Hi friends,
With the cascade of current events, I’ve deferred publishing this follow-up to Climate Communications Part I.
Now that we’re basking in the momentary relief of Trump’s exit and contemplating the beginning of his long legacy, I thought this would be as good a time as any to finally get it out.
Dedicated readers may recall that before the New Year, I had the pleasure of joining a former law school classmate on his podcast to discuss the climate emergency.
The podcast is now up! You can listen to the episode here.
Since I do tend to go on and the pod was necessarily edited for length, I wanted to share more of my thoughts here in the newsletter.
If you missed Part I, you’ll want to read it first.
Part II follows below.
I’ll circulate a news roundup later this week. If you can’t wait to see what I’m reading, follow me on Twitter, where I share articles and scream into the void, as one does.
Lately, I’ve been reading a truly awful lot of about online radicalization, Q-anon, neo-Nazis, and eco-fascists. Yay! Stay tuned for more on that stormfront.
For now, I give you Part II of my reflection on climate communications.
Thanks so much for reading — I hope you enjoy! And if you do, please consider sharing this post with friends, family, or your broader networks.
Also, a special (belated) thanks this week to Eric Holthaus, who kindly comped me 6 months of his climate-focused newsletter, The Phoenix. Check it out here.
This is (Not) Fine — Part II
What are some of the biggest barriers to communicating effectively about climate change?
The first and biggest barrier has been the multi-decade, multi-million (billion?) dollar disinformation campaign waged by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to confuse and mislead the public, the media, and policymakers about the science and solutions to climate change.
This campaign has made people feel uncertain and overwhelmed and has set the locus of responsibility on individuals (remember BP’s “carbon footprint” calculator?), while actively obstructing policy and institutional change.
It has kept us busy changing lightbulbs and feeling guilty about our inextricable complicity in a system we didn’t create, decrying anyone who expresses science-based concern as alarmist, and shutting down any conversation that challenges the status quo.
So it’s impossible to have this conversation about climate communication without acknowledging that climate discourse itself and the context within which it is situated have been deliberately and monstrously distorted by bad-faith actors.
And it’s still happening, with the fossil fuel industry’s Big Lies increasingly mixing with other dangerous disinformation.
A second, related barrier is our aversion to unpleasant emotions.
Climate change is about trauma.
Think about the tremendous costs of our business-as-usual trajectory just this century:
The destabilization of the earth’s climate, the mass extinction event that we’re already in the middle of, parts of the earth becoming uninhabitable, our agricultural production under threat, drowning cities, mass migration, and destabilized societies, lurching from crisis to crisis, our institutional capacity to respond eroding as surely as the shoreline.
This was not the future I prepared for as a child. And if we don’t quickly change course, there’s worse to come for those not yet born — for our children’s children and grandchildren, just a few short generations away.
What do you call that if not traumatic?
Contemplating this “climate reality” causes all sorts of emotional responses — anxiety, fear, resentment, guilt, shame, frustration, anger — and above all grief.
I’m sure you’re feeling some of these things right now.
The thing is, as authors like Margaret Klein Salamon point out, these are the right responses — especially the fear, the grief, and even the anger.
We’re undergoing a collective, species-wide trauma, one that is part of a much larger planetary trauma, and one that we’re all simultaneously, to varying degrees, victims of and complicit in.
I mean, that’s gotta stir some shit up, right?
It would be really weird and unhealthy if we didn’t have some feelings about it.
It would be a really bad idea to just bottle up those feelings or dissociate … right?
And yet…
In my mind, some of the smartest climate thinkers right now are pointing out that it is our very refusal to sufficiently acknowledge this trauma and the associated feelings — the loss and grief, the fear and anger, the guilt and frustration — that leaves us in a place of anxious, avoidant denial and paralyzed, overwhelmed inaction.
We should be scared, because the status quo is rapidly killing off the community of life that humanity was born into and on which we rely.
Fear is a powerful motivator. It taught us to run from things that might eat us.
And if we don’t start quickly paying attention to that fear that’s itching at the back of our minds, climate change and the other overlapping crises barreling towards us will undoubtedly consume human civilization and much of life on earth.
We should grieve the futures we imagined, the places and activities we love, the community of life that’s falling more and more silent every day.
And we should feel furious, galvanizing anger at those who have delayed, denied, and disinformed, strapping humanity’s future to a sacrificial altar of small-government ideology and the briefest of profits, and robbing us of precious decades in which we could have otherwise acted.
But … we’re not really acknowledging any of these emotions or holding space for them.
We’re not giving ourselves the chance to feel these things, to have these reactions.
We’re not talking about our feelings!
Instead, we’re pushing our emotions down, burying ourselves in the dissonant status quo, gaslighting ourselves and each other, staying closeted in our concern.
And I believe this feeds a great deal of anxiety, frustration, avoidance, and the false, dangerous “doomist” belief that there’s nothing we can do to change our trajectory and stave off societal collapse.
A third, related barrier is that, as with so many mental health challenges — like with anxiety, depression, and the everyday unpleasant feelings that we sometimes try to avoid — we’ve often lacked the vocabulary and skills to hold space for our emotions.
We’ve been poorly equipped and poorly supported to talk about how it feels to know we’re living through a period of unprecedented disruption in which societal collapse is, though not inevitable, certainly a plausible risk!
Instead, we’ve had a kind of toxic positivity in some quarters, catering to the illusion that our lives and plans can and will continue more or less as usual.
But they cannot and will not.
Simply put, what is unsustainable cannot and thus will not be sustained.
This is … not fine.
And we really need to talk about how that makes us feel.
How do you think people should communicate about climate change?
In short, we should tell the truth and act like it’s real.
The destabilization of the only climate civilization has ever known is not something we can tinker at the edges with.
Our status quo behaviour is incompatible with our survival.
We can’t negotiate with physics.
Business-as-usual is a one-way ticket to civilizational rock bottom.
We, and much of the rest of the community of life on this planet, are facing an urgent and existential threat.
But we need these words to come from politicians’ mouths.
They should hold regular national news conferences, giving us transparent updates on this long emergency and our actions to meet it, as we’ve seen the best leaders do with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps more profoundly, we need to remember that we communicate through words and deeds. Thus, there are two languages of emergency — spoken words and action.
Now words themselves are important action. “Climate emergency” declarations are a helpful start.
We can also “take action” by communicating the truth of this mega-crisis and holding space for the profound and complex emotions that result from this collective, ongoing trauma.
But we also need the language of action, especially from our leaders.
So, first, we should communicate in a way that tells the frank truth about the urgency and severity of the crisis, in a way that connects the science to the specific places people know and the particular things people care about.
Maybe it’s your brother’s love of coffee, or your sister’s love of skiing. Maybe it’s pond hockey. Maybe it’s chocolate or wine.
Maybe you just want to avoid your kids’ anger (you think boomer/millennial resentment is bad? Just wait. Actually, don’t).
The point is that the front lines of the climate crisis are everywhere.
The planet that cradled human civilization through its birth and destructive youth no longer exists.
The enormity and velocity of the loss are simply extraordinary. And some of the futures we were promised or imagined are no longer available to us.
These are tough truths that need telling.
Second, we should communicate in a way that holds space for the real, complex emotions that these staggering losses and threats bring about.
In other words, we should talk about our feelings.
I feel twinges of anxiety, guilt, and frustration nearly every time I try to decide what to buy for dinner.
I am furiously, contemptuously angry that Exxon Mobil didn’t communicate the warnings of its own scientists starting in the 1970s, but instead drowned the world in self-serving doubt and lies, robbing us of decades of room to maneuver.
I feel grief and fear, knowing that the profound losses we’ve already seen are going to get worse, and worse, and worse each each year until we drive emissions to net zero — and then negative.
But, if you’ve ever worked with a therapist, or meditated, or picked up a good book on “bad thoughts” or trauma, you’ll know that avoiding and suppressing our feelings takes energy and only makes things worse.
But acknowledging our feelings and the underlying reality of the omnicrisis will decrease our collective anxiety and make room for action.
Do this, and we’ll no longer be spending so much energy desperately trying not to feel.
We’ll no longer be gaslighting ourselves.
Third, we should communicate in a way that inspires and empowers people to take action.
The only thing more awe-inspiring than the scope of the threat is the bravery and hope offered by those rising to meet it.
Do not assume that you are the only one feeling anxious, angry, or overwhelmed.
Do not believe for a second that catastrophe is inevitable, that we are “doomed”, that you — that we — are powerless to change course.
As Margaret Klein Salamon writes in Facing the Climate Emergency, “No one is coming to save us, but together we might be able to save ourselves.”
We are in this together, and we can pull together to come through it, as so many have in so many crises before. But we have to act quickly.
Everything in our lives has prepared us for this moment. We’ve been born into the most pivotal juncture in human history, just in time to take part in humanity’s most critical and sacred mission.
It’s actually pretty exciting. You want to be a superhero? Save the world?
Now’s your chance. No spandex required.
And there are plenty of places to start.
Create or join a workplace committee. What is your employer doing to identify and prepare for climate-related risks and opportunities? What about clients, suppliers, and business partners?
Create or join an industry working group to discuss climate-related risks and opportunities and contribute to adaptation plans.
Give time and money to people and organizations fighting to turn things around.
Talk about the climate crisis in the (virtual?) boardroom, in the break room, and around the dinner table.
Get your organization to adopt a Climate Emergency resolution and/or a Net Zero pledge.
Put your money to work in responsible investment.
And yes, get into the streets and the voting booth.
For the lawyers in the room, wrap your head around the significant climate risks your clients face, and support this Climate Leadership Resolution at the Canadian Bar Association’s AGM next month.
Above all:
Think about the places and activities you love and depend on, learn about how they’re threatened, and join together with other people to protect them.
Tell the truth. Talk about what’s happening and how it feels.
Be the climate emergency signal that others need to see. Act like it’s real, and accept nothing less from our leaders.