Abstract

This paper sets out to untangle the complex issue of global warming controversy. In fact a number of overlapping issues are intertwined: ethical, ideological, political, philosophical and epistemic amongst others. What does this perception of climate controversy reveal about our own understanding of the relationship between science and society, nature and culture, and more generally about our relationship to modernity? Have we achieved Bacon or Descartes’ grand design of mastering and possessing nature? To answer this question several points need to be clarified: firstly, the debate in sociology relating to scientific controversy; secondly the treatment of uncertainty in discourses and the ideological, ethical and political aspects of that controversy. Finally, the paper seeks to demonstrate how the IPCC is built on a strong modern genetic code, and how it in fact reflects complex interrelationships between the West and modern democracies. The paper proposes to use the metaphor of the Trojan Horse as the most effective tool to understand these questions.