by Andy West
A narrative propagated by emotive engagement, not veracity.
Introduction
Within the public domain, there is a widespread narrative of certainty (absent deep emissions cuts) of near-term (decades) climate catastrophe. This narrative is not supported by mainstream science (no skeptical views required), and in the same manner as an endless sequence of historic cultural narratives, propagates via emotive engagement, not veracity.
The catastrophe narrative is propagated by all levels of authority from the highest downwards, granting it huge influence, and differentially via favored functional arms of society, plus at the grass roots level. Over decades, various forms via which the catastrophe narrative best propagates have become established via selection, and can be categorized. While covering a large range, these forms typically feature powerful emotive cocktails (mixed emotions invoked simultaneously) and great urgency, which are highly adapted to undermining objectivity.
This narrative elephant in the room not only tramples upon the mainstream output of science, but all other attempts at objectivity, at a minimum invoking bias wherever it propagates, and at maximum a complete disconnect from domain realities. While the catastrophe narrative is sometimes acknowledged even by those on the orthodox side of the climate change issue, it is typically neither studied nor opposed (and not infrequently its propagation is praised). On the skeptic side, there is often misunderstanding regarding who propagates this narrative and who merely fails to oppose it, which leads to mis-labelling. These issues are discussed in more detail within a companion post to be released shortly. Below deals just with narrative propagation and the forms via which this occurs.
Propagation by authority levels and functional arms / orgs
The catastrophe narrative has emanated from many of the most powerful and influential figures in the West throughout the twenty-first century, as exampled by 39 quotes from 26 sources in footnote 1. While based only on English language reportage, this sample nevertheless includes leaders, ex-leaders and candidate leaders from 8 Western nations (with the US, Germany, UK and France being economically 4 of 7 and politically 4 of 6, top world powers9), along with high ministers, high UN officials, the Pope and UK royalty, over about the last 15 years. The narrative is also framed in a most urgent and emotive manner, which hugely increases its re-transmission capability14, is global in scope (‘the planet’), and unequivocally attributes the imminent catastrophe from global warming to humans (via ‘emissions’), i.e. the ‘C’ is due to AGW. Regarding policy, impending catastrophe is often cited as the main reason to act.
Propagation of the same catastrophe narrative is highly visible below the primary leadership level, as exampled by 28 quotes from 26 sources in footnote 2, which covers lesser-ranking / local politicians, leaders of less influential nations, NGOs, economists and influencers. Further down still becomes a sea of comments dispersed over all media that are often hard to attribute and too voluminous to study in detail, without some serious research-time / manpower.
It appears that the catastrophe narrative finds a home much more readily in some functions of society than others. While this seems obvious for the case of say environmental science or government environmental workers, there appear to be other cases such as the caring professions (who wield much authority), with consequent propagation of catastrophe narrative either as part of expectations for future coping (i.e. with catastrophe), or as advocacy for action by some medical authorities or associations. Though needing more investigation than I’ve had time for, footnote 8 provides a brief insight via a few catastrophe narrative quotes from authorities in the medical / health domain.
Propagation by scientists
Jacobs et al (in 2016 book) finds no merit in the claim ‘that catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is the mainstream scientific position’, i.e. mainstream science as represented by the IPCC AR5 working group chapters13, does not support the concept of a high certainty (absent action) of imminent global catastrophe. This point has often been noted here and at other blogs, typically in the form of vociferous yet justified objection when skeptics inappropriately apply the ‘CAGW’ acronym to mainstream science (much more on this coming in the companion post). However, this doesn’t imply an absence of scientific support for the principle. A minority of scientists, some very vocal, believe that catastrophic scenarios are more realistic. Footnotes 6 and 7 provide examples of about 50 climate scientists plus environmental and other scientists propagating catastrophe narrative in support of these views. This minority occupy the opposite fringe to skeptical science, typically ignoring the more balanced interpretations from their mainstream colleagues, or otherwise criticizing the mainstream / IPCC as way too conservative, even politically diluted.
Main narrative forms
Emergent narratives typically spawn many variants that over many generations evolve to exploit our emotions, as configured by our current worldview (which also they may modify), for best propagation. Some are very blunt, a kind of head-on charge at emotive engagement, typically more successful if they come from higher authority that might get away with this. Others are subtler to varying degrees, and seem more often so from lesser authority sources. A majority of the examples in footnotes 1 and 2 are in the blunt category, for instance a few shorter ones here:
F1 [BAN KI-MOON] U.N. Secretary-General. At COP21 in Paris (2015): Warning that “the clock is ticking towards climate catastrophe”.
F1 [EMMANUEL MACRON] As President of France. Speaking before a joint session of US Congress, via the New York Post (April 2018): ‘Macron said that without a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and pollution, there will be no more Earth. “We are killing our planet. Let’s face it, there is no ‘planet B,’” Macron said.’
F1 [JAN PETER BALKENENDE / TONY BLAIR] Dutch / UK prime ministers, in a joint letter regarding climate change to EU leaders at a summit in Finland, via the BBC (2006): “We have a window of only 10 to 15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing catastrophic tipping points.”
F2 [STEPHEN HAWKING] High profile physicist to BBC news (2018): “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.”
Note: the footnotes include links to all sources in order to see context, but an endemic feature of emotive narratives is that they frequently propagate shorn of full context, in which form they better compete for the highest selection (Ban Ki Moon’s clock ticking metaphor is a good example of this). In this form they also turn up, modified or not, within the catastrophe narratives of others. See the terminal metaphors intro section of footnote 7 plus footnote 14, for more on this aspect. Not all catastrophe narrative contains the word ‘catastrophe’ or ‘catastrophic’. For instance, a little over half of the footnote 1 examples do so; the others invoke similar meaning or even worse consequences (see footnote 1 intro for details).
More subtle variants can be categorized via their content and action, including emotively overwhelmed conditionals, fear plus hope, engaging anxiety for children, moral association, agenda incorporation, terminal metaphors, attribution reinforcement, merchants of doubt, the voice of innocence, emotive bitters and survivalist.
Emotively overwhelmed conditionals present caveats regarding catastrophe that an opposing powerful and emotive pitch, often backed by spurious and contradicting high confidence elsewhere within the message, overwhelms within recipients’ minds. The 13 authority sourced quotes in footnote 3 provide a range of examples. While presenting a surface impression of balance, because of the conflicted and emotively asymmetric context this framing will not actually work to correct the false representation of mainstream science. See the intro to footnote 3, and the equivalent section in footnote 7, for much more detail. (Note: Hawking’s ‘could’ above doesn’t even count as an emotively overwhelmed conditional, because no action by Trump will possibly result in this; it’s just false). Here’s an example, with the conditional italicized:
F3 [Jerry Brown] Governor of California. Via Bloomberg.com (Sept 2018): ‘U.S. President Donald Trump is the “enemy of the people” for hampering efforts to reverse potentially catastrophic increases in carbon emissions, Jerry Brown said Monday, blasting White House environmental policy after signing a bill that will move the state toward 100 percent clean energy use by 2045. “Trump is not just AWOL on climate change, he has designated himself saboteur-in-charge,” Brown said in a telephone interview, citing the administration’s actions against California’s emissions standards, electric-car mandates and clean-power rules. “He has designated himself basically enemy of the people. I’m calling him out because climate change is a real threat of death, destruction and ultimate extinction.”’
As climate communicators already noted some years back16, unmitigated fear memes may often produce backlash. Nevertheless, these still proliferate beyond the control of those who would limit them. Yet more sophisticated narrative variants invoking multiple emotions simultaneously, ‘emotive cocktails’, can reduce negative reactions yet retain or increase persuasiveness. One such effective cocktail is fear plus hope, familiar from its usage within various religions. The 13 authority / influencer sourced quotes in footnote 4 provide fear plus hope narrative samples. Whether the hope angle is reasonable or not in itself, invoking this positive emotion to aid digestion of an existential catastrophe crisis narrative (and the consequent end policy pay-load) not backed by mainstream (or skeptical) science, is still inappropriate.
F4 [PAUL KRUGMAN] N.Y. Times columnist. From Wind, sun and fire, New York Times (Feb 2016): “So what’s really at stake in this year’s election? Well, among other things, the fate of the planet. Last year was the hottest on record, by a wide margin, which should — but won’t — put an end to climate deniers’ claims that global warming has stopped. The truth is that climate change just keeps getting scarier; it is, by far, the most important policy issue facing America and the world. Still, this election wouldn’t have much bearing on the issue if there were no prospect of effective action against the looming catastrophe… Salvation from climate catastrophe is, in short, something we can realistically hope to see happen, with no political miracle necessary. But failure is also a very real possibility. Everything is hanging in the balance.”
Engaging anxiety for children. Care for children is a powerful instinct within humans that is easily roused, lending power to an argument if done in its name and assisting re-transmission of the argument. Inclusion within the exampled quotes is no doubt almost always a matter of genuine concerns, especially where parents cite their own children / grandchildren {and despite some cases, e.g. 5ac)i], looking rather more like stoking this concern rather than expressing realistic fears}. Yet the infectious power of such concern in society frequently transcends the issue, triggering guilt in others regarding responsibility for our children, and a need not to be seen as failing in this respect. And while even the smallest possibility of catastrophe might appear to legitimize inclusion of anxiety for children in communication, mis-framing such possibilities does far more harm than good, and once paired up with a false catastrophe narrative having no, improper, or emotively overwhelmed conditionals, the narrative combination has an amplified persuasive effect, promoting an argument not based upon mainstream (or skeptical) science. This variant is common, see footnotes 5aa) to 5ac) plus 1i), 1n), 1u)ii], 1y), 3m), and below for many more of the same from scientists. The citing of children sets an approximate timescale for anticipated catastrophe (i.e. presumably before they are pensioners). Here is a short example of engaging anxiety for children:
F1 [HILLARY CLINTON] about 6 months after announcing presidential candidacy, time.com (Nov 2015): “I won’t let anyone to take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing a clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.”
Establishing an issue as one that is fundamentally moral, means that complexity and opposition often get steamrollered beneath moral affront. Our reactions associated with moral recognition are there for in-group reinforcement of acceptable baseline behaviors (which are relative to group and era), and affront works without the long process of having to navigate complexity. It’s a shortcut. Yet in our complex modern world that shortcut is often challenged by the entanglement of many social groups (one size fits all solutions may be inappropriate), by scientific uncertainties, by the likelihood of unintended social consequences (i.e. even where physical science on a particular issue seems sound), and more. Sometimes there just is genuine complexity which needs to be carefully navigated rather than steamrollered flat, in order to arrive at an equitable solution and without major unintended consequences.
Bearing all this in mind, in the context of climate change a powerful promotion of just one policy view (swift major emissions reduction) as a moral imperative, when an immature science is still grappling with a wicked system, and with fossil fuels clearly having major social upsides too, will likely cause more problems than it solves. But whether or not this turns out to be the case, doing so based upon the pretext of a high certainty of imminent global catastrophe (e.g. citing ‘the planet’, or ‘humanity’, or ‘life’) while also implying that such is backed by mainstream science, is illegitimate. Nevertheless, there are many and varied examples of narrative that forge just such a moral association. A moral angle is not only invoked by the actual word ‘moral’, or legal equivalents like ‘just / justice’, or religious equivalents like ‘sacred’, but also via an association with particular social behaviors we consider immoral, such as criminality or greed, or implied moral wrong-doing via the deployment of a ‘guilt’ label. See footnotes 5ba) ‘sacred duty’, 5bb) ‘if this question of whether carbon emissions is not a moral question then I do not know quite what is’, 1m)i] ‘deeply immoral’, 2m) ‘no greater crime against humanity’, 2z) ‘justice requires’, 3b) ‘global leaders have been guilty of willful denial’, 5ac) ‘some mad person keeps telling them that it is a false alarm’, 5ce) ‘When we inflict our greed upon nature, nature sometimes explodes’. Here is a full example of moral association:
F2 [IAN DUNLOP] Former Chair, Australian Coal Association & CEO, Australian Institute of Company Directors, in the Guardian (March 2018): “Climate change is accelerating far faster than expected, to the point where it now represents an existential threat to humanity, that is a threat posing permanent large negative consequences which will be irreversible, an outcome being locked in today by our insistence on expanding the use of fossil fuels… …Already one of the world’s largest carbon polluters when exports are included, Australia is complicit in destroying the conditions which make human life possible. There is no greater crime against humanity.”
The agenda incorporation variant re-purposes the existing momentum of the catastrophe narrative to claim there is a solution within another cause, and hence energize that cause. Or at least it leverages the catastrophe narrative to blame or attack those opposed to such a separate cause. Given the catastrophe narrative is not supported by mainstream (or indeed skeptic) science, of course not mentioned, this is wholly inappropriate. For footnote examples 5db), 5dc), 5de), 5df) and 5dg) the agenda is anti-capitalism. For example 5da) the agenda is anti-Brexit, and for 5dd) it is anti-fracking. While the latter has indeed a direct overlap with the climate change domain via the fossil-fuel angle, this doesn’t make citing a high certainty of imminent climate catastrophe any more legitimate in relation to the mainstream climate science position. See the agenda incorporation intro in footnote 5 for its role in cultural alliances that can more permanently entangle causes. Here is an example of agenda incorporation:
F5 [EVO MORALES] President of Bolivia. At Paris Climate Summit, via The Telegraph [look for 12:50] (2015): “We are here today to voice our deep concern at the dramatic effects of climate change in the world to date. These are threatening our existence and the existence of mother earth. Saving mother earth to save life – that is our endeavour.” He makes an “urgent appeal to the Governments of capitalist powers of the world for them to stop destroying our planet irreversibly” and says “mother earth is getting dangerously close to its end… the capitalist system is responsible for that”.
Terminal metaphors compare the scenario of Earth (or humanity) under conditions of man-made climate change, to every-day real-life scenarios (or sometimes fantasy scenarios) having a terminal outcome (i.e. death), or at least a very high probability of terminal outcome (absent urgent action, which as a part of the metaphor is the equivalent of emissions reduction). E.g. Earth as a very ill person who is dying of a dire disease (which is anthropogenic climate change). The great simplicity of such metaphors opens the door wide for bias, because all the scientific hedging and caveats and balanced considerations are typically not promoted into the comparative scenario (indeed this would be very hard in most cases); the metaphor expression simply loses all of these. Hence the emotive message that Earth or humanity (or ‘all life’) simply dies, i.e. a catastrophe narrative in other guise.
Such metaphors emerge precisely because of their simplicity and their consequent focused emotive punch regarding the death of the planet (or life or civilization, depending upon the precise form). Some texts including terminal metaphors do maintain a caveat (or more), yet typically outside of the metaphor section itself. Hence the full text is contradictory, emphasizing a high certainty of terminality at one point, yet indicating a lesser probability elsewhere. Quite apart from having the same impact as the above examples of emotively overwhelmed conditionals (i.e. the emotive part of the text, the metaphor, will win out over the more objective / less emotive caveat within public perceptions), a crucial issue regarding emotive narratives is that they are frequently retransmitted shorn of context anyhow. So, in this form the metaphor alone may be built into the next person’s narrative as an embedded quote or paraphrase or whatever. Hence in such cases, the catastrophe narrative escapes into the wild without the partial bounds its original expression contained. See footnotes 1v) suicide, 2e)ii] a giant car heading towards a brick wall, 2u) drunk driver and inevitable car wreck, 3l) ‘Global Warming is Now a Weapon of Mass Destruction’, 4b) We are careering towards the edge of the abyss, 5ac) children in burning house with no help, 5ca) suicidal, 5ga) shiny new car driving too fast on a wet, curvy road, heading straight for a crowd of pedestrians, 5gb) a runaway train headed over the climate cliff as we stoke the engine with more coal to increase its speed. Here is a (short) full example:
F2 [PETER WHISH-WILSON] Australian senator, The Greens, referring to the CO2 parts-per-million in the planetary atmosphere (May 2016): “If 400 ppm was a blood alcohol reading then we would be heading for an inevitable car wreck.”
Please see the attribution reinforcement intros of footnotes 5 and 7 for this complex variant. Likewise for merchants of doubt plus the more minor catastrophe narrative variants voice of innocence, emotive bitters, survivalist and irony.
Narrative forms from scientists
Apart from Steven Hawking, no examples above are from scientists. Yet surprisingly both climate and other scientists propagate highly emotive catastrophe narrative in all the same variants as above, and arguably, theirs is more lurid and emotively penetrating plus less objective. Footnote 6 groups 30 mostly standard form quotes from 26 scientists (15 climate, 11 environmental or ‘other’). Footnote 7 covers another 26 quotes from a similar mix of 24 scientists categorized per the variants above. Given they span the same variant range as the non-scientists, this strongly suggests that their narrative owes much more to the same psychologically rooted selection pressures than to [non-mainstream] physical climate science theories supporting the catastrophic.
For example, terminal metaphors from these scientists include 6b) climate is a battalion of intergalactic smoking missiles, 6c) by driving global warming we are unleashing hell, 6d) very fast train heading for the wall, 6g) the climate dragon is being poked, and eventually the dragon becomes pissed off enough to trash the place, 6h) Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now, 6t) automobile driving with bad brakes toward a cliff in the fog, 6v) Unaddressed man-made climate change is… state terrorism, sanctioned corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism, climate terrorism, 6y) playing Russian Roulette with the future survival of human civilization [traditionally this is just a one in six chance when using a six-chamber revolver], 7ha), humanity in a boat, which ‘boat is floating right into a powerful and deadly waterfall’ that is climate change, 7hb) Earth suffering a ‘dire’ illness to have a ‘shortened life’ as ‘the pain and illness unfold’, 7hc) Earth as a very sick person, who is ‘slipping away from us’, 7ea) biblical portent of Noah type floods, 8a) comparison to World War III (very probably not terminal for everyone, but assuming it’s nuclear and truly a world war, terminal for large swathes of humanity and on a timescale far shorter than anything mainstream science proposes as likely for climate change. And scientists engaging anxiety for children as part of their catastrophe narrative can be seen in footnote examples 6g), 6h), 6p), 6s), 6z), 7bc), 7fa) and 7fb). Scientists also propagate some of the scariest forms of the catastrophe narrative, for example:
F6 [JAMES HANSEN] Up to 2013, head of NASA GISS. In a National Public Radio interview with Guy Raz (April 2017): “Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That is the equivalent of what we face now, yet we dither taking no action to divert the asteroid.”
F6 [GIDEON POLYA] Bio-chemist, author, activist. See Inquiry Submission to Australian Senate Select Committee on Climate Policy. Via MWC News (2015): “The world faces catastrophe unless global warming and this Arctic CH4 release can be stopped. Unaddressed man-made climate change is set to exacerbate an already worsening climate genocide and cause 10 billion avoidable deaths this century leaving a predicted only 0.5 billion of Humanity alive.”
F6 [GUY McPHERSON], Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona. Via his Nature Bats Last site, (2011): “About a decade ago I realized we were putting the finishing touches on our own extinction party, with the party probably over by 2030. During the intervening period I’ve seen nothing to sway this belief, and much evidence to reinforce it.”
F7 [ERIC HOLTHAUS] Meteorologist and Journalist. Via Vice (Mar 2015): “If you’re like me, climate change keeps you up at night on a regular basis. It’s not so much that we’re still on track for the worst-case global warming scenario, or that the survival of countless species—not to mention civilization as we know it—hangs in the balance, but the quiet understanding that our kids are going to feel some of the worst impacts in just a few brief decades… For natural pessimists, the inexorable destruction by climate change leads to thoughts that fall along the lines of this Jezebel headline, which asks: ‘Why Would I Ever Want to Bring a Child Into This Fucked Up World? Because really, why the hell would someone of procreating age today even consider having a baby? It feels like an utter tragedy to create new life, fall in love with it, and then watch it writhe in agony as the world singes to a crisp…”
F7 [STEPHAN RAHMSTORF] Oceanographer and climatologist, Professor of Physics of the Oceans at Potsdam University. i] Letter in response to science communicator Joe Duggan’s question ‘how do you feel about climate change?’ (2016?): “Sometimes I have this dream. I’m going for a hike and discover a remote farm house on fire. Children are calling for help from the upper windows. So I call the fire brigade. But they don’t come, because some mad person keeps telling them that it is a false alarm. The situation is getting more and more desperate, but I cant convince the firemen to get going. I cannot wake up from this nightmare.”
[NOTE: see footnotes for fuller contributions from all of these individuals].
A major issue with this public propagation is that it appears to be very rare that these scientists are billed as non-mainstream in respect of catastrophic outlooks; so the public (and likely many authority figures too) believe that they do represent the mainstream position. The ‘scientist’ label and their specific status as a professor or meteorologist or oceanographer or whatever, projects the authority of science, adding to the long list of authority sources propagating the catastrophe narrative. The A-list authorities mentioned at the beginning of section 2, indeed rafts of lesser authorities, NGOs, businesses, religious leaders etc. too, also constantly reinforce that this narrative is underwritten by ‘the’ science, which is not so.
The above quoted examples from scientists are very blunt, but the footnotes devote significant space to unravelling a few of the more complex and subtle forms of catastrophe narrative from scientists.
Motivations and narrative emergence
Notwithstanding that any human enterprise large enough will have a few bad apples regarding dishonesty or greed or whatever, belief in climate catastrophe and propagation of catastrophe narrative in any of its above forms, inclusive of all their contradictions and issues, in no way implies deliberate manipulation is in play. Terms above such as ‘inappropriate’ or ‘illegitimate’ do not imply culpability. The catastrophe narrative variants are emergent, and this emergence is via subconscious selection of the most engaging variants, which consequently will be propagated. There is no implication of illness or dishonesty or any other dysfunction, and it’s worth bearing in mind that we are all subject to the influence of emotive cultural narratives, though it works within domains (can be free of major influence in one domain, but not in another). In the great majority of cases adherents fully, indeed passionately, believe the narrative they propagate, albeit being emotively not reasonably convinced. Indeed, this is the great power of such narratives. There may be a minority of cases where very fervent belief leads to noble cause corruption.
Note: in the narrative soup of the public domain, variants may combine and meanings are not by any means black and white. Some quotes within footnote 2 show local or specific issues beginning to color the global context of the catastrophe narrative. This aspect can proceed to such an emphasis on the local / specific issue that the context may no longer really be global catastrophe. This doesn’t necessarily translate to any mainstream scientific support for the profiled issue, yet can make science / narrative contradictions more ambiguous. Likewise, some narrative variants dilute a ‘full on’ global catastrophe message. Yet similarly this doesn’t typically mean they will merit any backing from mainstream science. Variants generally arise independently of the mainstream scientific community, or exaggerate or take out of context snippets from that community, so are much more often misaligned than aligned. So even this subset are highly emotive pitches of the same ilk, that typically aren’t backed by mainstream climate science.
Companion post and common footnotes
While everyone is likely familiar with at least common / A-list catastrophe narratives, I nevertheless recommend reading all the footnotes file.
Link to footnotes file [ Footnotes ]
Although a long slog through ~180 quotes, digesting a large variety of categorized variants plus contextual notes all together, gives deeper insight on the forms and subtleties via which it most efficiently propagates through engaging emotive responses. A category I haven’t addressed is journalistic / columnist contributions, i.e. their own content not just a reflection of politician / influencer embedded quotes; this is a vast area and beyond my time at the moment.
This post only looks at the main catastrophe narrative forms and spread via different authority sources. A companion post to be published here at Climate Etc soon, addresses misunderstandings (on both sides of the conflicted domain) about the applicability of the label ‘CAGW’, which happens also to be a great vehicle to explore the deeper issues associated with the authoritative presence of the catastrophe narrative, as the same kind of misunderstandings in the wider domain mask the critical significance of this narrative. Note: the footnotes file is common to both posts, so if you come across any unexplained nuggets, hold fire and your curiosity will hopefully soon be satisfied.
Andy West.
www.wearenarrative.wordpress.com
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