Environmental Communication
Vol. 2, No. 2, July 2008, pp. 133!153
Tipping Point Forewarnings in Climate
Change Communication: Some
Implications of an Emerging Trend
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Chris Russill
Prominent British and American sources now seek to structure public understanding of
climate change by issuing ‘‘tipping point’’ forewarnings of danger with increasing
frequency. This emerging trend announces a shift in the way we are likely to perceive and
respond to climate change dangers. This paper reviews key statements to suggest a
significant dimension of this trend is its enrollment of epidemiological terminology to
communicate urgent and uncertain threats. First, key events in the popular employment
of epidemiological and public health models of explanation are reviewed. Second, the
author discusses the climate change ‘‘debate’’ to illuminate the limitations involved in
treating climate change as a public issue detached from other problems involving
atmospheric science. Third, the author reconstructs the tipping point tendency in this
context. The essay concludes that the use of this concept signals a broader trend toward
epidemiological models of explanation likely to activate public health styles of
intervention for addressing climate change impacts. Some implications are briefly
discussed.
Keywords: Climate Change Communication; Epidemiology; Gladwell; James Hansen;
News Media; Ozone Depletion; Tipping Point
EARTH AT THE TIPPING POINT
(Time Magazine, 3 April 2006)
The way we talk about climate change in the western world is shifting. This change is
signaled most clearly by the sudden ubiquity of the notion of ‘‘tipping points,’’ and
though its emergence is difficult to date with precision, key statements are now
evident. James Hansen, a climate scientist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute
for Space Studies, often speaks of ‘‘tipping points’’ to express the dangers of climate
Chris Russill is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Correspondence to: Department of Writing Studies, 180 Wesbrook Hall, 77 Pleasant St SE, Minneapolis, MN
55455, USA. Email: russill@umn.edu
ISSN 1752-4032 (print)/ISSN 1752-4040 (online) # 2008 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/17524030802141711
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
134 C. Russill
change. Initially using metaphors of ‘‘loaded dice,’’ ‘‘time bomb’’ and ‘‘slippery slope,’’
Hansen’s shift to ‘‘tipping point’’ forewarnings received prominent coverage in early
2006. British public discourse reflects a similar shift. Once famous for his reticence in
speaking of the environment, former Prime Minister Tony Blair now warns of
‘‘catastrophic tipping points.’’ In an open letter to heads of the G8, Blair wrote, ‘‘We
have a window of only 10!15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing a
catastrophic tipping point’’ (Balkenende & Blair, 2006). Blair’s Environment
Secretary, Margaret Beckett, underlined his emphasis on tipping points: ‘‘The thing
that is perhaps not so familiar to members of the public . . . is the notion that we
could come to a tipping point where change could be irreversible’’ (cited in Black,
2006, ’ 8).
These warnings mark a novel shift in the way climate change danger is
communicated, an emerging pattern not easily explained. Hansen and Blair did
not originate this style of forewarning and its contemporary influence is not simply a
result of their prominence. But these statements demand attention if only for
historical precedent. In 1988, James Hansen and then Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher made dramatic public warnings regarding the fact and importance of global
warming, which most research agrees is the year climate change becomes a public
issue. But what does it mean to reframe forewarnings of crisis in terms of crossing
tipping points? How does this concept alter the way we perceive or respond to climate
change?
It is important to avoid overstating the novelty of this ‘‘tipping point’’ tendency.
The concept is not unique to discussions of climate change, it is not inconsistent with
scientific ways of understanding how components of our climate system change, and
it enrolls a way of seeing the world that is quite powerful, both imaginatively and
institutionally. This last point suggests the main claim of this paper. Popular
employments of ‘‘tipping points’’ advance an epidemiological or viral way of seeing
the world. Epidemic models of explanation attach not simply to obvious examples*
fears of Avian flu, SARS, West Nile virus, and bio-terrorist attack*but have
proliferated widely as a sense-making device for events characterized by complexity,
urgency and uncertainty. Computer failures, terrorist threats, information flows,
marketing successes, financial crisis, violent crime, American obesity, female
anorexia, all these social phenomena and more are now explained by reference to
what I call an ‘‘epidemiological imaginary’’: a loose set of metaphors, images, and
cultural references evoking a sense of viral contagion with increasing regularity since
the 1990s. The techniques, style of reasoning, and institutions addressing epidemiological phenomenon are hardly new, but the scope and power of its imaginative
reach*of this way of seeing and explaining the world*appears unprecedented. The
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a household name . . . and, now,
an institution interested in climate change.
The use of explanations shaped by an epidemiological imaginary represents a novel
and significant trend in discussions of climate change. In particular, the use of
‘‘tipping points’’ to explain the threat of climate change is linked to efforts to refigure
how we perceive and respond to environmental danger. Efforts employing an
Tipping Point Forewarnings
135
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
epidemiological imaginary reshape the problem to better accommodate public health
models of intervention. This paper clarifies the trend in two ways: first, by situating
the multi-dimensional ‘‘tipping point’’ concept in popular epidemiological discourse,
and second, by connecting its use to public health perspectives on climate change. As
the CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), and other public health agencies make
claims regarding how climate change should be perceived, understood and answered,
the terms of reference familiar to an environmentalist imaginary are actively displaced
(cf. Schellenberger & Nordhaus, 2004; Speth, 2004).
I proceed in the following way. First, I outline the emergence of an ‘‘epidemiological imaginary’’ to situate discussion of Malcolm Gladwell’s (1996, 2000) ‘‘tipping
point’’ concept. Second, I review the state of public debate on climate change to
emphasize the thematic similarity of its argumentative structure to public disputes
over ozone depletion. I then discuss the relative success of epidemiological references
in building support for ozone regulation. Third, I reconstruct the tipping point
tendency in this context. I analyze James Hansen’s tipping point forewarnings in
detail and discuss the use of public health models by those seeking a new way to
address climate change dangers.
Emergence and Implications of an Epidemiological Imaginary
We need an epidemiology of signification . . .
(Treichler, 1987, p. 287)
Epidemiological discourse has become an important means of linking environmental
and human health issues. The linkage is long standing though it emerges as a social
antagonism, in Cox’s (2006) sense, only with the environmental movement of the
1960s and 1970s (p. 45, pp. 39!66). Scholars in environmental history and
environmental communication have re-illuminated this connection. Gregg Mitman
(2005) and Linda Nash (2006) demonstrate the centrality of human health and
disease issues to early environmental concerns as well as the distinctive importance of
epidemiological understanding. Killingsworth and Palmer (1995) suggest that it was
willingness to articulate these connections that made warnings from Paul Ehrlich,
Rachel Carson and Lois Gibbs effective in securing wide attention (p. 1). ‘‘Popular
epidemiology,’’ in particular, has connected human health and environmental
concerns to become an exemplar case of participatory inquiry (Brown & Mikkelsen,
1997; Brulle & Pellow, 2006, p. 115; Fischer, 2000, pp. 151!157; Funtowicz & Ravetz,
1992; Trostle, 2005, pp. 153!155).
Key Dimensions of an Epidemiological Imaginary
Efforts to trace the emergence of epidemiological understanding typically begin with
John Snow’s (1849/1854) investigation, ‘‘On the Mode of Communication of
Cholera.’’ In mapping the locations of sick individuals, Snow surmised that a
contaminated well pump was transmitting the illness. By 1898, the threat facing
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
136 C. Russill
Broad Street in London could collapse civilization. H.G. Wells wrote of an advanced
technological society toppled by ‘‘bacteria,’’ or ‘‘germs of disease,’’ as invading
Martians dominated militarily before succumbing to everyday viruses. In this case, a
panic-stricken humanity is saved, but the connection to colonialism is clear. Perhaps
most notable is Wells’ (1898) observation that the plot resolution should have been
obvious to any levelheaded Englishman.1
It is easy to envision how general fears of plague, illness and disease would prompt
suspicion of a wide range of activities and filter everyday perceptions through an
epidemiological imaginary. John Berry’s (2005) account of the emergence of
epidemiology and virology to combat the 1918 influenza pandemic makes this point
and quotes John Dewey wondering aloud in 1923 whether ‘‘consciousness of sickness
was ever so widespread as it is today’’ (p. 393). Dewey’s point is not that disease was
unknown in past eras, but that an obtrusive proliferation of cures and intervention
strategies has amplified such consciousness through ever-present recommendations
for response. This would become the explicit goal of post World War II public health
films, whose efforts to represent invisible threats through popular means of
communication underwrote a scientific discourse of contagion also usable by those
concerned about the effects of new mass media (Ostherr, 2005).
This provides a clue to the emergence of an epidemiological imaginary in the
1990s. In the early 1980s, select problems were reformulated as epidemics to facilitate
different kinds of solutions. The asbestosis epidemic illuminated the importance of
epidemiological studies to workplace safety and provided a tool to contest the
organization of working conditions in human health terms. The belief that it was
wrong to refuse to warn workers of danger on the basis of epidemiological evidence
helped legitimate a form of understanding applicable more broadly to the social!
structural conditions of everyday life. An activist version of this understanding is
popular epidemiology, a form of public intervention developed ‘‘in the context of
environmental struggles,’’ such as Love Canal and Woburn (Fischer, 2000, p. 156).
Any thorough account of this discourse would need to emphasize the contributions
of Berton Rouche. A New Yorker staff writer, Rouche recast epidemiological inquiry in
the narrative form of detective investigations for the magazine between 1940 and
1970 and helped popularize public health perspectives. Richard Preston’s The Hot
Zone and Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, both of which originated as New
Yorker articles, draw liberally on the dramatic narrative style Rouche established for
telling epidemiological tales.2
The use of epidemiological knowledge for public intervention created cause for
concern. Successful litigation had industry lobbyists trying to re-describe asbestosis
lawsuits as a ‘‘plague,’’ and a threat of ‘‘truly epidemic proportions’’ to industrial
practice (see Brodeur, 1985, p. 334). The malleability of the disease discourse was
already apparent when psychologists admitted in the early 1970s that homosexuality
had been framed as a disease. When the proliferation of meanings ascribed to AIDS
illustrated how a given description of viral phenomena could advantage or discourage
specific forms of funding and medical attention, the relationship between descriptive
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
137
terminology and capacity to intervene became a site of public activism (cf. Erni, 1994;
Treichler, 1999).
Perhaps the first obvious social problem recast systematically as an epidemic and
public health concern is violence. In the early 1980s, the CDC initiated a violence
prevention program and in 1985 Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared violence
an epidemic on the order of small pox to refigure violence in public health terms.
Koop pointedly stated the goal: ‘‘Our focus will be clearly on how the health
professions might provide better care for victims of violence and also how they might
contribute to the prevention of violence’’ (Koop, 1985/1986, p. 4). Similar efforts
were made with respect to perceptions of obesity as well: ‘‘Since the early 1980s, a
relatively small group of doctors and public health officials, with substantial
assistance from the weight-loss industry, has worked hard to get obesity understood
as a disease’’ (Oliver, 2005, p. 612).
This is not to suggest public health agencies are the only sites to enroll an
epidemiological imaginary. In 1985, ‘‘conservation biology’’ was described as a ‘‘crisis
discipline,’’ a proposal to rethink how knowledge informs policy interventions on the
model of cancer biology, a field assembling epidemiology, virology, cell biology,
molecular biology, and immunology (Soule, 1985). By 1987, even cultural meaning
could be viewed in epidemiological terms with Paula Treichler’s studies of AIDS
discourses observing ‘‘an epidemic of signification’’ (p. 263). Today, epidemiological
discourses constitute a social imaginary, in Taylor’s (2004) sense, given its capacity to
reformulate ‘‘the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together
with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that
are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that underlie these
expectations’’ (p. 23).
Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point Perspective on Communication
In The Tipping Point, Gladwell amplifies the scope of an epidemiological imaginary to
suggest all social phenomena be recast in such terms. In Gladwell’s view, the ‘‘nonlinearity’’ of an epidemiological perspective challenges naı̈ve or commonsensical
conceptions of social change. People think change is gradual, cumulative, and
progressive in displaying a straightforward relationship between cause and effect or
effort and outcome. Gladwell pushes hard to overturn this assumption in recognition
of key moments when small shifts in human behavior result in radically altered
circumstances. The case studies proving his point are often marketing or public
health successes but Gladwell’s favorite example is the flu virus: ‘‘In the language of
epidemiologists, fifty is the ‘‘tipping point’’ in this epidemic, the point at which an
ordinary and stable phenomenon*a low-level flu outbreak*can turn into a public
health crisis’’ (Gladwell, 1996; Gladwell, 2000, pp. 260!261).
Gladwell’s fast-paced book folds prominent elements of an epidemiological
understanding into a conception of social change able to re-describe a wide range
of events: drug use, crime waves, murders and even why the American Revolution
succeeded. These elements include sensitivity to contextual conditions, the abrupt or
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
138 C. Russill
dramatic nature of change, and the self-sustaining nature of knock-on style effects
that perpetuate once triggered. Gladwell emphasizes these aspects to present an image
of social order more amenable to intervention than we might otherwise imagine.
Although society appears timeless, stable, and even inexorable at times, there is a
great deal of sensitivity to perturbations that self-perpetuate and result in rapid,
cascading effects. Once we accept this understanding, we learn that social problems
do not require burdensome structural change, but well-timed forms of public
intervention.
Gladwell’s (2000) book promises guidance for such efforts through communicative
principles derived from ‘‘the three rules of epidemics’’ or ‘‘[t]he three rules of the
Tipping Point’’: ‘‘The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, the Power of Context’’
(p. 29). His imaginative extension of the epidemiological metaphor works to redescribe communication in terms of transmission mechanisms, infectious agents, and
environmental conditions (pp. 18!19). The first principle is ‘‘The Law of the Few’’
and interprets transmission mechanisms in terms of ‘‘the efforts of a handful of
exceptional people’’ (p. 21). The second principle is ‘‘The Stickiness Factor’’ and
conceives communication as the viral agent of social change to recommend attention
to its formal characteristics or to ‘‘simple changes in the presentation and structuring
of information’’ (p. 25). The final principle, ‘‘the principle that makes sense of the
first two’’ (p. 9), is ‘‘The Power of Context,’’ and it observes, ‘‘the smallest and subtlest
and most unexpected of factors can affect the way we act’’ (p. 27). This is Gladwell’s
reformulation of his basic lesson*‘‘a little change has a huge effect’’*and his
attempt to refigure society as sensitive to tipping events through communicative
forms of intervention.
Gladwell’s first lesson is a restatement of perhaps the oldest finding in mass
communication research: ‘‘word of mouth is*even in this age of mass communications and multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns*still the most important form
of human communication’’ (p. 32). Gladwell’s (1996) early article more tightly
embraced its connection to diffusion theories of communication, a body of work
incorporating personal influence research to emphasize opinion leaders and change
agents.3 In his later book, Gladwell (2000) creates character types to distinguish
among types of personal influence. There are messengers providing multiple points of
connection in social networks, or ‘‘Connectors’’; messengers with new information or
perspectives, or ‘‘Mavens’’; and messengers who are experts in persuading despite
initial reluctance, or ‘‘Salesmen’’ (p. 59, pp. 69!70). Although Gladwell (2000) prefers
to cite Stanley Milgram and psychology research in his book, Connectors and Mavens
do not build appreciably on ideas found in early communication research. However,
his discussion of the sales personality usefully re-describes the idea of charismatic
influence to emphasize the role of affect and non-verbal communication in defining
the terms of interaction (pp. 80!86, p. 151). Gladwell’s main point is clear: if you
want to influence the world, focus all your resources on finding these exceptional
people to carry your message for you.
Gladwell’s second rule attends to message framing and, in particular, the formal
features important for expressing content in an attention-getting way. His discussion
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
139
mixes together marketing, children’s programming, and the use of fear appeals, to
characterize the problem as one of message ‘‘stickiness,’’ or the degree to which
attention can be gained in a way that still fits sensibly into people’s lives. The
discussion here is dominated by a comparison of Blue’s Clues puzzle solving
narratives and Sesame Street’s magazine format, an extended example that
recommends repetitive storytelling over causal association as the way to reach
children (and perhaps the way to reach people with a childlike understanding of
complex problems).
Gladwell’s third rule reduces to a plea to substitute contextual explanations for
those attributing human behavior to genetics, personal disposition, individual will, or
other non-contextual features, an important point that proved contentious when
elaborated through the example of Rudolph Giuliani’s crime fighting methods. The
idea here is to exploit the malleability of how people perceive or describe situations.
Fight violent crime by removing graffiti rather than addressing economic disparities,
racism or unemployment (p. 150). The recommendation to redefine situations to
advantage a preferred form of change is Gladwell’s most frequent advice and the
overarching theme of the book. It expresses the diagnostic and activist bend of
epidemiological perspectives, though often by recommending ‘‘argument by definition,’’ an aspect remarked upon below.
Gladwell distills three key aspects of an epidemiological imaginary: (1) its
implication in notions of the ‘‘communicable,’’ as suggested by Snow’s (1849/1854)
treatise or the early name of the CDC, Communicable Disease Center; (2) its
diagnostic concern for connecting perception to pathways for public intervention;
and (3) its pluralistic conception of causation as a model for social change. His
account is also distinguished by its synthetic, accessible and coherent account of
communication research. It is an interesting question, however, whether Gladwell’s
epidemiological re-stylization of communication theory is required to accept his
recommendations. In fact, Gladwell’s authority is generated from his meta-analytic
perspective and his grounding of communicative claims in social scientific research:
‘‘To make sense of social epidemics, we must first understand that human
communication has its own set of very unusual and counterintuitive rules’’ (Gladwell,
2000, p. 258). It is clear Gladwell embraces an anti-deliberative model of human
communication comporting well with public health examples as opposed, say, to
Habermas’s theory. However, the connection between public health models of
communication and epidemiological reasoning is unclear. Gladwell’s own popularly
oriented account suggests the appeal of epidemic imagery but it often reduces to
recommendations for remarketing social problems, as opposed to encouraging an
elucidation of how epidemiological inquiry develops as a tool for coping with urgent
and uncertain circumstances.
A fuller account is needed to supplement image-based epidemic appeals with a
better explanation of how epidemiological reasoning advances responses in crisis
situations and Cox’s (2007) discussion of ‘‘provisional validity’’ would usefully
inform this line of thinking (p. 8). The critical research tradition inspired by Gilles
Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and conceptions of ‘‘bio power’’ is also relevant. Treichler’s
140 C. Russill
(1987) epidemiology of meaning, Grossberg’s (1992) notion of ‘‘affective epidemics,’’
and Richard Doyle’s (1997) proposal to rethink rhetoric ‘‘more on the model of
contagion’’ (p. 3), are important departure points for this analysis. Treichler’s (1999)
How To Have Theory in an Epidemic might prove an interesting conversation partner
for those interested in Cox’s (2007) crisis discipline proposal and would help steer
away from the positivistic templates developed from ‘‘widely accepted narratives of
past epidemics’’ (Triechler, 1999, p. 100).
In summary, Gladwell’s concept advances an image of abrupt change that many
find useful for framing forewarnings of climate change danger. Its use also signals the
potential relevance of epidemiological reasoning in conditions of urgency and
uncertainty, while making the involvement of public health agencies seem more
plausible, normal and credible. In the next section, I outline the debate on climate
change as a backdrop for the emergence of a ‘‘tipping point’’ tendency in
forewarnings of danger.
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Climate Change as Public Debate
News coverage of public debate on climate change has shifted noticeably since 2005.
In that year, a USA Today cover story confidently declared, ‘‘The Debate’s Over: Globe
is Warming,’’ an article winning its author, Dan Vergano (2005), an American
Geophysical Union (AGU) prize for science reporting. In 2006, The Washington Post
embraced James Hansen’s perspective in a lead story, ‘‘Debate on Climate Shifts to
Issue of Irreparable Change: Some Experts on Global Warming Foresee ‘Tipping
Point’ When It Is Too Late to Act,’’ in which Juliet Eilperin (2006) observed that,
‘‘[t]his tipping point debate has stirred controversy within the administration’’
(p. A01). Eilperin captured the shift toward ‘‘tipping point’’ forewarning by focusing
attention on three intertwined dimensions: the possibility that change would be
abrupt, irreparable, and irreversible, long before damages became clear or empirically
verified. On 1 January 2007, The New York Times agreed something had changed and
Andrew Revkin (2007) identified a number of scientists, ‘‘the usually invisible
middle,’’ who were developing ‘‘a new middle stance,’’ which Revkin claimed was
‘‘now emerging, espoused by many experts who challenge both poles of the debate’’
(’ 1, 4). Revkin did not echo Hansen’s tipping point warning but he has amplified
public health perspectives on climate change in the last year.
Does this shift reflect the influence of an epidemiological imaginary? Does the
reframing of climate change warnings signal the ascent of public health models of
intervention? Or is it simply a faddish usage, one selectively borrowing from
Gladwell’s own partial uptake of epidemiological vocabularies? The position
presented here is based on several assumptions. I assume that the ‘‘alarmist vs.
skeptics’’ debate characterizing US public discourse on climate change is analogous in
many ways to ozone depletion debates. I then emphasize the importance of an
epidemiological imaginary to ozone depletion warnings and argue for its current
applicability to climate change forewarning. These assumptions are only summarily
sketched here and elaborated in greater detail elsewhere.4
Tipping Point Forewarnings
141
In reconstructing the history of public debate on climate change, most studies
prefer ‘‘issue’’-specific accounts. James Hansen’s testimony on 23 June 1988 is
frequently referenced as ‘‘the official beginning of the global warming policy debate
that continues to this day’’ (O’Donnell, 2000, p. 109), a view affirmed in Roger
Piekle’s (2000) decision to situate climate change policy in relation to ‘‘Hansen’s call
to action’’ (p. 9). Studies of media coverage tend to agree. Boykoff and Boykoff (2004)
justify 1988 as a starting point for public debate with reference to Hansen, and
Killingworth and Palmer (1992) provide a good account of how Hansen’s warning
served as a point of reference for mainstream media, such as TIME magazine
(pp. 155!158). Ross Gelbspan’s (1997) account is typical in this respect:
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Although it had lurked in the dim margins of public attention for the last few years,
global warming first emerged on the public stage during the brutally hot summer of
1988, when Dr. James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies
warned a congressional panel that it was at hand. (Gelbspan, 1997, p. 16)
Skeptical voices also focus on this event but it is important to acknowledge the
limitations of reconstructing public debate in this manner. In treating climate change
as a discrete ‘‘issue’’ disaggregated from other atmospheric problems, one fails to see
the thematic similarity between ozone depletion and climate change debates. Studies
of public understanding have long suggested this connection (for a good example, see
Killingsworth & Palmer, 1992, pp. 138!139). Kempton, Boster, and Hartley (1995)
provide empirical support: ‘‘the ozone hole has arrived as a concept in U.S public’s
consciousness, but the greenhouse effect is entering primarily as a subset of the ozone
hole phenomenon, the closest model available,’’ a view supported by further research
as well (cited in Bostrom, Morgan, Fischoff, & Read, 1994; Ungar, 1998b, p. 525).
Mazur and Lee (1993), Williams and Frey (1997), and Bodansky (1994) all express
similar views. Although this connection is often noted, it is interpreted variously and
often used as evidence of public misunderstanding. The relevant point at present is
the thematic similarity of public debates regarding warnings of danger. Consider the
following features:
.
.
.
.
.
.
The epistemic difficulty of appraising urgency in an uncertain situation regarding
a problem that cannot be verified empirically as damaging until we are
committed to the condition predicted to cause such damage.
The use of computer models as a basis for issuing warnings of danger.
The domination of public debate by voices seeking to amplify urgency
(‘‘alarmists’’) or uncertainty (‘‘skeptics’’) through media savvy communication
techniques.
The political-economic influence of affected industry on policy negotiations
through the direct funding of scientific counter claims.
The hiring of skeptic scientists by US public relations firms to contest the issue.
The direct attacks on prominent scientists’ work supporting CFC regulation and
the interpretation of caveats, alternative scenarios or revised predictions in a
142 C. Russill
.
.
.
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
.
‘‘debunking’’ mode where scientists were ‘‘caught’’ with bad data or wrong
predictions.
The claim that ozone depletion is ‘‘only a theory’’ or unsupported by facts.
The debate over natural variability or human inducement as an explanation for
phenomenon.
The concerns from the developing world that economic modernization will be
inhibited.
The claims from the developed world that an important industry and western
jobs would be lost.
If these similarities are not noted, it proves difficult to make sense of James
Hansen’s 1988 rationale for warning of climate change dangers. Hansen (2007) now
draws comparisons between ozone depletion and climate change warnings; yet it
remains a little remarked fact that Hansen’s 1988 warning was issued only after the
empirical validation of ozone depletion warnings based on computer modeling. If the
analogy between ozone depletion and climate change debate can be maintained, it
suggests the importance of an epidemiological imaginary in shaping public warnings.
Of course, there are different views regarding why ozone warnings were successful in
articulating a ‘‘precautionary’’ perspective able to encourage action before verifiable
damage was evident. The two most comprehensive accounts emphasize a decision
made in conditions of uncertainty contrary to assumptions that bulletproof scientific
truths carried the day. Benedict (1991) and Litfin (1994) ascribe different weights to
diplomats and discourse patterns, respectively, but neither believes opposition was
abandoned because of ‘‘the unassailable certainty of ozone science’’ (Gelbspan, 1997,
p. 67). Gelbspan’s narrative elides the manner in which ozone depletion ‘‘changed the
meaning of caution’’ and issued in a ‘‘discourse of precautionary action’’ (Litfin, 1994,
p. 189). As a result, experience with the problem of issuing warnings in urgent,
uncertain situations is disregarded along with consideration of how metaphorical and
image-based appeals proved effective in building popular support for ozone
regulation.
A recovery of this context would begin in observing the effect of increasing skin
cancer incidence or the role epidemiological reasoning played in those projections.
Ungar (1998b) advances this perspective in arguing that ozone regulation increased
its ‘‘marketability’’ by characterizing impacts in terms of a ‘‘hot crisis’’ concept. This
concept develops in recognition of emerging infectious disease, like the Ebola virus,
and emphasizes sensitive vulnerabilities, unpredictable dangers, and specific human
impacts. Ungar finds this newly available framework for crisis is applied to ozone
depletion, which, as a result, is then ‘‘meshed with extant institutional formations’’
(p. 521). Ungar’s point underscores the main claim of this paper by illuminating how
the conceptualization of complex, urgent and uncertain problems in epidemiologically inspired terms can shift perceptions of a problem to facilitate public health
interventions. In Ungar’s opinion, however, a successful application of the ‘‘hot crisis’’
concept marks the difference between ozone depletion and climate change communication (p. 513). Dimensions of ozone depletion are well suited to expression in
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
143
terms of a ‘‘hot crisis,’’ which allows advocates to voice effective forewarnings of
danger in a way acceptable to existing institutions. In this way, ozone depletion is
successfully marketed and climate change is destined to flounder since the crisis
represented by this problem is very different and cannot be easily expressed in such
terminology (Ungar, 1998b, p. 513).
This analysis prompts two broad rejoinders neither of which should obscure the
insightfulness of Ungar’s work. First, it is not clear the difference between successes in
ozone regulation and climate change is primarily a matter of the different marketing
strategies available for communicating each problem. As McCright and Dunlap
(2000) suggest, a focus on media conventions, marketability, and epistemic factors,
obscures the role of political-economic power. This dimension should not be
underplayed. However, in illuminating the way fossil-fuel lobbyists shape climate
change discourse, McCright and Dunlap (2000) do not observe how powerful
opposition did emerge to contest ozone depletion regulation. Why did such efforts
fail in this case but not climate change? Was Ungar’s ‘‘hot crisis’’ concept valuable for
overcoming industry skepticism toward regulation in uncertain and urgent
circumstances? One might suggest, for example, that concerted efforts by the Bush
Administration to remove human health-related references to climate change
acknowledges the power of this kind of connection.
Second, there are dimensions of epidemiological discourse not simply reducible to
marketing savvy that may facilitate a form of reasoning useful in climate change
contexts. Ungar is right to claim that ‘‘[e]ven a minimally coherent account of why
climate change is a threat involves a series of loose postulates that span several
scientific fields and transcend both the public’s current understanding of science and
the information carrying capacity of most of the mass media’’ (p. 522). This
complexity produces a ‘‘disastrous marketing problem,’’ as models predict a range of
weather-related consequences, none of which fit ready-made schematic models for
apprehending crisis (pp. 522!523). The result is that ozone depletion warnings can be
adapted to media conventions in a way climate change cannot approximate. Ozone
depletion discussions can ‘‘include effects that are unique, direct, individualized and
indisputable,’’ while climate change is unable to meet these criteria for successful
communication of impact (p. 524). To his credit, Ungar acknowledges this is a post
hoc explanation. Ozone depletion warnings were challenged on each of these points
when regulatory action was undertaken (p. 524). If so, however, the point seems to
reduce to contingent circumstance: a fortuitous model of hot crisis developed in the
mid-1980s to characterize emerging threats of infectious disease and this ‘‘model of
reality’’ was applied to ozone depletion in a way provoking widespread public
concern.
Is this model still available for recognizing crisis, for prompting concern, and for
generating regulatory action? If so, can climate change be expressed in such terms?
Research emphasizing the connection of climate change to human disease incidence
has began to emerge with regularity. In this respect, the trajectory of climate change is
away from temperature shifts or extreme weather events and toward public health
consequences, a trend fitting the problem to the institutional forms and cultural
144 C. Russill
themes Ungar found most important for generating public interest in ozone
regulation.
Tipping Point Warnings of Climate Change Danger
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
This is classic public health policy . . . . The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention is committed to addressing the public-health consequences of climate
change, which is preparedness at its best. (Frumkin, 2007, ’ 1, 4)
James Hansen began to issue public warnings of dangerous climate change in 2004.
He spoke of a ‘‘time bomb,’’ ‘‘Humanity’s Faustian Climate Bargain,’’ and of a
‘‘slippery slope’’ to climate hell, while criticizing governmental interference with these
statements. These efforts drew mild attention as Hansen experimented with new
metaphors and claimed that communication of danger to the public was the highest
priority. In an editorial essay for Climatic Change, Hansen (2005a) explained his
reasoning: ‘‘‘A slippery slope to Hell’ did not seem like an exaggeration. On the other
hand, I was using ‘slippery slope’ mainly as a metaphor for the danger posed by global
warming. So I changed ‘Hell’ to ‘disaster’’’ (p. 269).
Hansen first spoke of a ‘‘tipping point’’ in his 2005 address to the AGU. Given 14
months after his first public warning, the December 2005 ‘‘tipping point speech,’’ as
one interviewer characterized it, was excerpted in the New York Review of Books and
gained increased media attention in January 2006.5 As a result, further restrictions
were placed on Hansen’s ability to communicate by NASA’s public affairs office.
Hansen contacted Time Warner and The New York Times and front-page stories of
government interference with climate change appeared 29 January 2006 in The New
York Times and The Washington Post. The Washington Post and then Time, 60 minutes,
and other media mentioned this tipping point aspect prominently.
Hansen spoke of tipping points to describe an irreversible change implying
consequences that are undesirable because they are uncontrollable and uncertain: ‘‘we
are on the precipice of climate system tipping points beyond which there is no
redemption’’ (2005b, p. 8).6 There are abrupt, self-sustaining changes induced by
minor shifts at sensitive points of intervention, a view suggested by scientific concepts
like thresholds, feedbacks, and forcings. Hansen’s explanation parallels Gladwell’s
account in seeking to distinguish this view from gradual, cumulative kinds of change.
However, the term appears only four times in his 2005 AGU lecture and it is absent
from his accompanying slides. Less than two years later, however, tipping points
represent Hansen’s main justification for taking immediate and specific actions on
climate change.
Hansen’s understanding of tipping points is conveniently fixed in his testimony to
the State of Iowa Utilities Board in 2007. This testimony includes the discussion and
the Power Point slides used in his public lectures. It was solicited to support
deliberations regarding the threat represented by climate change in the context of a
decision on whether to build new coal energy generating stations in Iowa. Hansen’s
warnings include the use of stratospheric ozone regulation as a model, an imprecise
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
145
definition of tipping points, an expansive use of the term, and an apparent deviation
from the primary scientific research in issuing the warning.
First, Hansen models his proposed solution on the example of ozone depletion
regulation. His understanding of why the ozone model might work is not naı̈ve,
though perhaps idealistic in its reconstruction of how scientifically grounded
policymaking should work. Hansen spreads the blame for communicative failures
to include media, government, special interests, the public, and also scientists, in
claiming that, ‘‘we as scientists have not done as good a job in making clear the threat
to the planet and creation’’ (p. 30). Ozone regulation is provided as an example of a
good job.
Second, in trying to make clear the threat to the planet, Hansen describes tipping
point change in the following manner: ‘‘A tipping point occurs in a system with
positive feedbacks. When forcing toward a change, and change itself become large
enough, positive feedbacks can cause a sudden acceleration of change with very little,
if any, additional forcing’’ (p. 3). This explanation accords well with Gladwell’s
attempt to capture changes that are sensitive to small perturbations and which selfsustain the pattern of change without further forcing. In this situation, one passes the
‘‘threshold’’ where past climate responses are a reliable guide to future predictions.
This is also the explication Gabrielle Walker (2006) found acceptable in her review of
tipping point uses in climate change science for Nature. It is an accelerated change
against a background of slower or more gradualist change that distinguishes a tipping
point. This creates imprecision since the rate of change is only accelerated when
pictured upon a more gradually shifting set of relations. Hypothetically, the ‘‘tipping
point’’ might be a snap of the fingers or a century long moment, if considered on
geological timescales. In practice, however, the intent of tipping point warnings is to
transform our perception of climatic and geological system change by using more
familiar ‘‘event’’-based frames of reference. Imprecision does not result simply from
the complexity of the processes involved, but from the effort to fit these almost
imperceptible changes to temporal scales based more firmly in typical human
experiences. Put another way, Hansen is re-characterizing climatic processes in terms
of events so as to recalibrate the dangers represented by shifts in these processes to our
sense of significant change. This entails a necessary transformation of scientific
research and opens Hansen to charges of alarmism.
Third, this warning becomes more confused when tipping points are used
indiscriminately to explain changes in physical processes, life systems, and social
behavior. Such slippage is frequent in climate change discussions and, at worst, entails
the reduction of complex social behavior to physical or biological models in a
positivistic fashion. Hansen’s discussion of tipping points in biological systems
simply refers us to the uncertainty characteristic of ecological systems characterized
by multiple points of causality that, if altered, might well precipitate massive
extinctions (p. 4). The application of tipping points to social change and public
opinion formation is associated rather facilely with the idea of a ‘‘snowball effect’’
(p. 5). Hansen is building on a characteristic understanding among climate scientists
regarding how the social world changes. For instance, Walker (2006) cites IPPC
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
146 C. Russill
author, Richard Alley, ‘‘human tipping points are probably more important than the
natural ones’’ (p. 805). Similarly, an editorial comment by Nature advocates directly
for Gladwell’s book and states that, ‘‘[t]he concept of the tipping point is, in fact,
more pertinent to the climate crisis in the social sphere than in the physical world’’
(2006, p. 785). However, the understanding of tipping point conceptions of social
change is remarkably weak. It is never elaborated and the glowing references to
Gladwell’s book are surprising for scientifically trained professionals, since the book
never considers counter examples and non-confirming evidence. However, Hansen’s
understanding of social tipping points is typical in this respect. He believes that a
refusal to build new coal generating plants in Iowa might send a ‘‘message,’’ one able
to reframe perceptions of climate change and serve as a tipping point for new mass
behaviors (pp. 3!5).
Finally, there is the fact that Hansen’s use of ‘‘tipping points’’ does not simply
reflect the primary science. I replicated the methodology used by Naomi Oreskes’
(2004) to survey the climate change research literature and found no uses of ‘‘tipping
point’’ between 1993 and 2003. I then extended the search through the end of 2006
and broadened the parameters. This resulted in two research articles. The dearth of
tipping point references in the scientific literature prompts questions regarding its
accuracy as a description of climate change. In addressing this question for Nature,
Gabrielle Walker (2006) reviewed the scientific literature and interviewed IPCC
climate scientists to conclude there are several ‘‘danger zones that may deserve to be
called tipping points’’ (p. 802). In particular, the elements of threshold crossing,
irreversibility, and positive feedback appear to characterize key climatic mechanisms
quite well. It is odd, however, that Walker’s non-committal conclusion suggests the
popularity of the concept, while failing to observe its very rare use in the primary
research literature (p. 802). In fact, both Walker and an accompanying Nature
editorial are unclear on this point. As the Editor’s Summary (2006) puts it,
The idea that passing a hidden threshold could drastically worsen man-made
climate change has been current in the scientific literature for many years. Now it
has a new name, a ‘‘tipping point,’’ and suddenly the news magazines and other
media have picked up on it. (’ 1)
This is an important point. If tipping point warnings do not simply reflect
advancing scientific understanding, then why is it now preferred? There are other
functionally equivalent and more clearly elaborated conceptions of change available,
both in the scientific literature and in popular environmental writing. For example,
Al Gore’s (1992) Earth in the Balance attempts to revise received views of causality in
a way very similar to Gladwell’s perspective, enrolling ideas of non-linearity from
chaos theory (p. 34, pp. 361!363). Walker does not say it is an inaccurate description
of climate systems and the editors of Nature suggest its use is akin to old wine in new
bottles. The perspective is almost nominalist in its conclusion regarding the
appropriateness of tipping points. Climate systems might be described in a variety
of manners, either using tipping points or other concepts. Its importance derives not
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
147
from better describing climate systems but in making available an image of crisis
useful for registering public concern and opening avenues for response.
It is on this point that advocates and critics of tipping point forewarnings disagree.
The editors of Nature, for example, believe ‘‘there are three dangers attendant on
focusing humanity’s response to the climate crisis too much on tipping points’’
(p. 785). They believe such warnings underplay the uncertainties inherent to climate
science, that they distort human responses by focusing on avoidance rather than
adaptation, and that ‘‘can induce fatalism,’’ since tipping points, ‘‘may encourage a
belief that a complete solution is the only worthwhile one, as any other course may
allow the climate system to tumble past the crucial threshold’’ (p. 785).
It is easier to discuss the meaning of tipping point warnings more fully if the problem
motivating Hansen’s usage of tipping points is better understood. A central dilemma
facing climate change communication is the incommensurability between problem
formulations and available solutions. Most warnings emphasize the scale, scope and
magnitude of the problem in a manner that devalues conventional ways of responding
to environmental concern. This observation has produced various responses. Some
claim this situation requires the death of environmentalism since conventional
environmentalist responses rule out the kinds of change needed (cf. Schellenberger
& Nordhaus, 2004). Others claim the situation is the result of ‘‘climate porn,’’ where
alarmists and their audiences respond to the ‘‘secretly thrilling’’ experience of crisis in a
detached manner (Ereaut & Segnit, 2006). The ‘‘climate porn’’ manner of dismissing
environmental concern resembles the charges of environmental hysteria outlined by
Killingworth and Palmer (1995), especially in the worry that alarmist warnings might
spread like an epidemic (p. 2). A perverse human desire outstrips rational judgment in
motivating such alarmist warnings and, as a result, the scenarios promoting urgency are
vivified and exaggerated to the point that any possible human response seems
inadequate. Society, as a result, ‘‘tips’’ into a defeatist or fatalist trajectory.
These are two popular ways to make sense of the problem/solution incommensurability characteristic of climate change warnings: as the result of imaginative
deficiencies or perverse desire. Yet, it seems impossible to rule out on principle the
idea that some problems will outstrip available responses. In this respect, the ‘‘climate
porn’’ claim is particularly weak. It originates from a desire to chart a middle position
between alarmism and skepticism, a perspective hoping to treat climate change
seriously while bending problem formulations toward manageable solutions based
typically in a public health understanding. This goal, for example, guides Britain’s
influential Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research. Its director, Mike Hulme
(2006), claims a ‘‘discourse of catastrophe’’ has ‘‘pushed the debate between climate
change scientists and climate skeptics to now being between climate change scientists
and climate alarmists’’ (’ 13). Hulme attributes this shift to Tony Blair’s tipping point
warnings at a government convened conference: ‘‘By stage-managing the new
language of catastrophe, the conference itself became a tipping point in the way
that climate change is discussed in public,’’ a shift so pronounced Hulme concludes
that, ‘‘the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative,
depressive and reactionary trajectory’’ (’ 21).
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
148 C. Russill
Hulme develops two arguments to support disciplining public communication of
climate change dangers. He draws a strong distinction between the language of
catastrophe and the language of science to ask why people like Blair or Hansen ‘‘are
openly confusing the language of fear, terror and disaster with the observable physical
reality of climate change . . .’’(’ 11). Hulme implies it is dishonest to redefine climate
change in this way, since it ‘‘hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not
emerge from empirical or theoretical science’’ (’ 26). The obvious conclusion is that
all climate change action is based in value assumptions. Recommendations for social
change should be debated in terms of human values, not presented as the logical
outcome of a scientific demonstration.
Hulme does not pursue this conclusion and instead develops a second argument
regarding the utility of alarmist styles of communication. An alarmist school of
thought holds that urgent warnings are necessary to gain attention and motivate
behavioral change. As Killingsworth and Palmer (1992) put it, the ‘‘lash of crisis’’ can
more rapidly advance cultural change on environmental issues, even if the depth of
the resulting commitment might be questioned (p. 156). This belief would seem to
underwrite warnings of extreme disaster and catastrophe. Like the editors of Nature,
Hulme believes these warnings are ineffective.
The language of fear and terror operates as an ever-weakening vehicle for effective
communication or inducement for behavioural change. This has been seen in other
areas of public health risk. Empirical work in relation to climate change
communication and public perception shows that it operates here too. (Hulme,
2006, ’ 28!29)
The main point for the purposes of this discussion is Hulme’s implicit redefinition
of climate change as a public health issue. This reframing implies a cascade of valueladen assumptions no less than the position of proponents preferring an alarmist
form of warning. Redefining climate change as a public health issue is ‘‘argument by
definition,’’ and like Hulme’s alarmist opponents, it advances a set of values without
arguing for them explicitly.7 A public health perspective is no more implied by the
empirical and theoretical climate science than alarmist perspectives. Instead, Hulme’s
views are based in an image of science, an assumption about the institutions having
authority to define climate change dangers, and a theory of how communication can
work to encourage preferred responses.8 This is evident in one of the Tyndall Center’s
useful briefing reports on climate change communication.
What is clear, however, is that the problem must be made tangible and manageable if
the warnings are to have a real impact. Given current representations, the solutions
to such a vast and complex problem make the public’s response seem insignificant,
futile and in some cases too late to make a difference . . . . (Lowe, 2005, p. 4)
All popular efforts to inform the public through climate change communication
wrestle with a set of complex assumptions regarding how best to fit perceptions of the
problem to recommended avenues for solution. These efforts invariably balance the
desire for precise and accurate scientific representations with an appraisal of the best
available means of persuasion for encouraging an effective response. It is these
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
149
appraisals, I have suggested, which are increasingly shaped by an epidemiological
imaginary and a belief that public health institutions can, as Lowe (2005) puts it,
‘‘have a real impact’’ (p. 4).
In this respect, Hansen and Hulme embrace the same theoretical perspective. Both
believe communication can induce social change by tipping behaviors along specific
trajectories through warnings of danger. Hulme wants to discipline public warnings to
accord more with the image of science and public health practice he holds. In this
sense, climate change would be invoked to normalize a set of behaviors rather than
startle or provoke new behaviors. But the difference is not vast for two reasons. First, if
a tipping point for dangerous climate change is crossed, then discussion will
necessarily adopt a vocabulary of adaptation and coping, since avoidance is no longer
possible. Hansen’s own estimation put this tipping point around 2015. Second, the
idea that tipping point warnings will induce fatalism is far from evident and represents
a misunderstanding of Gladwell’s main point. It rests on the view that defeatism is a
logical response when faced with an insurmountable obstacle. If we want to avoid
defeatism, we must avoid representations of climate change characterized by problem
formulations incommensurate to available solutions. However, Gladwell’s perspective
is grounded on the belief that such incommensurability should not inspire fatalism.
This is the main argument of the tipping point perspective: Small shifts result in
massive social changes all the time. We should not seek comprehensive solutions, but
experiment with ‘‘band-aid’’ responses, since these actions often have disproportionate and counterintuitive effects (Gladwell, 2000, pp. 256!257).
Conclusion
The manner in which an epidemiological imaginary might refigure perceptions of
climate change is a complex question. The confidence with which weakly elaborated
views of social change underpin prominent climate change communication
perspectives suggests its scope and power, as do the now proliferating recommendations for pursuing public health models of response. James Gustave Speth’s (2004)
recent work provides a good example of how epidemiological terminology reconceptualizes the way we perceive and intervene in climate change dangers. Speth
has long been involved in environmental affairs from an impossibly diverse array of
perspectives: Think-tank and interest group (WRI, NRDC), Presidential advisor
(Carter, Clinton), international governance (UNEP), even formal education (Dean of
Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale). As a result, Speth’s proposal to rethink
environmental problems from the perspective of solutions currently available is less
surprising than the way a new warning of climate change danger is thought to
advance this perspective: ‘‘Here is the way I would characterize the response to global
threats to date: a highly threatening disease is attacking our planet . . .’’ (p. 98).
Speth’s use of tipping points is limited to re-describing how and why 1970s
environmentalism achieved successes in domestic regulation (p. 82). However, his
recommendations for communication are classic public health campaigns:
150 C. Russill
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
All those who can influence what public service ads make it onto the airwaves can
help us reach the public on climate, as happened with drunk driving, drugs,
smoking, and HIV/AIDS. We need a climate awareness campaign modeled on these
efforts. (Speth, 2004, p. 228)
The recent efforts of the CDC provide an even more obvious example. Andrew
Revkin’s (2007) discussion of the emerging middle position in climate change debate
used Hulme’s perspective as representative. Howard Frumkin (2007), a director and
epidemiologist for the CDC, wrote in response to Revkin’s article, ‘‘This is classic
public health policy . . . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is
committed to addressing the public-health consequences of climate change, which
is preparedness at its best’’ (’ 1, 4). As public health agencies like the CDC promise to
play a leading role*its Director of the National Center of Health Marketing Julie
Louise Gerberding plans to speak of ‘‘climate change’’ in every speech*this attention
is likely to further amplify the popular embrace of an epidemiological imaginary for
expressing environmental dangers.
The immediate consequence will be the ‘‘pegging’’ of climate change news stories
to human health concerns. Previously, climate change made the news in connection
with odd weather patterns. This shift to human health dimensions has been
disadvantaged by the removal of such references from US government agency reports
on climate change, but that may well change in 2009 when the Bush Administration
leaves office. News media have also been more vigilant about reporting such changes
and the recent editing of Gerberding’s CDC testimony to this effect has drawn
significant attention to the problem. It is also important to note that few subfields of
communication have grown as rapidly as health communication in recent years. It is
not difficult to imagine the well-funded research into smoking, cancers and drug use
could expand to include climate change communication. This would have the likely
consequence of normalizing climate change as an issue to be addressed in terms of
reducing specific risks in a defined population.
The popular embrace of an epidemiological imaginary for expressing environmental dangers should not be a surprising trend. These models of explanation have
proven remarkably promising as a tool for guiding practical interventions in
uncertain and unfamiliar situations. However, the support of epidemiological
imagery for public health interventions will promise little more than a new form
of positivism if the slippage in application from physical to human phenomena is not
more closely studied and if its unique form of reasoning is not better elaborated for
non-specialists. In this respect, the focus on environmental crisis as an object of
inquiry for environmental communication scholars is a promising avenue.9
Notes
[1]
[2]
See Chapter 8, ‘‘Dead London.’’
It is worth mentioning that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first serialized in The New
Yorker. Elizabeth Kolbert’s Field Notes from a Catastrophe and Bill McKibbon’s End of Nature
also appeared as articles in the magazine, as did Paul Brodeur’s early reporting on asbestosis.
Tipping Point Forewarnings
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
151
In fact, early diffusion of innovation studies also conceptualized personal influence and
public opinion as contagion like processes (cf. Rogers, 1995, pp. 301!302).
This draws from a longer discussion of the thematic similarity of ozone depletion and
climate change found in Russill (2007).
See, for example, James Hansen’s interview with Frontline, retrieved November 11, 2007
from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/hansen.html.
In this respect, Hansen differs from Rachel Carson’s views regarding the control of nature,
despite their similar uses of apocalyptic warnings. Regarding Carson, see Killingsworth and
Palmer (1995, p. 11).
For a valuable discussion of argument by definition, see Schiappa (2003, pp. 130!131).
See Killingsworth and Palmer (1992) for a good discussion of how images of science are
affirmed in popular media.
See the first issue of this journal, in particular Cox (2007) and Schwarze (2007).
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
References
Balkenende, J. P., & Blair, T. (2006). Letter to European Council. Retrieved February 20, 2007 from
http://www.number10.gov.uk/files/pdf/Vanhanen.pdf.
Benedict, R. (1991). Ozone diplomacy: New directions in safeguarding the planet. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Berry, J. M. (2005). The great influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history. New York:
Penguin Books.
Black, R. (2006). Stark warning over climate change. BBC News, January 30. Retrieved February 20,
2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4660938.stm.
Bodansky, D. (1994). Prologue to the climate change convention. In I. M. Mintzer & J. A. Leonard
(Eds.), Negotiating climate change: The inside story of the Rio convention (pp. 45!74).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bostrom, A., Morgan, M. G., Fischoff, B., & Read, D. (1994). What do people know about global
climate change? Risk Analysis, 14, 959!969.
Boykoff, M. T., & Boykoff, J. M. (2004). Balance as bias: Global warming and the US prestige press.
Global Environmental Change, 14, 125!136.
Brodeur, P. (1985). Outrageous misconduct: The asbestos industry on trial. New York: Pantheon
Books.
Brown, P., & Mikkelsen, E. J. (1997). No safe place: Toxic waste, leukemia, and community action. Los
Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
Brulle, R. J., & Pellow, D. N. (2006). Environmental justice: Human health and environmental
inequalities. Annual Review of Public Health, 27, 103!124.
Cox, R. (2006). Environmental communication and the public sphere. London: Sage Publications.
Cox, R. (2007). Nature’s ‘‘crisis disciplines’’: Does environmental communication have an ethical
duty? Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 1, 5!20.
Doyle, R. (1997). On beyond living: Rhetorical transformations of the life sciences. Stanford, CA:
University of Stanford Press.
Eilperin, J. (2006, January 29). Debate on climate shifts to issue of irreparable change: Some experts
on global warming foresee ‘‘Tipping Point’’ when it is too late to act. The Washington Post,
p. A01.
Ereaut, G., & Segnit, N. (2006). Warm words: How are we telling the climate story and can we tell it
better? London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
Erni, J. (1994). Unstable frontiers: Technomedicine and the cultural politics of ‘‘curing’’ AIDS.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Fischer, R. (2000). Citizens, experts and the environment: The politics of local knowledge. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press.
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
152 C. Russill
Frumkin, H. (2007). No time to debate. The New York Times, January 8. Retrieved June 17, 2007
from http://chge.med.harvard.edu/media/letters/documents/01_08_07_nyt_chivian.pdf.
Funtowicz, S. O., & Ravetz, J. R. (1992). Three types of risk assessment and the emergence of postnormal science. In S. Krimsky & D. Golding (Eds.), Social theories of risk (pp. 251!274).
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Gelbspan, R. (1997). The heat is on. Reading, MA: Perseus Books.
Gladwell, M. (1996). The tipping point. The New Yorker, June 3. Retrieved February 28, 2007 from
http://www.gladwell.com/1996/1996_06_03_a_tipping.htm.
Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. Boston, MA:
Back Bay Books
Gore, A. (1992). Earth in the balance. New York: Rodale.
Grossberg, L. (1992). We gotta get out of this place: Popular conservatism and postmodern culture.
New York: Routledge.
Hansen, J. (2004). Defusing the global warming time bomb. Scientific American, 290, 68!77.
Hansen, J. (2005a). A slippery slope: How much global warming constitutes ‘‘dangerous
anthropogenic interference’’?: An editorial essay. Climatic Change, 68, 269!279.
Hansen, J. (2005b). Is there still time to avoid ‘‘dangerous anthropogenic interference’’ with global
climate? A tribute to Charles David Keeling. Presentation given December, 2005, at the
American Geophysical Union, San Francisco. Retrieved February 28, 2007 from http://
www.columbia.edu/ !jeh1/.
Hansen, J. (2007). Iowa coal case. Testimony submitted to the Iowa Utilities Board, November 5.
Hulme, M. (2006). Chaotic world of climate truth. BBC News, November 4. Retrieved February 28,
2007 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6115644.stm.
Kempton, W., Boster, J. S., & Hartley, J. A. (1995). Environmental values in American culture.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Killingsworth, M. J., & Palmer, J. S. (1992). Ecospeak: Rhetoric and environmental politics.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Killingsworth, M. J., & Palmer, J. S. (1995). The discourse of ‘‘environmentalist hysteria’’. The
Quarterly Journal of Speech, 81, 1!19.
Koop, C. E. (1985/1986). Surgeon General’s workshop on violence and public health report, October
27!29, Leesburg, VA, 1985.
Litfin, K. T. (1994). Ozone discourse: Science and politics in global environmental cooperation. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Lowe, T. (2005). Dangerous claims’’: Is the way we perceive climate change leading to a
precautionary approach or an irrational response? Tyndall Briefing Note, 16, 1!5.
Mazur, A., & Lee, J. (1993). Sounding the global alarm: Environmental issues in the U. S. National
News. Social Studies of Science, 23, 681!720.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2000). Challenging global warming as a social problem: An
analysis of the conservative movement’s counter-claims. Social Problems, 47, 499!522.
Mitman, G. (2005). In search of health: Landscape and disease in American environmental history.
Environmental History, 10, 184!210.
Nash, L. (2006). Inescapable ecologies: A history of environment, disease, and knowledge. Los Angeles,
CA: University of California Press.
Nature (2006). Editor’s summary. Nature, 441, 785. Retrieved November 11, 2007 from http://
www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7095/edsumm/e060615-04.html.
O’Donnell, T. M. (2000). Of loaded dice and heated arguments: Putting the Hansen!Michaels
global warming debate in context. Social Epistemology, 14, 109!127.
Oliver, J. E. (2005). The politics of pathology: How obesity became an epidemic disease. Perspectives
in Biology and Medicine, 49, 611!627.
Oreskes, N. (2004). The scientific consensus on climate change. Nature, 306, 1686.
Ostherr, K. (2005). Cinematic prophylaxis: Globalization and contagion in the discourse of world
health. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Downloaded At: 21:45 4 April 2011
Tipping Point Forewarnings
153
Piekle, R. A., Jr. (2000). Policy history of the US global change research program: Administrative
development. Global Environmental Change, 10, 9!25.
Revkin, A. (2007). A new middle stance emerges in debate over climate. The New York Times,
January 1. Retrieved June 15, 2007 from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/science/
01climate.html?ei "5088&en"ca 62f844ec443&ex "1325307600&partner "rssnyt&emc "
rss&pagewanted "all.
Rogers, E. (1995). Diffusion of innovations. New York: The Free Press.
Russill, C. (2007). Tipping point forewarnings of climate crisis. Paper delivered to the Conference on
Communication and Environment, June 25, Chicago.
Schellenberger, M., & Nordhaus, D. (2004). Death of environmentalism: Global warming politics in
a post-environmental world. Retrieved February 28, 2007 from http://www.thebreak
through.org/images/Death_of_Environmentalism.pdf.
Schiappa, E. (2003). Defining reality: Definitions and the Politics of Meaning. Urbana, IL: University
of Southern Illinois Press.
Schwarze, S. (2007). Response to Cox: Environmental communication as a discipline of crisis.
Environmental Communication, 1, 87!98.
Snow, J. (1849/1854). On the mode of communication of cholera. Retrieved November 1, 2007
from http://www.deltaomega.org/snowfin.pdf.
Soule, M. E. (1985). What is conservation biology? BioScience, 35, 727!734.
Speth, J. (2004). Red sky at morning: America and the crisis of the global environment. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Time Magazine. (2006, April 3). Be worried. Be very worried. Time Magazine, p. 167, front cover.
Treichler, P. (1987). AIDS, homophobia and biomedical discourse: An epidemic of signification.
Cultural Studies, 1(3), 263!305.
Treicher, P. (1999). How to have theory in an epidemic: Cultural chronicles of AIDS. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
Trostle, J. A. (2005). Epidemiology and culture. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ungar, S. (1998a). Hot crises and media reassurance: A comparison of emerging diseases and Ebola
Zaire. The British Journal of Sociology, 49, 36!56.
Ungar, S. (1998b). Bringing the issue back in: Comparing the marketability of the ozone hole and
global warming. Social Problems, 45, 510!527.
Vergano, D. (2005, June 12, 13). The debate’s over: Globe is warming. USA Today, Retrieved June 17,
2007 from http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-12-global-warming-cover_x.htm.
Walker, G. (2006). The tipping point of the iceberg. Nature, 441, 802!805.
Wells, H. G. (1898). War of the worlds. Retrieved February 28, 2007 from http://www.bartleby.com/
1002/.
Williams, J., & Frey, R. S. (1997). The changing status of global warming as a social problem,
competing factors in two public arenas. Research in Community Sociology, 7, 279!299.