Climate Communication Nature-Driven – JSTOR Daily

A One polar bearOn a melting iceberg Forests are burning. The Arctic glaciers are melting. These images, although rightly alarming and quite disturbing, have been used repeatedly to illustrate the climate crisis.

Science communication is vital to explaining the global impacts of climate changes and how people can help. However, there are many viewpoints on how science communication should work. In the past, much of the coverage was tied to business or industry interests. This article will be written by the author. Dorothea Born traced the history of climate communication, and proposes an approach that is people-focused.

Some scientists have argued that science should be more general in its messaging to make climate changes more accessible to the public. Others argue that science should be the primary focus. Born claims that both are necessary in order to best connect with the audience and to avoid anthropomorphizing our environment.

Born believes communication should include elements of critical theory. Born believes that theories are always built on historical and social circumstances and should be integrated into everyday life. They are not independent, but are influenced and influenced by many factors.

Critical theory suggests communication has been entangled with capitalistic ideas and the business interests over people. For example, climate communication is often centered on what society wants or needs from the environment, and as Born describes, “ultimately entangled with capitalist modes of production.” Instead, Born argues, communication needs to be nature-driven.

The author suggests that you use a Climate communication reimagined. Relying on climate tropes such as the polar bear on melting ice creates a savior mentality, which implies that humanity must save the polar bear in order to clear our conscience. Warns Born, “’The “photographic gaze’ incorporates and perpetuates human domination over nature.” And the issue of the impacts of climate change remains unaddressed.

Additionally, the image doesn’t show how the polar bear got in this mess. It doesn’t consider how humans have exploited nature and our over-consumption fossil fuels. It focuses on ice melting and its effects on nature and ignores the wider impact climate change is having on ecosystems around the world.

Climate change communication must be community-focused. It must place nature and not business at the forefront.

Concludes Born, “A solely scientific understanding of climate change reduces nature to a physical phenomenon that can be observed and controlled by the means of the natural sciences…Furthermore, communicating climate change as a solely scientific problem inhibits a wider understanding of how climate change is ultimately also a social and political issue.”

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