Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation

framework and introduces theoretical approaches to both topics. While globalisation is found to be ‘deeply implicated’ (p. 47) both in causing climate change and in disseminating knowledge about it, a comparison showsmany differences between the debates; especially the role of science as a distinct feature of the climate change debate merits a separate analysis. Starting the analysis proper, Chapter 4 describes the methodology and theoretical foundations employed, while Chapter 5 presents the findings of the first-stage analysis of the arguments’ features – Elizabeth Malone identifies eleven argument families, bundling contributions to the debate according to agreement about fundamental aspects. The argument families are discussed in turn, using the examples of representative documents. Chapter 6 moves on to introduce the concept of social network analysis and its application to the debate. Common elements in arguments – namely argument family, authority of authors or organisations, type of evidence used, world view and proposed actions – are interpreted as social links providing the basis for agreement. Chapter 7 focuses on links other than family ties, thereby assessing whether potential for agreement exists between the advocates of disparate arguments. Chapter 8 evaluates the findings, summarises basic agreements and shows how the findings of the analysis can be used to build pathways to at least partial agreements. Using the social network analysis, Elizabeth Malone finds that authors and organisations are closely linked to other members of their argument family, but also that multiple ties exist to the members of other families. The world view expressed in an argument particularly seems to be a factor uniting representatives of disparate families – an economic world view, for example, is shared by some proponents of the argument families ‘Climate Change May Be Good for You’ and ‘Inequality Is the Problem’. Also, the fact that scientific evidence is cited by almost all debaters creates a common ground – even arguments disputing the evidence for anthropogenic climate change do so by stressing the uncertainty of results, but acknowledge the importance of science for the debate. While the author states that these uniting factors at least ensure a continuation of efforts to come to an agreement, she rightly points out that the common basis may be too small to arrive at commonly agreed solutions. Giving cause to more optimism, however, the analysis also shows that proposals for specific actions often span arguments which differ in other elements. Elizabeth Malone therefore suggests focussing on implementing these actions, which are often characterised as win-win-scenarios, and that actors should emphasize points of agreement, while the debate about more fundamental disagreements continues. While Elizabeth Malone’s analysis does not give cause for optimism about reaching a quick and broad agreement about climate change and the actions needed to address it, she demonstrates comprehensively that at least potential for partial agreement exists even across disparate arguments, and therefore there is room for compromises. Also, by mapping the debate space and outlining the different recurring argument families, she makes an important contribution to generating an overview of the debate and its actors, and allows for a location of one’s own position relative to other arguments. As comparing the differences and agreements between arguments is an important step on the way to building compromises and alliances between debaters, the book is recommendable to anyone involved in the climate change debate, or its analysis.