Climate and environmental change: time to reframe threat?

Abstract

Climate and environmental change present a grave danger to global citizens and the living planet – informally, it is often described as a threat or crisis. However, at the official level, it is conceived as a scientific policy, and an economic and governance issue. In investigating why global response to this problem has thus far been inadequate, this study finds that climate communication research points to the influence of ‘deep frames’ – subconsciously held philosophical worldviews. Deep frames inhibit capacity to perceive the problem correctly and, consequently, to devise effective responses. Accordingly, this thesis investigates the ‘deep framing’ problem. It narrows the inquiry to focus on the idea of framing climate and environmental change as a type of threat. To do so, it draws upon military studies, which are designed for danger and uncertainty and offer frameworks for analysing threat. Previous work on climate security focuses upon how climate change may impact global security, but not upon how to approach and reduce the threat. This is the original contribution of this thesis. The theoretical approach involves two key fields. Military strategy provides the overarching theoretical scaffolding and guides the research design to orient around an iterative frame-environment-threat analysis. Pertinent to framing, literary methods, informed by the environmental humanities and cognitive science, form the second dominant analytical lens. Both military studies and literature hold strengths and offer skills in integrative analysis, and both facilitate the inclusion of other interdisciplinary insights. The thesis contains four analytical segments. Part I critically reflects on the rationale and risks of a threat-military framing, leading to a cautious and modified approach. Part II synthesises research on effective climate framing, and investigates the theories of post-human philosophers, Timothy Morton and Karen Barad. These theories provide a fertile conceptual space to consider the idea of a post-human centred approach to threat. Part III explores the way in which gender constructs shape the way climate and environmental issues are conceived, as well as how notions like ‘threat’ and ‘security’ are understood. Part IV to V have a more practical focus: they test and refine new framing concepts by placing them in the context of real-world considerations. Overall, the research develops the idea of framing climate and environmental change as a hyperthreat, and the concept of ‘entangled security.’ It concludes that pre-climate approaches to threat are no longer coherent, while positive synergies can be realised by approaching planetary, human and state security issues concurrently. This thesis contributes to what military planners consider as the start point for developing a strategic response to a threat – the initial frame and threat analysis. Developing a comprehensive strategy would require a larger analytical and planning activity, involving wide disciplinary expertise, and is not part of the scope of this thesis. The results have implications for the way geopolitical security issues are conceived and approached; institutional structures; the expertise that is selected to address components of the problem and how to develop security planners for the future. It offers a new way of conceiving and approaching global security in the epoch of the Anthropocene. Show more