Critical assessment of an article by the anthropologist Peter Rudiak-Gould - Essay Example

ibility of climate change - and the golden mean, “constructive visibilism” (Rudiak-Gould, 2013, p.128), yet focusing on the implications and ideological, social and political context standing behind these stances rather than the stances themselves. The source of the controversy lies in the fact that one cannot see climate change itself, but rather its impacts and manifestations. Visibility of climate change is viewed as the opportunity to see the climate change with the unaided eye, whereas invisibility addresses the scientific aspect implying that witnessing climate change without any scientific devices and measurements is impossible.

In the argumentation, the author unfolds social, political and cultural factors underlying both approaches, for instance, profound incompatibility of democratic (predominantly empirical) view and undemocratic position of science: in fact, this opposition is an important balancing power, because assumption of visibility devaluates the status of scientists. Science, asserting that climate change is invisible, has been accumulating data via observation, testing and other methods (Weber & Stern, 2011, p.315); at the same time, numerous indigenous peoples have been insisting on visibility of climate change, as they face its impacts themselves.

The compilation of articles edited by Koppel Maldonado et al. (2014) takes the stance of visibility, incorporating articles describing experiences of climate change in indigenous peoples of America. Rudiak-Gould’s argumentation concerning indigenous advocates of visibility is supported in Wildcat’s article, expressing a similar point: whereas most citizens “form opinions about climate change” via mass media, frontline ethnicities become aware of it through the practical experiences of their lifeway (Wildcat, 2013, p.2). As Rudiak-Gould states, inhabitants of urban areas are unaware of climate change, in other words, they view it as short- or long-term weather changes and typically access