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By Joe Arney

We鈥檙e going about environmental storytelling all wrong.听

When Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, it became a rallying point for the nascent environmental movement鈥攏ot because it was a scientific book (though it is), but because of its haunting opening pages that described a town where the birds and bees had vanished, fish were gone, fruit wouldn鈥檛 blossom, and disease ran rampant.

That scene moved people to ban pesticides and rethink humanity鈥檚 role in the larger environment. But, Phaedra C. Pezzullo said, until we figure out how to tell stories about today鈥檚 environmental crises鈥攍ike plastic pollution and climate change鈥攁ll we have are data that, alone, fail to move people to action.

鈥淲hat many people are arguing is that the climate crisis is a crisis of imagination and of communication,鈥� said Pezzullo, a professor of communication and media studies at the University of 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 College of Media, Communication and Information. 鈥淭he idea is, we struggle to grapple with what is the climate鈥擨 can鈥檛 touch it, I can鈥檛 see it鈥攕o how do we tell stories that empower people, instead of only getting caught up in the data?鈥�

Interdisciplinary insights

Pezzullo鈥檚 interdisciplinary approach to the problem of plastics鈥攖he science of microplastics permeating the human body and the way of explaining that crisis in a way that inspires people to demand action鈥攈as helped her see a need for a fresh approach to how we talk about such complex problems.听

It鈥檚 partly what moved her to start a podcast series, , and her most recent book, , which was published last year. The book has generated significant attention as the media struggles to cover the plastics problem; since the summer, it has won three significant prizes from the National Communication Association: a Diamond Anniversary Book Award, the James A. Winans-Herbert A. Wichelns Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Rhetoric and Public Address and, significantly, the Tarla Rai Peterson Book Award in Environmental Communication, named for a prolific scholar who Pezzullo met years ago at a conference.听

鈥淚t鈥檚 an honor to have this book recognized and affirmed by my colleagues with expertise in environmental studies, rhetoric, and across the entire field of communication,鈥� Pezzullo said.

In some ways, Beyond Straw Men and Pezzullo鈥檚 search for impactful storytelling is the kind of scholarly work that鈥檚 uniquely possible at a place like CMCI. The college was created to address the complex challenges of today鈥檚 interconnected world, which require interdisciplinary perspectives to effectively engage.听

It鈥檚 an approach that resonates with partners outside the university. In her role as director of 蜜糖直播 Boulder鈥檚 graduate certificate in environmental justice, Pezzullo has been working with 蜜糖直播鈥檚 Department of Public Health and Environment to help update its quantitative database of communities most affected by environmental damage. Undergraduates in a new class she鈥檚 teaching, Advanced Topics in Storytelling, Culture and Climate Justice, are updating story maps to help the state assess how the message it鈥檚 spreading about climate impacts local communities.听

At CMCI, expertise in 鈥榟ow to move people鈥�

鈥淭hese stories need to be assessed so they can figure out if they are empowering residents,鈥� she said. 鈥淎re they rich enough, compelling enough, moving enough? Or did we lean too hard on data that maybe is too dense for this audience?听

鈥淎nd that鈥檚 why the state would love more partnerships with people in CMCI who can help them build capacity for the storytelling component, because they spend so much of their own time in the weeds. There鈥檚 a thirst for research that understands the climate science, but also brings to the conversation an appreciation for how to think about audiences, context and how to move people.鈥澨�

Part of that is finding ways to avoid confining stories about topics like pollution and climate to negative headlines, disaster movies, dystopian fiction and the like. 听

鈥淲e鈥檙e getting to the point with climate justice where you have to change attitudes, beliefs and the culture, and that means you need a range of stories鈥攊ncluding comedies, as my colleagues I work with across campus have shown. We have to use a whole range of human emotions to change a culture.鈥澨�

It also means those stories need broad appeal, so they aren鈥檛 just preaching to the converted.听

鈥淭he argument of folks who are working on climate storytelling in the industry is any film or media content created for the present or the future that does not have climate change as part of its backdrop should be considered fiction, because it is a part of life,鈥� she said.

The desperation to find the right storytelling techniques for plastics is easy to see in the endless drumbeat of bad news about plastics clogging rivers, causing floods; being burned, destroying air quality; and invading our drinking water, food supply and bodies. 听But like all good stories featuring hardship, this one has a protagonist we can easily root for.听

鈥淲hat I鈥檓 interested in right now is the idea of repair,鈥� Pezzullo said. By that, she means material repair鈥攊n May, 蜜糖直播 passed its third right to repair law, empowering consumers to fix, not flush, things like broken phones鈥攂ut also repairing relationships, especially in the case of well-meaning partnerships where, say, an NGO promised a solution to a plastic problem in the global south that failed.听

鈥淗ow do we have accountability, but also find a way to forgive people for mistakes?鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very challenging right now to admit that people have made mistakes, and then鈥攊f they鈥檙e willing to do the work or willing to do the repair work, forgive them.

鈥淎nd, of course, how do we repair the earth? That鈥檚 the most important question to me.鈥澨�