I seem to be falling a little behind with these, it’s now
Tuesday June 5th, and I have just returned from a great week down in
San Francisco, as well as a beautiful trek through California’s redwood forests
and the Oregon coast. I am going to comment
on some of the readings from week 7, as well as my own reflections on the
emergence of the International environmental movement.
It seemed that everyone in the group enjoyed the Jansanoff
(2010) article, in particular the discussion on the difficulty in creating
meaningful communications strategies that are based in climate facts. “The work of science tends to erase
specificity and remove traces of the human mind and hand” (Jansanoff, 2010,p.
234). If people are to buy into the
narrative (it’s more than a narrative, but sounds better for this line of
reasoning) being communicated by the environmental movement, then it will need
to be a narrative that the general public can attach meaning to, nothing
groundbreaking there. We’ve spent a great deal of time looking at framing (Lakoff, 2010) and conceptualizing the importance
of messages that speak to values.
However, it’s always refreshing to read a new perspective on an old
problem. The language of science itself
seems to be a limiting factor in sharing our experiences with nature, and fails
to capture the true essence of the symbiotic relationship that humans share
with the natural world.
Jansanoff (2010) speaks of the need for change on four
fronts: community, politically, space and time. I think that our concepts of
time are one of the great obstacles in addressing climate issues. “Climate change occurs over spans of time”
(Jansanoff, 2010, p. 237) that don’t necessarily resonate with our typical
standards of time, but perhaps even more challenging is our willingness as
environmental communicators to accept the duration of time it will take to
reverse the negative consequences of our industrial development. I know we are running out of “time,” and
while scientists like James Hansen are arguing that it is already too late, it
is going to take “time” to reframe the human/nature relationship.
Political change is an interesting topic to grapple with,
especially in Canada as our current administration seems to be headed in the
opposite direction of our desired paradigm shift, as they wage war on “radical”
environmental groups in their on-going quest to turn Canada into an “energy
superpower” (O'Neil, 2012). In the United States I doubt if the
environment will ever be mentioned in the lead up to the November election as
Mitt and Barack make empty job promises, likely at the expense of future
generations. It is interesting to consider
where we would be if people in the United States had taken the words of Jimmy
Carter seriously in the late 1970’s as he tried to promote alternative forms of
energy and supported conservation, unfortunately his popularity was undone
through a series of foreign policy mishaps, and his replacement led America
down a different path (one propagated on limitless growth). What if the 2000 election had swung in a
different direction, what path would Al Gore have chosen, would his attempts to
warn the world of the dangers associated with global warming have taken center stage
had he held the presidency. The answers
to these questions are irrelevant now, here we are, with Harper in Canada,
likely a republican as the next American president, as the fall of the European
economy will no doubt be blamed on the current U.S administration. Will the future leaders be bold and lead
their nations down a new path, or will they look romantically to failed
policies of the past for answers.
I think that at least some of the answers will come out of
increasingly autonomous localized economies that seek to separate themselves from
the failing global markets. Nice
thought, should be interesting to see how it plays out!!
References
Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate
for society. Theory, Culture & Society 27(2-3),
233-253.
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