Culture, Politics and Climate Change

How Information Shapes our Common Future

Deserai Crow, Maxwell Boykoff, Deserai A. Crow, Maxwell T. Boykoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415661485
• eBook ISBN: 9781135103330
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

Focusing on cultural values and norms as they are translated into politics and policy outcomes, this book presents a unique contribution in combining research from varied disciplines and from both the developed and developing world.

This collection draws from multiple perspectives to present an overview of the knowledge related to our current understanding of climate change politics and culture. It is divided into four sections – Culture and Values, Communication and Media, Politics and Policy, and Future Directions in Climate Politics Scholarship – each followed by a commentary from a key expert in the field. The book includes analysis of the challenges and opportunities for establishing successful communication on climate change among scientists, the media, policy-makers, and activists.

With an emphasis on the interrelation between social, cultural, and political aspects of climate change communication, this volume should be of interest to students and scholars of climate change, environment studies, environmental policy, communication, cultural studies, media studies, politics, sociology.

PART I

Culture and climate change communication

1

BEYOND ‘GLOOM AND DOOM’ OR ‘HOPE AND POSSIBILITY’

Making room for both sacrifice and reward in our visions of a low-carbon future¹

Cheryl Hall

As concerns about climate change deepen, environmental advocates have been rethinking the common-sense strategy of issuing increasingly dire warnings in hopes of awakening people to the scope of the problem. The worry is that a discourse of ‘gloom and doom’ is counter-productive, fostering resistance, apathy, or despair instead of hope and motivation to change. Convinced of the importance of framing, many now aim to present positive visions of an attainable, happy green future rather than gloomy pictures of impending peril and sacrifice. In this chapter I argue that people do need reasonably optimistic stories about the possibilities for a sustainable low-carbon future. At the same time, denying that living more sustainably will involve any genuine loss is either wishful thinking or patronizing – and thereby unpersuasive. The argument over whether to depict positive visions or necessary sacrifices is based on a false choice: it will have to be both. The challenge for environmental scholars, journalists, activists, and policy-makers is to help imagine and articulate new possibilities for a greener future without dismissing the value of what must be given up. Indeed, the greatest challenge is to find ways to encourage broad reflection, discussion, and reevaluation of the values, structures, and practices keeping carbon emissions high, instead of either dictating to people what they should care about or taking their values as unchangeable.

The scope of the problem

There is little doubt that climate change is one of the most significant challenges confronting both human and non-human life. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities have already begun to alter global temperatures, weather patterns, sea levels, ocean acidity, polar and glacial ice volumes, species extinction rates, and more. To be sure, there is continued uncertainty and debate over exactly how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases we can discharge into the atmosphere without risking temperature increases that would be ‘unacceptably dangerous.’ Nevertheless, for some time there has been broad international consensus that a temperature increase of more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels represents a risk that would not (or should not) be acceptable. Indeed, as evidence mounts that the effects of any increase in global temperature are more severe than previously expected, some climate scientists now question whether even 2° would be too much. In the words of the 11 scientists who blog at RealClimate,

We feel compelled to note that even a “moderate” warming of 2°C stands a strong chance of provoking drought and storm responses that could challenge civilized society, leading potentially to the conflict and suffering that go with failed states and mass migrations. Global warming of 2°C would leave the Earth warmer than it has been in millions of years, a disruption of climate conditions that have been stable for longer than the history of human agriculture. Given the drought that already afflicts Australia, the crumbling of the sea ice in the Arctic, and the increasing storm damage after only 0.8°C of warming so far, calling 2°C a danger limit seems to us pretty cavalier.

(Schmidt et al., 2009)

Or in the words of climate scientists Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, “2°C now represents a threshold not between acceptable and dangerous climate change, but between ‘dangerous’ and ‘extremely dangerous’ climate change” (Anderson & Bows, 2010, p. 23).

So what would it take to stay below a 2° increase in temperature? Anderson and Bows reach a blunt conclusion: “(extremely) dangerous climate change can only be avoided if economic growth is exchanged, at least temporarily, for a period of planned austerity within Annex 1 [industrialized] nations and a rapid transition away from fossil-fuelled development within non-Annex 1 nations” (2010, p. 41). Most recently, Anderson has argued that it requires Annex 1 nations to immediately cut their carbon emissions by 10 percent, and then cut another 10 percent every year until about 2020, leveling off to reach nearly total decarbonization by 2030. For the sake of global justice, this plan would allow Non-Annex 1 nations – who have neither been responsible for, nor benefited much from, the majority of the carbon dioxide emitted to date – to burn most of the remaining carbon that can safely be burned in order to grow their economies until 2025, when they too must begin reducing emissions by 7 percent each year (Anderson, 2012). Anderson and Bows’ assessment of the situation may be starker than many, but it is hardly alone in its basic outlines. Mainstream organizations such as the World Bank, the International Energy Agency, and PricewaterhouseCoopers have all recently issued reports acknowledging that we are currently on track for a 4–6°C increase in global temperature, and that staying below 2°C is now very unlikely without a rapid shift to a low-carbon economy² (International Energy Agency, 2012; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analysis, 2012; PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2012). As the PricewaterhouseCoopers Report “Too Late for Two Degrees?” concludes,

The only way to avoid the pessimistic scenarios will be radical transformations in the ways the global economy currently functions: rapid uptake of renewable energy, sharp falls in fossil fuel use or massive deployment of CCS [carbon capture and storage], removal of industrial emissions and halting deforestation. This suggests a need for much more ambition and urgency on climate policy, at both the national and international level. Either way, business-as-usual is not an option.

(2012, p. 9)

In advanced industrialized countries, accomplishing such transformations will likely require changes in energy use, land use, methods of transportation, residential patterns, agricultural systems, production processes, and levels of consumption, among other things. Lesser developed countries may also need to make some of these changes, as well as to shift away from the goal of industrializing by carbonintensive means. Since economic growth intensifies ecological destruction more than it reduces it (Brulle, 2010; Rosa et al., 2004; York et al., 2003), accomplishing such transformations will also require significant changes to a global economic system predicated on unlimited growth. Moreover, while new technology will undoubtedly play a role, it will not be sufficient to solve the problem, both because of inherent physical limitations and because, far from counteracting the effects of growth in population and consumption, historically technology feeds such growth (Huesemann, 2006; Huesemann & Huesemann, 2008; York et al., 2003, p. 287). To prevent the most extreme consequences of climate change will thus require significant departures from current ways of life, particularly in industrialized countries – and soon.

In spite of this urgent need for significant transformation, broad and especially deep popular support for community-wide action to prevent further climate change currently does not exist. This is particularly true in the United States, where polling suggests that most people are in favor of taking some action to address climate change, but not at the cost of addressing other problems they consider to be more important. According to January 2013 data from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, only 28 percent of citizens surveyed ranked ‘dealing with global warming’ a ‘top priority’ for the President and Congress. Out of a total of 21 possible priorities, the goal is ranked dead last, far behind the top priorities of ‘strengthening economy,’ ‘improving job situation,’ and ‘reducing budget deficit,’ with the support of 86 percent, 79 percent, and 72 percent of those surveyed (Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, 2013). A full analysis of the reasons people prioritize climate change so little is beyond the scope of this chapter, but clearly the urgent need for significant transformation is itself a major source of the problem. In the face of enormous challenges that call for big changes – especially changes that require giving something up – people often feel overwhelmed, paralyzed, and reluctant to act. Unfortunately this same need is also the reason that inertia is so dangerous, for the longer we wait to act, the worse the situation gets and the bigger the changes required.

Focusing on frames

It is in this context that environmental scholars and activists are increasingly talking about the importance of framing (Alexander, 2008; Broder, 2009; de Boer et al., 2010; Ereaut & Segnit, 2006; Fletcher, 2009; Maibach et al., 2010; Mann et al., 2009; Miller, 2000; Moser & Dilling, 2007; Nisbet, 2009; Spence & Pidgeon, 2010). This focus indicates a strong sense that ‘information’ about the state of the environment is not the only thing that matters. More than anything, what matters is how information is interpreted, what meaning it holds for people. The argument for the significance of frames depends on at least four propositions. First, as already noted, the dangers posed by climate change are serious enough that addressing them will likely require making some major changes in the systems, institutions, and infrastructure of many societies. Second, in any society that is at least nominally democratic (and arguably even in societies that are not), making major changes in the systems, institutions, and infrastructure of that society requires at least some level of support from substantial numbers of people. Third, such popular support requires changes in how people think and feel about existing ways of life and the possible alternatives to those ways of life. And finally, changes in how people think and feel about a situation depend in turn on changes in the frameworks they use to interpret that situation.

Frames are commonly understood as “organizing principles that enable a particular interpretation of a phenomenon” (de Boer et al., 2010, p. 502). Emphasizing the shared nature of these principles, Clark Miller says frames are “the perceptual lenses, worldviews or underlying assumptions that guide communal interpretation and definition of particular issues” (Miller, 2000, p. 211, my emphasis). As Alexa Spence and Nick Pidgeon (among many others) point out, the key to organizing the interpretation of information is selectivity: “A frame allows complex issues to be pared down and for some aspects of that issue to be given greater emphasis than others in order that particular audiences can rapidly identify why an issue may be relevant to them” (Spence & Pidgeon, 2010, p. 657, citing Nisbet & Mooney, 2007). Finally, Matthew Nisbet connects frames to narratives: “Frames are interpretive storylines that set a specific train of thought in motion, communicating why an issue might be a problem, who or what might be responsible for it, and what should be done about it” (Nisbet, 2009, p. 4). In other words, by highlighting certain aspects of a situation and leaving other elements out of the storyline, frames convey an analysis of a problem and its solution in a condensed format.

Several points about frames are important to stress. First, they are necessarily partial. If one could include everything within a frame, it would no longer be a ‘frame.’ While frames are necessarily incomplete, though, they are not thereby necessarily untrue, or at least any more so than language in general, which also inevitably condenses, interprets, organizes, and otherwise shapes reality. To be sure, it is possible to frame an issue in a way that violates essential realities of the situation – but this does not mean that all frames of that issue violate essential realities. Finally, frames are unavoidable, particularly in communication. As Nisbet puts it, “there is no such thing as unframed information” (2009, p. 4). The question, then, is not whether to frame, but how.

What’s wrong with ‘gloom and doom’?

The recent flood of criticism about environmentalism’s ‘gloom and doom’ message can be understood in this context. The contention, whether explicit or implicit, is that gloom and doom is an ineffective frame.³ Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus are perhaps the most well-known critics, consistently taking ‘environmentalism’ itself to task for what they consider to be its narrow and overly negative approach. The two authors bemoan the lack of a ‘compelling vision for the future’ offered by environmental advocates (Shellenberger & Nordhaus, 2004, p. 30). As they put it,

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech is famous because it put forward an inspiring, positive vision that carried a critique of the current moment within it. Imagine how history would have turned out had King given an ‘I have a nightmare’ speech instead.

(2004, p. 31)⁴

Yet this is precisely what they believe environmental leaders are doing. The reason leaders should not be painting pictures of apocalypse and cultivating fear is because negativity and fear don’t work: “Cautionary tales and narratives of ecoapocalypse tend to provoke fatalism, conservatism, and survivalism among voters – not the rational embrace of environmental policies” (Nordhaus & Shellenberger, 2007b, p. 33).

Nordhaus and Shellenberger are hardly alone in arguing that fear is counterproductive. In a blog post asking “Are Words Worthless in the Climate Fight?” Andrew Revkin cites Tom Lowe of the Center for Risk and Community Safety on the obstacles involved in communicating concerns about climate change. Lowe writes,

In the absence of physical evidence that something bad is going to happen, people tend to ‘wait and see’… A common reaction to this stand-off is for risk communicators to shout louder, to try and shake some sense into people. This is what I see happening with the climate change message. The public are on the receiving end of an increasingly distraught alarm call. The methods used to grab attention are so striking that people are reaching a state of denial. This is partly because the problem is perc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Culture and climate change communication
• Part II Media as actors and contributors to climate politics and policy
• Part III Climate politics and policy
• Part IV Emerging research in climate politics and policy
• Index