Dr. Genevieve Guenther Profile picture
Sep 23, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Guys, this is really, really bad. Our message is not getting through.

In a new @YaleClimateComm @ClimateNexus poll, #ClimateChange came in 13th out of 18 issues "most important" to respondents' votes in November.

People STILL don't understand the urgency.

1/n
If we are not half-way to zero emissions in the next ten years, we are fucked. (Not doomed, of course, but fucked—important distinction.)

Half-way to 0 emissions means we must start NOW.

This is the most consequential election in human history due to THE #CLIMATECRISIS.

2/n
Everyone who follows me on Twitter knows this, of course.

But voters still don't.

We are failing.

3/n
We weren't going to release this yet, but I'm going to say here that our polling at @EndClimtSilence shows that voters don't even have a sense of what a safe level of global warming might be.

These 1.5 / 2 C distinctions are almost meaningless in public discourse.

4/n
I don't know what else to say right now, except to plea that if a politician or an activist says something like "we have 12 years to save the world," I beg of you, PLEASE don't jump down their throat!



5/n
Every single person alive today will be much better off, and our children might actually survive, if voters hear messages that might lead them to overestimate the danger we're in, even fear that we're doomed, *as part of the communication of an actual action plan*.

6/n
I just cannot fucking believe that in 2020 climate change is STILL on the bottom of the fucking list of pressing issues.

This is forcing me to rethink my activist strategy moving forward. Profoundly. I mean, what else is there to do? What's been happening so far is not working.

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More from @DoctorVive

Nov 11
I am baffled by this opening claim in @TimothyDSnyder's New Yorker piece on Trump's fascism.

Trump's entire campaign was fueled by empathy for white men. It explicitly advanced the promise to improve their lives through his power as Leader ("I will fix it.")

1/n Image
The US *has* been destroyed — economic inequality, lack of eduction or culture outside churches, crumbling infrastructure, the slow poison of social media in the body politic — has made town after town a decaying shadow of its former self.

2/n
Yes the neoliberalism that catalyzed this decline was introduced by Reagan and best advanced by Republican policies, but, of course, the truth is not the point — especially because in this case it's a half truth. Clinton and Obama are both neoliberals.

3/n
Read 7 tweets
Sep 20
I am very proud that Ted Nordhaus, @mattyglesias, and right-wingers like Judy Curry are attacking my book. It means they feel threatened by my analysis of their rhetoric in favor of expanding fossil fuels. This is good!

I must say, however, that their attacks are spurious.

🧵
@mattyglesias This week The Breakthrough Institute published a blog post written by some guy I blocked on Twitter for misogyny years ago, who claims that errors he found in my text prove my research is faulty.



2/nbreakthroughjournal.org/p/fact-checkin…
@mattyglesias This post did find two errors in my book. Thanks for that!

But its other claims are incorrect, perhaps because its author has no understanding of scholarly responsibility and striking problems with reading comprehension.

3/n
Read 26 tweets
Aug 15
Last month I spoke to @350NYC about William Nordhaus and economics of decarbonization, using material from *The Language of Climate Politics*.

TL/DR: all too much discourse about the “cost” of climate policy is bullshit.

🧵

1/n


Image
A prime piece of fossil-fuel propaganda is that resolving the climate crisis will “cost” Americans too much.

But the truth is rather the opposite: NOT halting global heating will, within decades, cost Americans way more than creating a net zero economy.

2/n
In fact, phasing out fossil fuels and creating a net zero, ecologically integrated economy will make 90% of people on this planet, including most Americans, way better off than they are now.

3/n
Read 20 tweets
Aug 15
Is #ClimateChange a winning electoral issue for @TheDemocrats?

Here's what @pewresearch data says.

69% of Americans favor the US working to become carbon neutral by 2050.

1/n Image
67% of Republicans under 30 want the US to prioritize clean energy development.

2/n Image
You may hear from pundits that Americans place a low priority on climate. But overall 71% of Americans say climate should be a Congressional priority.

59% of Democrats say it should be THE TOP PRIORITY.

@brianschatz @USRepKCastor @EdMarkey

3/n Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 23
OK Twitter, here's the theory of change that underlies the new climate messages I offer in *The Language of Climate Politics*

Let me begin by saying: focus-groups show my messages increase support for phasing out fossil fuels by up to 10 pts among Dems AND REPUBLICANS who...

1/ Image
...who are concerned and alarmed about the #ClimateCrisis.

(The rubric of the "concerned" and the "alarmed" comes from @YaleClimateComm's and @Mason4C's "Global Warming's Six Americas.")

2/n Image
As of Fall 2023, the "concerned" and the "alarmed" compose a majority of Americans — not the climate choir, but, again, the majority of Americans.

3/n Image
Read 12 tweets
Jul 20
In all the drama over Biden, & all the mockery of Trump's unhinged (yet super-boring) convention speech, I haven't seen much attention to the language of climate politics during the Republican Convention.

But the GOP did unveil new climate propaganda, so let's take a look!

🧵 Image
First of all, both Vance and Trump introduced a new term, replacing "hoax," that suggests climate change isn't real.

That term is "Green New Scam."

2/n
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The word "scam" will of course be familiar to anyone who follows climate news on X and is thereby exposed to the MAGA tolls using the "ClimateScam" hashtag.

3/n
Read 32 tweets

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