Twin Lakes, AlbertaNov 19, 2021
The prompt I am examining this week asks me to consider the impacts of fear in climate change communication. If and how does it move me and my local community to action?
The question of fear seems impossible to answer without also talking about hope. In a way, hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. Hope seems necessary only if there is something to fear. If the future were certain, we wouldn’t need to draw on stores of hope – we would just be content with knowing.
Heglar (2019) calls for more emotional nuance when talking about climate. On the side of hope, I see plenty of nuanced discussion. Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy calls for “active hope” (Macy & Johnstone, 2012), while climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe encourages people to lean into “rational hope” (2019). Marlon et al. (2019) talk about “constructive hope” (based on human intervention) in the context of political action, and psychologist Elissa Epel speaks of her “robust hope” in the face of climate change (Chakrabarti, 2021). It seems hope can be active, rational, constructive, robust, and likely manifests in dozens of other ways.
What about the nuances of fear? How does this manifest? There are the direct fears in the face of climate change: the loss of livelihood or property, loss of life, loss of species, and more. But there are indirect fears as well: fear of the unknown and loss of security. Climate anxiety coach Olive Dempsey highlights that people are grappling with “what we thought our life might be, or grieving the loss of having a safe and reliable future for ourselves, for our children, for our grandchildren” (Razavi, 2021, para. 14).
A lot of traditional climate communication has drawn on fear as a motivator: trying to instill a sense of urgency to motivate action (Ruiter et al., 2014). Yet as the impacts of climate change accelerate and become more obvious, it seems communicators are tasked instead with responding to fear. In a way, communicators no longer need to rely on fear-based messaging, because the climate is doing it for us. Perhaps it is our role to help communities process this fear, by shifting from fear-based messaging to fear-attuned listening.
I decided to practice fear-attuned listening in my sit spot this week. I asked myself: “what do I fear?” while sitting on my now-familiar bench in Poplar Park. I was comforted by the fact that beside my sit spot is a little free mystery library – a great place for fear-based inspiration if I needed it.
But I didn’t need the inspiration. Although climate change is front and centre in my mind, what is occupying most of my emotional energy these days is a personal worry. A person I love is waiting for medical test results – and I fear those results. My fear is distracting. I even catch myself shaking my head when I think about it, as though I am physically trying to dodge it.
So, I decided to consider what this fear can teach me about climate communications.
I realized the worst part of my current fear is the waiting. The unknown, the uncertainty. I dread hearing the results of that test, yet hearing the results would also bring an end to this period of distraction and anxiety. All I want is certainty. Perhaps that’s the hardest part about climate change too: we have predictions, but no certainty. We can read the reports, stay on top of the research, engage with our communities, and yet we don’t really know what the future will look like. We will have to wait and see what unfolds. And many people in British Columbia are experiencing another excruciating wait: the wait to see what damage has unfolded as the flood waters recede. When dealing with climate change, it seems we have to balance urgency with patience. That makes the waiting especially difficult.
My fear is teaching me to respect the distracting power of anticipation. It’s teaching me that fear is not something we should exploit needlessly. If I am going to use fear as a communications technique, I need to be mindful (perhaps even responsible) for the emotional reactions that occur. With that in mind, how can we support communities who may be grappling with multiple types of fear?
References
Chakrabarti, M. (Host). (2021, October 29). The pessimistic generation: How grown-ups can grow up and give kids some hope Audio podcast episode. In On Point. Wbur. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/10/29/kids-pandemic-pessimism-politics-teens-future-social-media
Hayhoe, K. (2019, January 11). The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it [Video]. TED. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BvcToPZCLI&t=14s
Heglar, M.A. (2019, September 12). Home is Always Worth It. Medium Environment. https://medium.com/@maryheglar/home-is-always-worth-it-d2821634dcd9
Macy, J., & Johnstone, C. (2012). Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in without Going Crazy. New World Library.
Marlon, J.R., Bloodhart, B., Ballew, M.T., Rolfe-Redding, J., Roser-Renouf, C., Leiserowitz, A., & Maibach, E. (2019). How hope and doubt affect climate change mobilization. Frontiers in Communication 4. doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00020
Razavi, K. (2021, November 19). Anxious about climate change Here’s what you need to know about ‘ecological grief’. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/8380734/climate-change-anxiety/
Ruiter, R.A.C., Kessels, L.T.E., Peters, G.J.Y., & Kok, G. (2014). Sixty years of fear appeal research: current state of the evidence. International Journal of Psychology 49(2), 63-70. doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12042
Amy, Thanks for sharing your thoughts on fear. You inspired me and now I am working on a blog on fear myself. I really wish we had more certainty. I think our challenge as climate action leaders is to continue to do the work, and give people hope so they can continue their own work, even in uncertain times. Let’s talk about this more! Thanks, Kerra.
Thank you for this reflection- your discussion of hope and fear in relation to the climate conversation feels very timely in this moment. I agree that the uncertainty of it all can feel nearly paralyzing at times and I appreciate your efforts to lean into this emotion and analyze the idea of fear-attuned listening. Your dialogue of fear-based messaging versus fear-attuned listening makes me think about the Michael Segal reading where he discussing the lack of narratives in climate communication. He shares “faced with an absence, we revert to old narratives, and there are few older than utopia and dystopia.” Hope and fear have played a significant role in storytelling and it is a good reminder to reflect on how stories of fear are received, and how we can process the fear in a positive way.
Segel, M. (2019). To fix the climate movement, tell better stories: The missing climate change narrative. Nautilus. http://nautil.us/issue/75/story/to-fix-the-climate-tell-better-stories-rp
It’s really a gift to see you arrive at the question of what our responsibility as communicators is around the evocation of fear. Telling scary stories can be really helpful (and sometimes people even enjoy them!) but in the context of the reality that we are facing, and the ways in which our lives are being and will be impacted, this question of responsibility is really important. Can these stories create trauma? What can we do to mitigate that potential while still also being clear about the very real possibilities on the horizon?