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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.
"Unchecked climate change affects nearly everything on Earth, including the way humans communicate. In A Sense of Urgency, Debra Hawhee focuses our attention on new communication strategies that are emerging around the global climate crisis. At the heart of the story Hawhee tells are the challenges that our ecological future poses to rhetoric, and how those challenges demand that we learn to privilege more than our pasts and ourselves. The challenges of imagining futures under dramatically different climate conditions, of communicating climate science, and of offsetting human privilege all expose the limits of rhetoric as conceived by ancient Greek and Roman thinkers. The most glaring limit is the prominence those thinkers granted to precedent. When it comes to the climate crisis, precedent is not up to the task of addressing the problem at hand. Climate activists, scientists, artists, and scholars are trying to overcome this limitation, and A Sense of Urgency examines four departures from rhetoric's playbook that can be helpful in this struggle. Each of these departures presents new resources and different means of intensification in response to situations with few to no precedents. For Hawhee, thinking with these departures, and the attendant rhetorical strategies, can help people fathom both what is happening and what will happen if action is not taken. In this way, A Sense of Urgency is an indispensable guide in our search for new imaginative pathways"--
The chapters in this collection address four overarching areas of common topics in technical communication and environmental rhetoric: framing, place, risk and uncertainty, and sustainability.
First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
This is the first book on climate denial and lobbying that combines the ideology of denial and the role of anthropocentrism in the study of interest groups and communication strategy. Climate Change Denial and Public Relations: Strategic Communication and Interest Groups in Climate Inaction is a critical approach to climate change denial from a strategic communication perspective. The book aims to provide an in-depth analysis of how strategic communication by interest groups is contributing to climate change inaction. It does this from a multidisciplinary perspective which expands the usual approach of climate change denialism and introduces a critical reflection on the roots of the problem, including the ethics of the denialist ideology and the rhetoric and role of climate change advocacy. Topics addressed include the power of persuasive narratives and discourses constructed to support climate inaction by lobbies and think tanks, the dominant human supremacist view and the patriarchal roots of denialists and advocates of climate change alike, the knowledge coalitions of the climate think tank networks, the denial strategies related to climate change of the nuclear, oil and agrifood lobbies, the role of public relations firms, the anthropocentric roots of public relations, taboo topics such as human overpopulation and meat-eating, and the technological myth. This unique volume is recommended reading for students and scholars of communication and public relations.
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.
Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics examines the intersection of climate skepticism and Christianity and proposes strategies for engaging climate skeptics in productive conversations. Despite the scientifically established threats of climate change, there remains a segment of the American population that is skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change and the urgent need for action. One of the most important stakeholders and conversants in environmental conversations is the religious community. While existing studies have discussed environmentalism as a factor within the religious community, this book positions religion as an important factor in environmentalism and focuses on how identities play a role in environmental conversation. Rather than thinking of religious skeptics as a single unified group, Emma Frances Bloomfield argues that it is essential to recognize there are different types of skeptics so that we can better tailor our communication strategies to engage with them on issues of the environment and climate change. To do so, this work breaks skeptics down into three main types: "separators," "bargainers," and "harmonizers." The book questions monolithic understandings of climate skepticism and considers how competing narratives such as religion, economics, and politics play a large role in climate communication. Considering recent political moves to remove climate change from official records and withdraw from international environmental agreements, it is imperative now more than ever to offer practical solutions to academics, practitioners, and the public to change the conversation. To address these concerns, this book provides both a theoretical examination of the rhetoric of religious climate skeptics and concrete strategies for engaging the religious community in conversations about the environment. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of climate change science, environmental communication, environmental policy, and religion.
A rhetorical exploration of an underexamined side of climate change—the ongoing research into and development of geoengineering strategies Geoengineering, Persuasion, and the Climate Crisis: A Geologic Rhetoric exposes the deeply worrying state of discourse over geoengineering—the intentional manipulation of the earth’s climate as means to halt or reverse global warming. These climate-altering projects, which range from cloud-whitening to carbon dioxide removal and from stratospheric aerosol injection to enhanced weathering, are all technological solutions to more complex geosocial problems. Geoengineering represents one of the most alarming forms of deliberative discourse in the twenty-first century. Yet geoengineering could easily generate as much harm as the environmental traumas it seeks to cure. Complicating these deliberations is the scarcity of public discussion. Most deliberations transpire within policy groups, behind the closed doors of climate-oriented startups, between subject-matter experts at scientific conferences, or in the disciplinary jargon of research journals. Further, much of this conversation occurs primarily in the West. Ehren Helmut Pflugfelder makes clear how the deliberative rhetorical strategies coming from geoengineering advocates have been largely deceptive, hegemonic, deterministic, and exploitative. In this volume, he investigates how geoengineering proponents marshal geologic actors into their arguments—and how current discourse could lead to a greater exploitation of the earth in the future. Pflugfelder’s goal is to understand the structure, content, purpose, and effect of these discourses, raise the alarm about their deliberative directions, and help us rethink our approach to the climate. In highlighting both the inherent problems of the discourses and the ways geologic rhetoric can be made productive, he attempts to give “the geologic” a place at the table to better understand the roles that all earth systems continue to play in our lives, now and for years to come.
This book asks and answers the question of what communication research and other social sciences can offer that will help the global community to address climate change by identifying the conditions that can persuade audiences and encourage collective action on climate. While scientists often expect that teaching people the scientific facts will change their minds about climate change, closer analysis suggests this is not always the case. Communication scholars are pursuing other ideas based on what we know about influence and persuasion, but this approach does not provide complete answers either. Some misconceptions can be corrected by education, and some messages will be more powerful than others. The advent of the Internet also makes vast stores of information readily available. But audiences still process this information through different filters, based on their own values and beliefs – including their understanding of how science works. In between momentous events, media coverage of climate tends to recede and individuals turn their attention back to their daily lives. Yet there is a path forward: Climate change is a social justice issue that no individual – and no nation – can solve on their own. A different sort of communication effort can help.
Communicating the Climate Crisis puts communication at the center of the change we need, providing concrete strategies that help break the inertia that blocks social and cultural transformation. Reimagining “earth” not just as the ground we walk upon but as the atmosphere we breathe—Eairth—this book examines our consumption-based identities in fossil fuel culture and the necessity of structural change to address the climate crisis. Strategies for overcoming obstacles start with facing the emotional challenges and mental health tolls of the crisis that lead to climate silence. Breaking that silence through personal climate conversations elevates the importance of the problem, finds common ground, and eases “climate anxiety.” Climate justice and faith-based worldviews help articulate our moral responsibility to take drastic action to protect all humans and the living world. This book tells a new story of hope through action—not as isolated, “guilty” consumers but as social actors who engage hearts, hands, and minds to envision and create a desired future.