Rhetorical Recommendations Built on Ecological Experience: A Reassessment of the Challenge of Environmental Communication. Issue 4 (19th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: DiCaglio, Joshua; Barlow, Kathryn M.; Johnson, Joseph S.
• Is Part Of: Environmental communication. Volume 12:Issue 4(2018)
• Page Start: 438
• Page End: 450
• Publication Date: 2018-05-19
• Subjects: Rhetoric -- ecology -- scale -- climate change -- Gaia hypothesis -- Marcellus shale; Communication in the environmental sciences -- Periodicals; 333.7
• DOI: 10.1080/17524032.2017.1397043
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1752-4032

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article reconsiders the challenge of environmental communication by inquiring into the fundamental rhetorical difficulty of thinking in terms of ecology. We discuss two essential yet bewildering aspects of ecology: its focus on interconnection and its use of multiple scales. On this basis, we distil six rhetorical recommendations: a shift from appealing to pre-existing values to avenues for transforming values; a shift from arguments from authority to addressing legitimate resistances; a shift from a focus on mutual agreement to a mutual bewilderment; a shift from intellectual comprehension to personal experience; a shift from negative effects to positive connections; and, finally, a shift from a focus on political results to local transformations. We experiment with this rhetorical approach through two applications: for critical reassessments of past articulations we consider the Gaia Hypothesis and Deep Ecology, and for current refinements to environmental problems we consider controversies around Marcellus Shale gas development