Polluters' Puppets: Why We All Spread Fossil Fuel Propaganda, And How To Stop

In a new book, scholar Genevieve Guenther explains how the fossil fuel industry has appropriated the language of climate advocates to maintain the status quo, and offers a way out of the trap.

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“The fossil-fuel industry and the governments that support it are literally colluding to stop you from transforming the world.”

So states scholar Genevieve Guenther in her new book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil-Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It, which proposes that the way we talk about climate change has been manipulated by the same vested interests that are causing it. It’s a revelatory study of how we talk about the crisis—and exactly why that matters.

The “why” ought to be apparent. After all, the way we talk about things tends to define the limits of our imagination. Narrative storytelling enabled civilisation to flourish, just as it guides children towards adulthood. It ought to concern us, then, that so little energy has been spent on decoding the language we use to discuss climate change, one of the greatest threats facing humanity.

Guenther builds The Language of Climate Politics around an alarming contention: fossil fuel industry actors have appropriated the messaging of climate scientists, advocates and communicators, in turn causing those same advocates, along with politicians and other public figures, to unwittingly reinforce fossil fuel ideologies in the media and in the public discourse. It’s a bold thesis, but one that Guenther supports with a methodical analysis. The Language of Climate Politics is a practical guide that a) lays bare the terminology and tricks that the fossil fuel sector employs to skew our conversations, and b) introduces readers to new ways to talk about climate to envisage a civilisation beyond our current, fossil fuel-centric one.

Guenther focuses on six key terms that she believes dominate the language of climate politics. These are: “alarmist”; “cost”; “growth”; “India and China”; “innovation”; and “resilience”, each of which gets its own chapter detailing its history and weaponisation. In conjunction, Guenther says, these terms are used to “foment the incorrect and dangerous belief that the world does not need to phase out fossil fuels.” She then offers alternatives for each that cannot so easily be co-opted by vested interests.

Valuable takeaways abound, but perhaps the most fundamental is Guenther’s demonstration that political messaging is almost wholly antithetical to science communication or even journalism. While scientific rigour requires nuance, detail and grey areas, political language, in order to be effective, paints in broad, emotive strokes designed to trigger feelings. This isn’t, of course, a new contention, but Guenther goes a step further in mapping out how Big Oil’s merchants of doubt capitalise on these conflicting properties.