Dan Zak has a new article in the Washington Post which is, as much as anything, brief history of the messaging surrounding climate change. It nicely illustrates the difficulty we face when discussing a topic like climate crisis or climate breakdown in the classroom or in public. In the article, Zak provides numerous examples of how different words have been appropriated and re-appropriated, how meaning has been amplified or stripped from different concepts depending on who, when, and how a given term is invoked. In one hopeful example, he states, for instance, that “women are rewording climate conversations to honor the collective, connective nature of the problem.” During this important moment more scrutiny to words will serve us well. Check out Zak’s piece.
Inspiring Sustainability Transformations Through our Past | A Group-Sourced Syllabus