The struggle to anticipate the future: political uses, technological approaches, and moral debates on climate change

This paper explores major academic debates that address why, as our scientific understanding of climate change increases, controversies about its causes and responses multiply. To this end, this research presents a discussion of the literature on the political, technological, and social conditions that generate divergent ideas on climate change. This article is divided into three sections. First, it is argued that climate knowledge tends to be contextualized to local concerns. Second, inherent technical limitations of climate models limit a direct translation between global climate science and local policies. Third, greater knowledge could not resolve controversies on climate change since values are inevitably part of understanding and elaborating solutions. Due to the high complexity of climate change, the intellectual fragmentation of its study, and the multiplication of contradictory information, it is crucial to present a broad overview of current academic contributions to strengthen public debate and informed decision-making.