Episode 6: Genevieve Gunther / Messaging Climate Change

In this episode, John Cole interviews Dr. Genevieve Guenther.  Dr Guenther is a former Renaissance scholar who turned to climate research and activism after having a child and becoming increasingly alarmed about the world her son could inherit after she died. She is now an expert in climate communication. Using her training in rhetoric and cultural politics, as well as social-science research, she works to revamp the ways that we talk about the urgent need to phase out coal, oil, and methane. She is guided by the conviction that our language for the climate crisis is largely inaccurate and misleading, and that fixing this problem requires us not just to reframe talking points, but to recognize how our speech itself—what we say and what we don’t say about climate change—upholds a dangerous status quo.Dr Guenther is the author of The Language of Climate Politics, an examination of the propaganda underlying the fossil-fuel economy.  Genevieve Guenther’s website:  https://genevieveguenther.com/The non-profit she founded:  https://www.endclimatesilence.org/