Telling Stories for Climate Justice
Guest post by Treesong
Today’s guest post — the second in our new Guest Post Series — is written by Treesong, who is a father, husband, author, talk radio host, and Real Life Superhero living in Southern Illinois.
He writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, mostly about the climate. You can find out more about his novels and other work at http://treesong.org. Treesong donates 10% of his author income to organizations with a climate justice or social justice mission.
Thank you very much, Treesong, for agreeing to write a guest post. Without further ado, here it is!
If you're reading a guest post on Eclectic’s blog, I'm going to assume that you understand the basics of climate change. These basics are often summed up in ten words: it’s real, it’s us, it’s bad, scientists agree, there’s hope.
Having said that, when you hear the term “climate solutions,” what comes to mind?
Some people think of solar panels and wind turbines. Others think of carbon taxes and keeping fossil fuels in the ground. Others still may think of electric vehicles (including mass transit), energy efficiency, ecological agriculture, or any number of other concrete solutions.
These are all good climate solutions, or at least they can be when implemented properly. However, my main focus in life is one of the lesser-known but most important climate solutions: storytelling.
Yes, storytelling.
How can storytelling possibly be a climate solution?
Humans are storytelling animals. As small children, we grow up listening to stories. As we grow older, we tell stories to ourselves and others. Stories about who we are, what our life has been like so far, what it could be like in the future, what kind of community and society we live in, and so on.
Almost everything we consciously choose to do – as individuals, as communities, and as a society – is inspired by one or more of these stories.
That’s an important realization, but it’s also a very broad realization. How do we apply it to the pursuit of climate solutions and climate justice?
“Humans are storytelling animals. As small children, we grow up listening to stories. As we grow older, we tell stories to ourselves and others. […]
Almost everything we consciously choose to do – as individuals, as communities, and as a society – is inspired by one or more of these stories.”
In the case of the climate crisis, storytelling is a major part of what got us into this mess. Major fossil fuel companies like Exxon knew decades ago that climate change was happening, was caused largely by fossil fuel combustion, and would surely pose a tremendous threat to human societies. Their response? They paid public relations firms tons of money to shape public discourse in favor of climate delay and denial.
For years, these fossil fuel majors and their PR firms and thinktanks have put out a relentless barrage of ads, advertorials, press releases, and other messaging repeated misleading and deceptive stories about climate change over and over again.
This is especially true in the United States. Thinktanks, PR firms, and media outlets like Fox News said over and over again that climate change wasn’t happening, or that it wasn’t going to be so bad, or that solving it would be too expensive, or that the climate hawks were trying to take away your All-American cheeseburgers and pickup trucks. They told whatever ridiculous and misleading stories they needed to to convince millions of Americans that the climate crisis wasn’t a crisis at all, and might even be a global conspiracy.
They lied. And so far, for the most part, it worked.
It should come as no surprise, then, that storytelling is also a major part of how we can mobilize a just response to the climate crisis.
“Thinktanks, PR firms, and media outlets like Fox News […] told whatever ridiculous and misleading stories they needed to to convince millions of Americans that the climate crisis wasn’t a crisis at all. […]
It should come as no surprise, then, that storytelling is also a major part of how we can mobilize a just response to the climate crisis.”
Telling stories about the climate crisis helps to break the climate silence. Climate silence is still one of the greatest barriers to climate action. About 72% of Americans know that climate change is happening, but only about 35% of Americans discuss climate change at least occasionally. [Yale Climate Opinions Maps has great maps and data about climate opinion and behaviors.]
Climate discourse has increased in the past few years, but as recently as this past summer, national corporate TV news largely failed to cover Hurricane Ida as a climate justice story. When news anchors don’t frame such disasters as climate justice stories, millions of Americans may not fully realize that climate impacts are already here and already affecting their lives. And when corporate media outlets do mention climate change, it’s often in the context of climate delay and greenwashing. In many cases, climate scientists or climate policy experts are only allowed to speak on such shows if they’re balanced out by climate delayers and deniers, as famously mocked during a hilarious climate skit on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
So what do we do about it? How do we stop telling stories that fuel climate delay or denial and start telling stories that support climate justice?
One solution is to stop climate disinformation at the source.
At the moment, there are at least two major efforts to stop the spread of climate disinformation. One is the campaign to combat climate disinformation on social media, especially the Toxic Ten publishers who are responsible for 69% of all interactions with climate denial content on Facebook. The other is the campaign to call out PR firms that play a pivotal role in spreading climate disinformation. Once the onslaught of climate disinformation on social media and traditional media is lessened, more audiences will be receptive to stories centered on working for climate justice.
Another solution is to tell stories that actually demonstrate how dire the climate crisis is and show us how we can take positive action for climate justice. This storytelling for climate justice falls into two broad categories: climate fiction and climate nonfiction.
Climate fiction includes any work of fiction with an emphasis on climate themes. There’s a growing reading list of climate fiction ranging from big names like Barbara Kingsolver, Octavia Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson, to lesser-known cli-fi and solarpunk authors who explore the climate crisis and its solutions in a variety of realistic and speculative contexts.
“Climate fiction includes any work of fiction with an emphasis on climate themes. There’s a growing reading list of climate fiction ranging from big names like Barbara Kingsolver, Octavia Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson, to lesser-known cli-fi and solarpunk authors.”
There are also three short fiction anthologies – Imagine 2200, Everything Change, and The Weight of Light – that specifically seek to shift the focus of climate fiction to climate solutions and climate justice rather than the purely dystopian tales that may leave us feeling too paralyzed to act. Climate fiction is even starting to break through into the mainstream, including a new film called Don’t Look Up that’s a thinly-veiled metaphor for the climate crisis. [It also speaks to other crises like the pandemic where science denial and profiteering corporate media have contributed to the crisis.]
Climate nonfiction includes any work of nonfiction with an emphasis on climate themes. The most obvious example of climate nonfiction is climate journalism. Investigative journalism projects like the Exxon: The Road Not Taken, the Drilled podcast, and the Rigged podcast have all done an excellent job of telling the story of how fossil fuel majors, particularly Big Oil, have used their power and influence to spread disinformation and delay climate action. But people often overlook the tremendous value of creative nonfiction in helping audiences to understand and act on the climate crisis. Three of my favorite examples are the All We Can Save climate anthology, the Hot Take podcast [there are so many climate podcasts now], and the ongoing series of climate-themed essays by author Mary Annaïse Heglar.
“People often overlook the tremendous value of creative nonfiction in helping audiences to understand and act on the climate crisis.”
Climate storytelling has the potential to change the course of climate policy at the local, state, national, and international levels of government. Climate storytelling can take many of the other climate solutions and organize them into coherent narratives centered on climate justice. In some cases, such storytelling may reveal a direct impact of climate change or a specific solution that could be implemented in the real world. In other cases, it may simply speak to various aspects of the human experience of climate change without a heavy-handed focus on the details.
“Climate storytelling has the potential to change the course of climate policy at the local, state, national, and international levels of government.”
Either way, climate storytelling is an essential part of our journey from the current reality of climate crisis to the present and future realities of climate justice.
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