Climate Change Discourse and its Dangerous Liabilities

About This Event

In this talk, Dr. Crist will differentiate between the reality of climate change and the discourse of climate change defined as the dominant way of framing it. The two are related but not coextensive. While the reality of climate change warrants immediate remedial response, the discourse of climate change is swerving humanity away from the right view and action with respect to climate change and the broader socio-ecological crisis we are steeped in. Crist contends that the discourse of climate change is actually digging the deadly hole we are in even deeper. Crist suggests ditching the dominant discourse of climate change without losing sight of the reality and dangers of climate change to human and nonhuman worlds alike.

About the speaker: Eileen Crist taught in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech for 22 years, retiring in 2020. Her work focuses on the biodiversity crisis and destruction of wild places, pathways to halt these trends, and ways forward toward creating an ecological civilization. She is co-editor of a number of books, including Keeping the Wild (2014) and Protecting the Wild (2015). She has authored and coauthored numerous academic papers as well as popular writings, and is Associate Editor of the online journal The Ecological Citizen and blogger for Earth Tongues. Her most recent book, Abundant Earth: Toward an Ecological Civilization, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2019. For more information and publications, visit her website www.eileencrist.com