ENVIRONMENTAL
COMMUNICATION: WHAT IT IS
AND WHY IT MATTERS
In the simplest terms, environmental communication is communication about environmental affairs.
This includes all of the diverse forms of interpersonal, group, public, organizational, and mediated
communication that make up the social debate about environmental issues and problems, and our
relationship to the rest of nature.
"It is both a lay activity and a field of professional practice"
Anyone who is participating in these discussions is engaging in the activity of environmental
communication. That includes everyone from the most passionate environmental advocates, to the
fiercest opponents of ecological protections. In this sense, it is both a lay activity that anyone can
undertake, and a field of practice that professional communicators have created.
It should be noted here that former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize
with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for his work in
communicating about climate change. That makes him the most distinguished environmental
communicator today.
"It is also an interdisciplinary field of study"
Environmental communication is also an interdisciplinary field of study that examines the role,
techniques, and influence of communication in environmental affairs. Basically, it studies the activity
and in doing so, it draws its theory and methods primarily from communication, environmental
studies, psychology, sociology, and political science. There are university courses and programs in
environmental communication, research centers dedicated to its study, scholarly journals focused on
the subject, and books on various aspects of the field.
Work in this area is concerned with several interconnected dimensions of the communication. These
are most easily explained with reference to the standard questions of who, what, where, when and
how. In each of these dimensions, we might also ask why and so what?
Who gets to participate in the discussions? Why are certain voices privileged and others
marginalized? Among those are the voices of citizens, politicians, civil servants, scientists,
corporations, religious institutions, labour unions, indigenous peoples, environmental organizations,
and other civil society groups, not to mention journalists and other media workers.
What are the facets of the environmental issues that are being discussed? Why are some
emphasized over others? What are the implications? Among the key facets that might be discussed
are the science, costs, risks, problem definitions, possible responses, values, agency,
responsibilities, future visions, and ideas about nature, as well as the patterns of those discussions
known as discourses.
Where and when does the communication take place? What are the limitations and opportunities
associated with those different contexts? These include traditional news media, public participation
fora, policy-making venues, advocacy campaigns, advertising, street protests, social media, popular
culture and the public sphere generally.
How are people communicating? Why are they using certain words, metaphors, visuals, frames,
music, art, narratives, and other rhetorical devices? Why not different words, etc.? What are the
consequence for those who hear and see these messages? How should people be communicating?
many of the people who study this field see it as a “crisis discipline,” akin to conservation biology,
their work often goes beyond describing, explaining, or critiquing the communication. They feel a
responsibility to see that communication concerning environmental affairs be as ethical and effective
as possible. That’s because such communication is essential if we are to avoid violent conflicts and
address environmental health and justice issues in the most effective ways possible. Accordingly, a
central goal of the field is to discern and promote good practices.
"Environmental communication is a practical, and indeed essential, tool for action"
As with communication in general, environmental communication serves two broad social functions.
The first is that we use communication to do things. For example, we communicate in order to
inform, persuade, educate, and alert others. Similarly, we use communication to organize, argue,
reconcile, and negotiate with each other, among other things. In this way, environmental
communication is a practical, and indeed essential, tool for action. As such, it deserves careful
scrutiny.
Whether you are using environmental communication to advocate for a policy, raise awareness,
change behavior, influence public opinion, collaborate to address conflicts, pass legislation or
challenge assumptions, how you communicate will affect your outcomes. Whether you seek
technological, political, economic, behavioral or cultural solutions, you need effective communication
to succeed.
"Communication shapes how we see and value the world"
The second broad social function of communication is that it plays an important role in creating
meaning. Communication shapes how we see and value the world of things, events, conditions,
ideas and so forth. In environmental affairs, communication guides our understanding of the issues,
the problems that underlie them, the people and organizations involved, the possible approaches
that can be taken, potential futures, and most importantly, the natural world itself.
Many people working in this field understand how important meanings and values are to guiding
everything from the kinds of technologies people develop to the policies they support to the day to
day personal choices they make. Of course, meanings and values don’t fully determine how people
act, but they can greatly influence it.
"How well we communicate with each other about nature and
environmental affairs will affect how well we address the ecological crisis"
Better policies, cleaner energy sources, new technologies, carbon taxes and all of the other
innovative approaches to dealing with environmental issues will only take us so far. In order to
achieve lasting ecological sustainability, human culture (especially in wasteful Western societies) is
going to have to change as well. This will require some significant shifts in our views and values
towards the natural world, ourselves, and each other. So, how well we communicate about nature
and environmental affairs will affect how quickly and thoroughly we can transform our cultures and
ultimately how well we address the ecological crisis.
