate is changing, but its meanings are contingent on place and history and cannot be imposed from above without risk of disjunctures and injustice" (2012: 383). This paper hence proceeds on the assumption that Greenland's political discourses on climate change *and* its citizens' sense-making of the issue should be added to current research on local, contextual understandings of climate change around the world. The study's main research question thus is *how do inhabitants of Nuuk make sense of climate change and its impacts through media exposure and personal experiences?*

I investigate this question using (1) data gathered in five focus group interviews involving a total of fifteen participants and (2) a survey of their media use, both in general and related to climate change. The chapter proceeds by introducing the study's relevant concepts and theoretical framework of social representations. I then review previous studies of audience reception of climate change coverage and outline the study's research design and methodology. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to presenting and discussing the study's findings. The main conclusion is that, although the media is an important source of information about climate change for Nuuk's inhabitants, their sense-making of the phenomenon is heavily influenced by personal experiences. For instance, they continuously challenge alarmist media representations by referring to personal experiences of positive local impacts of climate change. Finally, the chapter identifies six distinctions underlying residents' sense-making of climate change—*natural/ unnatural, certainty/uncertainty, self/other, local/global, positive/negative,*  and *environment/economy*.

#### Conceptual Considerations and Literature Review

#### "Climate-Exposed Populations"

While research on public views of climate change has generally focused on North America and Europe, there have been some recent studies on Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Schäfer and Schlichting 2014; Wibeck 2014a). Schlichting and Schäfer's 2014 review of 133 publications does not mention any studies of Greenland, although they stress the relevance of analyzing the countries "most affected by" climate change (2014: 146). Most climate change-related studies of Greenland thus far have been conducted by "physical scientists, often with a focus on the ice sheet" (Holm 2010: 145; Hall et al. 2006; Lüthcke et al. 2006; Zwally et al. 2002). Studies involving Greenlanders' attitudes towards climate change are fewer, although growing in number (Holm 2010).

As climate-change impacts—and efforts to mitigate those impacts have entered the global agenda, an interest in Indigenous peoples and their role in anthropogenic climate change has emerged (Martello 2008). Studies have gradually investigated Indigenous peoples' perceptions of climate change and how their "traditional ecological knowledge" can inform our understanding of physical climatic changes (Roosvall and Tegelberg 2012). A group of anthropological researchers has touched on local climate-change discourses in Greenland (Tejsner 2013; Bjorst 2011; Holm 2010; Nuttall 2009, 2008; Leduc 2007). Using multi-sited ethnography, Bjørst (2011) identifies several recurring discourse elements framing climate change in relation to Greenland and the Arctic. Studying the perceptions of her informants in the Disco Bay area, she finds a common "mistrust in science" and a related questioning of the phenomenon of climate change in general, which has left room for more local theories of climate change (Bjørst 2011). She and Nuttall (2009: 297–98) maintain that climate is often understood to be continuously changing and intrinsically unstable, related to the Greenlandic word for climate (*sila*). As such, climate change is not necessarily perceived as extraordinary or manmade (see Chapter 5, Tanzania). This outlook leads to a situated form of "normalization of the threat" (Bjørst 2011: 242).

Another key observation made by both Nuttall (2009) and Bjørst (2011: 243, author's translation) is a preoccupation in Greenland with "possibilities as well as problems". Nuttall (2008: 47) argues that this apprehension is perhaps more prevalent in Greenland than anywhere else in the circumpolar North, due to its aspirations for self-governance and independence, which are made more likely by the prospect of a warmer climate opening up new industries. Bjørst (2011: 246, author's translation) similarly identifies a tendency to put "development, national political and economic independence before anything else". These are important findings, because it can be assumed that these tendencies resonate in the local sense-making of climate change. To my knowledge, this study is the first to examine Greenlandic discourses of climate change from a communication and media studies perspective.

Following the finalization of the present study, a nationally representative survey of Greenlandic perspectives on climate change has, however, been published (Minor et al. 2019). It provides evidence that more than nine out of ten Greenlanders think climate change is happening, although only about half think it is mostly caused by human activities and about a third believes it is caused by "natural changes in the environment". Residents in the area of the survey covering Nuuk (West Sermersooq) were slightly more certain that climate change is happening and is caused mostly by human activities. Two thirds of the residents of West Sermersooq said they had experienced the effects of climate change (compared to 76% in the general Greenlandic population), and about 60% said they heard about climate change in the media at least once a week or at least once a month. 45% heard people they know talk about climate change at least once a week or at least once a month. The survey also reveals a clear tendency of respondents to see climate change as mainly a bad thing. In West Sermersooq, about half saw climate change as either "bad" or "very bad", while most others saw it as "neutral". A greater part of the respondents also saw climate change as more likely to harm than benefit the people of Greenland. A majority of respondents both in West Sermersooq and Greenland in general saw "protecting the environment even if it costs jobs" as more important than "economic growth, even if it leads to environmental problems", favoring policies of re-entering the Paris Agreement, regulating greenhouse gas emissions from industry and investing in alternative energy sources. These findings are pertinent as they form a more recent and representative insight into perspectives on climate change in Greenland and Nuuk where environmental concerns apparently outweigh economic interests.

#### Social Representations Theory

The present study contributes to the constructionist literature that has used social representations theory to research "public views" of climate change (Wibeck 2014b; Smith and Joffe 2013; Olausson 2011; Whitmarsh, Lorenzoni, and O'Neill 2011; Cabecinhas, Lázaro, and Carvalho 2008; Lorenzoni and Pidgeon 2006; Moscovici 1984a). As these studies have demonstrated, social representations theory is particularly suitable to researching how laypeople or specific groups within society make sense of climate change. At its core, the theory, originated by Moscovici (1984b), endeavors to explain how people familiarize themselves with hitherto unknown objects or change. Moscovici's (1984a) theory presupposes that "concepts and images" of scientific origin permeate society, where they evolve into collective and "mundane understandings" (Olausson 2011: 953). The social representations approach views the popular sensemaking of, for example, scientific knowledge, as "a valid knowledge system in its own right", as opposed to a distortion or inaccurate representation of scientific knowledge (Moloney et al. 2014: 1; Wibeck 2014b: 206). Following this approach, the present study does not seek to verify whether citizens' knowledge of climate change is *scientifically accurate*, but to understand how the scientific concept of climate change is *publicly made sense of* (Smith and Joffe 2013). I use the phrase "make sense" to operationalize the process of creating meaning, as employed in Wibeck's (2014b), Olausson's (2011), Moloney et al.'s (2014), and Marková's (2003) adaptations of Moscovici's theory.

According to Moscovici (1984a: 953), social representations "fill our minds and our conversations, our mass media, popular books, and political discourses". Therefore, mass media have only increased the importance of social representations by multiplying the changes ideas undergo as they are subject to media simplifications and sensationalizing (Moloney at al. 2014; Moscovici 1984b). The media is an important "discursive site" where social representations are "(re)produced" (Olausson 2011). Analyzing interviewees' social representations reveals a glimpse of "iconic images" that circulate in the "socio-cultural context" (Smith and Joffe 2013).

This study relies on four central notions to operationalize the theory of social representations. According to Moscovici (1984b), the process of making the unfamiliar familiar happens through two central mechanisms—"objectifying" and "anchoring". *Objectifying* refers to a mechanism of turning "something abstract into something almost concrete" (Moscovici 1984b: 29); it involves attributing a real-life form to the abstract (Moscovici 2000). For example, climate change is typically objectified in media representations as a storm, heatwave, or flood (Höijer 2010). *Anchoring* is a process in which people place new ideas in relation to categories or paradigms of their existing representations (Moscovici 2000). In other words, new ideas are placed in a "familiar context" in order to make sense of them (Moscovici 1984b). The process of anchoring takes place through "naming" and "classifying", also known as "drawing distinctions" (Moscovici 2000: 42; Olausson 2011: 285). Through the mechanism of *naming*, abstract phenomena are given a "label" or "familiar name" (Moscovici 2000: 42). According to Moscovici (2000: 42), a phenomenon that does not have a familiar name or category is perceived as "alien" and "threatening". Thus, for example, laypeople refer to climate change as "weather" in some studies. In this way, the "abstract and intangible risk" it poses "acquires familiar and comprehensible characteristics" (Olausson 2011: 289). *Drawing distinctions* involves placing intangible phenomena in the context of "wellknown opposites", in a form of hierarchy or classification (Olausson 2011: 285; Moscovici 2000: 43). Smith and Joffe (2013: 19) label these distinctions "themata", and define them as "mutually interdependent oppositions or dialogical antinomies". Common distinctions, such as *natural/unnatural, certainty/uncertainty* and *self/other*, reveal the "latent content, or latent drivers of public thinking" around climate change among interviewees (Smith and Joffe 2013: 16).

#### Making Sense of Climate Change

The present study employs social representations theory to investigate how the inhabitants of Nuuk make sense of climate change. Most similar to this study's conceptual and methodological approach are Olausson's (2011) and Wibeck's (2014b) case studies in Sweden. Both studies explore laypeople's social representations of climate change through focus group interviews.

Olausson (2011: 289) finds that respondents discuss climate change's "existing consequences" with great conviction and use "everyday experiences of the weather" as a way to anchor their conceptualizations of the phenomenon, often familiarizing it through the label "weather". She concludes that "the respondents' own experiences are of utmost importance", which is especially relevant for the climate-exposed sample of Nuuk's inhabitants (Olausson 2011). Wibeck (2014b: 209, 211) similarly reports participants referencing their "own experiences of changes in weather", but stresses the finding that they saw climate change mostly as a "global issue" with severe, yet distant consequences. She finds that focus groups continuously negotiate the certainty and severity of climate change and our ability to mitigate it (2014b: 212– 14). Somewhat in contrast, Olausson finds that a general "belief" in anthropogenic climate change seems to be commonplace among her interviewees (2011: 286).

Smith and Joffe (2013: 21–22) find "melting ice" to be their London participants' most common first association with climate change, followed by references to "weather" and "pollution". These associations, they conclude, echo "how newspapers visually represent the threat" in British media. They identify three "themata" that interviewees use to structure their sense-making in a "non- or unconscious" way (2013: 19, 22). First, they categorize their British interviewees into those who are certain and those who are uncertain about anthropogenic climate change. While respondents generally express certainty that global warming is real, many are still uncertain about its causes, and blame this on "contradictory media coverage" (Smith and Joffe 2013: 27). Second, they identify a thema they call "natural/unnatural", which highlights the way respondents observe "strange and bizarre weather" in relation to their expectations of how nature should behave, thus also drawing on personal experience of changes in weather patterns (Smith and Joffe 2013: 25-26). Third, they identify a thema labelled "self/other" (Smith and Joffe 2013: 23-25), and find respondents place responsibility for climate change mostly on the "other", portraying the USA, China, and India, for example, as the main perpetrators of global warming. The impacts of climate change are also largely distanced from the "self", and serious consequences are thought to affect others more (Smith and

Joffe 2013: 25). Meanwhile, notions of the "self" are related to solutions to climate change, often associated with recycling, which ambiguously provide either a sense of "satisfaction" or "helplessness and frustration" (Smith and Joffe 2013: 25).

#### Audience Reception of Climate Change Coverage

The scientific construct of global climate change is not directly visible, and therefore requires "media transmission", even to Greenlanders (Taddicken 2013). There is limited understanding of the media's role in shaping the public's "knowledge [of] and attitudes" towards climate change (Taddicken 2013: 39; Cabecinhas, Lázaro, and Carvalho 2008: 172). Taddicken argues that until now, "communication scholars have paid much greater attention to media content than to audiences and media users" (2013: 40). In many current studies within the field, the media is assumed to play a key part in framing people's understanding of climate change, but these assumptions are "rarely verified with reference to empirical studies on the relationship between media output and audience reception" (Olausson 2011: 282). Hence, there is a need for more research on the "complex reception process" that takes place as people make sense of a phenomenon such as climate change—a process in which the media "constitutes only one of several meaning-making resources" (Olausson 2011: 282). The current study therefore adopts a similar approach to that of Olausson (2011: 282–83), viewing the media as a central element in the analysis, while preventing a focus on the content of media reporting on climate change from overshadowing the audience's complex reception process.

Olausson concludes that the media serves as her Swedish focus group participants' primary source of information about climate change, although this information is "negotiated and remolded in conversations and discussions with other people" (2011: 294). She refers to the media as the "agenda-setter", but argues it is important not to underestimate how people negotiate and embed their own experiences into media discourses and vice versa when making sense of climate change (Olausson 2011). Olausson further identifies three criticisms of general media representations noted by her Swedish interviewees: a fatigue with "emotionally charged media messages", an awareness of their "commercial conditions", and the media coverage's "lack of continuity and integration of various sorts of news" (2011: 292–93). Ryghaug, Sorensen, and Naess (2011: 784) similarly conduct focus group interviews with members of the Norwegian public, and find that all groups referred to the media (specifically newspapers (print or digital) and "television and radio") as their primary source of climate change information. Yet their interviewees, like those in the Olausson (2011) study, believe that the media exaggerates stories "to sell more newspapers" (Ryghaug, Sorensen, and Naess 2011: 790).

Previous studies have portrayed the mass media—first, TV; second, newspapers; and, to a growing extent, the internet—as the main sources of information on climate change, which are more influential than "people's interpersonal communication" (Schäfer 2015: 853). These conclusions, however, are based on a review of surveys from the USA, the UK, Germany, and Australia (Schäfer 2015). In Southern England, Whitmarsh (2008) found mass media to be the main source of information on climate change among respondents, with TV as the primary source, followed by newspapers and radio, while Stamm, Clark, and Eblacas (2000) found newspaper and TV to be the most used information sources in a segment of US citizens. In Portugal, Cabecinhas, Lázaro, and Carvalho (2008: 174) found that the media (television news, followed by newspapers and "televised films and documentaries") was their survey participants' main source of information on climate change. Respondents viewed the news media and "people they know" as somewhat credible on this issue, while they mistrusted "government, local authorities and corporations". Taddicken (2013: 39) investigated the "impact of mass media and internet use" on German internet users' knowledge and attitudes towards climate change and found that only regular use of television, but not of print media, positively affected knowledge and attitudes. She concluded that visual cues are powerful tools for communicating information about climate change. Arlt, Hoppe, and Wolling (2011: 52, 57) found that watching public news programmes in Germany predicted greater awareness, while reading weekly print media "had a slightly negative effect on problem awareness", indicating that media use does "not always have a motivating, awareness-heightening effect". A survey of the German public by Brüggemann et al. (2017) showed

limited effects of media coverage of annual UN climate summits on knowledge and attitudes, and no effect on the respondents' intention to act.

#### Research Design and Methodology

#### Research Design

Based on the conceptual considerations and findings from previous studies, this study explores how inhabitants make sense of climate change and its impacts. It is an open inquiry into how interviewees represent climate change and its impacts at both the local and global levels. It explores interviewees' associations with both the scientific phenomenon of climate change and its impacts (e.g., socio-economic), including how these associations are negotiated among focus group members, how important interviewees believe future climate change is, how they demarcate it, etc.

The study furthermore explores the origins of interviewees' representations of climate change by investigating the relevance of personal experiences versus media exposure in shaping their sensemaking of climate change and its impacts. "Personal experiences" is defined as interpersonal communication, as well as personal climatic and societal observations; in sum, anything that inhabitants refer to in making sense of climate change and its impacts that is not directly related to mediated communication. "Media" refers to any type of mass media content consumed by focus group participants, including printed newspapers, internet sources, radio, TV, social media, Netflix documentaries, etc.

Finally, the study explores *how* the interviewees relate media representations to their personal experiences, and how they negotiate any contradictions between information gained from the two sources. The aim is to determine how inhabitants interpret media representations, such as how they relate to memories of specific examples of media coverage or general evaluations of discourses on climate change and Greenland's role in these.

The research questions were investigated in August 2016 through (1) five focus group interviews with fifteen participants and (2) a survey of eleven of these participants' media use, both general and related to climate change. Unfortunately, the survey responses of FG 5 could not be retrieved. The case study method is useful for investigating a phenomenon that cannot be separated from "important contextual conditions"—in this instance, local discourses of climate change in Greenland's capital city. This object of study is intrinsically linked to its "real-world context", as we are interested in how discourses of a global, scientific phenomenon are shaped in a local environment (Yin 2014). The case study approach allows the use of different sources of evidence (Yin 2014). The present study employs a mixed-methods approach that draws on data from qualitative focus group interviews and a survey of the same participants' media use (David and Sutton 2011). The focus group interviews give insights into the interviewees' "everyday experiences, meanings and language", while the self-administered survey explores the participants' individual media use more directly and in depth than would be possible during a focus group (David and Sutton 2011).

#### The Case Study: The City of Nuuk

Located in southwest Greenland, Nuuk is the world's northernmost capital (Gill 2015). The city is home to one-quarter of Greenland's 55,847 inhabitants (Rasmussen 2016: Schultz-Lorentzen and Rasmussen 2012; Statistikbanken). Nuuk has a variety of inhabitants employed in "government administrative work, education, health care […] hunting, fishing, fish and shrimp processing" (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2017). The city encompasses a cross-section of professions, ages and geographic backgrounds. This study thus complements previous findings from Greenland that have mostly studied Disco Bay, located close to the receding glaciers of Ilulissat Icefjord. Greenlandic is the population's first language, while 12% of Greenlanders are bilingual Danish speakers (Rischel 2016). Half of Greenland's Danish inhabitants live in Nuuk (Statistikbanken).

#### Focus Group Interviews

The study's primary method was five semi-structured focus group interviews with two to four participants in each group (Table 2.1) (David and Sutton 2011). According to Moscovici, it is precisely "material from samples of conversations [which] gives access to the social representations" (2000: 62). Previous studies of sense-making of climate change have employed this technique (Wibeck 2014b; Olausson 2011; Ryghaug, Sorensen, and Naess 2011). A total of seven men and eight women were interviewed. Workplaces and institutions were contacted by email and phone asking for three to four people willing to take part in the study. The targeted workplaces and institutions were chosen according to the methodological principle of maximum variance, taking into consideration that people with different professions, which are presumably affected by climate change to varying degrees, might express different perspectives.

Two administrative employees at a fish factory in Nuuk (FG 1) were sampled as fishery is Greenland's largest industry and about half of the country's fishing fleet is based in Nuuk (Schultz-Lorentzen and Rasmussen, 2012). Three airline employees were included in the sample (FG 4) as tourism comprises a growing industry in Greenland, while air traffic by its nature contributes to the country's CO2 emissions. Both industries were assumed to be somewhat affected by climate change, and thus the views of their employees were deemed of interest. A bank clerk and two women working in kindergartens, albeit in different schools, were targeted (FG 2) in order to include insights of inhabitants whose work would not be directly affected by climate change. As more than 60% of Nuuk's inhabitants work in public and private service, these also constitute important segments of the population (Schultz-Lorentzen and Rasmussen, 2012). Two Danish government officials were chosen in order to add insights from inhabitants who had obtained higher education and to provide a perspective of someone dealing, perhaps indirectly, with climate change as a political matter. A Greenlandic tourist guide was included to get a perspective from someone in contact with the tourists in Greenland, some of them specifically to experience climate change (FG 3). Four high school students were included in the sample (FG 5) in order to get the perspectives of a group of younger inhabitants of the city. While climate change has been a known phenomenon in Greenland for much of their lives, the younger generation are also an interesting group as their media use could vary from that of the generation before them. Since employees and students signed up to participate in the interview, a small self-selection bias (e.g., interest in climate change) must be expected and accounted for in the analysis.

Table 2.1 Focus group participants

Table adapted from Wibeck (2014b: 208). \*no information.

As the study's research question refers to "inhabitants of Nuuk", Danes are included in this sample. Nuuk is home to half of all of the country's inhabitants born outside of Greenland and has a high population of Danes. Many of the Danish inhabitants in the study have, however, resided in Greenland for several decades. Interviews were conducted in Danish, which is the second language for most Greenlanders (Rischel 2016) and the first language of the author. A translator was not necessary. Most interviewees were fluent in Danish, while a few were helped by other interview participants to remember forgotten words. Participants' names, workplaces with few employees and place names mentioned during the interviews were anonymized during transcription.

All interviews were conducted according to a semi-structured interview guide. They took between 45 and 80 minutes, well within the recommended time frame of 45 to 90 minutes (David and Sutton 2011). All five group interviews were slightly different, as the interviewer attempted to follow the flow of the participants' conversation as well as follow up on interesting themes raised. The interviews were audio taped, transcribed and subsequently analyzed by qualitative content analysis in order to map the "patterns within [the] qualitative data" (David and Sutton 2011). Deductive codes were based on the analytical elements of social representations theory (*objectification*, *anchoring*, *naming*, and *distinctions*), and key themes of interest according to the research questions. Subsequently, a "descriptive" coding, an "interpretative" and a final coding—including inductive sub-codes—were undertaken (David and Sutton 2011; King and Horrocks 2010).

#### Survey on Media Use

Little research exists on media use in Greenland. One of the few previous studies has shown that TV and radio are the population's most important media sources, in particular the Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation's (KNR) programmes (Ravn-Højgaard et al. 2018). People living in Nuuk are, however, found to watch less TV and listen half as much to the radio than the general population. Meanwhile, the capital's inhabitants use the internet more (68%) than the rest of the Greenlandic population (43%), and social media are used more in Nuuk (56% on a daily basis as compared to 43 % in the rest of the country). Also, younger Greenlanders are found to use the internet more, and TV and KNR's services less. 35% of the population primarily receive news through online media, a trend which is growing.

To gain a deeper understanding of the current study's interviewees' differentiated media use in relation to general news and climate change specific news, all participants were asked to fill out a quantitative survey (David and Sutton 2011). The survey sought information on participants' stated media use, sources of information on climate change, and their evaluation of the sources' trustworthiness—information that would not have been fully uncovered in a focus group interview. By combining and comparing qualitative interview and quantitative survey data, the study carefully develops its understanding of how participants make sense of climate change through media and personal experience (David and Sutton 2011; Greene, Caracelli and Graham 1989).

The first half of the survey consisted of three parts, asking the interviewees about: (1) their media use related to news about Greenlandic and international affairs, (2) their media use related to information about climate change, and (3) which sources they would trust most to answer questions about climate change. The second half of the survey consisted of demographic questions about the interviewees' gender, age, nationality, years lived in Nuuk, geographic heritage, civil status, education, employment situation, and type of employment. The survey was developed using elements of Jensen and Helles' (2015) and Metag, Füchslin, and Schäfer's (2015) surveys. The survey was given to the study's participants upon finishing the focus group interview for practical reasons, and to avoid priming the focus groups in any direction.

#### Findings

The following analysis is structured around the study's major research questions. Within each section, relevant themes are analyzed by exploring participants' ways of objectifying and anchoring climate change through naming and distinctions. Since social representations are said to become accessible through "material from samples of conversations", we seek to discover them in the interactions between focus group participants (Moscovici 2000: 62). The analysis pays close attention to both the groups' collective and separate individuals' patterns of sense-making. According to Moscovici (2000: 63), social representations are "revealed especially in times of crisis and upheaval, when a group or its images are undergoing a change". Hence, special attention is paid to situations in which interviewees disagree, discuss, or contest with each other (Wibeck 2014b).  This would suggest that social representations within an area are widely agreed upon to the extent that they are no longer consciously reflected on (Moscovici 2000).

#### Making Sense of Climate Change and its Impacts

The first part of the study's findings explores the inhabitants of Nuuk's immediate associations with and definitions of climate change. How do they relate the concept to the context of Greenland and Nuuk? In short, how do they make sense of the phenomenon?

#### Natural and Unnatural Local Weather Phenomena: Objectifications of Climate Change

The first interview started with the question, "What is the first thing that comes to your mind when someone mentions climate change?" The first images evoked in interviewees' minds by such an open question can reveal which prior social representations of climate change interviewees draw on while they are still relatively uninfluenced by the researcher's agenda (Wibeck 2014b). While the participants' responses varied, many immediately related climate change to the local context of Greenland and changes therein that participants had seen or heard about. An illustration of this pattern is found in four high school students' answer to the initial question:

Tanja: Global warming David: That's, that's the same thing actually. [laughs] Ivalu: Uhm, I think hunters, don't know why, always hunters. Poor hunters. David: Mmm, I think about shorter winter. Tanja: Warmer summer. Ivalu: Also, stormy weather. We have that often now, compared to before, like real storms.

Hansine: Really bad, bad weather in the winter. Tanja: And the ice sheet, when it melts. Ivalu: It's alright if it melts. [all laugh] Tanja: No... [continue laughing]. (FG 5: 3–13)

Associations with Greenlandic weather and changing seasons were present and prominent in all focus group discussions. In these immediate associations, climate change was equated with "weather" and objectified to become visible as a "warmer summer" and "the ice sheet, when it melts". Also, among the three middle-aged women of FG 2, who work in a school, a kindergarten and in banking, respectively, the close, personal observations of climate change were prevalent and absorbed the group's attention for much of the interview. Individual observations on changing seasons, drying areas of land, milder temperatures, less snow, stronger winds etc. were used to objectify climate change. Smith and Joffe's (2013: 26) distinction between *natural* and *unnatural* is omnipresent here, as interviewees juxtaposed ideas about "how nature is expected to behave" with observations of it behaving in unfamiliar and unpredictable ways. Participants in all five focus groups continued circling around the impacts of climate change in Nuuk and the rest of Greenland—how they experienced climate change in their local context. This process of objectifying through local images and examples was a main theme of all the interviews.

The continuous references to weather phenomena and their perceived changes aligns with previous findings from Wibeck (2014b: 209) and Smith and Joffe (2013: 212–22), who identified "melting polar ice caps, endangered polar bears, warmer weather, floods, and droughts", "melting ice", and "weather" as the dominant associations of their Norwegian and British interviewees. However, the present study's finding of strong contextual links to Greenland sets it apart from these earlier studies. While melting ice was mentioned, local experiences of weather change observed by the interviewees, themselves, or people they know took precedence in the interviews. Thus, personal experience appears to influence Nuuk's inhabitants' sense-making of climate change to a greater extent than what is concluded in studies of British and Norwegian laypeople's sense-making (Wibeck 2014b; Smith and Joffe 2013).

Another interesting aspect of the excerpt above is how humor was used to downplay the urgency and severity of climate change. Melting ice was laughed off as "alright". Along similar lines, Johannes elsewhere commented that in a couple of years, we will be able to come and visit "Costa del Nuuk" (FG 4: 183). I argue that this can be classified as a type of anchoring—inserting climate change in comical over-exaggerated representations, which makes it more tangible, less unsettling, and easier to talk about and make sense of. Bore and Reid (2014: 454) have previously explored how laughing at climate change can "promote active and positive engagement".

## Certainty and Uncertainty with Regard to Climate Change's Anthropogenic Causes

Another significant finding was that all the interview participants reported having experienced climate change in Greenland, although they did not necessarily define this change as anthropogenic in origin. In interviews, the moderator consistently referred to the phenomenon as "climate change" but not as "anthropogenic" to avoid influencing participants' sense-making. This uncertainty regarding the question of attribution (see Chapter 7, Attribution Science) is illustrated by how climate change is discussed among the three women Jonna, Nivi, and Karen. When asked whether they believe in climate change, Jonna replied:

Jonna: I do, really, I think there is change in so many things, also because you can also feel it on what you catch of whales and fish and other things. It is felt that, uhm, just now the cod has arrived much earlier than normal... (FG 2: 18)

These personal experiences, however, do not necessarily translate into a certainty that climate change has anthropogenic causes. To many interviewees, climate change is not necessarily 'human induced'. To some, it simply means a change in the climate. Thus, later in the interview, Jonna commented on how climate change is framed in the media as anthropogenic.

Jonna: And then they used to say that it is the people themselves that are responsible for it. That we are—people. But I don't believe in that. Several hundred years ago Europe was frozen. I certainly do not think that is the population's fault. Karen: No. … Moderator: What do the rest of you think of that? Karen: I have also had that thought: that the atmosphere takes care of itself, the earth, right. (FG 2: 106–10)

Although Jonna has no doubt about the existence of a phenomenon she calls climate change, she does not define it as anthropogenic. Participants in other focus groups similarly expressed a wavering between anthropogenic climate change as *certain/uncertain*. Thus, Johannes declared his opinion:

Johannes: ...And the media, they describe it as manmade, right.  (FG 4: 4)

Diverging from Olausson's (2011: 287) finding that "human-induced" climate change was taken to be "common sense" among Swedish laypeople, this study does not identify a solidified social representation of climate change as manmade. This conclusion, however, ties into Bjørst's (2011: 239, author's translation) previous findings from Greenland, in which she identifies a "mistrust in science" and stronger belief in "locally formulated climate theories". It is, however, important to mention that the younger focus group participants clearly defined climate change as anthropogenic. Here, a common social representation of climate change as human induced seemed solidified to the extent that it was not necessary to discuss this further. In this study, it thus appears to be an age-dependent phenomenon: younger participants believe more strongly in anthropogenic climate change than do older participants.

# Positive and Negative Impacts of Climate Change for the Self and the Other

Another major theme of the five focus group interviews was the evaluation of climate-change impacts as *positive/negative*. This was a divisive theme, dividing interviewees between worrying about the condition of nature and a pragmatic view focused on Greenland's economic development. A couple of interviewees drew this distinction in response to the interview's first question of what comes to mind when climate change is mentioned. Frederik, who works in an administrative position at a fish factory in Nuuk, began the interview as follows:

Frederik: Uhm, I think possibilities (chuckles). Because it might be that if you live somewhere else than here, then it isn't possibilities, but what we see here is that things are changing a lot, I think, and that creates lots of possibilities for this country. (FG 1: 12)

When asked what he would write if asked to write an article about climate change later in the interview, Frederik answered:

Frederik: The more the better, I guess. Then we can sit outside and my strawberries will feel better and we could grow some more potatoes. (FG 1: 110)

Other answers show that Frederik's evaluation of climate change as positive mainly relates to his profession and new possibilities for the fishery of e.g., cod, while an improved quality of life is typically added with a hint of humor. Other positive impacts of climate change mentioned in the focus groups are more climate tourists, agriculture, mining, longer summers, saving energy, and being able to sail wherever one wants. The positive evaluation of climate change as bringing "possibilities", as they were labelled independently by two interviewees, contradicts the dominant view in the media that climate change is purely negative. When asked which issues related to climate change he saw as most prominent in the media, Frederik interrupted:

Frederik: Well, like I said, that is also why I said possibilities. Because everyone, almost everyone, focuses precisely on it being disasters this will bring, right? ... It is clear, if you live on some sort of island one and a half meters above the sea down in the Pacific Ocean, then reality might look a bit different. (FG 1: 67)

Thus, positive aspects of climate change were perceived as being in opposition to the dominant media representation of climate change as purely negative for local reasons. At the same time, Frederik's quote exemplifies how interviewees were reluctant to embrace a "victim" role. Here, Smith and Joffe's (2013: 23) distinction between *self* and *other* comes into play. Though some participants contemplated and worried about the negative impacts of climate change, the "self" was never regarded as a victim and an "other" very rarely as any form of "perpetrator" of climate change (Smith and Joffe 2013; Bjørst 2012). On the contrary, and as illustrated above, there was an inclination to cast *others*, such as the inhabitants of small islands threatened by sea level rise, as victims of climate change. This is also obvious in the following discussion between Frederik and his colleague Bjarne.

Moderator: ...Maybe it also has something to do with media coverage, that there is somehow a counter reaction? Frederik: Yes, yes, exactly. That it becomes too much, that you think now it's all doomsday around that again. Bjarne: We can't just think about ourselves here in Greenland though. Frederik: No, that's also true. Bjarne: If it melts that much and it affects the oceans, right? You have to be very watchful about that. (FG 1: 111–16)

This focus group interview had only two participants, both working administratively at a fish factory in Nuuk. The contrasting view to media representations of climate change as inherently negative was highlighted again by Frederik's annoyance with "doomsday" reports. When the discussion had centered on the potential positive impacts of climate change in Greenland, Bjarne interrupted to remind his colleague that Greenland is not alone in the world. This highlights an additional distinction beyond those identified by Smith and Joffe: the distinction between the *local* and *global* impacts of climate change. This theme recurs in interviewees' discussions of their memories of media content outlined later in the analysis. In several interviews, the local level was accentuated through examples of the positive impacts of climate change in Greenland, showing how some interviewees did not adhere to the view that climate change is disastrous. The younger high school students also distinguished between *local* and *global*, albeit in a different form, as a demand for information about the de facto consequences of climate change for Greenland locally. This theme is also outlined below.

In other focus groups, climate change's negative impacts were more prevalent. In the following exchange, four high school students discussed whether climate change affects anyone they know.

Ivalu: Hunters. Moderator: Hunters. How so? Ivalu: It's harder, I've heard.

Hansine: They can't go out sailing if it's that kind of weather, then they just have to stay at home. Ivalu: And the weather is bad often. David: Mmm. (FG 5: 66–71)

Hunters and fishermen were mentioned here and in other focus groups as a segment of the population that is especially vulnerable to climate change. Interviewees who mostly view climate change as positive recognized that it may pose more dire obstacles for inhabitants of other parts of the country. There was, however, a strong recognition that Greenlanders have adapted to changes in climate throughout history. Thus, respondents may view climate change as "worrying", but they do not use it to victimize themselves or other inhabitants of Greenland (FG 5: 112).

# Environmental and Economic Sustainability: A Basic Distinction

The distinction between the *positive* and *negative* impacts of climate change underlines another distinction—between *environmental* and *economic sustainability*. Other researchers have touched on this theme, commenting on how Greenland is "warming to the idea of less snow and ice" due to its economic advantages (Nuttall 2009: 295). Ulrik outlined this view clearly in an evolving discussion with two other interviewees about how the country should behave in relation to new possibilities for mining.

Ulrik: Well, sustainable. The economy is simply also an important part of the sustainability, in my view. (FG 3: 140)

When asked if she sees any positive or negative impacts of climate change, Jonna, in another focus group, replied:

Jonna: Well, the positive is earnings. But who says that's the most important thing anyway? Yes, we do have a lot of these luxury things. Well, is that really what you need? I mean, should we be thinking luxury or should we be thinking about our nature? (FG 2: 147)

Although arguments on both ends of the *environment/economy* spectrum were contemplated in all focus groups, there was a noticeable tendency to highlight the positive impacts and possibilities of climate change in Greenland in the three focus groups comprised of people employed by an airline, a fish factory, and within governance and tourism. By contrast, the female interviewees studying or employed in the education and banking sectors interpreted climate change as predominantly negative. On the basis of this study, it is not possible to say whether gender, age, profession or even media use as variables correlate with sense-making of climate change as either positive or negative. Nonetheless, it is a finding worth contemplating that the interviewed men, working in industries that presumably are somewhat positively affected by climate change, viewed the phenomenon as predominantly positive.

# Media and Personal Experience as Sources of Information

This section analyzes how the media and personal experiences might influence the interviewees' sense-making processes. It first looks at which information sources participants report using in the interviews and surveys. Second, it examines how they express and negotiate the trustworthiness of these sources.

# The Media as a Source of Information on Climate Change

The media sources from which participants receive information about climate change varied within and across focus groups. In their survey responses, all participants except one reported hearing about climate change from national Greenlandic newspapers" "every week" or "every month". In all focus groups except FG 3, participants similarly reported hearing about climate change from "local Greenlandic newspapers" "every week" or "every month". The same is true for hearing about climate change from "TV". According to survey responses, traditional media such as national and local papers and TV comprise many of the participants' media use. Specific sources mentioned in interviews were the Greenlandic outlets *Sermitsiaq*, *AG* and KNR, the Danish newspaper *Politiken*, and television station TV 2, as well as the international news outlets CNN, *The New York Times*, *The Guardian*, *Siberian Times*, CBC, and the entertainment company Netflix.

In focus group interviews "anything from the local papers to the news on TV and, well, TV and written papers" to "Googling", "local" and "foreign media", and "radio" were mentioned as sources of information (FG 4: 48–50; FG 1: 52; FG 2: 104). Only the group of four high school students and the younger tourist guide Malthe stated that they mainly rely on articles from the internet, especially Facebook, coming from e.g., the Greenlandic news outlet Sermitsiaq. In their survey responses, however, Karen, Nivi, and Johannes also indicated that they hear about climate change through social media "every week", while Pavia does so "every day".

#### Memories of Media Content

Analyzing interviewees' memories of media coverage provides insight into media-related images through which they make sense of climate change. When the moderator scrutinized the examples brought up during the interviews, it once again became evident that interviewees frequently use images of Greenland to make sense of the phenomenon. Thus, even when speaking of mediated images, local Greenlandic objectifications of climate change were common. These are not necessarily connected specifically to Nuuk, but often illustrate the melting of Greenland's ice sheet. Thus, the interviewees often mentioned images from the news media including the "melting ice" and "melting polar ice caps" identified in Smith and Joffe's (2013) as well as Wibeck's (2014b) studies. The high school students David and Tanja recounted a time lapse video of the ice sheet's melting, while Ivalu recalled a video of two people watching an iceberg break off; "that was pretty crazy to see that it is so big. We live in Greenland but we don't see icebergs break off every day, you know (laughs)" (FG 5: 179).

In a second theme of memorized media images, interviewees recalled coverage of other populations affected by climate change through floods, which they recall as having made an impression on them. Both themes are illustrated well in an exchange between Nivi and Jonna.

Nivi: I also think of a programme I watched, I think this year or last year. It was a recording from the ice sheet where it has become rivers. Water just streamed down. Just think how much water comes out every day. I have a hard time imagining it. You almost can't.

Jonna: There is so much water coming out.

Nivi: I wonder what's below the ice! And then I am thinking of this scene where I saw a flood, I don't quite remember where it was, but there were cars and everything is floating around, and men, people that had to be rescued. It is incomprehensible. (FG 2: 181–87)

Nivi and Jonna both remember media coverage showing the melting of the Greenlandic ice sheet. The images appeared to be vivid in their memory and seemed to affect them both. In the middle of this exchange, however, Nivi added an example of coverage of a flood in an unnamed place. A similar example is found in the exchange between Bjørn and Frederik. The latter remembered a news piece about an island state in the Pacific having bought new land to live on for when they become flooded. "That actually does make you think, okay, this really has a pretty big consequence for these people, right", says Frederik (FG 1: 140). His and Nivi's comments highlight how the participants, while mostly occupied with climate changes in their proximity, also objectify it through other people who experience its (negative) consequences. The remembered examples of media coverage related to Greenland usually objectify climate change through natural phenomena such as melting ice, while the examples related to other places that have made an impression mostly include direct negative consequences for people. Here, the distinction between *local* and *global* is drawn again, as interviewees supply examples of how other places are more affected by climate change. The distinction was present yet again as the focus group of high school students discussed how they do not know what will happen to Greenland when the ice melts.

Ivalu: We just know that Denmark will sink. Hansine: We just know that Denmark will become flooded (laughs) Ivalu: Then they will all have to move here. David: Yeah. Ivalu: Then we'll get the queen (all laugh). (FG 5: 204–10)

Here, a distinction between Greenland and Denmark is drawn, describing how, even though climate change is vivid to interviewees, its most severe consequences are cast as affecting someone else.

# Negotiating the Trustworthiness of Media and Personal Experiences

Exploring the information sources listed by participants in their survey responses and through focus group interviews, the main finding is that media and personal experience both appear to be important information sources. This is exemplified in the following exchange among four high school students, when asked where they get information on climate change:

Ivalu: The media. Moderator: The media? Ivalu: Yes. David: Yeah, the media. Tanja: Yes. Moderator: Is it mostly media it comes from, do you think? Ivalu: Yes, but also—for me also from people on the street, like local fishermen and hunters that talk about it, and old people. Hansine: Mmm. Ivalu: And for example my grandmother, everything like that. Moderator: Yeah. What do they say? Ivalu: How cold it was in the old times, before we were born. Back when the snow really squeaked in the winter and it was really cold so your ears turned red, and all that kind of stuff that my mum used to talk about. David: Mmm. Hansine: Yes. (FG 5: 80–92)

The above exchange shows how media and first-hand sources interact and are negotiated. Several exchanges across the different focus groups reveal how the interviewees alternate between using the media and personal experiences to make sense of climate changes. This was also exemplified in how some interviewees counter negative media representations using personal and locally contextualized evaluations of climate change as positive.

In the previous section, the four high school students started by mentioning the media as their primary source of information, and, after an intervention by the moderator, added elders, hunters and fishermen as sources. The following exchange indicates that this switch also implies that they trust first-hand sources more. When asked whether they trust the media or first-hand sources more, they replied:

Ivalu: I trust old people more (laughs). Because they know what they are talking about. David: Yeah, that's right. Hansine: Yes. Tanja: Mmm. Ivalu: They really know what they're talking about. Moderator: Yeah. So in comparison with an article, then you would trust most..? Hansine: The elders. (FG 5: 151–59)

The question about which sources are more trustworthy was negotiated through the interview, and thus is not a set or fossilized representation. When the moderator suggested that elders might just have a different perspective than the media, Ivalu replied, "I trust my grandmother more than I trust the media" (FG 5: 161). In general, although the media was mentioned as a source of information in all focus groups, its trustworthiness was scrutinized more than that of personal experiences and sources.

In their survey responses, all female participants except Jonna ranked "conversations with friends, family, colleagues etc." as the source they rely on most for climate change information. But all three women in FG 2 also included either "local" or "national Greenlandic newspapers" in their list of trustworthy sources. These survey responses align closely with the three women's collective sensemaking of climate change through objectifications of local changes in weather in their focus group interview. Interestingly, in another part of the survey respondents (including the three airline employees and the Danish government officials Gorm and Ulrik) ranked "international newspapers" among the most reliable sources. This matches the focus in their discussions, which were more preoccupied with the positive and economically beneficial sides of climate change than its negative environmental consequences.

### Media Representations Related to Personal Experience

This section assesses how interviewees negotiated and made sense of contradictions between mediated and personal experiences of climate change.

#### Criticism of "Doomsday" Coverage

First, the study explored what the interviewees believe the media focus on in their climate change coverage. A main theme in interviewees' responses to this question was that the media focused too much on the negative aspects of climate change or incited fear and alarmism through their coverage. A clear example is Frederik's persistent highlighting of the positive possibilities that climate change poses in Greenland, which he finds missing from the media's "doomsday" coverage, as outlined above (FG 1: 112, 67). The theme is also clear in Malthe's response to how he views media reporting on climate change.