Timothée Cabos (École Normale Supérieure Paris) Relational accounts of data and epistemic injustices: The case of satellites as climate data sources
The vast amount of continuous data produced by satellites have been praised by climate scientists as offering new fruitful perspectives on climate systems. Contrary to in situ or other types of climate data, satellites permit orbiting instrumental systems to generate data englobing the entire planet, allowing for the manufacture of spatially and temporally more homogeneous climate datasets as well as for new phenomena and variables to be conceptualized and measured (e.g. Yang et al. 2013). To that extend, satellite data are commonly associated with an enhancement of scientific understanding of climates systems.
However, celebratory discourses about satellites’ global gaze have been challenged by “critical remote sensing” scholars inspired by feminist critique of science and technology. For example, Litfin (1997) disputes that satellites embody a neutral and objective perspective on which sensible political decision-making can be based. Rather, the global perspectives enabled by satellites appear filled with uninterrogated assumptions entangled with existing power imbalances. More recently, Bennet et al. (2022) have urged for more attention on satellite data collection and interpretation practices, as they appear to happen in contexts prone to the production of environmental injustices. Critical remote sensing scholars therefore advocates that unveiling unjustified assumptions hidden by the preconception that satellite produce raw and objective data will open the door for new modalities of using satellites, where their global gaze on Earth would serve local disempowered communities to gain some agency in the production of environmental knowledge and political decision-making.
On the other hand, satellite data remain largely undiscussed within data epistemology, in spite of their specificities and central epistemic role in climate sciences. In this talk, I will show that relational accounts of data emphasising the construed nature of data (e.g. Rheinberger 2011; Leonelli 2015, 2019; Dourish & Mazmanian 2013) provide useful conceptual resources to meet the agenda of critical remote sensing scholars.
According to Leonelli (2015, 2019) data are better conceived as fungible objects, liable to change at every production and processing stage, and defined by the kinds of relations that researchers establish with them, rather than as instantiating any intrinsically raw or objective representational content. Because relational accounts of data such as Leonelli’s specifically address the evidential role of data, they will allow us to understand at a finer level how the methodological decisions made by the different epistemic communities involved in the production and processing of satellite climate data shape climate information, eventually resulting in the production of epistemic injustices that would go under the radar with conventional representational accounts of data.
Satellite climate data do emerge as complex objects, facing numerous epistemic issues. As a matter of fact, producing climate information from satellite data do implicate various epistemic communities, each facing methodological choices to account for the heterogeneity in climate dataset derived from Earth-orbiting instruments (because of their complex calibration, the relatively short lifespan of missions, the differences in measurement-technology etc.). I will show that relational accounts enable us to make sense of the successive chains of material encoding and indexical interpretations involved in those methodological choices and to assess how these choices relate with the production of specific types of climate claims, framing how climate phenomena are conceived and eventually result the production of epistemic injustices.
References
Bennett, M. M., Chen, J. K., Alvarez León, L. F., & Gleason, C. J. (2022). The politics of pixels : A review and agenda for critical remote sensing. Progress in Human Geography, 46(3), 729‑752. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221074691
Dourish, P., & Mazmanian, M. (2013). Media as Material : Information Representations as Material Foundations for Organizational Practice. In P. R. Carlile, D. Nicolini, A. Langley, & H. Tsoukas (Éds.), How Matter Matters (p. 92‑118). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199671533.003.0005
Leonelli, S. (2015). What Counts as Scientific Data? A Relational Framework. Philosophy of Science, 82(5), 810‑821. https://doi.org/10.1086/684083
Leonelli, S. (2019). What distinguishes data from models? European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 9(2), 22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-018-0246-0
Rheinberger, H.-J. (2011). Infra-Experimentality : From Traces to Data, from Data to Patterning Facts. History of Science, 49(3), 337‑348. https://doi.org/10.1177/007327531104900306
Litfin, K. T. (1997). The Gendered Eye in the Sky : A Feminist Perspective on Earth Observation Satellites. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 18(2), 26. https://doi.org/10.2307/3346964
Yang, J., Gong, P., Fu, R., Zhang, M., Chen, J., Liang, S., Xu, B., Shi, J., & Dickinson, R. (2013). The role of satellite remote sensing in climate change studies. Nature Climate Change, 3(10), 875‑883. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1908
Carolina Cuadrado Bastos (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Unfixing evolution. Biological agency as a foundation for transformative climate adaptation
Climate change adaptation has gained importance in policy and research due to stalled mitigation efforts and increasing vulnerability to climate change impacts across the globe. However, decolonial and feminist scholars have critically interrogated the very concept of "adaptation," arguing that it often perpetuates social and geographical inequalities and increases the vulnerability of exposed communities (Islas-Vargas, 2020). Rooted in a critique of biological reductionism within political ecology, this scholarship contends that applying biological concepts to social realms universalizes and naturalizes processes that are fundamentally historical and contextual (Watts, 2015). From this perspective, climate adaptation should be approached from a transdisciplinary and decolonial lens (Islas-Vargas, 2020).
This work enters this debate by arguing that a feminist and climate justice framework for adaptation must grapple with a central question: What does it mean for human societies integrated in a planetary system to “adapt” to a changing climate? While endorsing the critique of biological reductionism, I contend that we must not overlook the biological and ecological underpinnings of adaptation. Human societies are also biologically embodied collectives that must navigate a rapidly shifting environment. The central challenge, therefore, is to integrate the biological, ecological and social dimensions of climate adaptation without falling back into reductionism.
To address this challenge, this presentation examines different conceptions of biological adaptation from the philosophy of biology (Serrelli & Rossi, 2009). It begins by tracing how the traditional Modern Synthesis (MS) in evolutionary biology defines adaptation as a passive interplay between genetic inheritance and environmental pressures, where the organism is viewed as a mindless product of a mindless process (Affifi, 2020). I contend that the biological reductionism prevalent in mainstream climate adaptation discourse is rooted in this very interpretation of evolution. However, alternative frameworks exist. Novel developments within the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis —particularly EcoEvoDevo and niche construction theory— challenge the MS view by reconceiving the organism as an active, co-creating subject in its own evolution. By drawing on these insights, I advocate for a biological and evolutionary framework for climate adaptation that is inherently open to transformation, thereby providing the conceptual grounds to re-imagine more just and sustainable futures for our societies. Ultimately, this exploration aims to clarify how to account for the biological dimensions of social life and defines the proper role of biological concepts in shaping decolonial and feminist political processes.
References
Affifi, R. (2020). Engaging the Adaptive Subject: Learning Evolution Beyond the Cell Walls. Biological Theory, 15(3), 121-135.
Islas-Vargas, M. (2020). Adaptación al cambio climático: definición, sujetos y disputas [Climate change adaptation: definition, subjects and disputes]. Letras Verdes, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Socioambientales, (28), 9-30. Serrelli, E., & Rossi, F. M. (2009). A conceptual taxonomy of adaptation in evolutionary biology.
Watts, M. J. (2015). Now and then: the origins of political ecology and the rebirth of adaptation as a form of thought. In Tom Perreault, Gavin Bridge & James McCarthy (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of political ecology (pp. 19-50). Routledge
Kevin Elliott* (Michigan State University) & Francesco Nappo (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) Methodological Standardization, Selective Ignorance, and the Design of Climate Change Mitigation Scenarios
There has been increasing interest in the “values and science” literature on the ways that organizations and institutions mediate and promote the influences of values in scientific research. This talk builds on this recent focus by exploring the value-laden nature of the methodological standards (e.g., rules, norms, guidelines) used to guide research. It highlights how methodological standardization can serve some values (e.g., promoting reproducibility and preventing bias) while detracting from other values (e.g., limiting epistemic diversity and generating selective ignorance). Drawing on a case study involving the design of mitigation scenarios for addressing climate change, the talk shows how standardization of scenario inputs provides opportunities for coordination across research communities, while also narrowing the space of conceived future alternatives. The case study also provides an opportunity to explore principles for engaging in methodological standardization in an epistemically and socially responsible fashion.
Niklas Gärtner (Université Grenoble Alpes) What Counts as Evidence? Reconsidering Evidence-Based Policy for Climate Change Adaptation
Evidence-based policy (EBP) offers a decision-making framework based on hierarchization of evidence, that ranks evidence according to methodological quality criteria like bias minimization and internal validity. However, such hierarchization comes with several epistemic and ethical concerns. It risks perpetuating epistemic injustices by systematically devaluing knowledge produced by underrepresented communities and privileging a narrow conception of scientific expertise (Fricker, 2007). In this talk, I argue that applying EBP’s evidence hierarchies to climate change adaptation (CCA) fails on epistemic and ethical grounds and must be adapted in a way that treats epistemic pluralism, contextual relevance, and value-transparency as central criteria for the assessment for what counts as evidence.
EBP emerged from evidence-based medicine, where systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials occupy top positions while observational studies and expert judgment rank lower. Applying this hierarchy directly to CCA reveals two fundamental problems. First, some evidence types in the traditional hierarchy do not exist in climate science. Second, ranking climate evidence according to methodological quality criteria produces an inadequate hierarchy. Even if we construct a hierarchy using the evidence types climate science produces and rank them by traditional quality criteria, the resulting order fails to match CCA practice. Evidence that ranks highly in methodological quality (such as systematic reviews or global climate models) may offer limited direct relevance for local decision-making, where adaptation typically occurs. Conversely, expert judgment, though often ranked lower in traditional evidence hierarchies, can be essential in these contexts.
Drawing on feminist philosophy of science, I propose three necessary modifications for EBP in CCA contexts. First, following standpoint theorists and feminist empiricists (Longino, 2002, 2020; Wylie, 2013; Harding, 2013), EBP must embrace epistemic pluralism. This does not mean to merely tolerate multiple knowledge systems in decision-making but to actively integrating them as epistemically valuable. CCA requires synthesizing climate models, observations, expert judgment, and indigenous and local knowledge systems (Tengö et al., 2014; Orlove et al., 2023). This integration challenges historical patterns of testimonial injustice that have excluded the knowledge of marginalized communities from policy-relevant evidence (Fricker, 2007).
Second, evidence hierarchies must treat relevance as an epistemic criterion with priority over methodological quality alone. Data can be methodologically impeccable yet irrelevant for a specific decision. No amount of methodological quality compensates for studying the wrong question, population, or context.
The principle is: if evidence is not relevant to the decision at hand, it is not useful, regardless of methodological prestige (Anderson, 2004). This seems to suggest abandoning fixed hierarchies in favor of contextual, decision-relative assessments.
Third, EBP must abandon value-neutrality claims and acknowledge the legitimate role of values in evidence generation and assessment. Feminist philosophers of science have demonstrated that values are constitutive of knowledge production, they shape which questions are asked, which evidence is sought, and how findings are interpreted (Longino, 2002; Anderson, 2004; Intemann, 2005; Douglas, 2009). The pragmatic interests, like protecting vulnerable populations or enabling local agency, that drive climate science research influence these choices. For example, expert judgment derives value from contextual knowledge that helps manage uncertainties responsibly (Majszak and Jebeile, 2023). The key distinction lies not in whether values are present, but in whether they serve appropriate aims and are made explicit for critical scrutiny (Harding, 2013).
References
Anderson, E. (2004). Uses of value judgments in science: A general argument, with lessons from a case study of feminist research on divorce. Hypatia, 19 (1), 1–24.
Douglas, H. E. (2009). Science, policy, and the value-free ideal. University of Pittsburgh Press.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice: Power and the ethics of knowing. Oxford University Press.
Harding, S. (2013). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is “strong objectivity”? In Feminist epistemologies (pp. 49–82). Routledge. Intemann, K. (2005). Feminism, underdetermination, and values in science. Philosophy of science, 72 (5), 1001–1012.
Longino, H. E. (2002). The fate of knowledge. Princeton University Press.
Longino, H. E. (2020). Science as social knowledge: Values and objectivity in scientific inquiry. Princeton University Press.
Majszak, M., & Jebeile, J. (2023). Expert judgment in climate science: How it is used and how it can be justified. Studies in history and philosophy of science, 100, 32–38.
Orlove, B., Sherpa, P., Dawson, N., Adelekan, I., Alangui, W., Carmona, R., Coen, D., Nelson, M. K., Reyes-García, V., Rubis, J., et al. (2023). Placing diverse knowledge systems at the core of transformative climate research. Ambio, 52 (9), 1431–1447.
Tengö, M., Brondizio, E. S., Elmqvist, T., Malmer, P., & Spierenburg, M. (2014). Connecting diverse knowledge systems for enhanced ecosystem governance: The multiple evidence base approach. Ambio, 43 (5), 579–591.
Wylie, A. (2013). Why standpoint matters. In Science and other cultures (pp. 26–48). Routledge.
Meret Haldemann*, Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera & Apolline Saucy (Universität Bern) Extreme temperatures and the risk of hospitalization during pregnancy – analysis of cause-specific emergency hospital admission records from 1998 to 2023 in Switzerland
Background. During pregnancy, the delicate balance of feto-placental circulation, rapid fetal development, and profound physiological adaptation to the maternal cardiorespiratory system make pregnant people a vulnerable group to environmental stressors. Rising temperatures associated with climate change are particularly concerning, as emerging evidence links heat exposure with increased risk of preterm birth, low birth weight, gestational diabetes, and prenatal stress. Despite recent advances, pregnancy as a vulnerable life stage remains largely understudied in climate epidemiology studies, and most existing evidence prioritizes child outcomes over maternal health1, leaving a critical gap in our understanding of cause-specific symptoms and diseases in pregnant people, such as hypertensive and mental health symptoms. To date, no study has been conducted in the context of Switzerland that contributes to a broader knowledge of the effect of heat on this specific population. On the long term, these gaps contribute to perpetuating systemic biases in evidence and care for pregnant individuals
1 The term maternal health refers to health outcomes related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, and includes all pregnant, birthing, and postpartum people, regardless of gender identity.
Aims and objectives. This project aims to bridge this knowledge gap by evaluating the role of extreme temperature on maternal health in Switzerland, with a particular focus on hypertensive, metabolic, and mental health. Specifically, we will estimate the acute and delayed effects of extreme temperature (heat and cold) on the risk of hospitalization during pregnancy and compare relative risks with those of the general population, and for different causes of hospitalization (classified by ICD-codes), including gestational hypertension and diabetes, pre-eclampsia, postpartum depression, and lesser-studied complications such as prenatal bleeding and infections.
Methods. We collected daily emergency hospital admissions and mean temperature in Switzerland from 1998 to 2023. Hospitalization data were available from the Swiss Federal Office for Statistics at the Medstat area level, which represents administrative health areas of variable size. Gridded temperature data were obtained at 1km resolution from Meteoswiss. To assess the immediate and delayed effects of heat and cold on cause-specific hospitalization during pregnancy, we will apply a case-time series design combined with distributed non-linear lag models to estimate the associations between daily mean temperature and each pregnancy health outcome described above.
Expected outcomes. Although national and international heat health plans recognize pregnant individuals as a vulnerable group, only few of them describe efforts to better protect this population, and formal actions are lacking. By generating the first robust national-level evidence of the health effects of extreme temperatures during pregnancy, this study will provide urgently needed insights to improve understanding of heat vulnerability during pregnancy. With climate change expected to increase frequency of heatwaves in Switzerland, quantifying the health burden among pregnant people is increasingly important to ensure this population is adequately represented and protected in future heat-health action plans.
Olivia Maegaard Nielsen* (Universität Bremen) & Frida Hjortkjær Ekelund* (independent) ‘Climate Fools’ and ‘Eco-terrorists’ - On Danish Media’s Silencing of Environmental Activists
Despite Denmark's reputation as a “green” and democratic frontrunner, the country has tightened its grip on environmental activism in recent years, with activists being subjected to increasingly rough treatment by law enforcement and harsher sentencing in the judicial courts. Our paper argues that Danish media’s treatments of environmental activists can be seen as a form of silencing, specifically based on Dotson’s concept of testimonial quieting. Testimonial quieting, according to Dotson, occurs when controlling images hinder a speaker from being perceived as a knower by their audience, which again hinders their uptake (Dotson 2011, 242, drawing on Collins 2014). Through a discourse analysis inspired by van Hulst et al. (2025), we argue that Danish media and policy makers construct two controlling images of environmental protestors: the “climate fool”, characterized by emotional excess and irrationality, and the “terrorist”, characterized as a serious, emotionally-driven threat. We want to argue that these portrayals constitute a form of silencing by misconstruing and delegitimizing the actual messages behind the protests, which we perceive as a harm to the public understanding of the protestor’s demands.
Apart from exemplifying how silencing of environmental activists presents itself in the Danish media, we show that parallels can be drawn to historically gendered and raced rhetorics. We find that characteristics associated with the controlling image of the climate fool draws upon rhetoric which has historically been used to disqualify women as irrational based on their ascribed emotional excess, such as describing protestors as hysterical. Similarly, by tracing the discourse surrounding the controlling image of the terrorist back to the anti-terror rhetoric of the 2000’s, we find that tools initially used against external and xenophobic ideas of “the foreign enemy” have been politically legitimized and internalized within a Danish context against environmental activists. While the controlling images are mobilized against a mixed group defined by their shared praxis as activists rather than by fixed identifiers such as race and gender, they operate by drawing upon historically oppressive language. This illustrates how pre-existing discursive infrastructure around marginalization can be repurposed in new contexts, which makes a feminist theoretical lens particularly productive to highlight this tendency.
While our analysis focuses on the Danish political landscape, we believe that similar patterns can be found in other countries and contexts. For example, the discourse around so-called “Klimakleber” in Germany shows similarities to the Danish treatment of the “climate fool”. With this project, we want to draw on insights from feminist epistemology and feminist philosophy of language in order to open up for a debate about how valid concerns about climate change can be silenced by media and politicians and what that does to our collective understanding of climate change.
Literature:
Collins, P. H. (2014[2000]): Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 2nd Ed. Routledge.
Dotson, K. (2011). Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing. Hypatia 26(2), pp. 236-257. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01177.x
van Hulst, M., Metze, T., Dewulf, A., de Vries, J., van Bommel, S. & van Ostaijen, M. (2025). Dis course, framing and narrative: three ways of doing critical, interpretive policy analysis. Critical Policy Studies, 19(1), 74-96. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2024.2326936
Julianne Mann (University of North Dakota) Consensual Sacrifice: Managing Ignorance, Managing Vulnerability
In his essay “Sacrifice Zones: A Genealogy and Analysis of an Environmental Justice Concept,” Ryan Juskus develops the concept of “slow sacrifice”: “a process in which the securing of one’s own life and satisfying one’s own desires produces death and harms that are disproportionately borne by other people and other places” (2023). While this definition of a slow sacrifice is certainly apt for many examples of environmental disturbance and injustice, it can’t capture the condition of communities who willingly bear the burden of their own slow sacrifice. I am especially concerned with communities that do not understand themselves as the victims of injustice, in part because they are predominately white, conservative, rural, and middle class. Although this population might appear peripheral to discussions of environmental injustice, their motivations demand closer examination.
I argue in this paper that such voluntary sacrifice is the result of three interwoven epistemic practices: (1) managing ignorance in relation to environmental harm, which I connect to neoconservative discourses around racial victimization, (2) managing vulnerability, which includes a masculinized perception of one the “master” subject, and (3) denying relationality, which contributes to a denial of one’s own status as oppressed, as well as the ways in which one’s participation within systems of harm oppresses others. The argument I develop in this paper draws primarily on Elizabeth Spelman’s analysis of “managing ignorance” (2007) and Erinn Gilson’s reformation of vulnerability as a state of ambivalent openness. Specifically, I maintain that epistemic process Spelman describes for managing racial ignorance—in one neither believes nor disbelieves that “Black American grievances are real”, but rather inoculates oneself from thinking at all about Black American grievances—is operative in managing one’s sense of one’s vulnerability, where vulnerability is, as Gilson’s definition explains, not exclusively one’s susceptibility to harm, but one’s “openness to being affected and affecting” (2011). That is, communities that sacrifice themselves inoculate themselves from the reality of the impact of their environmental management on themselves by managing their sense of vulnerability: they do not know, and they do not want to know. These communities’ ignorance of their vulnerability, in turn, mitigates the sense in which they think their actions affect others. As a result, consensually sacrificial communities position the Other—especially racialized Others and others in the Global South—as both relationally distinct and as to blame for environmental disturbances.
Contrary to being periphery, then, these communities’ consent to be sacrificed has broader consequences for environmental injustice in several ways: they participate in a pattern of white racialized and masculinized thinking that is itself environmentally pernicious, they are unable to see themselves as in solidarity with other victims of corporate exploitation, and as the “agents” of environmental disturbance, their resistance to sacrifice is instrumental to environmental justice efforts. As such, understanding why they remain in a state of willful ignorance about—and moving beyond mere economic explanations for—their own sacrificial state is pertinent to discussions of climate change more broadly.
References
Gilson, Erinn. 2011. "Vulnerability, Ignorance, and Oppression." Hypatia 26 (2): 308-332.
Juskus, Ryan. 2023. "Sacrifice Zones: A Genealogy and Analysis of an Environmental Justice Concept." Environmental Humanities 15 (1): 3-24.
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 2007. "Managing Ignorance." In Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, 119-131. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Claudia Matus (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile) Gender as an Epistemological Lens in Biodiversity Data Production: Rethinking Open-Air Laboratories
Recent international efforts to improve the validity and reproducibility of biodiversity data—such as Nature Portfolio’s 2022 guidelines and the SAGER framework—recognize that ignoring sex and gender considerations can weaken scientific results. However, in biodiversity sciences, gender has mainly been seen as a sociological or demographic variable rather than an epistemological one. This presentation explores how including gender as an epistemological perspective can alter how biodiversity data is produced, validated, and interpreted in open-air laboratories, with effects on both epistemic justice and environmental governance.
Rooted in feminist epistemologies (Haraway, Barad, Schiebinger, Harding) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) of environmental knowledge (Turnhout, Bowker), this paper presents two case studies: the Patagonia UC Research Station and Escudero Antarctic Base. These sites, located in sub-Antarctic and Antarctic ecosystems, serve as “open-air laboratories"—environments where the material, institutional, and climatic factors influencing research are closely linked to its epistemic outcomes.
Methodologically, the study combines ethnographic observation with scientific fieldwork and reflexive documentation of sampling methods, taxonomic classifications, and metadata collection. Through iterative “knowledge cycles,” interdisciplinary teams—including microbiologists, ecologists, philosophers of science, and gender theorists—co-analyze how field decisions (such as which specimens are considered representative, how metadata categories are filled out, and what defines a “complete” dataset) reflect gendered assumptions about neutrality, scale, and value.
Preliminary findings indicate that including gender as an epistemological category uncovers subtle but consistent biases in field protocols and data systems. For example, classifications based on binary sexual dimorphism in fauna often obscure intersex or sex-changing species, while team hierarchies and data recording practices reinforce masculine ideas of authority and detachment. Conversely, employing reflexive, gender-aware observation criteria improves data transparency, traceability, and representativeness—dimensions that are increasingly vital for global biodiversity databases.
Conceptually, this work redefines biodiversity not as a neutral object of measurement but as a relational epistemic practice, co-created by human and non-human actors, technologies, and institutional norms. It aligns with feminist and posthuman approaches that emphasize situated knowledge and the interconnectedness of matter, meaning, and method. Beyond its technical contribution, the project aims to promote epistemic justice by questioning whose categories of life, difference, and value underpin global biodiversity infrastructures.
Ultimately, this paper argues that including gender as an epistemological lens is not an optional addition to biodiversity science but a necessary approach for developing more robust, inclusive, and context-aware environmental knowledge. In doing so, it repositions open-air laboratories as sites where the politics of data, gender, and ecology converge—offering both empirical insights and a conceptual pathway toward more equitable biodiversity management.
Julia Mindlin* (Universität Leipzig) & Fiona Spuler* (University of Reading) Accounting for multiple lines of evidence for losses and damages from climate change: investigating the extreme fire seasons in Brazilian Amazon and Pantanal biomes
Losses and damages from climate change are already manifesting worldwide, disproportionately affecting local communities and Indigenous Peoples in the Global South, where vulnerability intersects with historical marginalization. For instance, in the Amazon and Pantanal biomes, local and Indigenous peoples are facing wildfires intensified by climate change alongside threats to their territory and land rights (da Veiga et al. 2025, Kelley et al. 2025, Bilbao et al. 2019). Yet international and national debates—particularly under the UNFCCC—continue to struggle with the question of what counts as valid evidence for loss and damage and whose knowledge is recognised in that process.
Institutional spaces such as the IPCC, the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), COP negotiations and institutions established under the UNFCCC such as the Green Climate Fund — and including the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage — have historically prioritized physical science knowledge on climate impacts, establishing criteria for validity that privilege quantifiable data over other knowledge systems and lived experience (Ford et al. 2016). In the case of loss and damage, the focus in these spaces has centred on extreme event attribution as the primary line of evidence, linking specific floods or storms to anthropogenic warming (Noy et al. 2023, King et al. 2023). However, this approach overlooks other types of evidence from climate science itself, such as gradual shifts in temperature and precipitation patterns, and entirely neglects local and indigenous knowledge systems (Coumou et al. 2024) which risks entrenching epistemic injustices (Fricker 2007) by marginalizing non-Western epistemologies.
In this contribution, we examine how different knowledge systems can be brought into dialogue to understand losses and damages from wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon and Pantanal related to climate change, while attending to the epistemic injustices prevalent in climate research more broadly. This research is based on a transdisciplinary project and workshop in Brasília in September 2025 that convened local and Indigenous fire brigades, researchers from physical climate and fire science, social science and philosophy, civil society and climate finance organisations, and policymakers to co-produce evidence on slow-onset and acute impacts of wildfires from climate change.
We employ the Multiple Evidence Base Approach (Berkes et al. 2008, Tengö et al. 2014) and systematically document diverse sources brought together in this project — from trends in satellite data and event-attribution modelling of burned area to traditional and Indigenous fire management practices and knowledge of environmental change and damage. We then analyze instances of dialogue and cross-examination during the workshop, such as indigenous brigades challenging scientific models with on-the-ground observations of fire behavior under changing rainfall regimes, revealing tensions and synergies, while resisting the integration imperative (Klenk et al. 2015). This study aims to reflect on practical lessons from the implementation of the Multiple Evidence Base Approach and embed these findings within the broader debate on what is recognized as evidence for loss and damage, advocating for epistemic pluralism that recognizes indigenous knowledge as core evidence for losses and damages.
References
Agrawal, A. (1995). Dismantling the Divide Between Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge. Development and Change, 26(3), 413–439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1995.tb00560.x
Díaz, S., Demissew, S., Carabias, J., Joly, C., Lonsdale, M., Ash, N., Larigauderie, A., Adhikari, J. R., Arico, S., Báldi, A., Bartuska, A., Baste, I. A., Bilgin, A., Brondizio, E., Chan, K. M., Figueroa, V. E., Duraiappah, A., Fischer, M., Hill, R., … Zlatanova, D. (2015). The IPBES Conceptual Framework—Connecting nature and people. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 14, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2014.11.002
García-Portela, L. (2024). Rectifying Climate Injustice: Reparations for Loss and Damage (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003399889
Roser, D., Huggel, C., Ohndorf, M., & Wallimann-Helmer, I. (2015). Advancing the interdisciplinary dialogue on climate justice. Climatic Change, 133(3), 349–359. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1556-2
Tengö, M., Brondizio, E. S., Elmqvist, T., Malmer, P., & Spierenburg, M. (2014). Connecting Diverse Knowledge Systems for Enhanced Ecosystem Governance: The Multiple Evidence Base Approach. AMBIO, 43(5), 579–591. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-014-0501-3
Ulrike Proske* & Melsen Lieke (Wageningen University) Climate modelers as “pragmatic realists”
The self-understanding of natural scientists is often tied to notions of positivism, objectivity, and universalism. Yet science studies and especially feminist scholars have pointed out the situatedness and geography of scientific knowledge (Haraway, 1988; Livingstone, 2003). For global climate models, Simon Shackley and Mikaela Sundberg have introduced epistemic lifestyles or modeling visions to denote different goals present for model development institutions (Shackley, 2001; Sundberg, 2009). For example, “climate seers” use the model as a tool to generate scientific understanding, while for others the main goal of model development is to increase predictive accuracy. While it is clear that climate models serve many purposes, it is unclear how these modeling visions play out when conflicting visions meet and have to come to an agreement in practice.
We used a survey and in-depth interviews to study the visions present in the large consortium climate model development project nextGEMS. As a starting point, we took three visions we combined from the literature and that we had encountered throughout our work of studying modelling (Proske et al., 2024): the predictive vision, focused on improving the performance of the model with respect to observational data; the representative vision that aims to have the model be a faithful representation of climate system processes; and the heuristic vision that aims for an understanding of the climate system and uses the model as a tool for exploration. Each vision comes with certain epistemic commitments, and would lead to different choices in prioritizing and implementing code for climate models.
The nextGEMS project aimed to develop km-scale resolution configurations of the ICON and IFS climate models. Both models also serve as weather models with for example ICON being the operational model of the German Weather Service. Given the different use cases of the models, we expected to find disagreement between modelers or model users regarding the vision they have for the model. However, we were surprised that most interviewees exhibited a mix of positions and did not feel strongly against other visions, even though the visions play out differently when making choices in implementing a model. Interviewees were flexible in negotiating the different visions, focusing on the usability of the model as a technological tool as an overarching vision. For each task, modelers debate for themselves and in groups which goals or priorities count, highlighting pragmatism and practical considerations that enter into building a model.
We thus term their epistemology as “pragmatic realists” (Beven, 2025), realistic in assuming some connection between model variables and Earth’s climate phenomena, and pragmatic in accepting limitations and negotiating the model purpose anew for each development. This highlights the situatedness of model building and use, with every day decisions begin driven by the modelers’ background, context and practical considerations rather than by scientific objectivity. As such, this study highlights that the identities and contexts of those who build and use climate models matter.
References
Beven, Keith John (2025). “A Short History of Philosophies of Hydrological Model Evaluation and Hypothesis Testing”. In: WIREs Water 12.1, e1761. issn: 2049-1948. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1761. Haraway, Donna (1988). “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective”. In: Feminist Studies 14.3, pp. 575–599.
Livingstone, David N. (2003). Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge. Science. Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. isbn: 978-0-226-48722-9.
Proske, Ulrike, Sylvaine Ferrachat, and Ulrike Lohmann (May 2024). “Developing a Climatological Simplification of Aerosols to Enter the Cloud Microphysics of a Global Climate Model”. In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 24.10, pp. 5907–5933. issn: 1680-7316. doi: 10.5194/acp-24-5907-2024.
Shackley, Simon (2001). “Epistemic Lifestyles in Climate Change Modelling”. In: Changing the Atmosphere. MIT Press. isbn: 978-0-262-63219-5.
Sundberg, Mikaela (Mar. 2009). “The Everyday World of Simulation Modeling: The Development of Parameterizations in Meteorology”. In: Science, Technology, & Human Values 34.2, pp. 162–181. issn: 0162-2439, 1552-8251. doi: 10.1177/0162243907310215.
Olivia Romppainen-Martius (Universität Bern) Flood risk assessment tools for Switzerland
Flood risk mitigation and climate change adaptation require risk assessments as a basis to develop adequate responses and solutions. I will provide an overview of the flood risk assessment tools developed through transdisciplinary research by the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks that are available at https://www.hochwasserrisiko.ch/en. I will discuss example applications and next steps.
Nancy Tuana (Penn State University) Embedding Feminist Values in Climate Risk Management: Challenges and Opportunities
Knowledge production is a central focus of feminist science studies theorists. Recognizing the complex coupling between knowledge and power, a key theme of this work is the coupled question of whose interests are served by the knowledge that mainstream science deems worthy of development, and whose interests are served by the knowledge projects that are overlooked or ignored. A central concern animating this presentation is whether we have the knowledge we need to ensure climate justice. I address these topics through my experiences as an embedded philosopher in two climate risk management teams: Sustainable Climate Risk Management https://www.scrim.psu.edu/ and The Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub https://coastalhub.org/.
Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, (Universität Bern) Climate change, health and feminism: from gender medicine to climate action
The Klima Seniorinnen vs. Switzerland case will be regarded as a landmark climate litigation case for many years, not only for the significance of the outcome but also for its form. It was led by a group of elderly women seeking protection for their health against climate change. The case was built around the heightened vulnerability of (elderly) women to climate hazards. Although many research gaps exist, there is growing evidence showing that women might be carrying a higher health burden due to climate change, particularly in the Global South. The urgent need for more women-centred research is central to current initiatives in gender medicine, which highlight the neglected role of women in clinical research. The talk will provide an overview of how research on the health impacts of climate hazards on women has helped and will continue to advance research in climate epidemiology and public health, and to drive policy action against climate change.
Lauren Ware (Canterbury Cathedral Gardens) Ingestive Injustice: Emotion, Epistemic Harm, and Wild Food Knowledge in Climate Adaptation
Abstract Lettuce heads made headlines this year, with prices shooting up 40% since 2023. The leafy green’s rising cost is explained as due jointly to variable weather associated with climate change, and costs of shipping from Spain, where over 90% of the UK’s lettuce is sourced. In the context of climate-driven food disruptions, foraging for wild food has been explored as a potential supplement to industrial food systems: especially given those systems’ impact on climate change and climate change’s impact on them.
Climate adaptation depends on integrating diverse ecological knowledges, including vernacular, embodied, and local food practices. Yet feminist epistemology has shown that such knowledges are vulnerable to structural credibility decifits. The climate-adaptive turn to foraging is not without obstacles when viewed from a feminist philosophy of emotion perspective. I argue emotional responses—particularly disgust and fear—act as affective filters structuring whose ecological knowledge is admitted into climate adaptation research. I combine a cognitivist account of emotion and a virtue-theoretical account of well-being to identify foraging as a site of food injustice, along two axes: the distribution of the emotional well-being benefits of wild food, and the distribution of epistemic harms associated with foraging.
I situate this paper within a UK foraging context. From April-June 2025, 115 volunteer citizen scientists—including this author—spent 1-3 months eating only wild food they foraged, scavenged, or caught. This is the Wildbiome Project, studying the health impact of wild food, particularly on the gut microbiome, with my research investigating foraging’s impact on emotional well-being. Participants frequently experienced vivid fear and disgust responses by observers, motivating this paper.
Second, I employ a cognitivist account of emotion to identify the distinguishing evaluations within fear and disgust, demonstrating their roles in the experience of foraging. Foraging is a charged site for analysis given its output is taken into the body. Drawing on Nussbaum’s account of disgust, I interpret the visceral unease provoked by foraged foods—particularly those associated with decay (e.g., fungi, fermentations, bushmeat). For Nussbaum, disgust contains a belief that something will contaminate us, especially through bodily permeability. Wild food involves not just risk, but incorporation—it’s ingestive, taking the wild into the self: destabilising boundaries of home and wild, human and animal; and exposing cultural values regarding whose knowledge counts in defining what is edible, even decent.
Third, the act of foraging itself carries a disproportionate distribution of an underexamined form of food injustice: epistemic harm. Reactions of disgust function as barriers to foraging as a form of emotion-mediated food injustice. These reactions code as natural-rational, yet they marginalize ancestral and embodied knowledges—particularly those marked as feminine, folk, or feral. These
affective dynamics undermine recognition as knower-practitioners, constituting epistemic injustice at best—epistemic exploitation at worst.
This paper demonstrates how emotional barriers to foraging and its attendant well-being benefits inhibit both individual and collective nature-connectedness supporting climate-resilient attitudes. Affective epistemic injustice further inhibits the fair and reliable incorporation of diverse ecological knowledges into climate research and action—a dual loss: weaker climate knowledge, and greater vulnerability for those who hold it.
