{"id":21678,"date":"2016-09-30T16:54:39","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=21678"},"modified":"2018-10-09T17:06:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T21:06:09","slug":"what-should-we-tweet-about-at-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2016\/09\/30\/what-should-we-tweet-about-at-the-end-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should We Tweet About at the End of the World?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"3415201885_75599f21e2_z\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We should have seen this coming. The end of the world as we know it was announced today, unceremoniously with a blog post.<\/a> Scripps Institution of Oceanography is reporting that we’ve definitely surpassed the 400 parts-per-million threshold for atmospheric CO2. It is at this concentration that a cascade effect is triggered and acidic seas rise to new heights, extinction rates increase, and food systems are permanently disrupted. More on all of that here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What I want to focus on briefly is how we grapple with this enormous problem.\u00a0It has been said before but it is worth saying again today: spurring people to act on\u00a0climate change is difficult because the consequences are distributed and any solutions are really only best guesses to what is an enormously complicated question. Not only is it impossible to instantly halt all fossil fuel usage, it is difficult to even agree on how to scale it down. This is not a wishy-washy centrist political problem:\u00a0should nations that have been plundered by colonial rule be forced into slowing down their own domestic nation-building projects? Should Europe and North America take on a greater share of the responsibility to account for historical advantages?<\/p>\n

I am not expert in these matters, I only bring up this complication because it runs counter to the clear-cut narrative that U.S. environmentalism usually puts forward: that carbon neutral or even carbon negative futures are possible and it is only a matter of weak wills and greed that keep the smokestacks churning. Climate Change is often seen as a problem to be solved with equal parts technology and regulation but I would contend that an equal if not bigger issue is how we talk about climate change.<\/p>\n

Consider, by way of extreme example, how the Green Party’s Jill Stein talks about “Protecting Mother Earth<\/a>,”<\/p>\n

Lead on a global treaty to halt climate change. End destructive energy extraction: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, and uranium mines. Protect our public lands, water supplies, biological diversity, parks, and pollinators. Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe. Protect the rights of future generations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In theory, the policy positions outlined on a campaign’s web site are not there to make an argument so much as they are there to help you decide if your values line up with that of the person running for office. In truth though\u2014and this should be especially true for a third party candidate that needs to convince people to vote on a long-shot\u2014every time you have a voter’s attention you should be trying to convince them to change their mind and vote for you or give them more fodder for an internal dialog of why they’ve made the right choice to vote for you. Stein’s platform is emblematic of a larger problem of environmental social movements as of late: there is no shortage of organizational energy but there is still no clear way forward.<\/p>\n

Climate change inaction\u00a0is essentially a problem of public engagement because there are very bright people with very clear agendas but nothing really seems to be taking hold as forcefully as the situation demands. And no wonder: what does it even mean to “halt climate change” at this point? What is an electorate signing up for when they choose a\u00a0government that commits to protecting biological diversity? I know someone knows\u2014there’s probably even precedent for it\u2014but I’m a fairly educated person on this topic and if I were faced with having to answer that question in order to gain entry to the last\u00a0boat leaving\u00a0North Miami Beach during the supermoon<\/a>, I would probably end up\u00a0clinging to a classy sectional sofa somewhere 100 miles north of Cuba.<\/p>\n

The actual answer to the questions I pose above are besides the point. Thinking of climate change as a problem of argumentation means that there is something fundamentally wrong with how we talk about confronting the issue. After reaching\u00a0this auspicious milestone, it seems likely that it is only those who are convinced climate change is real that will be talking about it. It is also likely that a lot of that talk will center around how thick-headed people are for not believing in climate change, becoming a single issue voter about it, or doing enough to reduce their own carbon footprints. I do not think that sort of talk is helpful anymore, if it ever was.<\/p>\n

To answer my glib titular\u00a0question: there has to be a renewed commitment to meeting people where they are at. Granted, where people are at, is bad: not nearly enough people in the U.S.\u00a0believe in climate change (recent poll <\/a>pegs it at 30%) but perhaps the problem is that we need people to “believe in” impending\u00a0global catastrophe. Resolute and determined commitment to facing a danger is only one of many reactions and unfortunately willful ignorance is another. Instead of calling anyone that doesn’t believe in climate change an idiot, there needs to be a wide range of rhetorical strategies.\u00a0The general shift towards talking about climate issues in economic terms is probably a good start. (Martin O’Malley’s often-repeated phrase “Climate change is the best job opportunity we’ve seen in 100 years” is probably a bit much though.)<\/p>\n

I definitely would rather live in a world where climate change was treated as the pending disaster that it is, but instead I live in one where it is largely ignored or outright denied. I suspect it is time to stop\u00a0expecting people to be persuaded by evidence, even when it has literally arrived at their front door in the form of regularly reoccurring floods or droughts. Climate change is not a problem primarily defined by\u00a0not enough people knowing the science. It is a political problem that requires persuasion by multiple means. The oil company villains and the “if every single person just…” rhetoric seems to have reached as many people as it is going to reach and we have to change tactics.\u00a0That is, of course, if we stay committed to the idea that there is still time to wait to persuade people at all. If that is not the case then perhaps environmentalists must consider going in the opposite direction and, rather than\u00a0appealing to existing governmental bodies, step up the rate at which they\u00a0take it upon themselves to forcefully close uranium mines and fracking. I don’t know if there’s a third option.<\/p>\n

David is on Twitter: @da_banks<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Image credit Tink Tracy.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We should have seen this coming. The end of the world as we know it was announced today, unceremoniously with a blog post. Scripps Institution of Oceanography is reporting that we’ve definitely surpassed the 400 parts-per-million threshold for atmospheric CO2. It is at this concentration that a cascade effect is triggered and acidic seas rise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1512,"featured_media":21683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967,892],"tags":[833,32412,36525,10342],"class_list":["post-21678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-essay","tag-climate-change","tag-environmentalism","tag-green-party","tag-rhetoric"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2016\/09\/3415201885_75599f21e2_z.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21678"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23549,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21678\/revisions\/23549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}