The climate and ecological crisis poses an unprecedented challenge, with scientists playing a critical role in how society understands and responds. This study examined how 27 environmentally concerned scientists from 11 countries construct the future in the context of climate change, applying a critical discursive psychology analysis. The degree to which the future is constructed as predetermined or transformable impacts both the urgency and scope of proposed actions. Along a temporal spectrum from fixed and inevitable to contingent and transformable, scientists drew upon shared discourses of social and ecological collapse. The degree of fixity or openness in scientists' talk about the future shaped the range of arguments available, demonstrating varying levels of argumentative flexibility when framing solutions to climate change. At the fixed end, the future was presented as beyond human intervention, echoing doomist discourse. By contrast, more open framings presented collapse not as inevitable but as transformable through human agency. Here, collapse discourses were presented as warnings, motivating arguments that drew upon a wide array of strategies from collective action to technological innovation. These constructions of the future highlight scientists' role in shaping societal discourse and framing what actions are seen as viable or necessary to address the climate crisis.

中文翻译：

---

气候未来：科学家关于崩溃与转型的论述


气候和生态危机带来了前所未有的挑战，科学家在社会如何理解和应对方面发挥着关键作用。本研究考察了来自 27 个国家/地区的 11 名关注环境的科学家如何在气候变化的背景下构建未来，并应用批判性话语心理学分析。将未来构建为预定或可转换的程度会影响拟议行动的紧迫性和范围。沿着从固定和必然到偶然和可转化的时间范围，科学家们借鉴了关于社会和生态崩溃的共同话语。科学家们关于未来的讨论的固定性或开放性程度塑造了可用论点的范围，表明在构建气候变化解决方案时，不同程度的论证灵活性。在固定的一端，未来被呈现为超越人类干预，与厄运论的话语相呼应。相比之下，更开放的框架将崩溃呈现为不是不可避免的，而是可以通过人类能动性来改变的。在这里，崩溃的话语被呈现为警告，激发了从集体行动到技术创新的广泛策略的论点。这些对未来的构建突出了科学家在塑造社会话语和构建哪些行动被视为可行或必要的应对气候危机方面的作用。