Wild Ones #5: Environmental Discourses
What are environmental discourses, and why do they matter?
Every Sunday, I break down one big idea from the wide-ranging academic field of environmental communication. I offer one idea from me, one quote from others, and one question for you, all captured in a quick one-minute read.
The aim is to give you a single powerful theory, tool or technique each week – from storytelling and ecopsychology to sustainable design and science communication– for you to consider in your own life and work as an advocate for a more healthy, just, and sustainable world. Wild Ones!
If you know of others who might find this kinda stuff useful, please share Wild Ones with them:-)
One Idea: What is an environmental discourse?
How do your personal experiences and assumptions about the world tell you who you are, how you should act, and give you purpose in life?
How do you bring order to the chaotic experience of being human in relation to a complex society and natural environment?
What stories, ideas, beliefs, and knowledge help us make sense of environmental problems, and the kinds of solutions we propose to solve them?
I’m definitely not about to answer all these big questions in this tiny newsletter. But I wonder a lot about the ways we think and talk about nature, and what consequences this has to motivate the actions we take (or don’t take) to save the planet.
The concept of environmental discourse is one tool I’ve found useful to help make better sense of these big questions.
In a nutshell, a particular environmental discourse provides a narrative of human-nature relationships. It uses a particular kind of language to talk about environmental problems and their solutions, and to try to make others think, feel, and act the same way too. (through rhetoric, metaphor, visuals, etc…)
Importantly, you don’t have to be an environmentalist to adhere to an environmental discourse, since all a discourse does is provide a story about human relationships with nature. The environmental discourse of climate denialism is one example.
I’ve found it helpful to think of an Environmental Discourse as a storyline or symbolic guide shaping how people understand their relationship to nature. Environmental Discourses…
Define environmental problems and their solutions: planetary boundaries, carrying capacity, ecosystem services, ecological balance, or overpopulation.
Construct specific relationships between humans and nature, like: “humans are superior to nature and should control it,” or “humans have disrupted nature and must get back in balance with it.”
Specify characters: Who should we blame? Who should we praise? Who benefits? Who loses?
Use certain metaphors and emotional appeals to persuade an audience to think about or act on environmental problems: ‘humans are a virus infecting the planet,’ ‘we are destroying the life-support system of spaceship earth,’ or ‘nature is a half-wild garden humans must do better to manage.’
For a more concrete example, I recently wrote a review of the new Michael Moore film, Planet of the humans, and the environmental discourse of limits and survival that underpins the main environmental problems the filmmakers point to as important (in this case overpopulation), and the solutions they propose.
One quote
“A [environmental] discourse is a shared way of apprehending the world. Embedded in language, it enables those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts. Discourses construct meanings and relationships, helping define common sense and legitimate knowledge...Discourses coordinate the actions of large numbers of peo-ple and organizations who do not otherwise need to interact.”
John Dryzek (2013). The Politics of the Earth: Environmental Discourses. (Public Library)
One question
As one of the foundational books on environmental discourses, John Dryzek’s, The Politics of the Earth, analyzes 8 discourses in depth.
Which environmental discourse(s) do you subscribe to most?
Prometheanism: ‘Growth Unlimited’ (with new energy technologies- like nuclear - economic growth and environmental protection can reinforce one another)
Limits and survival: “Looming tragedy” (the biggest problem we face is overpopulation leading to exhaustion of ecosystems and societal collapse)
Administrative rationalism: “Leave it to the experts” (government bureaucracies, with their expert scientists and policymakers will eventually solve our environmental problems)
Democratic Pragmatism: “Leave it to the people” (we must put solutions to our environmental problems in the hands of the people, and rely on democratic decision making)
Economic Rationalism: “Leave it to the market” (competition and privatization of natural resources, like ecosystem services, will solve environmental problems)
Sustainable Development: “Greener growth” (environment, poverty, and injustice are interconnected issues, and must be solved together).
Green Consciousness: “Change our culture” (we can only solve our environmental crisis by radically changing our dominant culture of consumption)
Green politics: “Green new deal” (we can only solve environmental problems through radical structural change to our institutions and systems of politics).
See you Thursday!
-Gavin