L9: Climate (in)action and (dis)engagement

common sense answer to inaction and disengagement

• Normal person does not know enough about the environment and climate change and therefore don’t do anything about it

• people check out from the conversation if it becomes to overwhelming for them

Inaction according to 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 → Disattachment

• When people are positioned this way, they check out and disengage

2 functions of language

1. ideational

2. Interactional

Ideational function of language

• language represents objects, phenomena, concepts

• What is climate change? → language to represent what we think it is and how it works

Interactional function of language

• Language constructs the roles of and relations between people

  • E.g., McAdam vs. Felli on "climate migrant" vs. "climate refugee" Different rights and their relationship to states

• 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)

  • Discursive subject is not stationary, it will change and evolve

• 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 themselves

• Interactional identities and specific forms of agency

  • Language we are molded and are molding

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

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

Scientized environmental discourse according to Carvalho

"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"

Scientized environmental discourse explained

• 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 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

  • We can urge politicians to match with what the science is saying but we as citizens don’t have anything to contribute to it

• 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)

  • The problem with this discourse is that it does not put much capacity in the hands of citizens to act

    • Says climate scientists are the ones to act —> majority of people are not this

    It invites people to just sit back and not engage 

Economized environmental discourse according to Carvalho

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

Economized environmental discourse explained

• contends that politics and policy must mirror not geophysical scientific consensus but mainstream economic consensus (e.g., green growth, carbon markets)

  • environmental can be solved through economic choices like green growth or green capitalism

    • Ex. 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

  • It becomes something for people to accept and get on board with, not something they can contribute to

    • Most people would not understand the economics of the policies so not only do they not understand, they can therefore not be a part of the discussion either

• This narrative also invites citizen inaction and disengagement

Moralized environmental discourse explained

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

  • Frames it as we know what the morally right thing to do is and that environmental politics just needs to reflect that

• 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)

  • Disagreement leads to the view that you are a bad person/pro-climate change, etc.

    • Makes people scared to say anything

citizen engagement # 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

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)

    • Dynamic role for citizens

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

    • Bottom-up models (citizen led)

• Citizens as Active contributors

Repoliticizing the environment? No 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

  • Has been seen as Counter-cultural endeavor → they will remain on sidelines bc they don’t see themselves as a part of this group

• 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)

Environmental activism: dominated by two types

• 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

  • To stop fossils fuel driven economy

• Both have democratically questionable aspects

  • First is more preferable to second but both have some questionable aspects

Environmental NCD activism

• Politically motivated lawbreaking carried out with civility and conscientiousness

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

  • Today there has been an evolution to some destruction of property being seen as okay

• Has some critique on too much civility

  • Limits you from doing some things you have to do

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

  • Familiarity → be more comfortable in joining

    • More approachable

• Advantages of drawing on NCD tradition

  • moral cachet

  • 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"

Concern’s about NCD: tactical

• NCD is overly optimistic about non-violent tactics, drawing from successes against authoritarian regimes. But pushing for policy change in democracies is different, and confusing the two can backfire

  • Ex., 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

Concerns about NCD: political

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

  • 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 activism: 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 → Preferred tactics

Environmental BD activism: skeptical of existing democratic practices and institutions

• more skeptical than NCD

• Sees reform as impossible and persuasion as futile

• Sees environmental crisis as fast approaching and needs to be deal with now —> this leads to an impatience with democratic processes

  • don’t feel like they have time to build up a movement

  • Ill suited to address climate change emergency

• "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

  • Small number, requires little knowledge about the systems

    • Stealthy action

Action can be uncivil because public persuasion is irrelevant

Concerns about BD: unrealistic ‘science fiction’

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

  • Calls it science fiction

• 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

Concerns about BD: 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

Why is BD-style environmental activism democratically concerning for Scheuerman?

It often uses emergency rhetoric and supports undemocratic institutions.

How does NCD compare to BD in terms of democratic risk?

NCD also uses emergency language but stays more committed to public engagement, making it less risky (democratically)

What is the central dilemma posed?

How to take urgent environmental action without sacrificing democratic principles