When scientists become advocates: the evolution and use of climate change rhetoric

Hamblyn, Richard. 2009. “The whistleblower and the Canary: Rhetorical Constructions of Climate Change.” Journal of Historical Geography, 35 (2): 223-236.

In “The whistleblower and the canary: rhetorical constructions of climate change,” Richard Hamblyn writes about the history and consequences of climate change rhetoric that originates from the scientific community, and also how these rhetorical constructions affect the current debate. From a U.K.-centric point of view, Hamlin begins by explaining that today’s prominent climate change narrative, which emphasizes human responsibility, has led science communicators to evaluate how that narrative, when filtered through popular media, affects lay audiences. His central thesis aims to cover historical dimensions of contemporary climate change rhetoric, and argue that the history of understanding climate change has itself become integrated into the rhetoric (224).

Hamblyn begins his timeline with a paper presented in 1895 by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish chemist, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Entitled “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the air upon the Temperature of the Ground,” it outlined how increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would likely impact the temperature of the Earth (the paper was published in English the following year). Today, Arrhenius’s description of a hypothetically warming world and concerns with resulting stresses on the global population, along with an argument colored by literary conceits and tropes, has become central to most climate change debates (225-226).

Next, Hamblyn explores how politics intersect with science in climate change discourses. Usually, it is difficult for a scientist to drop his or her perceived political neutrality to argue for policy changes. But global climate change science has become an exception, and much of the public debate has been led by the scientists (226).

Many individual scientists who have become elevated in the global climate change policy debate have been portrayed by the news media as the “lone voice,” whistleblowers who come forward with alarming information about the condition of our planet. Consider Sir David King, a former chief scientific adviser for the U.K. government, who had publicly drawn comparisons between global climate change and global terror. In 2004, a newspaper leaked a memo King had received from then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief private secretary. It instructed him to avoid the use of the word “terrorism” and to instead use talking points that were contained within. Conversely, climate change skeptics have intentionally tried to adopt this “lone voice” persona, but with little success (228, 230).

Similar to the lone voice, climate change rhetoric in the natural world can be elevated through what Hamblyn calls “canaries.” He uses the term as a metaphor. British coal miners used to take caged birds into the pits to serve as an alarm in case there was looming danger. In Hamblyn’s context, canaries are warning or wake-up calls, like news clips of polar bears swimming where there should be glaciers, or film reels of species that have gone extinct in recent years. Another canary might not include an image, but instead uses first-person testimonies, such as a family who has lost their home to a flood. Lastly, visualizations in the form of charts and graphs, sometimes manipulated for dramatic effects, can also be canaries (231-232). 

Hamlyn doesn’t present his lone voice or canary examples as truths, but instead as hyperbole that can detract from productive climate change conversations and policy-making. People eventually tune out, feeling a sense of hopelessness and inevitability. Scientists, in their advocacy for change, Hamlyn suggests, have contributed to a narrative that might have run its course and is now working against their cause.