Fluffy metaphors of an overheated debate: Why climate change is neither communicated nor understood as an existential threat?

Abstract

Metaphors of climate change, as many other scientific metaphors, are often inaccurate, if not in their intended content but in their form and emotional valence. A literal ‘greenhouse’ is an eloquent construction designed to preserve heat, ‘warmth’ is an overall positive notion (as opposed to ‘overheating’). First, we are going to overview how metaphors are comprehended, from their neural processing to their use in communication in an attempt to describe their working. Next, we are going explore how metaphors in science deliver messages and how they spread, focusing on two powerful metaphors: an identical replication theory (memetics), and a vision constant reformulation through viral spreading (epidemiology). The form-content distinction is particularly relevant to how scientific metaphors frame debates via their spreading: it is the form that is transmitted, but which are the analogous parts of the content that should be carried over? We then turn to the challenges of climate communication: the reasons for climate metaphors not fulfilling their purpose (e.g., due to the implications of their literal reading); the hostile environment the fossil fuel industry has created for climate scientists (e.g., disinformation and defamation campaigns); the strategies climate scientist could adapt as a community to inform the public and decision makers of the looming cataclysm (e.g., finding a unitary voice as a group with privileged access to specialized knowledge). Next, we are going to address the dire, literal consequences of climate destruction and present ideas on how metaphors and expressions could be improved to transmit a message appalling enough to prompt action. We conclude by an overview of cognitive limitations of everyday thinking and mechanisms of inferential communication to provide ideas for science communicators in persuading contemporaries. Scientists and science journalists should choose their metaphors particularly carefully regarding climate change, as minor misconceptions are leading mankind towards collective extinction.