ABSTRACT
In recent times, public discussions about risk, including by experts, political and business leaders and peak non-government organizations, have been fraught and contested, entwined with political ideologies and vested commercial interests. This chapter examines two contemporary global risk controversies: those concerning the climate emergency and the COVID-19 crisis. It considers how the three major perspectives on risk – the risk society, cultural/symbolic and governmentality approaches – offer some insights into climate and COVID risk scepticism and denialism. The discussion examines post-truth politics and the manufacture of uncertainty and dissent in relation to science. The more-than-human dimensions of these debates are also foregrounded in the chapter, identifying the agents involved in configuring the complex assemblages that come together to generate affective forces that drive anti-science and right-wing extremism.
