Promise, Peril, and Pointed Language

Reading Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature” and attending a screening of Veronica Becker-Peral’s film “Promise and Peril” once again has offered us a range of views on the climate crisis over the course of a week. The two experiences actually complimented each other fairly well given that they used discouraging language and discussed the language we should be using respectively.

Beginning immediately with its title, “Then End of Nature,” I found McKibben’s piece to be off-putting primarily because of its pessimism and its detachment. His definition of nature as an entity separate from humanity, completely independent of us is one with which I disagree. I think it is more true that we are part of nature because we and all the harmful things we produce do not exist in a vacuum. McKibben’s way of thinking distances us from other life forms and undermines our ability to affect the world around us short of atmospheric changes. It is a framing that makes it easier to ignore or excuse damage done to other organisms. This is shown in a quote he references from George Catlin in which an American valley not yet touched by Westerners is described. The tone conveys the predatory American urge to use and exhaust anything of utility to them, speaking at once of the loveliest valley he’s ever seen and of animals “too unsophisticated to avoid an easy and simple death.” Conversely, seeing humanity as one part in this larger whole in the way that Buddhism and most indigenous belief systems do fosters empathy for the environment as we understand that hurting the world around us is the same as hurting ourselves. McKibben’s language falls into the western practice of referring to nature as objects rather than as beings in the way Robin Wall Kimmerer promotes in “Braiding Sweetgrass.”

Our screening of “Promise and Peril” further expanded the importance of how we talk about environmental elements and issues, with this becoming the focus of the discussion following the documentary. Within the film itself, interviews with politicians explained that when it comes to environmental issues, the way a bill is packaged has a significant impact on whether or not it will receive bipartisan support. This use of language in a way that is politically strategic in order to gain Republican feels to me almost like a lie that we should not need to tell in order to get conservatives on board with bills that ultimately benefit us all; however, it has been made abundantly clear that in our current political climate, the appearance of party alignment is of the highest priority to many. Beyond choosing our language for political purposes, Professor Brian Treanor advocated for persuasive strategies using optimization rather than prohibition. What this means is convincing people to change their lives because it will improve their lives. An example of this he gives is framing shorter commutes as more time spent on what’s important rather than disparaging the practice of driving. Part of this push for optimal language which aligned with what a point we’ve talked about a great deal this semester was his assertion that we keep hope in our climate discussions. It’s important that we keep reiterating that we have hope and that what we do does matter in order to foster personal efficacy as well as resilience in our activism.