ABSTRACT
As the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) developed in the 1970s and 1980s, social constructionism became a central tenet. It served the field’s central mission to open scientific knowledge and technology to critical social scientific study, as a means of serving democracy and progressive values through transparency about embedded interests and power structures. In step with the rise of the anti-environmental movement, however, concerns about technocracy were increasingly overshadowed by concerns to protect the environment and, thus, public trust in the scientific knowledge conveying the problem of continued patterns of pollution and resource use. In a context of growing “anti-science” bent on weakening environmental policy, researchers grew less inclined to support and produce constructionist studies of mainstream climate science. I illustrate these trends and discuss the implications of this “omission strategy” for science and environmental policy, drawing from my own work and experiences. My answer to the question of whether we can afford to perform constructionist studies of mainstream climate science is that we cannot afford not to perform them, and that the omission strategy is dangerous.
