Trying to talk about climate change can be a tedious task. Conversations about harm and risk and the current state of affairs concerning climate can be overwhelming, depressing, and confrontational. Despite the difficulties it is a conversation that needs to be on-going and relentless.
There are so many magnificent people doing terrific things to combat climate change and raise awareness in a call for help. Combatting the effects of global warming as well as misinformation regarding global warming is an arduous undertaking in need of overwhelming worldwide coordination and support.
For an array of reasons sharing scientific consensus as well as objective data has not achieved anything close to an impetus for change. Unfortunately in some cases, sharing data has been met with an obstinate defiance. With that defiance as our guide we have set out to find new and useful ways to communicate with those who may otherwise be quiescent in their role concerning a future that becomes bleaker and bleaker with each passing day.
Joining theDIHEDRAL Podcast on this panel for creative climate messaging is a group of intellectuals, scholars, and activists that share their remarkable ideas for healthy and meaningful conversations about global warming.
The panel includes:
- Dr. Marion Hourdequin: Environmental Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy at Colorado College, and author of several publications including the book Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice.
- Dr. John Cook: Research fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at Monash University, founder of SkepticalScience.com, and author of the award winning book Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change.
- Dr. Beth Osnes: Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Associate of the Environmental Studies faculty. Dr. Osnes is a theatre and performance studies artist/scholar who is active in applied performance and creative climate communication. As co-director of Inside the Green House Beth has been at the forefront of creative change for years. In addition to producing, performing, and directing Beth has authored several pieces of work including her book Theatre for Women’s Participation in Sustainable Development.
- Ting Lester: Ting is a minor who has already made enormous contributions to the climate change discussion. As part of Young Womxn’s Voices for Climate, Ting and her colleagues have reached the public in incredibly influential ways. In addition to her activism, Ting is also an avid rock climber, and on the date we recored this podcast, Ting had just sent her first 5.13
Tune in as we discuss Creative Messaging on Climate Change.
We hope you will enjoy listening in as much as we did, and of course this talk couldn’t have happened without our delightful and engaging guests.
A huge THANK YOU for the time, effort, and advice from Marion, John, Beth and Ting
We also want to thank you for listening. You can find the interview on theDIHEDRAL Podcast Here, and listed on most podcasting platforms including Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.
thedihedral.com 
Great podcast with some inspirational speakers.
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They really were amazing to talk to Paul! Thank you for checking them out!
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Defiance regarding the sharing of data is not what we need and only plays into the hands of those who think climate change is a hoax.
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That is 100% dead on Fred!
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Whether it is unprecedented wildfires due to unprecedented heat waves, ‘stalling’ hurricanes, Europe’s wettest/hottest year on record, off-the-chart poor-air advisories, an exodus of sea life due to warming waters, the mass deforestation and incineration of the Amazonian rainforest, record-breaking floods, single-use plastics clogging life-bearing waters, a B.C. (2019) midsummer’s snowfall, the gradually dying endangered whale species or geologically invasive/destructive fracking or a myriad of other categories of large-scale toxic pollutant emissions and dumps — to date there clearly has been inexcusably insufficient political courage and will to properly act upon the cause-and-effect of manmade global warming thus climate change.
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How many years have too many turned a deaf ear to facts and reason? How long ago did our parents and grandparents say, “Waste not, want not”? Sadly, only opportunity cost (that is loss of some desire) seems to affect the obstinate brain. If I listen well, maybe I can better seed the soil (apologies for the mixed metaphor).
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I love to Donna, thank you!
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As individual consumers, however, far too many of us still recklessly behave as though throwing non-biodegradable garbage down a dark chute, or pollutants flushed down toilet/sink drainage pipes or emitted out of elevated exhaust pipes or spewed from sky-high jet engines and very tall smoke stacks — even the largest toxic-contaminant spills in rarely visited wilderness — can somehow be safely absorbed into the air, water, and land (i.e. out of sight, out of mind); like we’re inconsequentially dispensing of that waste into a black-hole singularity, in which it’s compressed into nothing.
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Too true … so sadly.
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Greta aptly, poignantly described the global-warming (non)efforts of faux or neo-environmentalist politicos as just more “blah, blah, blah”. To me, though, she was also saying that mass addiction to fossil fuel products undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical. Meanwhile, neoliberals and conservatives remain preoccupied with vocally criticizing one another for their relatively trivial politics and diverting attention away from some of the planet’s greatest polluters, where it should and needs to be sharply focused.
Industry and fossil-fuel friendly governments can tell when a very large portion of the populace is too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves or their family, and the virus-variant devastation still being left in COVID-19’s wake — all while on insufficient income — to criticize them for whatever environmental damage their policies cause/allow, particularly when not immediately observable. In fact, until about three months ago, I had not heard Greta’s name in the mainstream corporate news-media since COVID-19 hit the world.
Meanwhile, here in the corporate-powered West, if the universal availability of green-energy alternatives would come at the expense of the traditional energy production companies, one can expect obstacles, including the political and regulatory sort. If something notably conflicts with corporate big-profit interests, even very progressive motions are greatly resisted, often enough successfully.
Collectively, human existence is still essentially analogous to a cafeteria lineup consisting of diversely societally represented people, all adamantly arguing over which identifiable person should be at the front and, conversely, at the back of the line. Many of them further fight over to whom amongst them should go the last piece of quality pie and how much they should have to pay for it — all the while the interstellar spaceship on which they’re all permanently confined, owned and operated by (besides the wealthiest passengers) the fossil fuel industry, is on fire and toxifying at locations not normally investigated. As a species, we can be so heavily preoccupied with our own individual little worlds, however overwhelming to us, that we will miss the biggest of crucial pictures.
Humankind desperately needs environmentally conscious and active young people, especially those approaching or reaching voting age. In contrast, the dinosaur electorate who have been voting into high office consecutive mass-pollution promoting or complicit/complacent governments for decades are gradually dying off thus making way for voters who fully support a healthy Earth thus populace.
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Great to have more conversations about this, thank you! People are automatically defensive and have conformational bias on their prior beliefs (fueled by selective social media messaging) so react against facts they don’t agree with. Searching for more ways to get the messages across (or if not, at least some behaviour changes to minimise impact!) has to be part of the way forward.
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Such a great way to put it Mark…Thank you!
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Very true. 👍🏿
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Thank you for checking it out!
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If we really understood the planet, we’d discover we don’t understand the planet.
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I agree!
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Loved the post!
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Thanks for spreading the message on Climate Change! It’s something real and something that is happening ~ and I’m so happy you’re becoming part of the movement to help the planet. Because saving a planet starts with a voice ❤
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We do our best!!! Thanks for the encouragement, we’ll keep it going!
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Deaths from weather-related events have declined dramatically in the past century. There is no climate emergency.
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Interesting thought. Have you considered looking at other metrics such rising costs of comfort (e.g. AC and Heat) damage to infrastructure (e.g. Katrina) and damage by natural disasters (e.g. Harvey), displaced people (e.g. Bentiu), and the continued damage expected to come from global warming (e.g. Vietnam, Venice, New Orleans)? Comparing death toll from one data point with another could be an interesting study, but it seems difficult to measure the accuracy or relevance of such a limited comparison. One could quibble over the notion of “emergency” but projections are not painting a harmonious picture of tranquility for living organisms on the planet over the next 50 years.
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Oh yes! I have obsessed about energy and the environment for most of my life! When I believed in the need to reduce my carbon footprint, I rode my bicycle to work and almost everywhere else around town. Eventually, I noticed that prominent climate alarmists were promoting carbon taxes, wind turbines and solar panels instead of the most efficient form of transportation available. Neither Gretta, nor Gore, nor DiCaprio; neither Suzuki, Trudeau, Prince Charles nor the Climate Barbie bothered to perform a significant bike ride to promote efforts to reduce CO2 emissions. In the year 1540 there was a drought that dried up many of the great rivers of Europe. If that happened today, alarmists would blame fossil fuels. It happened long before today, as did many of the disasters that alarmists prefer to ignore. Its much more than a single data point!
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I’m not sure why you changed your tune on environment after spending most of your life obsessing over it. Sure, if you alone were the only one trying to make a difference that impact would not be felt, but just because politicians don’t act in accord with their own advice doesn’t discount the merit of that advice. Climate science has had enormous success in understanding the effect of trapped greenhouse gasses, why discredit their work because politicians don’t ride bikes?
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I changed my tune for many reasons including the lack of accurate predictions from alarmists. A very prominent climate science predicted that the Arctic would be ice-free by the summer of 2018. The north pole remained frozen, but the mainstream media reported that climate change was happening “faster than previously thought”.
…Gretta and DiCaprio are not politicians. They are fakers. David Suzuki is a scientist who made a website to scare children with an image of Santa’s workshop sinking into the Arctic. Trudeau is a politician who lied about his schedule and flew in government jet over the natives tribe who invited him to attend the VERY FIRST Day for Truth and Reconciliation, he a politician who lied about his schedule so that he could go surfing. I discredit all those people.
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So, no more bike rides for you?
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I am still an avid cyclist, but I do it for fun and exercise. I have winter tires and peddle through the cold and snow and under the hot, blazing sun. I still believe it is a good option for many people, including those who want to reduce their carbon footprint.
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I love everything about that!!!
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I’m happy to hear that. The world has been so full of anger over the past few years. Its nice to have a polite disagreement and still find something in common. 🙂
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I was thinking the same thing…it’s so wild that people are in a place where disagreement over one thing often results in termination over everything else! It’s a shame. Thanks for the chat!
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A good post. Thank you 🌍
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That is so nice to hear, thank you!
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