"Our house is on fire": Three Rhetorical Findings from Youth Climate Activists, an Emerging Discourse Community
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Date
2021-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
Despite overwhelming consensus among the scientific community that modern observed global warming is the result of human activity, the causes, impacts, and actions required to mitigate climate change remain divisive topics around the world. While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes the planet has as little as twelve years to act, civilians and political leaders continue to engage in public debates about the legitimacy of climate science and scope of necessary mitigation. Rhetoricians have already begun work at the intersection of science-based deliberation and public negotiation. However, such research has yet to explore the rhetorical implications of work from youth climate activists. This paper reports on the latest generation of youth climate activists. I specifically attend to the organization Fridays For Future founded by Greta Thunberg in 2018. By undertaking an analysis of rhetorical artifacts from the international network of youth climate activists, this article reveals the rhetorical moves of young people who intend to influence legislation and policy. How do youth activists position themselves to speak on behalf of a public, scientific dilemma while in a position of inferiority or civic exclusion? Exporting rhetorical theory to study youth environmental advocacy offers three findings:(1) youth climate activism engages in rhetorical ecologies, or networks of material experiences and public feelings; (2) youth climate activists are better understood as alternative science communicators with the potential to reinstate expert authority and public trust in science; and (3) youth climate activists observe a broken social order and make ethical appeals to social responsibility and maturity.
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Keywords
rhetoric, activism, science communication, climate change, youth, Fridays For Future