As if it's possible to transform the world
Genevieve Guenther on “The Language of Climate Politics”
At the first gathering of The Condor Book Club earlier this month, we were joined by Dr. Genevieve Guenther, the author of The Language of Climate Politics, who kindly fielded questions about her book. We’re delighted to share a selection of her remarks from that evening (edited for brevity and clarity).
On the ramifications of Trump’s return to the White House
“Unfortunately, I think the goal of keeping heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius is effectively dead at this point. We still have a chance of halting global heating at two degrees Celsius, but it's going to take defeating Trump and his Republican ghouls in the next election (hopefully there will be a next election that we can trust). It will take their defeat at the ballot box and then a full-court press to decarbonize the United States economy, repair our alliances and help the other countries of the world come along to do the same.”
Embracing intellectual humility and accepting uncertainty
“It's okay to feel despair—that’s a completely reasonable response to the situation that we're in right now. But I also feel very strongly that it’s important to embrace a kind of intellectual humility and an acceptance of uncertainty. None of us knows what's going to happen and we have to—as the activist Angela Davis said—act as if it's possible to transform the world and act that way simply all the time. It's going to take a lot more psychological, social, emotional, intellectual effort to do that now than it would have had Harris won the election. But it must be done.”
Coming back to the work
“We have a tremendous amount of work ahead of us. I think it's okay to maybe not feel like you can do this work just at this very moment, but ultimately I think that you will feel easier in your soul if you come back to it, and if you fight knowing that we don't know what's going to happen. We want to be on the right side of history.”
A prediction
“If the climate movement can come together and really pin the Trump administration to fossil fuels—really make that connection 100% clear—there is going to be a backlash to the idea that fossil fuels are in any way associated with human thriving—or even democracy.”
There is no one size fits all way to talk about the climate crisis
“A metaphor that might be effective for one person might fall flat or even be off-putting to another person. The Language of Climate Politics was written for well-read, relatively affluent Democrats who are concerned about the climate crisis, but who actually don't know that we need to phase out fossil fuels. I poll-tested the messages that I developed in the book. They raised the support for phasing out fossil fuels by up to ten points among concerned and alarmed Democrats and Republicans. But I would never in a million years say that climate change was like a cancer to someone who lived in a purple state and isn't really sure that climate change is even real. Insisting that climate change should be understood as a kind of cancer on the planet that we need to catch and cure early would just alienate me from that person. So with that person, I would talk about the benefits of clean energy and cheaper electricity, heating and transportation bills—the fact that we should have freedom of energy choice in this country.”
The three-step method for effective messaging
“You identify something scary or something problematic in some way. Then you blame a group of people for it. Then you promise relief by being victorious over those people and putting your vision into practice. That’s a structure of messaging you can use no matter who you're talking to.”
The thing that motivates people to act
“Appealing to both their sense of moral outrage (a sense of unfairness that leads to a moral injury or some kind of indignation) coupled with an appeal to what they love is what inspires people to actually act and step out of their comfort zone and protest and do things that maybe they are not used to doing.”
Defenestrating fossil fueled capital
“Any successful climate politics in the United States is going to be a politics that follows the lead of people of color and that is built on a coalition centered on people of color—because that is going to be the cornerstone of an environmentally conscious working class politics, which is really what is going to get fossil capital out of power.”
Dive deeper into The Language of Climate Politics
💭 A follow-up discussion about the book is taking place on Thursday April 3 from 5.30-6.30pm (PDT). If you’d like to carry on the discussion–or weren’t able to attend the first one—we really hope you’ll join us on Zoom. Be sure to RSVP.
🤓 Read a couple of our favorite excerpts from the book.
📖 Get your copy of The Language of Climate Politics (if you don’t have one yet) online at Bookshop.org or in-person at your favorite local bookstore (or the public library!).
📩 Subscribe to Dr. Guenther’s incredible End Climate Silence newsletter. While it has predominantly focused on climate messaging in the past, future editions will unpack the language of fascism and political disinformation more broadly in response to what she aptly describes as “a full-on authoritarian attempt to take over the US government.” Explaining this shift in her newsletter’s March 17 edition, Dr. Guenther wrote, “I will still bring in climate change as much as I can, while paying attention to the overarching methods and strategies the authoritarian right is using to warp the views of the electorate and create consensus around their blatant assault on our democracy and our power as citizens with freedoms.”
Thanks for this write up, Alexander. It's a good reminder of what I've read so far. I will continue reading....Mary B