Climate (In)Action and (Dis)Engagement last lecture

Inaction: Carvalho et al.

• Environmental inaction is a

  function of depoliticization

• Depoliticized environmental

  communication positions people

  as incapable of actively

  contributing to the making of

  environmental politics

• Depoliticized environmental

  communication positions people

  as passive targets of communication

• When people are positioned this

  way, they check out and disengage

Two Functions of Language

• Language has two functions

• Function one: ideational

  • Language represents objects, phenomena, concepts

• Function two: interactional

  • Language constructs the roles of and relations between people

  • E.g., McAdam vs. Felli on “climate migrant” vs. “climate refugee”

  • Language does more than signify who someone, or what something, is

  • It also constructs the “statuses of and relations between people”

  • Language paradigms or discourses construct subjectivity (i.e., form and position people as people or subjects)

  • Discourses give people a) different roles to play b) different capacities to act

  • Discursive subject formation isn’t just something that happens to people

  • People also use language to try to form and position themselve

Crisis of Political Subjectivity

• Depoliticization corrodes political subjectivity

• Depoliticization shuts down political contestation by universalizing a particular position or set of positions as the only reasonable one

• When the politics is taken out of politics, people “don’t know…how to act politically” and may not even appreciate “why acting politically is important”

• In a depoliticized context, people aren’t positioned or constituted as political actors with political agency

• Environmental political discourse is depoliticized and positions citizens as “passive spectators” to environmental politics, the content of which is already preset

  • they are not contributors they are instead are the targets of messaging efforts where in the content is preset and just needs to be agreed with by the mas

• Environmental political discourse is depoliticized via: scientization, economization, moralization and, for Carvalho et al., also the “higher order” mechanism of naturalization

Scientized Environmental Discourse

• Carvalho et al.: scientization “refers to the widespread claim that the politics of climate change constitutes nothing more than the translation of the established consensus within (physical) climate science regarding the anthropogenic nature of climate change into a political consensus”

  • we know by a scientific perspective how cc works which mens we should know how to stop it. So we should mirrored/reproduced this scientific agreements in politics

• We know scientifically what causes climate change and what needs to

  be done to stop it, so politics and policy simply need to reflect this

  • this is depoliticizing, with the average citizen with nothing to add and the content of env politics

• This narrative is depoliticizing because it a) predetermines the

  content of environmental politics b) positions citizens as having

  virtually nothing to contribute to the content of that politics

  • only based on echoing science

  • pushes debate AND citizens to the periphery

  • says ppl have little to contribute and instead its for people to accept

• This narrative encourages inaction and disengagement (i.e., if the

  substance of environmental politics is prefigured by science, then

  there’s no role for citizens to play in actively constructing it)

  • invites passive subjectivities and position ppl are bystanders

Economized Environmental Discourse

• Carvalho et al.: economized environmental discourses “create

  a context in which technical market-based policy responses are justified by a logic of economic calculation”

• Economized environmental discourse contends that politics

  and policy must mirror not geophysical scientific consensus

  but mainstream economic consensus (e.g., green growth,

  carbon markets)

• This narrative is depoliticizing because it too a) predetermines

  the content of environmental politics, thereby narrowing

  deliberation and b) silences citizens by positioning them as

  having no role to play in creating this politics

• This narrative also invites citizen inaction and disengagement

Moralized Environmental Discourse

• Inhibits debate by predetermining some environmental perspectives as good and others as bad

• Insists that environmental politics reflect moral consensus about what the good or right thing to do is

• Doesn’t position people as bystanders due to lack of knowledge

• Instead, invites passivity by threatening those who disagree with condemnation and social censure (i.e., to avoid being seen as “bad people,” those with non-consensus views may withdraw)

Anticipated Confusion Clarified

• Argument for citizen engagement

  ≠ argument that citizens know best

• “We are not claiming that citizens’

  proposals are better than those

  coming from experts or political

  leaders. What we are claiming is that the failure of the political options tested up until now suggests that a different climate politics may be

  necessary and that citizen political

  engagement may play a key role in

  bringing it about”

• Depoliticized environmental politics in which citizens are passively positioned isn’t working, so maybe it’s time to try something different

Carvalho et al.: Repoliticizing the Environment?

• Repoliticization can be seen in some activist efforts that give citizens an active role to

  play in the construction of environmental politics

  • Acts of resistance (e.g., blocking open-pit mining projects)

  • Prefigurative action (e.g., community based renewable energy initiatives)

• But these repoliticizing environmental practices haven’t gained widespread uptake

  • Climate activism may struggle to grow insofar as it seems to be an alternative lifestyle choice

    instead of a broad-based mass movement

    • or counter cultural

  • Climate activism may struggle to grow if it doesn’t connect with people’s existing realities and

    understandings (e.g., climate justice efforts may get less uptake in the Global North)

  • Not all climate action aims to be political (i.e., some prefigurative groups stress their apolitical

    nature and avoid political parties and institutions)

Action: Scheuerman

• Environmental nonviolent civil

  disobedience (NCD)

  • More prominent

  • Conscientious and largely, but not entirely, nonviolent

• Environmental block and disrupt activism (BD)

  • Less prominent

  • Militant and more aggressive

• Both have democratically

  questionable aspects

Environmental NCD Activism

• Politically motivated lawbreaking carried out with civility and conscientiousness

• E.g., Extinction Rebellion (XR), Fridays for Future

• Draws on traditional nonviolent civil disobedience playbook (e.g., Gandhi, King)

• Advantages of drawing on NCD tradition include a) moral cachet b) familiarity

• Contemporary environmental NCD action embraces not just spirit but discursive framing of traditional NCD activism

• E.g., echoing tradition, contemporary environmental NCD-ers contend that “symbolically significant lawbreaking provides an attention gaining mode of political address by means of which otherwise indifferent political peers can be persuaded to support change”

Scheuerman’s Concerns about NCD

• Tactical

  • Environmental NCD has an “extraordinarily optimistic assessment” of the power of non-violent action

  • Assessment based on political science re. non-violent revolution against authoritarian governments

  • But demanding environmental policy change from democratic institutions and overthrowing

    authoritarian regimes aren’t the same thing and confusing one for other can be counterproductive

  • E.g., 2019 XR blockade of London underground would’ve made sense if the point was to challenge the

    UK government, but didn’t make sense as a public support building move

• Political

  • Some environmental NCD activists call not just for environmental policy change but political institutional change

    • 1)citizens assembly grants power to the facilitators tasked w running them

    • 2) incentives for coordinators rig the process

    • 3)the unelected quality makes challenges abt legitimacy and binding legislatures. Why should we allow unelected ppl deliberate?

  • E.g., XR proposal for a “more-or-less revolutionary constituent assembly, selected by lot, outfitted

    with vast authority not only to counter global warming but also to pursue extensive political and

    even constitutional change”

  • Also based on misapplication of social science, in this case deliberative democratic theory

  • But proposals like this are democratically dubious

Environmental BD (block and disrupt) Activism

• Largely rejects peaceable nonviolence

  • Militant in its actions and self-presentation

  • Broader and more freewheeling approach to property damage, which may be undertaken in secret

  • E.g., vandalism and sabotage against gas pipelines, mining companies, petroleum operations

• Even more skeptical of existing democratic practices and institutions

  • Sees reform as impossible and persuasion as futile

  • Expresses impatience with and a desire to circumvent democratic processes, which are seen as hopelessly ill suited to address the climate change emergency

    • pressing nature

  • "Dedicated avant-garde" must take matters into its own hands to stop climate change

  • Via sabotage and vandalism that blocks and disrupts fossil fuel infrastructure

    • well suited because taken by small numbers, dont require tech knowledge and dispatch the need for public support

• Action can be uncivil because public persuasion is irrelevant

Scheuerman’s Concerns about BD

• Unrealistic “science fiction”

  • Fanciful to think a “small avant-garde can cripple a complex fossil fuel economy”

  • Even if it could successfully block many fossil fuel producers’ operations, this wouldn’t be enough

  • Only scaled, mass action could bring global fossil fuel economy to a halt

• Anti-democratic

  • To abandon persuasion is to abandon democracy

  • Urgency talk flirts with longstanding rationale for abandoning democracy (i.e., that in moments of

    crisis there just isn’t time for it)

  • Traditionally this logic has been used to authorize strong unitary executive action

  • BD environmental activists allocate a parallel authority to themselves

An Underwhelming Choice?

• BD environmental activism is more democratically worrisome for Scheuerman

• But NCD comes up short on this metric too (i.e., also deploys language of emergency in addition to some group’s democratically questionable institutional proposals)

• On the other hand, NCD retains commitment to mobilizing and engaging people, making it less of an overall risk to democracy and comparatively preferable ▪ Yet the choice between more and less democratically risky environmental activisms doesn’t present us with robust options

• What would it mean to pursue ambitious environmental action without endangering democracy? How can we act swiftly to save the planet without giving up on democracy?