In particular, I like the suggestion to just start ignoring global warming skeptics. At some point, someone wins in a ‘debate’ like that over global warming. I think environmentalists should realize the general success of the discourse surrounding global climate change. To me, this means shifting the debate, rather than refusing any discussion. Say the debate has to be over something else – what to do, who has to act – and take the position of people who can affect global climate change. In particular, this means environmentalists have to stop obsessing over global warming skeptics. Don’t offer to debate them, don’t pretend like their opinion has any currency in politics, and just move on.
The problem with global warming now has to do with getting people to change the way they live. Generally, people don’t feel empowered to change global warming in a significant way.
My friend Craig described what he sees as a useful metaphor for encouraging people to take the steps to change. He used the metaphor of investment and risk in explicit economic terms – “would you really want to invest this much in a ecological system with diminishing returns and almost certain failure?” I find this interesting because it reverses the way that opponents to action to stop global warming frame their position. Generally, representatives of the warming-industries describe efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a too-risky investment. I think the viability of an investment metaphor now is the shift in presumption towards the assumption that change is occurring now. Global warming rhetoric has successfully established itself as to allow people to describe every irregular weather pattern as a result of warming. More people believe that change is happening already, and using a socially conservative/evangelical/millennial rhetoric, that everything was once better. In the same way that social conservatives trace the cause of social problems to the downfall of traditional family structures, environmentalists have connected all irregular weather patterns, disease, or drought to the ‘sin’ of global warming. It associates risk with change, and sees ongoing change as a descent into sin. The biggest difference between environmental rhetoric and the language of evangelical Christianity (thus far one of the most successful movements in America) is the possibility of redemption for our sin.
Global warming is too damn global and not personal enough. People affect their environments on a less than global scale, and environmentalist rhetoric needs to change to make the micro-scale of environmental change as significant as the macro scale. Environmentalists should attach a possessive or personalizing modifier to the word ‘environment’ whenever talking about environmental change – certain types of pollution or resource depletion affect people in the world in different ways. For instance, deforestation and energy use to manufacture paper cups impacts the world in a different way than the use of industrial chemicals and water to wash reusable cups. The impact of chemicals and water has more localized effects, while deforestation and energy more global. They don’t impact the environment as-such.
Specifying the way that consumption creates environmental change not only explains the real impacts more effectively, it can motivate change. Take the example above- talking about the specifics of the environmental change allows people to connect to the short term and small scale impacts of consumption. The effectiveness of more localized environmental discourses (NIMBY-style in particular) demonstrates how consumers respond to humanized ecological discourse. Environmentalists should detach this rhetoric from its defensive position and reattach it to a more global, humanitarian rhetoric. In the same way that human rights NGOs have been somewhat effective at encouraging people to make small donations in the name of saving people’s lives (“just one dollar can pay for malaria pills for xxx days…”), environmentalists should frame small scale choices as impacting people directly. This seems particularly important when considering the relatively marginal effects global warming will have on North America vs. the global south.
Fortunately for global warming activists, CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are connected with a variety of more visible and unappealing pollutants. For example, coal fired electric plants expel a large portion of greenhouse gasses, but also leave a more visible, immediate impact on the environment surrounding their operation. Same with cars – smog is a global warming problem in that its creation is connected to the production of greenhouse gas. These immediate, visible pollutants help to personalize and ‘downscale’ to a manageable local level the perceived impacts of activities which contribute to global warming.
Something has got to give on warming: we're fast approaching key tipping points that will determine the sustainability of everyone's way of life.Duncan
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