Including Dissent in a Climate Change Paradigm

Abstract Climate change studies are now multidisciplinary and reported on different levels of specialization. The governmental landscape of climate change action provides for only voluntary commitment and application, both internationally and within sovereign nations. This voluntary structure respects national sovereignty and reflects the absence of an international climate change government. In the general language about climate change that is widely shared, controversy about climate change mitigation can be described in a climate change paradigm, as a structure of thought, that has both a factual and a normative dimension. The factual dimension refers to rising average Earth temperatures and more intense and frequent weather events, and it posits a causal connection between the two. The normative dimension describes what should be done to mitigate climate change, based on accepted scientific information, but it can include viewpoints that deny a combination of the factual and normative dimensions and the causal connections posited in the factual dimension. This normativity may also refer to values that are not universally shared.