How do professional experts frame the reality of climate change and themselves as experts, while engaging in defensive institutional work against others?
To answer this question, we consider how climate change is constructed by professional engineers and geoscientists in the province of Alberta, Canada. We begin by describing our research context and the strategic importance of Canadian oil worldwide, to the economy of Canada, and the province of Alberta. We outline the influential role of engineers and geoscientists within this industry, which allows them to affect national and international policy. Then, we describe our research design and methods.
Research context: an instrumental case
The petroleum industry in Alberta is an instrumental case (Stake, 1995; per Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006) to examine the debate of climate change expertise given the economic centrality of the oil industry, the oil sands as a controversial energy source, and the dominance of professionals that gives them a privileged position as influencers of government and industry policy. Frames are always socio-historical constructions and, thus, time and location play an important role.
