Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to University of Pennsylvania climate communicator Hanna Morris, use of the word “Anthropocene” facilitates disregard for the disproportionate suffering of indigenous peoples, and encourages the false belief that we are all equally guilty for the current climate crisis.
The language of climate change—and the Anthropocene
Brandon Baker
February 5, 2019Hanna E. Morris, a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication who researches environmental communication, explains the sudden rise of ‘Anthropocene’ as the latest buzzword in the climate dialogue.
Climate change, global warming, climate crisis—the operative term for the most pressing global issue seems to change by the year.
It’s how we discuss climate change that intrigues Hanna Morris, a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication, who will soon present a new paper that assesses climate news frames at the annual International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) conference this July in Madrid, Spain. She tackles the rise of the term “Anthropocene” in climate news, which can be summarized as a relatively new word that is meant to mark the beginning of a new epoch defined by human-caused environmental change.
In the paper, Morris argues that the word not only misinterprets the actual share of blame—the oversimplified notion that humans are all equally responsible for climate change—but ties up the problem in a neat, media-friendly bow.
“By eliminating differences,” she writes in the paper, “histories of colonial violence, and the disproportionate burden of environmental harm felt by Indigenous people is neutralized and therefore evaded. The idea of the Anthropocene therefore validates ‘planetary scale’ projects designed by white male capitalists working from an unaddressed imperial logic.”
Colonialism and capitalism, she argues, drove climate change, and are now deciding how to frame who is responsible for it, who is most affected, how it will be solved, and how we should collectively feel about it.
…
“So, by saying that we all are to blame and that we all are equally experiencing climate change in a new epoch is a dangerous generalization that wipes away historical context. I worry that European and North American powers are once again perpetuating imperial violence and harm through the idea of the Anthropocene. And I explore this problem across the United States news media in my most recent paper.”
…
Read more: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/language-climate-change-and-anthropocene
Sadly Hanna’s paper has not yet been released, but Hannah raises an important issue.
When white male climate scientists promote the use of the word “Anthropocene”, are they actually unconsciously assuming the role of an imperialist colonialist capitalist aggressor, and unwittingly facilitating public acceptance of the climate exploitation of indigenous peoples?
UPDATE: Fixed headline to read UPenn rather than Penn State. – Anthony
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Hannah Morris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should consider running for President and VP of Dumbf**kistan.
Research, the art of turning b*llsh*t into funding dollars.
It’ll just have to be renamed the Masculinocaucasianocene.
Or just Obscene.
Ok, so let’s try “white-o-cene”? “Palemaleguiltocene”? “Capi-colon-imp-o-cene”?
Hm, this “imperialist colonialist capitalist aggressor” thingy looks rather attractive, has the ring of ancient Rome, IMO.
Ancient Romans were more culturally advanced than today’s identity-culture (which is just a version of primitive tribal or gang-culture).
Ancient people, on whole, were smarter than modern humans. In ancient times, most stupid or imprudent people were sorted early and probably didn’t make puberty. Today, not so much.
The SJWs current hobbyhorse is intersectionality, where one is ranked by a scale of oppressor to oppressed. So, if she was being consistent, she should leave the PHD program to make space for a woman of color, preferably gay and an illegal alien.
and disabled and poor (to check a few more intersectional boxes)
If you go to a modern Native American reservation, you will find … well, it’s not pretty.
For instance, tribes in the area of Monument Valley can put a trailer home anywhere. There was one in the middle of scenic Monument Valley.
Also, coal is mined and burned on the reservations to make electricity that is sent to California where they would never think of doing such.
So, this young woman stands proudly as both a racist and sexist idiot. She is clearly a Democrat.
Have the witches morphed into witchfinders-general?
In July 2018, the International Union of Geological Sciences split the Holocene epoch into three distinct subsections, Greenlandian (11,700 years ago to 8,326 years ago), Northgrippian (8,326 years ago to 4,200 years ago) and Meghalayan (4,200 years ago to the present), as proposed by International Commission on Stratigraphy. There is no stratigraphic or geological evidence for a fourth Anthropocene.
I don’t know. Is it helpful to attend to outrageous and foolish statements made by students? I prefer more focus on the science.
Those awful capitalists have diminished world hunger so that fewer than 10% of people are food insecure world-wide for the first time in world history.
Better agricultural practices in India, the Middle East and South Asia could eliminate the remaining 10% if greenies would not interfere. Colonialists did many horrendous things, but were not nearly so blood thirsty as the Hegelians and their socialist descendants. I don’t care if one is brown, black, red, yellow or white, choice, personal freedom and free markets are the real path to justice.
The University, not just Penn or Penn State, but the generic institution, gives credentials to people like Hannah to enhance their already substantial self-image, but fails to truly educate them. Hey, no worries, she will find a job at the University.
As Herb Stein once quipped, things will continue until they can’t.
There must not have a history program in the Climate Communication curriculum; otherwise how could Ms Morris have overlooked that evil, Imperialist and capitalist Queen Isabella who financed and encouraged the mendacious Christopher Columbus? /sarc
Last time I checked…all the communists living in State College, Pa were cozy warm all winter and were driving around all over town. (and it’s the only way to get outa town)
Communists everywhere pollute on a scale seldom seen in evil capitalist domains.
This is why I no longer use the term Equi-anthropocene. At least, as a white man, I should be able to take full credit for the way we white men have provided for women and minorities…?
Being a woke liberal is like living in a bodybuilding pose-down. Those who are offended by the tiniest, most ridiculous things are obviously the most sensitive. All others must bow to their superiority. So there’s a lot of competition to find the most inconsequential thing and be offended by it.
Here we go again:
Tauroscatocene
My youngest daughter calling from Seattle to let me know where to post the money “come on Dad you know you’ve benefited from white male privilege”
Must have been those years I worked 12 hour third shifts in hellishly hot factories when she was a little girl. I would have felt better about it if I had known it was a privilege.
When science starts focusing on feelings rather than facts, we are entering into a post-scientific world.
With AOC, HM, AG and many others, we are entering the MadAsAHatterOcene.
So, life was better when people rode horses and use whale oil lamps?
Bart,
For the people, or for the whales, who, so selflessly contributed the oil?
Did I say voluntarily selflessly contributed the oil . . . . ?
Ahhhhh – ohhh.
Auto – Shave the Whales!!
I wonder why she thinks climate change of today began in colonial times? Is she aware that
colonial ties was long, long before any non-trivial global warming due to humans occurrred?
She also is ignorant about when capitalism appeared and doesn’t understand the vast improvements
in the human condition it brought. This is called the ultimate example of tunnel vision and trying to fix blame on those who had nothing to do with global warming, a late,late 20th Century phenomenon.
Those who lived in the 1970’s thought global cooling the threat. But apparently they have no guilt, while those who lived 300 years before do. I will declare Hanna guilty of exaggerating/misrepresenting the causes and effects of global warming and, in all likelihood, her recommended solution (windmills andsolar panels). Hanna is one dumb PA cookie.
Climate Science is replete with logical fallacies – ad hominem, begging the question, appeal to authority, appeal to consensus.
However, the most common one these days seems to be,
If A, then B. The conclusion B says nothing about where A is true.
Example :
If a dolphin is a fish, then dolphins have gills, etc.
The sentence as a whole is logical, but it says nothing as to whether a dolphin is a fish, and the observations are contingent a dolphin being a fish.
All of the Climate Change articles are implicitly contingent on.
If anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing significant increases in temperature, and that significant increases in temperature can produce large changes in Climate or extreme weather events, then ..
Most climate change writers and speakers take this as given, whereas we have no solid proof.
AS they say in France – “si ma tante en avait…”
Walt, I get what you are saying but have to quibble with they way you said it…..
If A, then B. The conclusion B says nothing about where A is true.
Example :
If a dolphin is a fish, then dolphins have gills, etc.
The sentence as a whole is logical, but it says nothing as to whether a dolphin is a fish, and the observations are contingent a dolphin being a fish
True it’s logical, not true that it says nothing (see below), true that it’s contingent on a dolphin being a fish (that’s how if’s work, the B part is contingent upon the conditions of the A part).
with if statements you test the condition of the IF *before* you reach the then part. the statement as written works and is perfectly fine as long as you have the knowledge as to the fishiness of dolphins needed to test the condition IE you know whether a dolphin is a fish or not. If you don’t have that knowledge than that particular if won’t be of too much help. However, working backwards, you are not entirely left wanting. if your observation is the a dolphin does not have gills, then you know A is not true (because if it was then the dolphin would have gills – so no gills means not a fish) and if your observation is that a dolphin does have gills, then you know that A could be true but can’t know for certain (assuming there might be other conditions out there that lead to the same conclusion vis-à-vis gills. IE if a dolphin is a creature from the black lagoon than dolphins have gills).
Most climate change writers and speakers take this as given, whereas we have no solid proof
And that’s the real issue, not the logic of if statements, but that the conditions of the IF are being completely bypassed by taking then as a given rather then checking their validity (IE true/false state). It’s like (going back to your example) taking as a given that dolphin are fish without ever first making the determination if they are or not.
Thank you for clarifying.
The Left has to have a demon on which they can focus their internal anger and hate, and the demon of the day is the white race. They find a few white bad actors and then lump the whole white race in there with them. It’s pure racism.
The Left uses racism as a weapon. It’s about their only workable tactic because they have no beneficial ideas to offer, only hate, fear, and division. Their political aim is to demonize the opposition to the point that voters think the Left is the lesser of two evils. And accusing them of racism is their standard method of attack.
People like Hannah Morris live in a very ugly, scary world. A world that exists only in her mind. Therapy is recommended.
Tom
You say:
-“People like Hannah Morris live in a very ugly, scary world. A world that exists only in her mind. “-
However if you examine many of the other posts in WUWT that deal with the socio-political aspects of “climate change ” it is clear that the world this young women inhabits is now the real world. It is a world defined by the media , the financiers and the leftist politicians. It is a world obsessed by a theory which no one is allowed to question . It is the world as perceived by many if not most of the younger people of the Western world or so the BBC , other media and virtually every politician in Europe and USA would have us believe.
The world where hard work, ingenuity and the patient application of science and maths to solving problems is responsible for the quality of life that we currently enjoy is no longer the real world, but a memory that exists in the minds of just some of us, and in the history books (until the latter are “edited”).
Can anyone tell me what “unaddressed imperial logic” means?
Watch any episode of the “Star Wars” movie series.
‘Whatever happens, we have got
the Maxim gun, and they have not.’
“Can anyone tell me what “unaddressed imperial logic” means?”
Good point. I think she may have meant to say “imperious” which means high handed, snooty etc. i.e. the sort of logic an overbearing person who thinks they are superior to those they address might employ. Which appears to be the sort of logic she is using.
And the ‘unaddressed’ bit would be something that she feels she has been put on this planet to correct.
I wish her luck. She is going to need it. (Unless she has the wit to learn fast!)
No relation.