Thread by @DoctorVive

The obvious difference here is that people fear that coronavirus is going to kill *them*, but they believe that climate change is going to kill millions of *other people*.

https://twitter.com/NCStinn/status/1235238858020843522

I think this difference presents 2 challenges for the climate movement. We must:

1) show people that climate change actually does threaten the lives of everyone under the age of 30

2) use shaming to make climate action a social norm, whether people feel obligated to help or not

I would also argue that fewer people than you think actually believe in the first place that climate change will kill millions of other people, even if they know that climate change is real.

I mean, have you ever heard a scientist really say such a thing flat out? In the media?

Until very recently, climate communication has been dominated by messages about what global warming is going to do to non-human things—the temperature, ice, polar bears, etc.

Even now it's still pretty rare to hear a scientist, journalist, mainstream activist, or (certainly) politician say that climate change threatens to kill millions of people already alive today. Some of them your children.

Most people use euphemisms like "existential threat."

Read this essay by George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," in which he makes the argument that euphemism, as a form that hides the truth, is deployed politically to "defend the indefensible."

faculty.washington.edu/rsoder/EDLPS57…

In any case, maybe this all means that the climate movement has *three* communications tasks:

1) make it clear millions will die if we don't decarbonize

2) show that our children's lives are in danger

3) shame people who don't give a fuck and pour big love on the people who do

uh, /fin

#InadvertentThread

And, hey!, #EndClimateSilence