Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately

The Guardian ^ | September 21, 2017 | by Ellie Mae O'Hagan

[Oldeconomybuyer]

... Climate change is both too near and too far for us to be able to internalise: too near because we make it worse with every minute act of our daily lives; too far because until now it has been something that affects foreign people in foreign countries, or future versions of ourselves that we can only conceive of ephemerally.

It’s not surprising, then, that some years ago climate activists switched to a message of optimism. They listened to studies that showed optimism was more galvanising than despair, and they began to talk about hope, empowerment, and success stories. They waited for some grand extreme weather event to make the final pieces fall into place. Maybe the submerging of New Orleans would be it; maybe some of the rich white people who were battered by Hurricane Sandy would use their privilege to demand action. Maybe Harvey or Irma would cause us to snap out of our stupor. It hasn’t happened.

In Britain we’ve seen floodwater inundate entire villages; a pub that became a thoroughfare for a swollen river. This is what catastrophe on our doorsteps looks like, and perhaps it’s time we link these images to climate change with as much gusto as the fossil fuel industry denies it.

Could the language of emergency work? It has never been tried with as much meteorological evidence as we have now, and we’ve never had a target as clear and unanimous as the one agreed in Paris. The one thing I know is that the events of the last few months have changed the game, and this is the moment to start debating a new way to talk about climate change. It may be that if the time for a mass movement is not now, there won’t be one.

[Luircin]

Literally advocating for Newspeak.

Wow.

[Chgogal]

Dear Ellie,

Life sucks and then you die.

XOXOXO
Chgogal

P.S. No matter what we do Mother Nature is going to slap us around. Nothing you can do about it except die.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

[HotHunt]

Good one. Ain’t that the truth.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks so much for your support to this point... I personally apprecaite it...
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President Donald J. Trump's address to the United Nations on 09/19/2017.

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...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

Just $277.00 dollars and cents to 95.00%

[G Larry]

“too near because we make it worse with every minute act of our daily lives”

NO dear, YOU “make” nothing!

[rlmorel]

"...n Britain we’ve seen floodwater inundate entire villages; a pub that became a thoroughfare for a swollen river..."

I think the author is correct, because these things that have never happened in recorded history, things like this are happening all the time now.

/s

[aquila48]

They’re truly getting desperate

[aquila48]

The twit that wrote this drivel...

[colorado tanker]

You're right. It is well documented in our computer models that before industrialization and elevated CO2 emissions there were no floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, warm winters, cold summers, wildfires or any other kind of bad weather. The Earth was a perfect paradise.

(Don't listen to that old curmudgeon, Hobbes.)

[usurper]

Could the language of emergency work? It has never been tried.

LOL where has this idiot been living.

[Mears]

“They waited for some grand extreme weather event to make the final pieces fall into place. Maybe the submerging of New Orleans would be it———”

-

Maybe if most of NOLA wasn’t built on swampland it wouldn’t have been submerged.

.

[Scott from the Left Coast]

“Global Cooling? We are all gonna die.
Global Warming? We are all gonna die.
Climate Change? We are all going to die.
Planet X? We are all going to die.”

You missed the last line...”We need totalitarian socialism now!”

[Scott from the Left Coast]

She looks like she might have the intellect God gave a tsetse fly, but I doubt it.

[Charles Martel]

Apparently, the new language they need is "Claymation", as in this example:

That medium seems to be more easily understood by young children, AGW believers and others who operate more on "feeling" than intellect.

[Lurker]

Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get.

L

[Bellflower]

He who controls language controls much. Conservatives need to get on top of these things.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Oh my gosh....I think I lost 20 IQ points trying to work through that bit of logic. And I can’t spare the points at my age.

[Elsie]

Climate optimism has been a disaster. We need a new language – desperately

Oh?

The sun will come out; tomorrow.

[Elsie]

He who controls language controls much.

 

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,

' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'