Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics

Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics

Author: Emma Frances Bloomfield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-05-10

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 042999835X

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Communication Strategies for Engaging Climate Skeptics examines the intersection of climate skepticism and Christianity and proposes strategies for engaging climate skeptics in productive conversations. Despite the scientifically established threats of climate change, there remains a segment of the American population that is skeptical of the scientific consensus on climate change and the urgent need for action. One of the most important stakeholders and conversants in environmental conversations is the religious community. While existing studies have discussed environmentalism as a factor within the religious community, this book positions religion as an important factor in environmentalism and focuses on how identities play a role in environmental conversation. Rather than thinking of religious skeptics as a single unified group, Emma Frances Bloomfield argues that it is essential to recognize there are different types of skeptics so that we can better tailor our communication strategies to engage with them on issues of the environment and climate change. To do so, this work breaks skeptics down into three main types: "separators," "bargainers," and "harmonizers." The book questions monolithic understandings of climate skepticism and considers how competing narratives such as religion, economics, and politics play a large role in climate communication. Considering recent political moves to remove climate change from official records and withdraw from international environmental agreements, it is imperative now more than ever to offer practical solutions to academics, practitioners, and the public to change the conversation. To address these concerns, this book provides both a theoretical examination of the rhetoric of religious climate skeptics and concrete strategies for engaging the religious community in conversations about the environment. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of climate change science, environmental communication, environmental policy, and religion.


Science v. Story

Science v. Story

Author: Emma Frances Bloomfield

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2024-02-27

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 0520380835

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Uncovering common threads across types of science skepticism to show why these controversial narratives stick and how we can more effectively counter them through storytelling Science v. Story analyzes four scientific controversies—climate change, evolution, vaccination, and COVID-19—through the lens of storytelling. Instead of viewing stories as adversaries to scientific practices, Emma Frances Bloomfield demonstrates how storytelling is integral to science communication. Drawing from narrative theory and rhetorical studies, Science v. Story examines scientific stories and rival stories, including disingenuous rival stories that undermine scientific conclusions and productive rival stories that work to make science more inclusive. Science v. Story offers two tools to evaluate and build stories: narrative webs and narrative constellations. These visual mapping tools chart the features of a story (i.e., characters, action, sequence, scope, storyteller, and content) to locate opportunities for audience engagement. Bloomfield ultimately argues that we can strengthen science communication by incorporating storytelling in critical ways that are attentive to audience and context.


Communicating Climate Change

Communicating Climate Change

Author: Anne K. Armstrong

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 1501730819

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Environmental educators face a formidable challenge when they approach climate change due to the complexity of the science and of the political and cultural contexts in which people live. There is a clear consensus among climate scientists that climate change is already occurring as a result of human activities, but high levels of climate change awareness and growing levels of concern have not translated into meaningful action. Communicating Climate Change provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program. Starting with the basics of climate science and climate change public opinion, Armstrong, Krasny, and Schuldt synthesize research from environmental psychology and climate change communication, weaving in examples of environmental education applications throughout this practical book. Each chapter covers a separate topic, from how environmental psychology explains the complex ways in which people interact with climate change information to communication strategies with a focus on framing, metaphors, and messengers. This broad set of topics will aid educators in formulating program language for their classrooms at all levels. Communicating Climate Change uses fictional vignettes of climate change education programs and true stories from climate change educators working in the field to illustrate the possibilities of applying research to practice. Armstrong et al, ably demonstrate that environmental education is an important player in fostering positive climate change dialogue and subsequent climate change action. Thanks to generous funding from Cornell University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other Open Access repositories.


The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication

The Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication

Author: Anders Hansen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-12-26

Total Pages: 661

ISBN-13: 1000787346

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This revised and fully updated second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Environment and Communication provides a state-of-the-art overview of environmental communication theory, practice and research. The momentous changes witnessed in the politics of the environment as well as in the nature of media and public communication in recent years have made the study and understanding of environmental communication ever more pertinent. This is reflected in this second edition, including a number of exciting new chapters concerned with: environmental communication in an age of misinformation and fake news; environmental communication, community and social transformation; environmental justice; and advances in methods for the analysis of mediated environmental communication.Signalling the key dimensions of public mediated communication, the Handbook is organised around five thematic parts: the history and development of the field of environmental communication research, the sources, communicators and media professionals involved in producing environmental communication, research on news, entertainment media and wider cultural representations of the environment, the social and political implications of environmental communication, and the likely future trajectories for the field. Written by leading scholars in the field, this authoritative text is a must for scholars and students of environmental communication across multiple subject areas, including environmental studies, media and communication studies, cultural studies and related disciplines.


Climate Change Education

Climate Change Education

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2012-01-12

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 0309218454

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The global scientific and policy community now unequivocally accepts that human activities cause global climate change. Although information on climate change is readily available, the nation still seems unprepared or unwilling to respond effectively to climate change, due partly to a general lack of public understanding of climate change issues and opportunities for effective responses. The reality of global climate change lends increasing urgency to the need for effective education on earth system science, as well as on the human and behavioral dimensions of climate change, from broad societal action to smart energy choices at the household level. The public's limited understanding of climate change is partly the result of four critical challenges that have slowed development and delivery of effective climate change education. As one response to these challenges, Congress, in its 2009 and 2010 appropriation process, requested that the National Science Foundation (NSF) create a program in climate change education to provide funding to external grantees to improve climate change education in the United States. To support and strengthen these education initiatives, the Board on Science Education of the National Research Council (NRC) created the Climate Change Education Roundtable. The Roundtable convened two workshops. Climate Change Education Goals, Audiences, and Strategies is a summary of the discussions and presentations from the first workshop, held October 21 and 22, 2010. This report focuses on two primary topics: public understanding and decision maker support. It should be viewed as an initial step in examining the research on climate change and applying it in specific policy circumstances.


The Power of Narrative

The Power of Narrative

Author: Raul P. Lejano

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0197542107

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Introduction -- Ideology as narrative -- When skepticism became public -- Skeptics without borders -- Unpacking the genetic meta-narrative -- The social construction of climate science -- Ideological narratives and beyond in a post-truth world.


Don't Even Think About It

Don't Even Think About It

Author: George Marshall

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-08-18

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 163286102X

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The director of the Climate Outreach and Information Network explores the psychological mechanism that enables people to ignore the dangers of climate change, using sidebars, cartoons and engaging stories from his years of research to reveal how humans are wired to primarily respond to visible threats.


Wait Five Minutes

Wait Five Minutes

Author: Shelley Ingram

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2023-05-18

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 1496844378

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Contributions by Emma Frances Bloomfield, Sheila Bock, Kristen Bradley, Hannah Chapple, James Deutsch, Máirt Hanley, Christine Hoffmann, Kate Parker Horigan, Shelley Ingram, John Laudun, Jordan Lovejoy, Lena Marander-Eklund, Jennifer Morrison, Willow G. Mullins, Anne Pryor, Todd Richardson, and Claire Schmidt The weather governs our lives. It fills gaps in conversations, determines our dress, and influences our architecture. No matter how much our lives may have moved indoors, no matter how much we may rely on technology, we still monitor the weather. Wait Five Minutes: Weatherlore in the Twenty-First Century draws from folkloric, literary, and scientific theory to offer up new ways of thinking about this most ancient of phenomena. Weatherlore is a concept that describes the folk beliefs and traditions about the weather that are passed down casually among groups of people. Weatherlore can be predictive, such as the belief that more black than brown fuzz on a woolly bear caterpillar signals a harsh winter. It can be the familiar commentary that eases daily social interactions, such as asking, “Is it hot (or cold) enough for you?” Other times, it is simply ubiquitous: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change.” From detailing personal experiences at picnics and suburban lawns to critically analyzing storm stories, novels, and flood legends, contributors offer engaging multidisciplinary perspectives on weatherlore. As we move further into the twenty-first century, an increasing awareness of climate change and its impacts on daily life calls for a folkloristic reckoning with the weather and a rising need to examine vernacular understandings of weather and climate. Weatherlore helps us understand and shape global political conversations about climate change and biopolitics at the same time that it influences individual, group, and regional lives and identities. We use weather, and thus its folklore, to make meaning of ourselves, our groups, and, quite literally, our world.


Rhetorical Criticism

Rhetorical Criticism

Author: Jim A. Kuypers

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2021-07-19

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1538138158

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Covering a broad range of rhetorical perspectives, Rhetorical Criticism: Perspectives in Action, third edition presents a well-grounded introduction to the basics of rhetorical criticism and theory in an accessible manner for advanced undergraduate courses and introductory graduate courses. Throughout the text, sample essays written by noted experts in the field provide students with models for writing their own criticisms. In addition to covering traditional modes of rhetorical criticism, the book introduces less commonly discussed rhetorical perspectives as well as orientations toward performing criticisms including close-textual analysis, critical approaches, and analysis of visual and digital rhetoric. The third edition includes the following features: New chapters on visual rhetoric and digital rhetoric Potentials and Pitfalls sections analyzing individual perspectives Activities and discussion questions in each chapter Glossary of important terms


Local Activism for Global Climate Justice

Local Activism for Global Climate Justice

Author: Patricia E. Perkins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-09-06

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 1000487458

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This book will inspire and spark grassroots action to address the inequitable impacts of climate change, by showing how this can be tackled and the many benefits of doing so. With contributions from climate activists and engaged young authors, this volume explores the many ways in which people are proactively working to advance climate justice. The book pays special attention to Canada and the Great Lakes watershed, showing how the effects of climate change span local, regional, and global scales through the impact of extreme weather events such as floods and droughts, with related economic and social effects that cross political jurisdictions. Examining examples of local-level activism that include organizing for climate-resilient and equitable communities, the dynamic leadership of Indigenous peoples (especially women) for water and land protection, and diaspora networking, Local Activism for Global Climate Justice also provides theoretical perspectives on how individual action relates to broader social and political processes. Showcasing a diverse range of inspirational and thought-provoking case studies, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate justice, climate change policy, climate ethics, and global environmental governance, as well as teachers and climate activists.