Understanding Rhetorical Principles for Climate Change Communication and Environmental Rhetoric in Global and Intercultural Settings

The intersections of psychology and politics are the unlikely battlegrounds in which climate politics must navigate the competing mythologies, worldviews, ideologies, economic pressures, truth claims, opportunistic motives, altruistic motives, benign motives, humanistic motives, environmental motives, narco-capitalistic motives, humanistic motives, etc. Constantino and Weber argue that given this state of affairs, the crafting of strategic narratives to address the crisis is a key to reaching beyond the static of the political media machines. They state the “narratives are political, they create an interface between elites and the public” (154), and they go on to cite research that suggests a taxonomy of approaches to build that narrative; science fact presented as clearly as possible, exploiting “charismatic megafauna,” extolling the benefits of a ‘green” lifestyle, attendance to ‘intersectionality” to include minority voices and perspectives in what is a field which affects us all.

Jan Kozak suggests that there is a parallel between national mythologies and environmental and climate change mythologies, as both rely on factual ‘anchors’ in which ground their storytelling. Environmental mythologies also tend towards the spiritual, be it actually tied to a particular (usually Judeo-Christian in the West) tradition, or to a more generalized “invisible” religious impulse – to touch nature is to touch something ineffable, beyond words, beyond our human experience. And yet, still, a very human, and humanizing experience. DellaSala notes the philosophical, ontological, and epistemological shifts many astronauts have experienced on gaining the perspective of seeing our world as one. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, in 1974, stated that one develop(s) “an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it” (361). This is powerfully persuasive, and human, evidence of a potential perspectival shift that is most likely available to every single one of us, if we would just be able to see past the political and fear-based paralysis of doom and denial.

I interviewed a colleague’s acquaintance at NYU Shanghai, a British citizen who has been teaching EAP for 35 years, and doing teacher training and composition and rhetoric for the past 25 years, in the UK, the UAE, and China. For the past 5 years at NYU Shanghai, she has been able to develop her own content for her EAP courses, so she has developed a food sustainability course, as well as a course focused on AI, which she has deployed over that time. Interestingly, she noted the interconnections between the two – AI has led, in her case, to over-positivity on one side, AI having the potential to be the greatest tool in the arsenal of busting climate myth, to complete apathy on the other, as AI is equally powerful in creating that myth and those narratives which will dis- and mis-inform. K. however sees this seeming impasse as the promise – it is in the space in-between that critical thinking and problem solving will create the greatest opportunities for pushing the way forward. I asked her what mythologies and narratives her students (almost exclusively Chinese mainland) brought with them, and surprisingly she noted they are not that much different from any population in the West, primarily operating under the assumption that meat and dairy production and consumption are the key elements to a strong and healthy population, and the resistance to the class to switch to a more plant-based diet. She generally finds the same misinformation that we see in the West, such as a lack of understanding of the role of anti-biotics in livestock production on the efficacy of antibiotics in humans. She feels that her course should ultimately lead her students to make informed decisions, but she is not necessarily prescriptive about what those should be. She covers food insecurity, food politics, conscious changes to diet, subtle or otherwise, and leaves it to them to make their own decisions after that point.

Matthew Hornsey suggests that our worldviews, politically ideological stances which inform how we view government agency in framing our economic decision-making  and worldviews about how governments should run and how society should be structured can predispose our reactions when encountering the claims of climate science and climate activism. (This is a phenomena that is surprisingly a subfield of behavioral science, the "motivated rejection of science.") For example, if one is politically of the mindset in which they are comfortable with the hegemonic power of humans in the human-nature hierarchy, than one would have less resistance towards the notion that nature is there for humankind to exploit. Hornsey argues that to reach these ideologically inclined individuals, the messaging need to recognize and align with these worldviews in order to “develop communicative frames that are equipped to capture skeptics’ attention and encourage them to engage in mitigation behaviors” (36). If a free-market solution seems applicable to a given concern, those with more distrust of the State and regulations in general and those who are more economically conservative may recognize the value of the idea. Hornsey also notes the disturbing evidence that there is a relationship between climate skepticism’s prevalence and the per capita carbon emissions of a given nation – disturbing because of what it reveals about our ability to value global equity and our inability to recognize our greed.

In ‘Generation Z’ and ‘second generation’: an agenda for learning from cross-cultural negotiations of the climate crisis in the lives of second generation immigrants, Catherine Walker discusses the untapped potential of very ‘local’ environmental practices which may lay hidden from our discourse. Migrants and newer immigrants from nations in the Global South, nations which have already experienced the effects of climate change in a substantial way, may already have developed sustainable practices; “in research with immigrant families, parents have recounted performing household practices in ‘sustainable’ ways not primarily because of a ‘pro-environmental’ subject position, but through continuing formed in countries with resource scarcity” (270). What Hornsey and Walker suggest to me is that we need to attend to and address diverse voices, both the far too heard (the vocal climate deniers) and the far too unheard (voices from the Global South, our youth, our family lore). Intersectionality should extend to those whose politics do NOT mirror our own. We are all in this together.

My NYU Shanghai informant noted the “philosophical and political paralysis” on the left – and how the right exploits this by disinformation and doubt. She says she sees a diminished enthusiasm among the young people she encounters to take up this fight. This may be due to cultural malaise, and it may be because they are not felt to be heard in the mediated static of our age. I suggest a radically open and inclusive intersectionality in approaching the conversation as, at the very least, an opening of a dialogue to promote understanding, and at the best, to promote action, change, and new and powerful narratives.

Constantino, Sara M., and Elke U. Weber. "Decision-making under the deep uncertainty of climate change: The psychological and political agency of narratives." Current opinion in psychology 42 (2021): 151-159.

DellaSala, Dominick A. “Speaking Truth to Power for the Earth.” Conservation Science and Advocacy for a Planet in Peril, Elsevier, 2021, pp. 355–369.

Hornsey, M. J. (2021). The role of worldviews in shaping how people appraise climate change. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 36-41.

Kozák, Jan A. "Climate Change and Myth." Handbook of Philosophy of Climate Change. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023. 1-14.

Walker, C. (2021). ‘Generation Z’ and ‘second generation’: an agenda for learning from cross-cultural negotiations of the climate crisis in the lives of second generation immigrants. Children's Geographies, 19(3), 267-274.