path: root/chapter4.md

## Chapter 4

In the previous three chapters, I've explored how and why contemporary green
rhetoric is too often failing, and discussed the particular criticism of the use
of catastrophic language. In the previous chapter, I argued that these
criticisms of catastrophic language do not apply to the use of apocalyptic
language in the most important model of apocalyptic rhetoric in Western
literature, namely, the Apocalypse of St John.  Now, in this chapter, I aim to
show that in order for green rhetoric to succeed, it should imitate the
apocalyptic rhetorical strategies of the Apocalypse discussed in the previous chapter.

In order to consider how green rhetoric might succeed, I have to specify: what
is the rhetor trying to achieve? How are they hoping that it will be achieved?
And: who are they trying to persuade to do the achieving?

So, for the sake of a discussion point, I will take the example of the Green
New Deal. The idea behind a Green New Deal, alluding by its name to the 'New
Deal' of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt \[?\], is a large programme of
government action at the nation-state level aiming to significantly change the
way the economy is structured for the better.

There is no fixed list of measures a Green New Deal might contain, but the
centrepiece measures are likely to include strengthening environmental
regulations on industry and beefing up enforcement agencies; renationalising
key industrial sectors, particularly those in control of public goods such as
transport infrastructure or energy infrastructure; increasing tax on wealth and
corporations and closing tax loopholes; and spending the money on investment in
improving and expanding the public realm and subsidising local green
industries.

The package may also extend, for example, to increasing spending on research
and development; raising tarrifs on underpriced imported solar panels and wind
turbines to support the development of national green industries; banning
fracking and other extreme forms of fossil fuel extraction; instituting a
moratorium on new data centres; making it easier for corporations to be sued
for environmental damages; subsidising heat pumps and home insulation; and,
yes, perhaps even raising carbon taxes.

As with the original New Deal, the wide-ranging scope is thought to be a
crucial part of the proposal. Each measure is made more attractive to its
potential supporters because it comes as part of a package promising to
transform society for the better.

Like the original New Deal, it is not intended to be attractive to everyone. It
is not designed to be attractive to owners of capital or senior managers, for
whom a Green New Deal would be very expensive indeed: it would result in huge
cuts to their salaries, bonuses and dividends, and reduce their power over the
economy. Nor is the Green New Deal designed to be attractive to neoliberal
ideologues, who determinedly believe that the invisible hand of the market will
eventually, eventually, eventually bring about a just society. It could, however,
be attractive to a large majority of, say, the UK electorate, covering proletarian
households in both the working classes and many of those in the middle classes.

The original New Deal was largely made possible by an enormous (not to say
'apocalyptic') wave of industrial action. However, in the US in the 1930s, a
large proportion of the workforce was unionised, and employed in sectors such
as manufacturing, energy, and transport, where workers are gathered in
tight-knit communities on shop floors and strikes hit shareholders hard. In the
present UK context, unions encompass a much smaller proportion of the
workforce, and much of the workforce is employed in the service sector, where
industrial action can be difficult to organise and less effective than in
primary industries. Industrial action can still play an important role, and
Matt Huber [@climate-change-class-war] gives an excellent discussion of how
green rhetoric might be effective in that arena. But because of the structure
of the UK economy, it's likely that industrial action would have to work
alongside other forms of political action if a Green New Deal is to be brought
about in the UK in the next decade or two, and it's those other forms of action
which I'll focus on.

Alongside industrial action, people in the UK can join political parties, where
they can shape policies by engaging in internal politics, by voting for
candidates for election, and by standing for election themselves. They can also
vote in general elections, ultimately resulting in electing a government which
prioritises a Green New Deal policy. In order to increase momentum behind the
movement, they can also join protests or take part in direct action.

Notably, all of these actions may be difficult for those called to take part in
them. Getting involved in politics in any but the most trivial capacity
requires giving up evenings and weekends: annoying for, say, a Masters student,
but potentially a major sacrifice for an exhausted parent working a full-time
job. Standing for election could be costly to your relationships, and expose
you to ridicule and abuse. Depending on the action involved, protesting or
taking direct action could get you arrested. Meanwhile, the benefits of a Green
New Deal stand far off, and remain largely outside your control. The call must
then be to make a sacrifice for what is good, even if, paradoxically, it costs
you.

This is, in John Collin's terms, an 'ethic for martyrdom.' So, could John's
apocalyptic rhetorical strategies be of use in motivating UK citizens to take
political actions to advance the cause of a Green New Deal?

First, I'll consider minority cognition. This was the first aspect of John's
strategy which I considered in the previous chapter. While the particular kind
of minority cognition favoured by John -- that is, direct testimony imparted by
a divine authority -- may be unpersuasive to many UK citizens, the preference
for a minority cognition is still necessary.

Recall that, as Thompson [@thompson-revelation] argued, St. John needed to use
minority cognition in order to resist the overwhelming weight of the majority
epistemology of Greek society, which would have pressed his audience into
submission to the imperial cult. Likewise, in our society, there are
empire-like forces constantly reinforcing dominant epistemologies, and among
these is the fossil fuel industry.

The fossil fuel industry has consistently employed the same PR contractors and
even scientific researchers as the tobacco industry in their efforts to use
science to defend their profits [@hulac-jul-2016]. They have also used the same
strategies, including manufacturing scientific controversy, 'information
laundering' through think-tanks, and providing financial support to scientists
who promote views in line with their interests [@smoke-mirrors-hot-air]. Fossil
fuel companies have used balancing norms in journalism and American values of
fairness to demand an equal public hearing for climate sceptics over their
opponents, creating a public impression that the experts are divided
[@leah-2011, pp. 204-208]. Fossil fuel companies have obscured their involvement
in their own strategies by funneling their money through legal vehicles called
'donor foundations,' which give their money to think-tanks on their behalf while
protecting their anonymity [@brulle-2014]. When climate sceptics don't leave a
paper trail tracing their money back to the fossil fuel companies who benefit
from the promotion of their views, they are much harder to refute, particularly
in cultures like the US which place a high value on the freedom of speech.

Therefore, as long as the fossil fuel industry has significant power, the
majority epistemology of our society cannot help but be partially shaped by
fossil fuel interests. To escape fossil knowledge requires minority cognition.

This has precedents even within the green movement. In the view of Linda Lear,
the effect of _Silent Spring_, Rachel Carson's damning exposé on the chemical
industry, was to not only bring about regulation, but end an era of
unquestioning trust in government agencies and chemical companies. She exposed
that they hadn't done their homework or had lied. In a Cold War context,
questioning the techno-scientific-industrial authorities could be perceived as
traitorous. Chemical companies fought hard against her, sued the publishers to
try and prevent it being published, then spent a quarter of a million dollars
on an aggressive publicity campaign against her. She was attacked for being
'emotional' and an 'hysterical woman.' The fact she had published novels was
cited as evidence that she couldn't be a real scientist, and her literary
writing style as evidence that what she was writing couldn't be real science.
Real science, the chemical industry hastened to remind the impressionable
public, is necessarily presented in the format of laboratory reports,
maximising their utilisation of technical jargon in order to avoid
under-qualified persons from understanding their contents. Carson had no PhD,
no academic institution, and no network of scientific colleagues to back her
up. [@silent-spring, Afterword]

To fight the chemical lobby, Carson had to adopt minority epistemology. So,
alongside her considerable arsenal of traditional scientific facts, she
included in her book historical facts based on lived experience, with no
attempt to fit them into clearly-defined quantifiable metrics, in the
scientific style favoured by the chemical industry. One memorable example was
her report that parathion poisoning had been known to induce serious illness
not only in those exposed directly, but also to the physicians who treated
them, and even the hospital staff who washed their clothes. \[PAGE NUMBERS\]

Like St. John, she was also forced to undermine the chemical industry's
majority epistemology. In _Silent Spring_, she showed how the chemical
industry funded the same science which enabled its profits \[CITE\]. She
undermined their conceptual frameworks, arguing that the use of words like
'pesticide' and 'insecticide' function to mask the truth that the chemicals
involved are in fact poisons (and in some cases were originally developed by
military scientists for the purpose of deliberately injuring and killing human
beings) \[CITE\]. And she showed how the chemical lobby used science to dismiss
valid first-hand experiences and impose their solutions on people against their
interests and expressed desires. For instance, she told the story of Joseph
Sweeny Todd, a \[WHO\] in Ohio, who, in opting for a targeted approach to
containing dutch elm disease rather than blanket poisoning, had to go against
the advice of the chemical companies, the universities, and the US Department
of Agriculture. \[CITE\]

If rhetors today want to persuade their audiences to support a Green New Deal,
they're going to have to fight the majority epistemology, held firmly in place
by fossil interests. To do that, they'll need to exploit minority cognition,
undermining the epistemologies that best serve fossil interests and finding
alternatives that oppose them.

The second feature of John's rhetoric I considered was the theme of
tribulations. Just as John's audience stood to lose out if they resisted the
imperial cult, UK citizens stand to lose out, in time, money, and friends, if
they take political action for a Green New Deal. If audiences are to understand
how such a sacrifice could be good for them, they will need to see that their
sacrifices are not meaningless, but part of a much larger context.

\[EXAMPLES\]

Finally, the third feature of John's rhetoric I examined was his end-time
speculation. This is already so much a part of green rhetoric that it has led
to considerable meta-discussion already, particularly on the relative merits of
utopian against dystopian schemas [@green-utopias; @forget-me-not, Epilogue]. I
have already examined one example from _The Future We Choose_
[@future-we-choose]. Green rhetors seem to find it irresistible to speculate on
where this might all end, for good or ill. Even the Cold-War-inspired total
catastrophism is one perspective on the end times.

St. John, like all biblical apocalypticists, affirms a utopian end-time. As I
discussed in the previous chapter, this is important to his rhetorical goals.
There is no use pointing to a dystopia, or (perhaps worse still) concluding
that we can't really be certain what the ultimate future holds. Such
conclusions would create doubt and fear amongst his audience, and suggest to
them that keeping your head down and submitting to the imperial ideology might
be a safer wager than risking everything on a God who might not be willing or
able to save those who love him. Instead, John, pointing to God's
all-encompassing sovereignty and justice, makes a redemptive end appear
irresistible, thus encouraging his audience to bet the house on Jesus.

Green rhetors ought to take note of this. A few rhetors have expressed
pessimism about the end, but the dominant motif is uncertainty. _The Future We
Choose_ makes this clear from the very title. In _Forget Me Not_, Sophie
Pavelle insists that although she could conclude either with a dystopian vision
or a utopian vision, she refuses to do either, because the scientific evidence
does not warrant either conclusion [@forget-me-not, Epilogue].

This won't do, as should be obvious from the foregoing. If there are no
scientifically valid utopian visions for the future of planet Earth, then green
rhetors must have unscientific visions instead. John faced a similar challenge,
and likewise adopted a minority epistemology -- an eschatological vision -- in
order to convince his audience that the good fight was worth fighting.

\[EXAMPLES\]

### TODO

- Cite page numbers / find quotations from _Silent Spring_
- Find examples of green tribulation discourse
- Find examples of green utopian end-time speculation
- Read all about the Green New Deal and incorporate evidence