The Troubled Rhetoric and Communication of Climate Change

The argumentative situation

Philip Eubanks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138841185
• eBook ISBN: 9781317554844
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Despite an overwhelming scientific consensus, climate change remains one of the most controversial issues of our time. Focusing on the rhetoric that surrounds the issue of climate change, this groundbreaking book analyses why the debate continues to rage and examines how we should argue when winning the argument really matters.

Going beyond routine condemnations of the wildest statements made by religious fundamentalists or spokespeople for fossil fuel interests, the book explains the mutually exacerbating problems that permit many of us greet catastrophic predictions with an equivocal shrug. It argues that the argumentative situation around climate change makes a certain kind of skepticism – "fair-minded skepticism" – not only possible but likely. The book also strikes a hopeful note, reminding us that people do change their minds in response to effective argumentation that appeals to deeply shared values.

Offering new insight into an ongoing academic discussion about the nature of argument and how it can be undertaken more effectively and ethically, as well as a new perspective on the rhetoric of science and technology, this book will be a valuable resource to students and scholars of climate change, environmental humanities, rhetoric, environmental communication, sociology and science and technology studies.

1
What if we're wrong about what's wrong with argument?

The climate change debate is often quite sharp and quite basic. The “sides” cannot even agree on what kind of argument to have or whether to have one at all. Secretary of State John Kerry says unequivocally: “We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact. … [W]e don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society.” Contrast that with a remark from longtime conservative commentator and self-proclaimed denier, George Will: “When a politician on a subject implicating science … says ‘the debate is over,’ you may be sure of two things: The debate is raging, and he's losing it.” Kerry and Will are hardly outliers. They express as well as anyone the hardened attitudes of the most important voices in the debate.

It is no coincidence, either, that both Kerry and Will take part in other polarized controversies. The argument that rages about global warming is not hermetically sealed. It is part of a larger public discourse in the United States and beyond. Nearly everyone agrees: Public argumentation is in crisis today. We're offended by its hostility, its unfairness, its frequent disregard of facts. And we worry about it. Unproductive argumentation hurts people in tangible ways.

Disheartening examples are easy to find. Just think of arguments about virtually any public disagreement—reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, gun safety, tax fairness. Yet even in this atmosphere of animosity and insult, the discourse surrounding climate change is especially confounding. What would seem to be a purely scientific question has become a focus of not just scientific disagreement but of every kind of disagreement.

On the web, the situation looks especially fraught. Consider this (not particularly egregious) thread from City-Data.com:¹

Rikoshaprl

Obama, Reid and all the other fake filibustering, radical, left wing democrats state global warming is “settled science.” They are full of hot air. Has any MSM [Mainstream Media] network aired the fact that 31,000 scientists have signed a petition stating they believe there is no man made global warming and that greenhouse gases are actually beneficial to the Earth? Over 9,000 of these scientists have PHD's. The Petition Project has been going on since 2009 yet it receives no attention from the global warming kooks.

Seabass Inna Bun

That's because it's garbage that came and went 16 years ago. Quote [from an earlier thread]: “What the ‘petition’ does in fact have is (approximately) 31,072 largely unverifiable signatures on slips of paper which um … isn't really exactly the same thing. Hmmm, a petition of scientists of questionable repute to challenge a mainstream scientific view using a failed argument from authority—there's a new one!”

……

The Seattle Times reported that it includes names such as: “Perry S. Mason” (the fictitious lawyer), “Michael J. Fox” (the actor), “Robert C. Byrd” (the Senator), “John C. Grisham” (the lawyer-author), not to mention a Spice Girl, a.k.a. Geraldine Halliwell: the petition listed “Dr. Geri Halliwell” and “Dr. Halliwell.”

……

Notwithstanding its rather dubious methodology and fake names, that bastion of scientific rigor, Fox News, has quoted the petition in its news stories.

……

TrapperJohn

Burn 'em at the stake! In case anyone wonders, this project isn't funded by the Evil Koch Brothers, Big Oil, or any others. It's funded only by donations from the scientists who sign the petition, and the funding primarily is used for postage and similar.

……

SourD, responding to Seabass Inna Bun

You just can't wait for us to be taxed for CO₂ can you? Tell us, how does paying to produce CO₂ eliminate it?

……

Don Draper

The guy who started the petition was paid by Petroleum and tobacco companies. Money talks bs walks.

……

Seabass Inna Bun, responding to SourD

I couldn't care less about you or your taxes. I'm just proving right-wing denialists are liars. (“31,000 Scientists”)

If John Kerry and George Will provide us with an example of highbrow polarization, the contributors to this thread show us the grassroots hostility that lurks not far beneath the surface of much public discourse about climate change.

It is fair to observe, of course, that even in this blunt web debate, all involved are ostensibly concerned with facts and their credibility. Rikoshaprl wants climate change believers to pay attention to a petition with 30,000 signatures of scientists. If genuine, that petition would seem to be worth more than a moment's notice. But Seabass Inna Bun doubts the petition's authenticity and supports his rebuttal by referring to the Seattle Times. He also injects some analysis of argumentative technique, citing “argument from authority.”² Others plainly realize that the petition may be suspect because of its political provenance. That's why TrapperJohn preempts a likely accusation by saying that the petition was funded by the people who signed it and not by the Koch brothers. In turn, that claim is disputed by Don Draper.

It sounds almost like a genuine debate. However, the exchange of gotchas is beside the point. The real point seems to be mutual contempt. Rikoshaprl scorns “fake filibustering, radical, left wing democrats,” who are “global warming kooks.” Seabass Inna Bun sarcastically calls Fox News “that bastion of scientific rigor.” SourD says derisively that Seabass Inna Bun “can't wait to be taxed.” Don Draper calls denialist claims “bs.” Seabass Inna Bun calls denialists “liars.”

The exchange of comments is less a debate than an excuse to trade insults. It is not different in character and method from the climate change debate at large, or, indeed, from many contentious debates that characterize current public discourse.

A litany of complaints about the way we argue

My aim in this book is not chiefly to complain about the contentiousness of arguments about climate change. Indeed, what I hope to show is that the argumentative situation is affected by numerous factors that are both less noticeable and more damaging than its all-too-evident hostility suggests. But that hostility is, nonetheless, an important force in the argumentative situation. So it's only right to acknowledge what scholars, journalists, and politicians have come to lament with depressing regularity—it's real.

In fact, the sorry state of public argumentation has been evident for a long time. Let me comment briefly about three aspects of the problem that seem to gain the most notice.

1. Public arguments are about winning and little else

Many observe that our politicians, activists, and partisan commentators would rather win than be right. Today, argumentative victory is not just an important goal; it eclipses all other goals. That win-at-all-costs argumentation is so dominant that it is hard to find other models. Something must be done.

Anxiety about all of this certainly shapes contemporary teaching of writing and rhetoric. Textbooks are honor-bound to disabuse students of the idea that “winning” is the only aim of argumentation. On the very first page of The Structure of Argument, Annette Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell say, “Of course, not all arguments end in clear victories for one side or another. Nor should they” (3). In the opening pages of They Say/I Say, Graff and Birkenstein write, “Although argumentation is often associated with conflict and opposition, the type of conversational ‘they say/I say’ arguments that we focus on in this book can be just as useful when you agree as when you disagree” (8). Such cautions ring true. In fact, obviously true. Argumentation does not have to be a contest where my gain is your loss.

Yet the idea of noncompetitive or cooperative argumentation runs counter to deeply held cultural habits, which can be hard to accept. Consider this version of the standard warning. In Everything's An Argument, Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters tell students that the Western concept of argument is usually “about disputation or combat,” but “writers and speakers have as many purposes for arguing as for using language, including—in addition to winning—to inform, to explore, to make decisions, and even to meditate or pray” (5). I must admit that although I understand perfectly well what Lunsford et al. are saying, it takes some effort for me to make complete sense of it.

Perhaps I am not as good a person as I should be, but I ask myself these honest questions about why I argue: Do I really argue just in order to inform? Or is it to inform others about an idea that I favor? Do I really argue in order to explore? Or to explain the insights I've gained from my explorations? Do I really argue in order to make decisions? Or to recommend what I think is the best decision?

Then, I arrive at “to meditate or pray.” If I think for a moment, I can imagine scenarios in which meditation or prayer do involve argumentation. I suppose that in those cases, I might argue with myself. But isn't meditation as much about not thinking as about thinking? Isn't prayer about praising, thanking, and asking? Where are the claims? Where are the reasons and evidence that support those claims?

To think of meditation or prayer as arguing requires a profound broadening of what counts as an argument. Lunsford et al. say that “everything” is an argument. However, it is one thing to recognize that a broader conception of argumentation may well be useful, and another for us to see it everywhere we look. Yet when we toss aside the Western default—arguing a point, arguing competitively—it can be difficult to say what is not an argument.

Some have pointed out how easy it is for textbooks and teachers to fall into old habits, despite the earnestness of their cautions. A. Abby Knoblauch writes:

As we have seen, both Writing Arguments and Everything's an Argument initially define argument as more than attempts at winning or conversion, but the discussion questions, examples, and more detailed explications within both textbooks privilege an intent to persuade, illustrating for students the primacy of persuasion and either marginalizing or functionally erasing alternative processes or outcomes. (262)

Along the same lines, Chris Blankenship traces the patterned ways that textbooks warn first about the competitive impulse and then slip back into the frame of competitive or adversarial argumentation. This apparent inconsistency doesn't make a broader, more cooperative view of argumentation any less valuable. It simply demonstrates how deeply entrenched in our cultural habits the win-lose view of argumentation is.

One reason for its staying power is that well-established conceptual metaphors undergird our ideas about argumentation. These metaphors tell us, as Lakoff and Johnson point out, that arguing is systematically conflictual. In ordinary talk, we say that people win, lose, overcome, strengthen, weaken, and defend arguments. Even seemingly non-competitive metaphors can be tricky. We build arguments. But whatever is built can be destroyed by counterarguments. If our arguments go in circles or if our arguments have holes in them, we can lose. All of these expressions add up to a metaphor system that sets the parameters for thinking about argumentation. Call the main metaphor in the system Argument Is War, as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson do (3–4). Call it Argument Is Conflict. But whatever we call it, it is the frame that alternative ideas about arguing are up against.

The desire to set that frame aside comes partly, I think, from simple distaste. Especially in our current media environment, competitive arguing can be ugly. Yet there are other good reasons for rejecting the win-lose model of argument. Sharon Crowley makes this point well:

Arguments can't be “won” in the way that basketball teams win. … If I succeed in persuading you to change your mind about the injustice of preemptive war, for example, I have not “won” much of anything except your (perhaps temporary and lukewarm) adherence to this position. And by entering into argument with you, I put my own position at risk; during argument you may in fact convince me that in this or that particular case of preemptive war was just, in which case I must qualify my original claim. You can read this as a “win” if our relationship is competitive for some reason, and I suppose in this circumstance “victory” in an argument provides satisfaction similar to that achieved when, for example, the Phoenix Mercury finally wins a game. That is to say, just as we may extrapolate from “My team beats yours” to “My team is better than yours,” we may extrapolate from “You accepted my claim” to “I am smarter than you.” (33)

It is true, when we look closely at the world of argumentation, it is difficult to know who has won and who has lost. The more honest the participants, the less clear that division becomes.

2. Public arguments are presented as two-sided even when they do not need to be

The metaphor Argument Is War is expressed in many ways, but all of those expressions conform to the same conceptual shape. It rests on a stable image-schema. If someone can win an argument, it follows that someone else has to lose. So the image-schema entails two contending sides, one combatant against another.

As complex as wars may actually be, with multiple aims and numerous combatants, we often reduce them to two sides—the Allies versus the Axis Powers, the terrorists against the civilized world. So it is with arguments. When we think of argument as war, the metaphor has a simplifying ef...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 What if we’re wrong about what’s wrong with argument?
• 2 The trouble with audience
• 3 I do believe in science, I do believe in science
• 4 Who do you doubt?
• 5 Reasoning backwards is reasoning forwards
• 6 Team camo, team khaki
• 7 Team camo and team khaki on climate change
• 8 The attention imperative
• 9 Chasing ice, chasing eyes
• 10 How should we argue?
• Epilogue
• Index