Climate and Climate Change

Although the ability of human activities such as burning forests and draining swamps to alter local climate patterns was recognized as early as the third century BC, the long history of large-scale variations in global climate, including ice ages, was not recognized until the early 19th century (Hulme, Reference Hulme2009). During the following century, scientists considered several possible explanations for past climate variations, and their implications for future climate patterns. Solar radiation appears to vary on a long cycle, and is currently entering a period of decrease which, by itself, would predict the eventual onset of another ice age. The increased concentration of aerosols (smog) in the atmosphere, by reflecting solar radiation before it reaches the ground, also has a potential cooling effect. As recently as the 1970s some climate scientists were predicting that these two factors together could lead to a cooling period and possibly to another ice age (Hulme, Reference Hulme2009).

An opposite warming effect results from the increase of CO₂, methane, and other “greenhouse gasses” in the atmosphere. Complicating processes include volcanic activity, which releases CO₂ but also releases sulfur aerosols and copious amounts of ash that can block much of the sunlight, with significant short-term cooling effects. Atmospheric warming reduces snow and ice, which reflect sunlight back into space, and exposes water and soil, which absorb more heat. Thawing of arctic permafrost releases methane. Warmer water can lead to more clouds – which reflect light back into space. Ocean currents, which can be affected by surface warming, have huge effects on weather patterns. All of these systems are interrelated in complex ways that are still poorly understood; as a result, it is possible for two equally qualified scientists to look at the same data and come to quite different predictions, depending on the assumptions they make about how these various processes interact.

Over the past several decades, the increase in computer capacity and speed has enabled scientists to develop increasingly complex models to represent the relationships among the relevant variables including the concentration of CO₂ and other “greenhouse gasses” as well as aerosols, clouds, etc., and the degree to which each absorbs, transmits, or reflects radiation at various wavelengths, the chemical breakdown of these chemicals and their absorption into water, soil, etc. As new relationships are discovered and new data become available they are incorporated into the models. The models can sometimes be tested by determining what they would predict for recent, present, or near-future values and comparing these predictions with actual observations. Most climate scientists agree that these models have become sufficiently refined, and their short-term predictions agree sufficiently with actual observations, that their long-term predictions should be taken seriously. However, some reputable scientists continue to dispute the value of the models, because of the simplifying assumptions built into the models and the high level of variability in the data.

Potential effects. Initially, the expected effects of increasing CO₂ in the atmosphere were summarized as environmental warming. More recently, climate scientists have emphasized that the interaction of complex systems may result in cooler and wetter weather in some regions, hotter and drier weather in other regions, and greater volatility – more severe storms, greater extremes in temperature and rainfall – in most regions. Accordingly, environmental warming has fallen out of favor, and climate scientists increasingly refer to climate change. Warming may lead to milder climates and longer growing seasons in some latitudes (arguably a good thing for people who live in the cooler “higher” latitudes), but to hotter and drier summers in other latitudes, potentially rendering marginal agricultural areas closer to the equator unusable and possibly even making some regions uninhabitable. A warming atmosphere and warming oceans are likely to lead to rising sea levels, both because ocean water will expand as it warms and because of melting glaciers; at the extreme, if significant portions of the glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica melt or slide into the ocean, sea levels could rise by tens or even hundreds of meters. Sea level rises of this magnitude would flood huge coastal areas, potentially displacing billions of people.

Other potential effects include turning the oceans more acid as they absorb more CO₂, which could destroy coral reefs and damage other ocean habitats. Longer summers and milder winters may extend the range of parasites and diseases, including malaria and sleeping sickness. Conversely, increasing concentrations of CO₂ may foster more growth of green plants, including both crops and weeds.

Adding to the uncertainties associated with these complex effects are the differences in time scales. The effects of CO₂ and other “greenhouse gasses” are predicted to occur over an extended time frame. Sea levels may rise enough within the next few decades to increase the risk of flooding in low-lying coastal areas such as New York City, the Pacific Island nations, and most of Bangladesh, but truly catastrophic sea level rises of tens of meters are predicted to take much longer, possibly several centuries. On the other hand, the “greenhouse gasses” vary in the length of time they endure in the atmosphere: CO₂ builds up slowly but also dissipates slowly. Actions to avert dangerous increases must be taken in the short term (within the next decade or two at the most), but the effects of large increases in CO₂ are expected in the long term, with the worst effects likely to show up late this century or early in the twenty-second century.

Cultural factors. As if the scientific issues were not complex enough, the discussion of climate variability and the possible contribution of human activity to climate change is greatly complicated by the influence of different religious and philosophical beliefs, moral and aesthetic commitments and preferences, economic interests, and so on. Some religious doctrines hold that God alone has control over aspects of the environment such as weather; thus, in both popular and legal discourse tornados, floods, earthquakes, and so on, are “acts of God.” The idea that human activities could cause or even influence, much less control, these processes contradicts these religious beliefs. Conversely, other religious doctrines hold that God has delegated to humans the responsibility to care for the natural environment, which to many entails preserving so much as possible the natural purity and “innocence” of lakes, woods, and so on. According to yet another set of religious beliefs, advanced societies that have achieved wealth and comfort have an obligation to help poorer and less fortunate people, thus the industrialized world has an obligation to help less developed nations to achieve similar standards of living, on the one hand, and protect vulnerable citizens of less developed nations from the destructive effects of climate change, on the other. Thus, the view that the faithful are required to behave charitably toward those less fortunate itself provides a basis for opposing views about climate change: are we responsible for slowing the pace of climate change in order to mitigate its effects on impoverished societies that inhabit coastal lowlands, or are we obligated to share the wealth-producing benefits of fossil fuels with impoverished societies, even at the risk of accelerating climate change? Each of these views has different implications for how one might view both the possibility that human action has an influence on the climate and the kind of corrective actions that might be taken.

Economic interests are also important. A majority of climate scientists claim that the use of fossil fuels – carbon compounds created during earlier geological eras – is a major factor in the increase in environmental CO₂ and other “greenhouse gasses” during the past few hundred years. However, extracting and selling fossil fuels is a primary source of income for a number of large and powerful corporations – and for a number of nations, including less developed nations for whom petroleum may be the primary source of wealth. People whose livelihood depend on coal or petroleum are more likely to be skeptical about claims that the use of carbon-based fuels will lead to disastrous climate changes. On the demand side, petroleum in particular has provided the basis for relatively inexpensive and portable energy sources necessary to transportation and other sectors of the economy. Most of the current world economy is heavily dependent on the use of carbon-based fuels. Economic interests are also frequently cited as a basis for ad hominem attacks on the credibility of people whose opinions differ with those of the speaker.

The culture of science itself is also a complicating factor. Scientific knowledge is never truly settled for once and for all – new evidence and new ways of using old evidence always has the potential to overturn even well-accepted theories. With respect to complex and poorly understood processes like weather and climate, this is even truer. Science thrives on disagreement, argument, and an attitude of openness to new evidence and new ideas. Unfortunately politics (and journalism) need certainty or at least clarity. Political and economic leaders are required to make decisions in the present, based on the best knowledge they have (and the best balance among competing interests they can achieve) – and the consequences of their decisions always happen in the future, when new knowledge, not available now, may make their present decisions look foolish.

These two cultures often become intertwined. When scientists see conditions that may have adverse long-term consequences, and when they find reason to believe that these consequences can be alleviated by changing present policies, they are often drawn into advocating for those policy changes. If they fear that their warnings are not being heeded and the evidence they present not being taken seriously, there may be a temptation to exaggerate either the magnitude or the immediacy of the risk in order to gain the attention of policy makers; these “rhetorical excesses” often introduce yet another element of dispute within the culture of science, even as it alters the relationship of scientist to policy maker from advisory to advocacy (Hulme, Reference Hulme2009).

All of this has taken place in the debate over climate change, and it has affected the use of stories and metaphors – including metaphorical stories – in some quite interesting ways. In this chapter, I will examine a series of speeches by a scientist, Jim Hansen, in two addresses to the U.S. congress, given in 1988 and 2008, twenty years apart, and one address to the general public, a 2012 TED talk. Then I will examine a speech by Senator James Inhofe before the U.S. Senate. Finally, I will look at the stories and story metaphors in a key 2013 environment speech by President Barack Obama.

Metaphors and Story Metaphors of Climate Change – General

Because the processes involved in climate patterns are so complex, scientists and others involved in the debate over climate change use a variety of metaphors. Metaphors are used to describe and explain the scientific theories involved, to explain possible consequences and proposed remedies, to establish frames for the discussion, and to persuade others. In this section, I will discuss some metaphors that are used by almost all participants in the debate.

Almost everyone who discusses climate change refers to the buildup of CO₂, methane, and other “greenhouse” gasses in the atmosphere. The metaphor vehicle is based on an implicit story about the greenhouses used by farmers and gardeners to extend the growing season and grow plants that are vulnerable to cold nights. These greenhouses are constructed of glass or another material that is transparent to radiation in the visible spectrum but opaque to infra-red radiation. Light enters a greenhouse and warms the soil. The soil warms the air by contact, and also emits heat as infra-red radiation, which is reflected back by the glass, further warming the air and preventing the soil from cooling off during the night. This process is metaphorically mapped onto the atmosphere. The carbon in coal and petroleum (“fossil fuels”) is converted to CO₂ that is released into the atmosphere; industrial activities and particularly large-scale agriculture also releases significant amounts of methane. CO₂, methane, and water vapor are all transparent to visible light but not to infrared, and therefore function much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. CO₂ is taken out of the air through several processes including absorption into water and conversion into organic compounds and oxygen by plants. As industrial use of fossil fuels has increased over the past few hundred years, the rate at which CO₂ is released into the atmosphere has increasingly exceeded the rate at which it is removed through photosynthesis and absorption, leading to a steadily increased concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, and a consequent increase in the “greenhouse” effect.

Virtually everyone uses conventional metaphors including more is up and more is big, both for the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere and for observed effects of CO₂; these as well as strength are used to characterize cause-effect relationships. vision and perception metaphors are also used by most commentators, e.g., “clear signs …” Conventional metaphors such as “high latitudes” (farther from the equator) are also used by virtually everyone. Most commentators use “impact” to emphasize the importance of effects.

Jim Hansen, NASA scientist

Dr. James Hansen is an astrophysicist who was employed by NASA in the 1980s, when he was given the assignment of conducting research on changes and potential changes in Earth’s climate as a result of the “greenhouse” effect. He was invited to testify about his research to Congress in 1988, then again in 2008. Between these appearances, he gave a number of public talks about his research, was ordered by the White House to make no further public statements on the topic, but after an article about it appeared in the New York Times the ban was lifted. In 2012 he gave a TED talk about his career and his research. In this section, I will examine Hansen’s use of stories and metaphors, with particular attention to story metaphors and metaphorical stories.

James Hansen’s 1988 testimony. In his 1988 testimony, Hansen began by showing that the previous 25 years had been unusually warm, showed that this series of unusually warm years was unlikely to have resulted simply from random fluctuations, then compared this trend to observed increases in the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere to show that the pattern of atmospheric warming matched the predictions of what would result from the “greenhouse effect.” Finally, he presented estimates of future extreme weather events such as prolonged heat waves to argue that the increased frequency of extreme heat waves due to the “greenhouse effect” will be sufficient to be noticed by the average person. He closed by emphasizing the need for more observational data from around the world, as well as improved global climate models.

In the 1988 testimony, Hansen relied primarily on conventional metaphors: “draw three main conclusions,” “high degree of confidence,” “magnitude of warming,” “level of detail.” He described a “clear tendency” for greater than average warming, which “seems to arise” because the ocean warms more slowly than land. The metaphors he used for emphasis were also conventional. He described a scenario based on no attempt at all to reduce CO₂ emissions as “business as usual” and a scenario based on strict emission controls as “Draconian” cuts. He referred both to the “effect” and the “impact” of the “greenhouse effect” on patterns of extreme weather.

“Business as usual” implies a metonymic story, in which a vehicle story about an organization that continues its established practices, by implication in spite of changing circumstances, is mapped onto a topic story about continuing established national energy policies in spite of new knowledge about the environmental effects. For those familiar with the story of the Athenian lawgiver, “Draconian” potentially imply a metaphorical story about the imposition of unusually harsh measures; however, it is unlikely that many in Hansen’s audience were familiar with the vehicle story. Both of these phrases are conventionally used as simple descriptive metaphors, as are most of the other metaphors in Hansen’s Reference Hansen1988 testimony. In general, Hansen’s Reference Hansen1988 testimony to Congress was delivered in measured tones, with only a handful of implicit story metaphors and no dramatic metaphorical stories. There are traces of advocacy in Hansen’s Reference Hansen1988 testimony, but the overall tone is restrained and objective, consistent with the ideal of objective scientific discourse.

Jim Hansen 20 years later – Hansen’s 2008 testimony. During the following 20 years, in response to accumulating evidence about the potential effects of “greenhouse gasses,” Hansen increasingly began to advocate for changes in energy and industrial policies that would reduce the amount of CO₂ released into the atmosphere. This shift toward an active advocacy is apparent in his use of dramatic story metaphors and metaphorical stories that saturate the 2008 testimony, in contrast to their almost total absence in 1988.

Hansen’s Reference Hansen2008 testimony began with a reference to the 1988 testimony, in which he described the “striking similarities” (to become abruptly aware is to receive a physical blow) between the two times. “Again a wide gap has developed between” what scientists and nonscientists understand (disagreement is physical separation). Analysis of scientific data “yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic …” (an unpleasant surprise is a shock). Hansen described crucial differences between the situation in 1988 and that in 2008, and concluded that the situation has become much more urgent. He then described several particular aspects of the global environment that are particularly under threat, followed by a discussion of the economic and political obstacles to effective policy response. He ended with a long section in which he advocated a detailed proposal for a change in energy policy to reduce use of carbon-based fuels. Although descriptions of the situation, descriptions of needed remedy, discussion of obstacles, and advocacy of a particular policy solution are intermixed in the speech, I will discuss them in order.

The Situation. Immediately after describing the “widening gap” between scientists and nonscientists, Hansen used two strong story metaphors to describe the difference between the situation in 1988 and the situation in 2008: “now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb.” As an adjective, slack refers to a rope or chain that is loose. As a grammatical metaphor converted to a noun “slack” identifies a condition of slackness, a condition in which there is no “force” (urgency) applied to either end of the rope. If the rope tethers a horse or other animal, this slackness is a resource that allows a certain freedom of movement, but if the animal runs to the end of the rope so that it becomes taut, the animal has used up the “slack,” and consequently is no longer free to move in any direction except sideways or backward. (Other possible vehicle stories might involve a mountain climber who “reaches the end of the rope” or other similar scenarios, activating different simulations, but the effects are likely to be quite similar.) As a metaphor here, the “rope” maps onto the amount of time available to respond to a risk of a destructive event before it actually happens (the “schedule”). In 1988 there was still ample time to respond (“slack in the rope”). The story of an animal (or mountain climber) that has reached the end of a rope and is no longer able to move maps onto a story about the situation in 2008, in which we have “used up” all the time and are may not have time to prevent the damaging event.

“Defuse the global warming time bomb” specifies what the dangerous situation is. “Bomb” is a conventional metaphor for a sudden and unexpected destructive event. As a grammatical metaphor, time converts a noun referring to duration or sequence to an adjective (also, implicitly, a verb) that describes how the bomb is made to explode – it explodes at a certain unpredictable time (noun ➔adjective) or it explodes as a result of a device that times it (verb). Combined with “bomb” this grammatical metaphor yields a conventional metaphor, “time bomb” that describes a situation in which a destructive event may happen at an unpredictable time, and implicitly activates a story about such a destructive event. As a grammatical metaphor, “defuse” converts a noun referring to a device that causes a bomb to explode (at a certain preset time in the case of a time bomb) to a verb meaning to remove a fuse or otherwise disable a bomb so that it will not explode. As a grammatical metaphor, “warming” converts an adjective referring to temperature to a verb referring to a process of increasing temperature, then to a noun (modified by “globe, transformed to the grammatical metaphor global”) referring to a process in which the temperature of the entire globe is increased.

The phrase blends all of these metaphors into a single metaphorical story; the vehicle story about disabling a time bomb so as to prevent a damaging explosion maps onto a topic story about the damage that may be caused by a rise in the temperature of the entire globe. “Defusing” then maps onto the adoption of policies that will prevent global warming. The sentence as a whole blends these two story metaphors into a single story about a person or group who has enough time to defuse (disable) a bomb but delays action (“uses up the slack”) until it is almost too late and the bomb is about to explode; this vehicle story maps onto the political delays in adopting policies to reduce the emission of “greenhouse gasses” and slow the pace of environmental warming. The contrast between these dramatic and frightening metaphorical stories and the calm, measured tones of the 1988 testimony is striking.

In the next paragraph, Hansen introduced two more dramatic metaphors to characterize the result if we fail to “constrain” the concentration of CO₂ “to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.” As a grammatical metaphor, tipping transforms a verb describing a motion in which an object moves to some angle away from a vertical position into an adjective and blends it with “point” to yield a metaphor vehicle literally describing a position at which, if the object tips any further, it will fall over entirely. The metaphor “tipping point,” popularized in a book by Malcolm Gladwell (Reference Gladwell2006), refers to the idea that complex systems will often remain “stable” as long as key variables remain within a certain range, but when one or more variables exceed a certain value, just as the object in the vehicle story falls over on its side, the system “collapses” into a totally different state. (Hansen used both “tipping point” and “collapse” again later in the speech.) As a grammatical metaphor “spiral” transforms a noun describing a three dimensional geometric figure into a verb expressing a process in which a system undergoes a repetitive series of ever more extreme changes, in this particular cases changes that lead the system “out of” the “space” within which it is possible to control it. This metaphor first maps a vehicle story about a physical object that spirals outward to the point that it can’t be controlled onto a topic story about a system – in this case the Earth’s climate system – that undergoes a series of increasingly extreme changes (e.g., warm to cold to even warmer to even colder). All of these metaphors are blended into a single vehicle story about an object that tips so far that it becomes unstable, falls over in a way that causes another object to become unstable and move in an uncontrollable spiral; this blended vehicle story maps onto a story about Earth’s climate system changing in a complex and uncontrollable series of processes.

A little later in the speech Hansen asked, “What is at stake,” a conventional metaphor with the potential to activate a story about gambling with something of value and maps it onto an implied topic story about “gambling with the future of Earth.” He admits that the atmospheric warming to date has been so slight that it “seems almost innocuous,” then blends several metaphorical stories and story metaphors to explain why it is not innocuous.

“In the pipeline” is a conventional metaphor based on an implied story about a liquid such as oil or water that is certain to arrive soon because it has already started. The progress of the substance has been “delayed” by “inertia,” the tendency of objects or substances at rest to remain at rest. “Pipeline” maps onto the “greenhouse effect” process; “inertia” maps onto the tendency of a large body of water such as an ocean to maintain a relatively constant temperature and chemical composition. The vehicle story about a substance moving through a pipeline toward speaker and audience maps onto a topic story about a process of atmospheric warming that has already begun. By including “in-the-pipeline” and “perfect storm” within quotation marks Hansen drew attention to their metaphoricity. This use of a “tuning device” to mark these phrases as metaphorical may have increased the probability that they would be recognized as deliberate (Steen, Reference Steen2015); it may also have increased cognitive processing attention to the entire passage.

Following this, Hansen repeated the “tipping point” story analyzed above, then referred to “elements of a perfect storm.” “Perfect storm” entered popular culture in a book by Sebastian Junger (Reference Junger1997) about a powerful and destructive 1991 Halloween nor’easter that resulted from what meteorologist Bob Case described as “the perfect situation” to generate a powerful storm, a confluence of a low-pressure system, a high-pressure system, and a large mass of tropical moisture. The vehicle story here maps onto a topic story about how the confluence of factors, including increased levels of CO₂, methane released by melting permafrost and reduced albedo due to receding glaciers, will lead to rapid atmospheric warming. The use here can be interpreted as both metaphorical and metonymic, inasmuch as extremely violent storms are expected to result from this process. “Amplifying feedbacks” potentially activates a vehicle story about sound engineering in which a microphone is exposed to a loudspeaker, such that the microphone picks up sound waves and “feeds them back into” the amplifier, creating a closed circuit that rapidly increases the sound volume and can cause serious damage both to the sound equipment and to auditors’ eardrums. This maps onto a topic story about how the effects of increased concentrations of “greenhouse gasses” such as melting permafrost and releasing methane can lead to further concentrations of “greenhouse gasses” and further warming that causes serious damage to the climate system. “Spur,” of course, refers to the use of a sharp object attached to a rider’s boot that is used to stimulate a horse to run faster; this maps onto a topic story about abruptly accelerating the process of environmental warming.

The remedy. Hansen used several metaphors based on journey to describe how the worst effects of climate change can be averted. He claimed that “a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment is, barely, still possible. It requires a transformative change of direction in Washington in the next year.” The organism metaphors implied by “yield” and “healthier environment” appeared again when Hansen proposed a carbon tax as a way to “wean us off fossil fuel addiction.” “Addiction” has become a conventional metaphor for a range of activities, including television (see Chapter 11). Later in the speech, Hansen asserted, “We must move beyond fossil fuels eventually. Solution of the climate problem requires that we move to carbon-free energy promptly.” He later said, “Building code and vehicle efficiency requirements must be improved and put on a path toward carbon neutrality” (journey).

Obstacles. Beginning early in the speech, Hansen assured listeners that the needed changes are “clear” (knowing is seeing). However, “the changes have been blocked by special interests, focused on short-term profits, who hold sway in Washington and other capitals.” “Blocked” continues reform is a journey and “focused” applies the vision metaphor to the topic of purpose. “Special interests” has become a conventional metonym for groups of people who advocate policies that benefit themselves even if they are bad for everyone else. (These tropes are repeated several times during the speech.) Similarly, “hold sway” is a conventional metaphor for dominating a debate over policy decisions. Later in the speech he expressed the same idea with an even stronger metaphorical story, asserting that “the fossil-industry maintains its strangle-hold on Washington via demagoguery,” helped by “swarms of high-priced lobbyists in alligator shoes,” a common colloquial metonym suggesting highly paid.

Midway through the speech, Hansen compared fossil fuel companies to tobacco companies during the 1960s and 1970s, who (falsely) “discredited the smoking-cancer link.” Because CEOs of fossil energy companies pursue “short-term profits” even though they “know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of continued business as usual,” they “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.” However, “conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children.” Here the vehicle story of a horse or team of horses that is running out of control is mapped onto the topic story about environmental warming.

Finally, continuing the animal metaphor, Hansen advocated that “Americans turn out to pasture the most brontosaurian congressmen.” The vehicle story of a racehorse who, at the end of its racing career, is sent to spend the rest of its life in a pasture is mapped onto a topic story of terminating congressmen’s careers. “Brontosaurian” is simply a variation on “dinosaur,” a conventional hyperbolic metaphor for someone who is ignorant about current science (“out of date”) and advocates discredited ideas and policies. The blend of these two metaphors yields a metaphorical story about an animal that is both (extremely) archaic and no longer able to perform its normal functions that is placed in a locale where it is well-fed and out of the way; it maps onto a topic story about voting politicians out of office.

Jim Hansen’s TED talk. Hansen’s TED talk covered much the same ground as his 2008 testimony, and used many of the same metaphors. However, he introduced a few new metaphors, which I will explain in this section. The speech was structured around a rhetorical question, posed at the beginning and answered at the end of the speech: “What do I know that would cause me, a reticent, Midwestern scientist, to get myself arrested in front of the White House protesting?” After posing this question (posed in reference to a dramatic literal story) he gave a brief history of his career, up to his first (1988) testimony. He told a brief hypothetical story about his worry that his grandchildren might criticize him in the future for failing to speak out about what he knows, then explained the scientific evidence for human contributions to climate change, with a brief mention of climate change deniers, and closed with a summary of the action that is needed and the costs associated with delay.

Describing the “greenhouse effect,” Hansen explained that “gasses such as CO₂ absorb heat, thus acting like a blanket warming Earth’s surface”; later he compared adding CO₂ to the atmosphere to “throwing another blanket on the bed.” The vehicle story refers to adding blankets to a bed in order to stay warm; this vehicle is more familiar than “greenhouse,” although it is also less accurate (blankets only limit the conduction of heat and retain warmth already underneath). He then repeated the “noise level” metaphor explained in the previous section. He repeats the “energy balance / imbalance” metaphor several times.

In order to explain how much total energy is added to the atmosphere because of the imbalance between energy entering and energy leaving the atmosphere, Hansen compared it to “exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year.” By itself this is an odd comparison, since few nonphysicists have a clear idea how much energy is released by an atomic bomb. However, as a vehicle story, “exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day” has potentially terrifying implications. Only the heat from the bombs can be mapped onto the topic story, of course, but the other, irrelevant attributes of an atomic bomb, in particular the destructive force of the blast itself and the radioactivity, are the most salient parts of the Hiroshima vehicle story, and they add emotional intensity to the metaphor.

Another rhetorical question about his own involvement in the controversy introduced another set of metaphorical stories: “How did I get dragged deeper and deeper into an attempt to communicate, giving talks in 10 countries, getting arrested, burning up the vacation time that I had accumulated over 30 years?” First we have a vehicle story about Hansen being dragged into a deep pit, or perhaps into deep water, which maps onto the topic story of his being convinced to travel and give so many talks. Then we have a vehicle story about burning a substance of value; this is mapped onto a topic story of using his vacation time to give lectures. This is meshed with a story about some substance (such as snow) accumulating over a long period of time, that maps onto the story of adding to a record of earned vacation time. All three of these stories are blended into a single complex vehicle story that maps onto the topic story about Hansen’s political activism.

Finally, after additional uses of the “tipping point” and “spiraling out of control” metaphors, Hansen introduced another apocalyptic metaphorical story based on a vehicle story about a giant asteroid:

“Impact” is used by everyone who discusses policy issues, but here it is echoed by and interacts with the “giant asteroid” vehicle story in a way that lends substance and intensity to both. This interaction greatly intensifies the quality of careless irresponsibility implied by second phrase, “taking no action to divert the asteroid.” For those who follow science news, the metaphor vehicle will gain greater power from recent discussion of the risk from the damage that could be caused by future asteroid strikes and the need to work out measures to detect and divert dangerously large objects that are on a collision course with Earth.

Summary. Each of these speeches responded to a different situation, a different social and political context. In the first speech, Hansen used few metaphors, and the metaphors he used tended to be conventional and static, with limited potential to activate dramatic stories. The 2008 testimony was almost the exact opposite: It is filled with dramatic and frightening metaphorical stories. He also used many dramatic story metaphors, lexical metaphors with the potential to activate metaphorical stories, which I did not discuss in detail. The 2008 speech in particular illustrates the tendency, discussed by Hulme (Reference Hulme2009), for scientists who are particularly concerned about an issue such as climate change to respond to apparent public (and policy makers’) indifference by exaggerating and dramatizing the threat. In addition to alarming “doomsday” metaphors like “asteroid” and “Hiroshima atomic bomb,” some scientists also distort the time scale, speaking and writing about, for example, large sea level rises that may happen in a few hundred years as if they are likely to happen within a few decades. Other scientists worry that this kind of exaggerated rhetoric may undermine credibility and inadvertently support the arguments of those who deny the scientific evidence entirely.

Many of Hansen’s metaphors and metaphorical stories express a strong disdain for members of the audience who might disagree with him (“turn out to pasture,” “brontosaurian”), reinforced by accusations that politicians who fail to accept and act on the evidence for human contributions to climate change are merely responding to the self-interested influence of energy company executives. Given the story he told about his career in the TED talk, it appears that between 1988 and 2008 Hansen grew cynical and pessimistic about the prospects for the kind of action he regards as necessary; this is reflected in the quality of the metaphors he used. Whether it is a useful rhetorical strategy, I will take up again at the end of this chapter.

Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican (Oklahoma) – Speech before the Senate, September 25, 2006

One of the leading critics of attempts to address concerns about potential climate change through political action and changes in energy policy is Senator Jim Inhofe, Republican from the oil-producing state of Oklahoma. In this section, I will discuss one of his speeches on the topic, delivered before the U.S. Senate on September 25, 2006. In this speech, Inhofe focused primarily on a critique of media coverage, but he also provided a critique and rebuttal to the claims of scientists like Jim Hansen, accompanied by a personal criticism of Hansen himself.

Inhofe began the speech with a history of media coverage of climate during the previous century, then reviewed some of the most important evidence offered in support of the global warming hypothesis. He pointed out that the predictions of catastrophic levels of warming, melting of polar ice caps, and sea level rises are based on computerized models that are themselves based on (necessarily) simplifying assumptions and incomplete data. He cited several scientists and groups of scientists who have disputed the validity of the climate models; he also cited research that has discredited some of the specific evidence that seems to support the global warming hypothesis. He devoted several paragraphs to a critique of the potential economic consequences of overreacting to the predictions of catastrophic climate change, beginning with the observation that industrialization has produced the greatest increase in human welfare in history, but there are still millions of people in poverty. He then cited a group of Nobel Prize–winning economists who ranked climate change much lower than a long list of other spending priorities. Finally he returned to his critique of the media, including a detailed criticism of both Al Gore and Jim Hansen.

Critique of media coverage. Inhofe began with a critique of media coverage of the climate, which “has alternated between global cooling and warming scares during four separate and sometimes overlapping time periods.” The grammatical metaphor “scares” transforms a verb meaning to induce fright into a noun designating media coverage as an entity that induces fright; “between” and “overlapping” blends this metaphor with time is space and locates the fright-inducing entity in space/time. In the following sentence, Inhofe told us that “from 1895 until the 1930s the media peddled a coming ice age.” “Peddle” is colloquially used as a belittling metaphor; it potentially activates a vehicle story of a person going door to door (or standing on the street) trying to sell some minor consumer product. Applied to the topic story of media reporting on scientists’ speculations about the possibility of a long-range cooling trend, it implies a lack of seriousness and objectivity. This implication is reinforced by “fourth estate’s fourth attempt to promote opposing climate change fears” and “advocates of alarmism have grown increasingly desperate” immediately following. “Promote … fears” activates a story quite different from warn of risks and “advocates of alarmism” activates a story quite different from people concerned about potential risks.

Inhofe characterized a letter from the vice president of London’s Royal Society to the media as a “chilling” letter “encouraging them to stifle the voices of scientists skeptical of climate alarmism.” Finally, Inhofe claimed that the media have “served up a parade of environmental alarmism.” “Alarmism” (which Inhofe used repeatedly) implies a story in which people attempt to arouse fear in others when there is in fact nothing to be afraid of. “Stifle” implies physical violence (argument is war). “Parade” is a vehicle referring to a story about a long line of entities, usually costumed and/or performing in some way; mapped onto a story about scientists warning about the potential effects of increased levels of CO₂ it implies a distracting “performance” that need not be taken seriously. “Served up” is a conventional metaphor for repetitive and tiresome rhetoric.

Disputing the evidence. Inhofe began his critique of evidence for the “greenhouse effect” with the “hockey stick” graph, initially produced by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (Reference Mann, Bradley and Hughes1999) by combining recent measured (mean global) temperatures with estimates based on tree rings and other evidence from earlier periods. To smooth out fluctuations in the data, they produced a 30-year moving average, which shows a slowly declining mean global temperature from the year 1000 to 1900 (the “shaft” of the “hockey stick”), when the moving average began a rapid upward movement (the “blade”). Inhofe claimed that “the ‘hockey stick’ was completely and thoroughly broken once and for all in 2006. Several years ago, two Canadian researchers tore apart the statistical foundation for the hockey stick.”

The vehicle story in the first sentence implies a piece of equipment rendered totally useless; it maps onto a topic story about a series of papers that claimed to have found fatal flaws in the analysis used by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes (McIntyre & McKitrick, Reference McIntyre and McKitrick2003; Soon & Baliunas, Reference Soon and Baliunas2003). The second sentence combines a structure metaphor with the hockey stick visual metaphor) and a vehicle story about the destruction of a structure; it maps onto a story about two independent research studies that claimed to refute Mann, Bradley, and Hughes’s findings. In one, Soon and Baliunas (Reference Soon and Baliunas2003) claimed to have found evidence that mean temperatures were greater during the medieval warming period than in the 20th century. In another, McIntyre and McKitrick (Reference McIntyre and McKitrick2003) disputed the data used by Mann, Bradley, and Hughes. Inhofe did not mention that the Soon and Baliunas paper was immediately criticized by other scientists and its findings widely dismissed. McIntyre and McKitrick’s paper also aroused considerable controversy, but several other replications have supported Mann, Bradley, and Hughes’s method and findings; other researchers have also found parallel patterns using different data (e.g., Huang, Pollack, & Shen, Reference Huang, Pollack and Shen2008; Juckes et al., Reference Juckes, Allen, Briffa, Esper, Hegerl, Moberg, Osborn and Weber2007; Kaufman et al., Reference Kaufman, Schneider, McKay, Ammann, Bradley, Briffa, Miller, Otto-Bliesner, Overpeck and Vinther2009; and Lee, Zwiers, & Tsao, Reference Lee, Zwiers and Tsao2008). In sum, Inhofe’s criticism of Mann et al. was consistent with some of the information available at the time, but it was stated in exaggerated, absolute terms that betray a lack of understanding of scientific process – and he failed to note the controversies surrounding the evidence he used.

In several other places Inhofe implied or stated that scientists who study climate change ignore past fluctuations in global temperatures, e.g., “Climate alarmists have been attempting to erase the inconvenient Medieval Warm Period from the Earth’s climate history for at least a decade.” The vehicle is a story about someone erasing a passage from a history book; it maps onto a story about people who are concerned about climate change trying to get other people to ignore a set of historical facts. However, an examination of the controversy over the Mann, Bradley, and Hughes research shows that these researchers included the best data they had from the “Medieval Warm Period,” and later researchers using better data did not find evidence that it was warmer then than during the 20th century.

Inhofe cited a number of scientists who have expressed disagreement with part or all of the climate change forecasts, most notably a 2006 open letter from Ian Clark and 60 other prominent scientists to the Canadian prime minister in which they recommend that he convene a national discussion of the issue. Clark et al. claimed, “If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.” However, the letter did not provide any details about “what we know today.”

A little later, Inhofe stated:

“Pounded … into” suggests a vehicle story of a muscular person with a sledgehammer driving a large stake into the ground, or perhaps a wedge into a block of wood; “mantra” activates a story of repeating a phrase over and over as a way of silencing a stream of thought. Blended with each other and with the “alarmist” metaphor previously discussed, they map onto a story of climate scientists attempting to convince others to become fearful about the damaging effects of “greenhouse gasses” and silence any other thoughts by repeating the same phrases over and over again with increasing emphasis. “The greatest climate threat we face” implies a story in which computer models somehow create severe damage or injury. He later claimed that these threatening models are “installed on the hard drives of the publicity and grant seeking climate modelers.” The effect is simultaneously to impugn the motives of the climate scientists who warn of the danger of climate change and imply that these warnings are more dangerous than any of the effects they are warning us about.

Priorities. In several places Inhofe criticized the economic priorities implied by the proposal (in the Kyoto Protocol) to restrict emission of “greenhouse gasses” from the developing world as well as from the developed world: “The Kyoto Protocol is a lot of economic pain for no climate gain.” He claims that the emission reduction targets are primarily symbolism, which “may be hiding a dark side” – the effect on poor people in the developing world who would be deprived of the advantages of access to clean water and labor-saving energy resources. “Dark side” can be interpreted in terms of either knowledge is light or good is light. “Hiding” implies knowing is seeing; the vehicle story of concealing the fact that an object is dark on one side maps onto a topic story of lying or keeping silent about known adverse effects of a policy, in this case known adverse effects on poor people in developing countries – a metaphorical story that implies bad faith on the part of climate scientists who favor implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.

A little later in the speech, Inhofe described a 2004 meeting of Nobel Prize–winning economists (the “Copenhagen Consensus”) that organized the spending targets listed by the United Nations in a priority list, based on the potential return on investment for each proposal. Inhofe notes that they “placed global warming at the bottom of the list in terms of our planet’s priorities,” below “combating disease, stopping malaria, securing clean water, and building infrastructure to help lift the developing nations out of poverty.” Inhofe overlooked the following excerpt from the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus report:

In brief, the reason the committee ranked addressing global warming at the bottom of the list is that the proposal put before them was judged to be too costly for the prospective benefit, not because they considered the issue unimportant.

Back to the critique of media and media figures. Toward the end of the speech, Inhofe repeated the series of quotations from major newspapers and magazines, dating back to the late 19th century, in which the media predicted climate disasters – of opposite valence. “By the 1930s, the media took a break from reporting on the coming ice age and instead switched gears to promoting global warming.” “Took a break from” implies a story in which a person is working on an extended project and pauses for rest before resuming work; mapped onto the topic it implies that the media regarded reporting about an impending disaster (as opposed to reporting on what climate scientists have to say) as their primary job; this interpretation is reinforced by “promoting,” which maps public relations practices onto media reporting. “Switched gears” maps a story about driving a motor vehicle onto the topic story of news reporting.

Focusing his attention on Jim Hansen, Inhofe noted that a 60 Minutes report on climate change “made no mention of Hansen’s partisan ties to former Democrat Vice President Al Gore,” the grant Hansen received “from the left-wing Heinz Foundation” or the fact that Hansen later endorsed John Kerry for president. “So it appears that the media makes a distinction between oil money and ketchup money.” This bit of word play is an apparent reference to criticisms of the lobbying and political contributions by representatives of the petroleum industry. Finally he noted that “Hansen appeared to concede in a 2003 issue of Natural Science that the use of ‘extreme scenarios’ to dramatize climate change ‘may have been appropriate at one time’ to drive the public’s attention to the issue.”

Inhofe used several other dramatic story metaphors and metaphorical stories in his critique of media coverage. “As the dog days of August rolled in, the American people were once again hit with more hot hype regarding global warming, this time from The New York Times op-ed pages.” It isn’t clear whether he meant that the hype was “hot” or that the Times coverage was hyping stories about hot weather – which is consistent with “dog days of August” that “rolled in” (time is motion through space). Toward the end of the speech the quotes “a British group called the Institute for Public Policy Research … a left leaning group” who characterized exaggerated reports of potential negative results of climate change as “climate porn” then notes with approval that “the media’s addiction to so-called ‘climate porn’ has failed to seduce many Americans.” “Climate porn” suggests both that climate reporting is irresponsible and exaggerated in a way similar to the way pornography exaggerates sexual behavior and that exaggerated reports of climate change effects appeal to a prurient impulse similar to sexual voyeurism. “Addiction to” implies a story about drug addicts who are so dependent on a drug that they will do anything to secure more of it, and maps it onto the news media’s need for dramatic stories. “Failed to seduce” reinforces the sexual story implied by “porn,” activates a story about how pornography leads to sexual arousal and maps it onto readers’ responses to climate change stories – they are not aroused by them.

Summary. Senator Inhofe’s speech was presented primarily as a criticism of news media coverage of climate research and as a refutation of the evidence produced by scientists like Jim Hansen to support the claim that human activities have led to a radical increase in the concentration of “greenhouse gasses” in the atmosphere and that this will lead to atmospheric warming and climate change. Some of the evidence he produced has been discredited, and he presented some of it in a clearly distorted way. Like Hansen in his 2008 testimony to congress and his TED talk, Inhofe used a series of frightening metaphorical stories, enhanced by grammatical metaphors, but he used them primarily to discredit the metaphorical stories used by Hansen and others concerned about climate change, while intensifying simulation of a different set of catastrophic outcomes predicted to result from the actions advocated by Hansen.

Inhofe’s use of phrases like “left-leaning” and his treatment of Jim Hansen’s political relationship with Al Gore and John Kerry, as well as his reliance on conservative and business-oriented media (like Bloomberg News) is likely to reinforce the political polarization over this question, in which people who believe that the evidence supports the conclusion that increased concentration of “greenhouse gasses” will lead to atmospheric warming and eventually to ecological crises are called “climate change promoters” and people who are not convinced by the available evidence are called “climate change deniers.” I will return to this issue later in this chapter.

Barack Obama’s 2013 Address at Georgetown University

In June 2013 President Obama gave a major address on climate change at Georgetown University. He began and ended the speech with a literal story about the Apollo 8 lunar orbit mission; this story underscores the “fragility” of Earth, and frames the issue simultaneously in terms of American scientific prowess and shared religious heritage (the astronauts read from the book of Genesis as they looked back on Earth from moon orbit on Christmas Eve). Within the body of the speech he framed the topic of climate change in terms of three contrasts, peace / violence, active / passive, and past Republican bipartisan cooperation / present Republican partisanship (Ritchie & Thomas, Reference Ritchie and Thomas2015). Like Obama’s speech on race relations (Chapter 9), this speech is also laced with metaphors, drawn primarily from journey / motion, space / container, war, object and person; he also drew on construction, business, sports, and vision.

Immediately after the Apollo 8 story, Obama summarized recent changes in the atmosphere using a combination of dramatic metaphors, e.g., “worry that rising levels (more is up) might someday disrupt the fragile balance (climate is an unstable object; equilibrium is a breakable object) that makes our planet so hospitable (humans are guests … Science … tells us (personification) that our planet is changing in ways that will have profound impacts … (an effect is a blow) … The potential impacts go beyond (journey, motion) rising sea levels.” He linked these “impacts” first to the recent storm-surge flooding in New York City, then to droughts that parched and subsequent heavy rains that drenched Midwest farms, wildfires that scorched a large area of the West, and “a heat wave in Alaska” that “shot temperatures into the 90s” (war). He continued with several more examples of recent weather-related disaster, then referred to recent arguments over whether the evidence for human contributions to climate change is sufficient to justify a potentially quite expensive response and asserted that “Ninety-seven percent of scientists, including … some who originally disputed the data, have … acknowledged the planet is warming and human activity is contributing to it.”

Shifting to his action plan, Obama asserted “I refuse to condemn your generation and future generations to a planet that’s beyond fixing.” “A planet that’s beyond fixing” blends a metaphor that presents Earth as an object (machine or structure) in need of repair with a journey metaphor to produce a story metaphor mapping onto a topic story about reducing or reversing the effects of climate change. “I refuse to condemn your generation to a planet” implies a vehicle story in which a judge sentences a group of people to exile in a remote location; the blend of these two vehicle stories produces a topic story in which Obama is a judge being asked to sentence an entire group of people to the punishment of living in an environment that is subject to irreparable damage from climate change.

Obama then picked up the war metaphor again: “I’m here to enlist your generation’s help … in the fight against climate change.” These metaphors activate a vehicle story about war (in which the United States is a leader) and maps it onto Obama’s proposed environmental policies. He then blended two new metaphors into a different story metaphor: “This plan builds on progress that we’ve already made. Last year, I took office. … And we rolled up our sleeves and we got to work.” “Builds on” and “rolled up our sleeves … and got to work” activate a story about a group of workers on a construction project; “progress” activates a journey metaphor. The blended vehicle story maps onto a topic story about the Obama administration’s attempts to convince Congress to pass needed environmental legislation. The following passage details some results of these efforts, and sums them up with another series of metaphors: “These advances [motion] have grown our economy [organism], they’ve created new jobs [object], they can’t be shipped overseas [motion] – and, by the way, they’ve also helped drive [force] our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in [more is up, less is down] nearly 20 years.”

Obama then turned his attention to the political obstacles to action: “But this is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock. It demands our attention now.” Here climate change is presented as a person who “challenges” the nation; then the challenge is presented as person who is moving forward in spite of the “gridlock” (a traffic condition in which no vehicles are able to move in any direction – accomplishment is motion) and “demands” attention. All of this is consistent with “climate change is the enemy,” a war metaphor explicitly picked up again at the end of this passage: “a plan to lead the world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate.” At this point Obama followed up on the “gridlock” metaphor by relating a story about a previous time, 43 years earlier, when Congress passed the Clean Air Act almost unanimously and it was signed by a Republican president, contrasted the bipartisan spirit of that time with the partisanship of the present time, and called on the present Congress to act in a similar bipartisan way.

In further follow-up, Obama repeated several objections to new environmental regulations that “you’ll hear from the special interests and their allies in Congress.” Everyone involved in this discussion uses “special interests” to describe those who disagree with them, with the implication that their opposition is based solely on (usually financial) self-interest. Obama used it several times in this speech. “Allies in Congress” implies the argument is war metaphor, with “special interests” as the “enemy.” Many of the expected objections are expressed as story metaphors (i.e., they imply metaphorical stories): “this will kill jobs and crush the economy, and basically end American free enterprise.” “At the time when we passed the Clean Air Act to try to get rid of some of this smog, some of the same doomsayers were saying new pollution standards will decimate the auto industry. … they said our electricity bills would go up, the lights would go off, businesses around the country would suffer – I quote – ‘a quiet death’ … When we phased out CFCs … it didn’t kill off refrigerators or air conditioners or deodorant.” Each of these metaphor vehicles activates a vehicle story about death and destruction – consistent with a war metaphor, but with environmental regulations rather than pollution as the “enemy.” As he listed these predictions that were made about previous environmental regulations, Obama refuted each one, pointing out that each set of regulations had the intended effect (“Our air got cleaner … we cut acid rain dramatically … American chemists came up with substitutes … American workers and businesses figured out how to do it better without harming the environment as much”).

Obama named companies who were taking action to reduce carbon emissions and change to renewable energy, and mentioned a Climate Declaration in which a large group of businesses called “action on climate change ‘one of the great economic opportunities of the 21st century,’” and concluded that “A low-carbon, clean energy economy can be an engine of growth for decades to come. And I want America to build that engine. I want America to build that future.” “Growth” implies an economic metaphor based on financial amount is physical size; this passage further embeds it in a metaphorical story based on journey, in which “low-carbon energy sources” is represented as an “engine, pulling the economy forward on its journey.” This is further embedded in a metaphorical story based on construction in which the United States “builds” the “engine of growth.”

A few paragraphs later, Obama repeated the war metaphor: “last year, Republican governors in Kansas and Oklahoma and Iowa – Iowa, by the way, a state that harnesses almost twenty-five percent of its electricity from the wind – helped us in the fight to extend tax credits for wind energy manufacturers and producers. Tens of thousands good jobs were on the line, and those jobs were worth the fight.” “Harness” is an organic metaphor (“wind is a team of horses”) and “extend” a space metaphor; otherwise the metaphors and metaphorical stories in this section are all based on politics is war. After repeating the war metaphor, Obama introduced a metaphorical story based on sports: “countries like China and Germany are going all in in the race for clean energy. … I want America to win that race, but we can’t win it if we’re not in it.” Another metaphorical story based on sports comes a few paragraphs later, blended with a container metaphor for investment: “We’ll also encourage private capital to get off the sidelines and get into these energy-saving investments.”

After describing his proposal for new energy efficiency standards, Obama admitted that they “don’t sound all that sexy” (excitement is sex), then compared the proposal to “planting 7.6 billion trees and letting them grow for ten years – all while doing the dishes.” This metaphorical story contrasts a simple routine domestic chore with a common scheme for offsetting carbon fuel use by planting trees – expanded by a very large factor. He then returned to another metaphorical story based on journey / motion, preceded by a conventional dirty / clean metaphor for pollution: “So using less dirty energy, transitioning to cleaner sources of energy, wasting less energy through our economy is where we need to go. And this plan will get us there faster. But I want to be honest – this will not get us there overnight.” After explaining that “even if we Americans do our part, the planet will slowly keep warming for some time to come,” he used another metaphorical story reinforcing the journey metaphor: “It’s like tapping the brakes of a car before you come to a complete stop and then can shift into reverse. It’s going to take time for carbon emissions to stabilize.”

Obama used several other journey / motion metaphors. After acknowledging the special needs of developing countries, he proposed that we need to “help more countries skip past the dirty phase of development.” Contrasting current attitudes of congressional Republicans with past Republican leaders, he pointed out, “It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans led the way on new and innovative policies.” Referring to Gina McCarthy, who he had nominated to head the EPA, he said, “She’s being held up in the Senate. She’s been held up for months, forced to jump through hoops” (treated like a trained circus animal).

Near the end of the speech, Obama used three more metaphorical stories to criticize people who disregard or dispute the evidence that human activities have contributed substantial to the increase in “greenhouse gasses” like CO₂ and thus have contributed to the growing risk of climate change: “Nobody has a monopoly on what is a very hard problem, but I don’t have much patience for anyone who denies that this challenge is real. We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society.” “Flat Earth Society” is based on a vehicle story about a group of people who deny that the Earth is a globe; it idiomatically maps onto any group of people who resist the progress of science or deny established knowledge. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.” “Sticking your head in the sand” activates a common folk belief that ostriches, when they perceive something dangerous, don’t run away but just hide from it by burying their heads in the sand; this has become an idiomatic story metaphor for any situation in which someone ignores a threat that could have been averted. “The coming storm” activates a story about seeing signs such as a mass of clouds that indicate that there will soon be a serious storm; this is a common idiomatic story metaphor mapping onto any situation in which serious trouble seems likely. The two stories blend into a single metaphorical story about ignoring the signs of trouble by “looking away.” These two metaphorical stories together convey a belittling and dismissive, even contemptuous attitude toward “climate change deniers,” which is summed up in a final metaphorical story: “And ultimately, we will be judged as a people, and as a society, and as a country on where we go from here,” which continues the journey metaphor used throughout the speech, and integrates it into a story about being “judged.”

At the end of the speech, Obama returned to the war metaphor: “this is the fight America can, and will, lead in the 21st century. And I’m convinced this is a fight that America must lead. But it will require all of us to do our part.” “Do our part” fits readily into a number of very different metaphorical stories, but in a story about the duty to “lead a fight” it suggests a total mobilization of workers as well as soldiers. Then, just before returning to the Apollo 8 story, he wrapped up with another series of metaphorical stories: “The challenge we must accept will not reward us with a clear moment of victory. There’s no gathering army to defeat. There’s no peace treaty to sign.” Each of these phrases indexes a different feature of the standard war metaphorical story, which begins with the gathering of an enemy army, which is defeated in a way that yields a “clear” victory and leads to signing a peace treaty. Each of these standard features is negated, leaving an implicit contrast with the “war against climate change,” in which everything will be ambiguous and uncertain, and with no obvious completion. All of this explains why, in contrast to a literal war in which the gathering enemy army and hope of a clear victory to maintain morale, in this case “the politics will be tough.”

Discussion. In addition to the metaphorical stories and story metaphors described in the foregoing, Obama used a series of tricolons and alliterative phrases both to describe the recent and forecasted effects of climate change and to rally support for his policies. Forests and farms are being parched, drenched, and scorched. Crops are wilted one year, washed away the next. Industries pump and dump carbon pollution into the air. Those in power “are elected not just to serve as custodians of the present, but as caretakers of the future.” Americans do not “look backward”; we “look forward.” We do not “fear what the future holds; we shape it.” Citizens are urged to “stand up,” “speak up,” and “compel action” (Ritchie & Thomas, Reference Ritchie and Thomas2015).

Repeatedly in this speech, Obama called for an end to partisanship and the resumption of the kind of bipartisan approach to environmental issues that led to passage of several other environmental protection laws during the late twentieth century. However, his contrast between “Republicans then” and “Republicans now,” along with the implications of several of his metaphorical stories, seem more likely to aggravate the political polarization than to reduce it (Ritchie & Thomas, Reference Ritchie and Thomas2015).

Conclusions

There is growing evidence that human activities, particularly the use of carbon-based fuels for industry and transportation, as well as industrialized agriculture, are causing an increase in concentrations of CO₂ and other “greenhouse gasses” in the atmosphere, and that these changes are likely to lead to a significant increase in global temperatures accompanied by rising sea levels and other disruptive changes to the environment. The climate systems involved in these predicted effects are complex and poorly understood, and the economic stakes for several industrial sectors are quite high; the result is that both proposed policy responses and the underlying science itself have become the focus of intense political debate.

Participants in the debate, including both scientists and politicians, have used both conventional metaphors and metaphorical stories. As the analysis of Jim Hansen’s series of speeches on the topic demonstrates, as the intensity of the debate has increased, the use of dynamic and dramatic metaphors has also increased, and many of these seem more likely to increase than to ameliorate the polarization. In his 2008 speech Jim Hansen used many metaphors of violence when talking about human contributions to climate change (“time bomb,” “giant asteroid,” “Hiroshima bombs,” “perfect storm”) in contrast to the much milder, even peaceable metaphors he used to discuss his proposals for ameliorating these effects (“a path yielding energy independence and a healthier environment,” “wean us off fossil fuel addiction,” “put on a path toward carbon neutrality”).

Obama referred to people who dispute the scientific evidence for the “greenhouse effect” as the “Flat Earth Society” and implicitly accused them of “sticking their heads in the sand.” Using a common populist metonym, Hansen referred to “swarms of high-priced lobbyists in alligator shoes” who are working to discredit scientific evidence of climate change. Jim Inhofe used belittling story metaphors such as “peddle,” “fear-mongering,” “parade,” and “climate porn.” Advocates for both positions use metaphors like “addiction” and “special interests” to impugn the motives of others.

Citing Ritchie and Cameron (Reference Ritchie and Cameron2014), Ritchie and Thomas (Reference Ritchie and Thomas2015) observe that empathy requires both the willingness and the ability to “enter into the world of the Other,” which requires as a precondition a respect for the beliefs and concerns of the Other. As Ritchie and Thomas observed about President Obama’s belittling comparison of earlier Republicans’ bipartisan cooperation on environmental issues and current Republicans’ obstructionism, this kind of amplified rhetoric undermines rather than builds the conditions for empathy. President Obama’s ironic, even sarcastic contrast between “Republicans then” and “Republicans now,” and the shift in tone between Hansen’s Reference Hansen1988 and Reference Hansen2008 testimony both suggest that they have simply given up on the attempt to achieve empathetic understanding of the Republican Other, much less convince them. At the other end of the political spectrum, Inhofe also relied heavily on belittling and sarcastic story metaphors to discredit the advocates of policy action to address the rapid buildup of “greenhouse” gasses in the atmosphere, while presenting a distorted account of evidence against human contributions to climate change. Based on these samples of recent rhetoric on the topic, the prospect for an open and candid discussion of how to balance the potential damaging effects of “greenhouse” gas emissions with the economic needs of the world population do not seem very promising.

Inhofe’s criticism of climate science is consistent with a recent and growing concern about public distrust of science (Gauchat, Reference Gauchat2012). Some observers (e.g., Mooney, Reference Mooney2005; Reference Mooney2012) have claimed to identify a psychological difference between liberals and conservatives, claiming that conservatives are more likely than liberals to distrust and reject scientific findings that contradict their belief systems. However, Nisbet, Cooper, and Garrett (Reference Nisbet, Cooper and Garrett2015) show that both liberals and conservatives tend to engage in “motivated reasoning” (Kunda, Reference Kunda1990), discredit and even distort scientific findings that contradict their worldviews. The primary difference is that conservatives are more likely to reject science that focuses on environmental and health impacts of social and economic activities; liberals are more likely to reject science that focuses on industrial production. Both liberals and conservatives tend to resist or ignore messages that challenge deeply held beliefs and values. With respect to climate science in particular, conservatives have been faced with a steady stream of dissonance-producing messages in recent years, while the messages from climate scientists have been more consistent with liberal beliefs. When some climate scientists, such as those cited by Senator Inhofe, present evidence that contradicts the prevailing wisdom, liberals are just as likely to discredit or dismiss the evidence they present as conservatives are to dismiss the evidence that supports the claim that human activities are affecting the climate.

The use of story metaphors and metaphorical stories by both Hansen and Obama (on the liberal side) and Inhofe (on the conservative side) are symptomatic of the political polarization on this issue. Far from contributing to an ability to enter into the experiential world of the Other and thus help establish conditions of empathy and genuine conversation, these dramatic metaphorical stories and the simulations they evoke are more likely to undermine the conditions of empathy and block meaningful conversation.

The contrast between Obama’s Reference Obama2008 speech on race and his 2013 speech on climate change is particularly instructive. In the 2008 speech, he told stories about the frustrations faced by working-class African Americans in their attempt to achieve middle-class economic security, then connected these to parallel stories about the struggles and frustrations of working class White Americans, implicitly acknowledging the separate experiential worlds and inviting both groups to enter into the experiential world of the Other. In the 2013 speech, by contrast, he made no attempt even to recognize much less enter into the experiential world of conservatives. In both speeches he combined hyperbole with metaphorical stories in a way that enhanced the potential simulations, but in the 2008 speech he used this simulation-enhancing technique to open the experiential world of White Americans as well as that of Black Americans. In contrast, in the 2013 speech the hyperbole and metaphorical stories enhanced the experience of predicted climate change effects and the evidence supporting these predictions, but denigrated and dismissed the concerns of those who question either the evidence or the proposed remedies.

In sum, the dramatic metaphorical stories used by advocates on each side of the debate over the contribution of human activities to climate change have the potential to activate vivid perceptual simulations including complete stories that increases the intensity of belief and commitment among those who are already convinced of the advocated position – but they are likely to be ignored, discredited, and dismissed by those who are convinced of the opposite position. The result is to render the experiential world of each side even more opaque to those on the other side, decrease rather than increase the potential for empathy and genuine conversation, and increase the polarization over the issue, both the facts represented by the evidence and the policies proposed to address the complex problems associated with it.