Workshop 1: What is To Be Done? Apocalyptic Rhetoric and Political Action

The workshop series began with a look at how climate change is communicated, and how this communication relates to political responses.  Do people believe there is a duty or ethical responsibility to take certain forms of action as opposed to others?  Themes covered were:apocalyptic language (from both secular and quasi-religious images of disasters); media rhetoric; political communication; ; apocalyptic language and belief; direct action and civil disobedience.

Written Papers

The ‘Starter Papers’ below were presented by participants at the workshop, covering a broad range of topics:

Are We Armed Only with Peer Reviewed Science? The scientization of politics and the environmental movement. By Andrew Bowman (PhD Candidate in the History of Science at the University of Manchester)

Three Meanings of Climate Change: Lamenting Eden, Constructing Babel, Presaging Apocalypse. By Professor Mike Hulme (Founder of the Tyndal Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia).

On the Need for Direct Action by Leo Murray (Climate activist and member of Plane Stupid).

Reorienting Climate Change Communication for effective mitigation – forcing people to be green or fostering grass-roots engagement? By David Ockwell (University of Sussex), Saffron O’Neil (University of East Anglia) and Lorraine Whitmarsh (University of East Anglia)

Access to Land as a Key to Effective Grassroots Action on Climate Change and Peak Oil. By Simon Dale (member of Lammas ecovillage project, South Wales)

On the Necessity of Apocalyptic Rhetoric. By Professor Mark Levene (Historian, Southampton University)

Videos

Below are some interviews introducing participants’ discussion papers at the workshop:

Simon Dale (Lammas ecovillage), introduction to the paper discussion – ‘Access to Land’