Treacherous Words: How Climate Change Conspiracy Sceptics use Conceptual Metaphors to Extinguish our Future

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Student Vt 2019

Examensarbete för kandidatexamen, 15 hp Engelska

Treacherous Words

How Climate Change Conspiracy Sceptics use Conceptual Metaphors to Extinguish our Future

Ida-Maria Chvostek

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Abstract

This study examined the metaphors used in contemporary American conservative discourse between October 2018 and March 2019, focusing on material published by conservative think tanks (CTTs) and tweets made by Republican senators in relation to climate change. For the CTTs, a domain-specific corpus (36,388 words) was compiled and a smaller corpus (3967 words) was assembled based on 135 tweets. These datasets showed that conspiracy scepticism was the most common type of scepticism used to discredit climate change data, scientists and environmental policies. In addition, the datasets indicate that conservative agents frequently used metaphors of WAR, RELIGION, HEALTH, BUILDING, JOURNEY, WATER and PRODUCT to convey negative frames. These domains linked to the conceptual key LIFE IS A STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL and were presented in a moral context. In response to these findings it is suggested that the scientific community incorporate emotional language, metaphors and moral values when communicating environmental issues.

Keywords: United States of America, conservative think tanks, critical metaphor

analysis, IPCC, framing

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1. Introduction

For decades, a small portion of humanity has warned us that we are heading towards a catastrophe. While not on the palisades screaming their message, climate scientists have continuously affirmed that our actions are threatening the very planet on which our existence depends (e.g. Haeberli & Beniston, 1998; Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2007; Nerem et al., 2018). Nevertheless, climate change research is frequently ignored, questioned and scorned by conservative politicians and interest groups who use their power to silence rather than listen to these expert voices (e.g. Jacques et al., 2008). In America, this has resulted in environmental agencies being censored, international agreements being abandoned, and the general public remaining sceptical of climate change (Barron, 2018;

The White House, 2017; Capstick et al., 2015). In order to reverse this trend, it has been suggested that the environmental community must tailor how they communicate climate change to shift the public’s operational ideology from conservative to progressive values (Zia & Todd, 2010). One way of achieving this switch is through interdisciplinary collaborations, where scientists from multiple fields contribute their unique expertise to strengthen climate change messages by addressing socio-ecological issues (e.g. Bifrost, n.d.). As a contribution to this field this paper will examine the metaphors and frames used by climate ‘sceptics’ when discussing global warming. However, before we begin to analyse sceptic discourse, let us start with a short summary of the risks and impacts associated with anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and the key players involved in the climate change debate.

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Anthropogenic warming and the IPCC

Our understanding of man-made global warming has grown immensely over the last 200 years, and in 1988 the UN General Assembly established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to review the available scientific literature on climate change.

Since then, the IPCC has released five assessment reports, as well as multiple special

reports, making recommendations based on the most current climate change research

(IPCC, n.d.). In October 2018, IPCC released special report SR15 detailing the severe

impacts associated with a global mean temperature of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels

(IPCC, 2018). According to this report, which is based on more than 6000 peer reviewed

papers and compiled by 91 scientists from 40 countries, this degree of anthropogenic

warming will have devastating effects on natural as well as human systems. As our planet

has already warmed with 1°C due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the Antarctic

and Greenland ice sheets are at risk of disintegrating in the next few decades, causing

global sea levels to rise and displacing millions of people. In addition, as extreme weather

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events increase, we will face large-scale species loss as well as increasing food insecurity.

These scenarios are not just doomsday prophecies; at 1°C above pre-industrial temperatures species are already going extinct, corals are struggling to survive and persistent droughts have caused an upsurge in asylum applications to the European Union (Gynther et al., 2016; Hughes et al., 2017; Missirian & Schlenker, 2017). The scientific community is clear; if greenhouse gas emissions continue unmitigated the environmental consequences will be both costly and deadly.

1.1.2 SR15 and the global community

In order to limit global warming to 1.5°C humanity must drastically reduce carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, with the IPCC recommending wide-ranging policies, practices and innovations on national and international levels to achieve this goal.

However, while some governments have responded to SR15 by asking for advice on how to achieve net zero carbon by 2050 (e.g. Cunningham et al., 2018), some major stakeholders have instead refused to take action by question the report’s legitimacy (e.g. Hewson, 2018).

Among these countries is the U.S. who in 2018 refused to welcome the IPCC to the United Nations’ annual climate change conference, provoking Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman to declare:

“There's a new axis of evil: Russia, Saudi Arabia -- and the United States”

Paul Krugman on Twitter

At a first glance Krugman’s statement might seem a rash exaggeration, but with the U.S.

being the world’s second largest emitter of carbon dioxide (UCS, 2018) the tweet efficiently highlights the moral issues associated with a key nation distancing itself from the climate concerns shared by the majority of the global community. However, the U.S.

attitude towards environmental issues is nothing new, instead following a decades-long pattern of American conservative politicians openly questioning climate change while simultaneously expressing distrust in the scientific community (McCright & Dunlap, 2010).

1.1.3 Conservative agents and climate change scepticism

Conservative entities questioning climate change are known as ‘climate sceptics’, or

‘climate deniers’, and their attacks are carefully crafted to undermine the scientific

community as well as progressive initiatives to reduce emissions. Generally, sceptics use a

few key strategies to spread doubt: 1) trend sceptics deny that there is any global warming,

2) attribution sceptics argue that the current changes are natural, 3) impact sceptics argue

that a warmer climate will be beneficial (Rahmstorf, 2004), 4) consensus sceptics state that

the scientific community does not agree that climate change is happening and/or to what

extent it is occurring (Engels et al. 2013), and 5) conspiracy sceptics claim that “powerful

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and malevolent groups” use climate change as a front to promote hidden agendas (Douglas

& Sutton, 2015: 99).

Relying on one or several of these strategies, CTTs spread doubt about climate

change while simultaneously framing themselves as a legitimate counterweight to the

scientific community (Jacques et al., 2008). As a result, CTTs have been granted significant

press coverage, augmenting the impression that anthropogenic climate change remains

highly questionable (Schmid-Petri et al., 2015). Consequently, 25% of Americans report

that they are sceptical of climate change, with a full 14% of the population believing that

climate change will never have any harmful consequences, and 55% of Americans stating

that they are unwilling to pay to combat global warming (Saad, 2014; Brechin & Bhandari,

2011). Assuming that anthropogenic climate change is a reality, climate scepticism thus

constitutes a serious threat to humanity and environmentalists must improve their

communication strategies to make the general public aware of this danger.

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2. Aim and research questions

George Orwell once wrote, ”The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image” (1946:

5). This argument is as central today as ever, and conservative politicians have learned that metaphors, imagery, and emotional language have the power to win over a crowd. In contrast, progressives struggle with changing the narrative to their advantage, and the situation is made worse as they frequently argue within the same conceptual frame as conservatives while erroneously believing that more facts will engage the public (Lakoff, 2009). As a result, progressive politicians lose elections and environmental legislation is blocked.

As traditional strategies to engage the general public in environmental efforts have proven inadequate, progressive politicians, scientists and environmentalists will have to change their approach. One way to communicate climate change more efficiently is to improve communication strategies; with re-framing and conceptual metaphors being suggested as potential tools to achieve this goal (Hassol, 2008). Building on the idea of metaphors and frames as powerful communication tools, I argue that the environmental community needs to invest more time and money on shedding light on climate change scepticism, its motives and strategies, and use this knowledge to construct organized and powerful outreach strategies. As a way to contribute to this process, I will analyse a language corpus compiled from material publicised by American CTTs as well as data collected from Republican tweets to:

1) Identify what type of scepticism has dominated the CTT discourse since SR15.

2) Identify the metaphors most frequently used by conservative entities.

3) Expose conservative frames by linking these metaphors to their conceptual metaphors and keys.

Lastly, I will discuss the moral aspect of these frames and provide suggestions on how

environmentalists can use these findings to fight the conservative agenda more forcefully.

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3. Theoretical framework

Politics, whether it addresses trade, immigration or climate change, is about one thing:

power. In terms of fighting global warming, temperatures will increase to 3°C above pre- industrial levels by 2100 unless politicians use their power to implement sweeping changes (IPCC, 2018). However, politicians are often reluctant to reduce emissions, instead maintaining the status quo to protect vested interests in the fossil fuel industry (Heywood, 2015). To combat this deliberate inaction, environmentalists must put pressure on current anti-environmental administrations, and to do so they must understand the three different dimensions of power: 1) the authority to influence decisions, 2) the weight to shape the political agenda, and 3) the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts (Lukes, 2004). While previous research has shown that conservatives frequently rely on second dimension strategies to delay environmental legislation and promote climate scepticism (McCright &

Dunlap, 2010), we will look closer at the role of thought control in anti-environmental efforts.

3.1 Thought control and hegemony

Manipulation as a practice is intimately connected to language, as well as critical theory, and entities that are capable of funding propaganda machines have a clear advantage when it comes to shaping public opinion (Heywood, 2015). Chomsky refers to these influential groups as ‘agents of power’, and as these agents shape the news flow to fit their worldview the effect is that their audience experiences a form of sophisticated indoctrination. In other words, many of those news stories that people read and share on blogs, Twitter and Facebook are constructed to support special interest groups on a subconscious level. This is dangerous, because as these messages are repeated they gradually change the way people perceive the world (Lakoff, 2009). What is more, as one’s worldview changes so will one’s actions, and gradually a society will develop where people’s thoughts and behaviour echo that of a powerful elite instead of reflecting their own preferences (Heywood, 2015). In political theory, this state is known as the theory of hegemony, where the ideologies of society’s most powerful are forced onto everyone else (Heywood, 2015). In terms of global warming, this means that politicians and interest groups backed by money from industry and conservative foundations will push messages to make the public believe that global warming is harmless and that the only issue lies in scheming scientists and money grabs disguised as mitigation efforts (Dunlap & McCright, 2010).

3.2 Metaphors and frames

Part of the reason why climate sceptics are so successful at spreading their messages is that

they use cognitive tools such as conceptual metaphors and frames to their advantage.

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Looking closer at conceptual metaphors, this field of cognitive linguistics was first introduced by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in 1980 and refers to the idea that certain concepts constitute the foundation for different metaphorical expressions. As such, we often talk about ARGUMENTS as WAR (e.g. the president attacked the senator’s case) where ARGUMENTS is the target domain we try to understand via the source domain of WAR (Ungerer & Schmid, 2006). In other words, metaphors can facilitate the understanding of complex subjects by transferring meaning, or mapping, between different domains while simultaneously presenting better than dry facts by engaging their audience (Charteris-Black, 2004; Väliverronen & Hellsten, 2002). As such, conservative leaders such as Republican senator Rand Paul are more likely to forgo reports and instead declare that a carbon tax “…puts the brakes on innovation…” (Paul, n.d.). Statements like this serve a dual purpose; by blending mental spaces they trigger an image of INNOVATION as a MACHINE, and they also cast the progressive politician arguing for carbon taxes as someone deliberately obstructing improvement. These connections are important, because metaphors are more than mere words: we think, speak and act metaphorically and as the innovation example shows, conservative politicians understand this power and use conceptual metaphors to activate conservative thinking among voters (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff, 2009).

In addition to metaphors, conservatives also use framing to deter the American public from environmental causes. Frames are conceptual structures used for thought processes and they are based on four different properties: 1) all words conjure some sort of frame, 2) words related to a certain frame can activate that frame, 3) denying a frame still triggers it if you use words associated with it, 4) every single time your words trigger a frame it gets stronger (Lakoff, 2006). To illustrate these morals, lets look closer at another statement made by Rand Paul in regards to climate change:

“It’s anti-American and anti-freedom”.

Here, the first goal is to create a frame where the public links the term ‘climate change’

with governmental boundaries, and a shift away from American values and towards

communism. Second, sceptics achieve this goal by combining ‘climate change’ with words

such as ‘anti-freedom’ and ‘socialist’, eventually reaching a point where people hear the

word ‘climate change’ and immediately think about global warming as a disguise for a

large-scale governmental takeover. Third, if politicians and activists try to defend

themselves by saying, “I’m not an communist, climate change is a real danger to

humanity”, the general public will hear little more than ‘communist’ and so the choice of

words will strengthen the conservative frame. Four, as ‘anti-freedom’ is repeated the frame

gets stronger and eventually the public is lead to believe that a conservative vote is the only

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way to avoid a hostile governmental takeover, crippling restrictions and an end to the American lifestyle. Hence, as simple as Paul’s statement might seem it is powerful from a cognitive linguistic perspective because it contrasts environmentalism with being American.

Successfully framing anti-environmental messages is thus a key component of climate change scepticism, but is there a way to avoid being manipulated and to expose thought control strategies? There is no straightforward answer to this question, but it is at least possible to protect yourself by learning to recognise when metaphors and frames are used treacherously. As George Lakoff puts it (2009: 34), there is real political power in making the “…cognitive unconscious as conscious as possible…”. One way to achieve an increased level of consciousness is through critical theory (Heywood, 2015), where theoretical perspectives such as critical discourse analysis and critical metaphor analysis can be used to expose ideologies, thereby making it possible to confront social injustices and change society so that freedom becomes something everyone can enjoy.

3.2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provides a method to address socio-political issues by examining the significant role language plays in power inequality (van Dijk, 1993;

Charteris-Black, 2004). As no text is considered neutral in CDA, all utterances are seen as intentional and as components of an intertextual and socio-political framework. As such, language is thought to mirror a society’s power relationships and can be used as a tool to interpret ideologies. To illustrate the role language plays when shaping public opinion we will look closer at another statement made by Senator Paul (Paul, 2017):

“The federal government should be beholden to one authority and one authority alone—our Constitution—and not some U.N. bureaucrats.”

In this example, Paul could have made his point without adding the last clause or used more neutral wording as in “…—and not the U.N.”. Instead, as ‘some’ and ‘bureaucrats’ both carry negative connotations, the Constitution is portrayed as the one rightful source of authority and the reader is conditioned to view the U.N. as an inflexible and illegitimate source of power. Hence, the addition reveals Paul’s personal view on power and authority, while simultaneously highlighting the importance language has in shaping ideology.

3.2.2 Critical Metaphor Analysis

Once considered little more than stylistic flavour, metaphors have also become an essential

component of CDA as they form our view of reality by influencing our judgement on what

is right or wrong (Ungerer & Schmid, 2006; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Charteris-Black,

2004). Once again relying on Rand Paul to demonstrate these ideas (Paul, 2017), the

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following statement shows not only Paul’s personal attitude to conservation efforts but also his political beliefs and intentions:

“Why can’t we work toward a future that protects both our environment and our jobs? Why did the past [Obama] administration always force the latter to be a martyr for the former?”

To begin with, Paul’s political sympathies are made clear as he provides a negative evaluation of the Obama administration by stating that they consistently favoured environmental legislation over American jobs. However, he also introduces the idea of jobs as something that can die or feel discomfort by using the word ‘martyr’. As a job is an abstract entity incapable of feeling physical pain or making personal sacrifices, ‘martyr’ is clearly used in a metaphorical sense to ascribe human characteristics to work. This habit of assigning human qualities to abstract phenomena is referred to as personification (Lakoff &

Johnson, 1980), in this case resulting in the conceptual metaphor JOBS are VICTIMS.

Based on this mapping, jobs are not only seen as a living entity, but they also become part

of a dramatic narrative where the Obama administration is the villain and Republicans are

the heroes who will try to protect work. This division into a society built around entities of

good and evil is important because evaluative meaning is not something that is unique from

person to person. Instead, different communities will share the same worldview of what is

good or bad, which in turn is reflected in the way they express themselves (Charteris-Black,

2004). Hence, while metaphors make it possible to understand difficult concepts they also

provide a conceptual foundation for members of a culture (Graesser et al., 1989). As such,

metaphors constitute an integral part of opinion building and by critically evaluating

metaphors in the context where they occur they can be used to explore ideology.

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4. Material and method

To establish what types of metaphors climate sceptics use, a domain-specific corpus was constructed with the explicit intent to analyse the rhetoric characterising CTT discourse.

The reason think tanks were selected for this analysis, rather than opinion-page content or scientific papers expressing scepticism, is that CTTs produce a significant amount of source material used to question anthropogenic climate change (Boussalis & Coan, 2016).

In order to avoid making unfounded assumptions, a second dataset was also assembled to cross-check results. This approach of using multiple data sources is known as triangulation and is commonly used in social sciences for verification (Jick, 1979). In this specific case, the additional dataset was compiled from tweets made by Republican senators in an attempt to explore the rhetorical similarities between CTTs and high profile conservative politicians.

4.1 Domain-specific corpus: the ACCC

Due to the sheer volume of sceptic publications online, a number of steps had to be taken to

reduce the dataset to a more manageable size. First, the domain-specific corpus was limited

to material published on-line by five well known CTTs: the American Enterprise Institute

(AEI), the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), the Competitive Enterprise

Institute (CEI), the Heartland Institute and The Heritage Foundation. This choice of

organisations mirrors that of Boussalis and Coan (2016), and largely overlaps with the

CTTs analysed in McCright and Dunlap (2000). However, rather than analysing the full

range of think tanks covered in those publications, this paper focuses on the most prolific

CTTs also known to receive significant funding from conservative foundations such as the

Koch Brothers (Boussalis & Coan, 2016; Brulle, 2014). Second, using the search section on

each CTT website, the terms ‘IPCC’, ‘climate change’ and ‘global warming’ were used to

generate an initial dataset covering the time interval from October 8

^th

, 2018 to March 8

^th

,

2019. This five-month time frame was selected to cover the CTTs reactions to SR15 as well

as the Green New Deal (GND), the Democrats’ strategy to transition America to a zero-

carbon economy. Third, only commentary posts from the Heritage Foundation were

included and all pages linking to policy reports were excluded. This limited the dataset to

469 publications, with a total of 315 documents after accounting for duplicates. Fourth,

before the close reading, the dataset was finally reduced to only incorporate texts cross-

distributed in at least one other conservative outlet. These high-exposure publications were

then scanned to determine whether they were sceptic in nature and, if so, what form of

doubt they promoted. Any article deemed non-sceptic was removed, resulting in a domain-

specific corpus of 46 articles.

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4.1.1 Targets of scepticism

Table 1 provides a summary of the domain-specific corpus, displaying what target, or type, of scepticism each CTT text promoted:

Table 1

The number of documents and words published by five high-profile CTTs between October 2018 and March 2019. Denial type indicated as following: (A)=Trend sceptic, (B)=Attribution sceptic, (C)=Impact sceptic, (D)=Consensus sceptic, and (E)=Conspiracy sceptic. The apparent mismatch between the amounts of documents listed under ‘Denial type’ and the ‘Total docs’ is due to the fact that some documents qualify for two or more of the denial categories (modified from Boussalis & Coan, 2016).

Trend sceptics (A), attribution sceptics (B) and impact sceptics (C), as defined by Rahmstorf (2004), all belong to what Van Rensburg terms ‘Evidence scepticism’ (2015).

The consensus definition (D) is based on Engels et al. (2013) and could be seen as a type of

‘Process scepticism’. Conspiracy scepticism (E), belongs to the same center of scepticism as D, and its definition is based on the work of Douglas and Sutton (2015).

4.1.2 Identifying conspiracy metaphors

Based on the predominance of texts representing conspiracy scepticism, it was decided to focus the analysis solely on this target. This resulted in a domain-specific corpus containing 36,388 words spread over 44 publications. According to Aston (1997), a smaller corpus (20,000-200,000 words) is often more efficient than a large one when examining texts on highly specific topics. Hence, the sample set is considered a representative sample of conservative climate change conspiracy communication in America, and will be referred to as the ‘American Climate Conspiracy Corpus’ (ACCC).

For the purpose of this paper, and following the definitions provided by Charteris-

Black (2004), the metaphors in the ACCC were defined as words or phrases causing

semantic tension by shifting from an expected domain to another domain. This semantic

tension can be released by displaying how the domains are related, thereby exposing the

underlying conceptual metaphor. Following a three-step procedure suggested by Cameron

and Low (1999), all ACCC articles were subjected to a close reading to: 1) identify and

collect examples of metaphors used in conspiracy discourse, 2) identify the conceptual

metaphors they relate to, and 3) use these results to discuss what thought patterns and

actions these metaphors are expected to activate. In addition, the resonance for each source

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domain was calculated following Charteris-Black’s approach (2004): Resonance=sum of types x sum of tokens. Bibliographic information for the ACCC is available in APPENDIX A, and key metaphors with examples are listed in APPENDIX B.

4.2 Social impact: Republican senators on Twitter

To determine whether the conspiracy metaphors identified in the ACCC occur outside the CTT sphere the results were compared against a second dataset compiled from tweets made by Republican senators. Limiting tweets to all but those class I senators newly elected in the 2018 midterms, and using the same time frame and search terms as for the ACCC resulted in an extremely limited dataset. Out of 47 senators, not a single one used twitter to discuss the IPCC or global warming and only eight senators mentioned climate change.

Between those eight senators, a total of 16 tweets on climate change were published over

the five-month time frame. In an effort to obtain more data, the search terms ‘Green New

Deal’ and ‘#GreenNewDeal’ were added and the time frame was extended to include the

Senate’s March 26

^th

vote on the Green New Deal resolution. Based on these revisions to the

search process an additional 135 Republican tweets, or 3967 words, were identified (see

APPENDIX C for domains and examples).

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5. Results and analysis

As shown in the methods section, the initial analysis suggests that climate change sceptics have come to gravitate towards conspiracy theories. According to this theory, powerful entities use global warming as a scare tactic to gain influence and fame, to receive funding, and as a mechanism to dismantle capitalism so that a socialist world order can rise from the resulting turmoil (Douglas & Sutton, 2015). The following section will focus on identifying and analysing what metaphors and frames conspiracy sceptics use to promote these messages.

5.1 The ACCC: metaphor identification and classification

The qualitative analysis of the ACCC identified 284 cases were metaphors were used (Table 2). Based on frequency, eight larger domains were identified after linking targets to their representative source domains. In addition, 21 smaller domains (resonance ≤60) were identified and grouped under the label ‘other’.

Table 2

Summary of the source domains and their resonance in the American climate conspiracy corpus (modified from Charteris-Black, 2004).

However, as the majority of the metaphors under the SPATIAL/DIRECTIONAL domain

were considered highly conventionalized (e.g. “The Green New Deal would introduce

significantly higher level of cronyism…”) this domain was not included in the subsequent

analysis. This left seven larger domains, all characterised by significantly higher individual

resonance than any of the smaller domains (resonance >180). Together, the domains WAR,

RELIGION, HEALTH, BUILDING, JOURNEY, WATER and PRODUCT comprised

close to 80% of the total resonance. For more information on the smaller domains, as well

as individual types, see Appendix B.

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5.1.1 War metaphors

Previous studies have shown that conflict, or war, constitutes a key source domain in political discourse (Charteris-Black, 2004), and in the ACCC war metaphors account for close to a third of the data (Table 3).

Table 3

ACCC war metaphors, and the frequency with which they are used to highlight political battles and sacrifices.

* denotes different prefixes such as ‘eco’ or ‘climate’.

Based on the conceptual metaphor POLITICS IS WAR, Howe argues that politicians frequently use military metaphors to frame opponents as callous or treacherous (1988). As climate change conspiracy scepticism rests on a foundation of distrust (Douglas & Sutton, 2015), it is unsurprising that words such as ‘protect’ and ‘warrior’ are used in a metaphorical sense throughout the ACCC to invoke negative frames:

Text 5.1

“It is way past time to realize that none of this is really about protecting the planet from man-made climate change.”

Heartland Institute Bell (2018)

Text 5.2

“The study, funded in part by climate warrior Tom Steyer, calculates these costs by assuming that the world will be 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer by 2100.”

The Heritage Foundation Loris (2018)

Protection means to prevent someone or something “from being harmed or damaged”, and

is frequently used when talking about the environment (COBUILD; COCA collocation

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freq. 10724). However, as Text 5.1 shows, in the ACCC the world is instead presented with negative semantics when talking about the environment, with the positive framing being reserved for what conservatives would view as morally acceptable concerns such as defending property rights and preventing governments from interfering with business. In addition to this type of framing, the corpus also contains war metaphors that are used to ridicule environmentalists, where the contrast between words such as ‘eco’ or ‘climate’

creates a sarcastic effect when coupled with ‘warrior’ (Riloff et al., 2013). Based on their frequent use of war metaphors, CTTs seem to consider anyone questioning the Western lifestyle their moral foe, triggering them to defend themselves by framing climate scientists and environmentalist philanthropists as enemies of society.

5.1.2 Religious metaphors

RELIGION constitutes the second largest domain in the corpus (Table 4), possibly due to the close links between conservatives and American evangelicals (Nagle, 2008).

Table 4

ACCC religious metaphors, with end of time metaphors displayed separately at the right.

Charteris-Black describes this relationship as POLITICS IS RELIGION (2004), but Atanasova and Koteyko have also demonstrated that conservative newspapers in the UK frequently use religious metaphors to frame sceptic arguments (2017). These metaphors are used to downplay the urgency to reduce emissions, and rely heavily on the darker or more extreme aspects of religion:

Text 5.3

“The government would be conscripting all factories, and by extension their workers, into GND’s warlike crusade against chimeric climate change.”

Heartland Institute Burnett (2019)

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Here, ‘crusade’ could either refer to the religious wars fought to win the Holy Land during the medieval period or to describe a ‘long and determined attempt to achieve something for a cause you feel strongly about’ (COBUILD). In this case, it seems likely that the author uses ‘crusade’ in the first sense of meaning, framing the GND as a progressive sanctioned campaign by alarmists, or ‘extremists’/‘fanatics’, to take over the U.S. In addition, by combining ‘crusade’ with ‘chimeric’, the author also creates a Don Quixote effect, framing progressive politicians as fools fighting a non-existent foe.

Apart from ‘crusades’, conspiracy sceptics also tend to use end of time metaphors such as ‘doomsday’, ‘Armageddon’ and ‘apocalypse’:

Text 5.4

“Every apocalyptic pronouncement you hear or read is nothing short of insanity.”

Heartland Institute Lehr and Harris (2019)

Similarly to the previous example, Text 5.4 invokes the basic frame of an imaginary enemy, which in the apocalyptic sense would be Antichrist. As the apocalypse refers to the social and cosmic upheaval described in the Book of Revelation, evangelical Americans would know that the apocalypse is associated with a series of environmental disasters: fires burning a third of the trees and all the green grass, a third of the sea creatures dying and a third of the rivers and springs poisoned (Rev. 8:7-11, English Standard Version). While the idea of suffering through the early onset of the apocalypse would be upsetting for anyone, this scenario would be particularly salient for anyone believing in the Bible because if we are living through the apocalypse right now, who would Antichrist be? The person you yourself voted into power? From a psychological perspective it might be more comfortable to denounce science as corrupt, and dismiss any idea of impeding environmental disaster as madness, to avoid feeling morally responsible when scientists are detailing a future that looks increasingly dark.

5.1.3 Health metaphors

As seen in the previous section (Text 5.4), CTTs also use HEALTH metaphors to create negative frames. According to Lakoff (2016), conservatives frequently use health as a way to talk about morality and they apply these frames to individuals as well as society at large.

Looking at the individual level first, CTTs generally rely on mental health references when framing climate scientists and progressive politicians as immoral:

Text 5.5

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“Yet today’s modelers believe they can tell you the planet’s climate decades or even a century in the future and want to manage the economy accordingly. Either they are crazy to think this or we are crazy to believe them.”

Heartland Institute Lehr (2019)

As Text 5.5 shows, scientific findings are framed as ‘beliefs’, and when coupled with

‘crazy’ the author efficiently blur the lines between science, faith and insanity. What is more, by using the word ‘want’ the author also frames climate scientists as subjective, thereby questioning their motives and morality. As morality is conceptualized as health the author efficiently connects modelers with the conceptual metaphor IMMORALITY IS A DISEASE.

In addition to mental health references, the ACCC also contains numerous metaphors based on physical health (Table 5):

Table 5

ACCC health metaphors: mental health metaphors listed to the left and physical health/injury metaphors displayed on the right.

In the ACCC, physical health is generally used to map BODY-related metaphors to more abstract entities such as politics, the state and society (Musolff, 2004). This type of mapping is characterised by negative frames conveyed through physical impairment, injuries and agony:

Text 5.6

“An agreement that will cripple our ability to compete on a level playing field, while doing very little to solve the non-existent problem of harmful man-made warming.”

Heartland Institute Wrightstone (2018)

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As the example refers to the Paris Agreement and its impact on the U.S. economy, this example suggests that the conceptual metaphor we are dealing with is SOCIETY/A POLITICAL ENTITY IS A HUMAN BODY. Since a cripple is someone so seriously injured that they can never move their body properly again (COBUILD), the author manages to frame a lifeless entity (i.e. the nation) as a real person wilfully assaulted and injured by environmental policies. This interpretation of the market or society as a body is also supported by previous research revealing that disease metaphors are often used in financial crisis discourse (Pühringer & Hirte, 2013).

5.1.4 Building metaphors

Building metaphors are frequently used in political discourse (Charteris-Black 2004), and a number of examples can be found through the ACCC (Table 6):

Table 6

ACCC building metaphors, generally carrying negative connotations to indicate unstable (societal) constructions or to describe what the authors consider undesirable political and societal changes.

Buildings are frequently used for political agreements, with ‘doors’ being left open and large-scale environmental efforts described as ‘makeovers’ or ‘overhauls’:

Text 5.7

“Among other things, the GND would overhaul the U.S. energy grid, eliminate all fossil fuels by 2030, require "upgrades" to every home and business building in the country…”

Heartland Institute Talgo (2019)

Here, ‘overhaul’ is used to refer to the energy grid, but it also indicates a complete

dismantling of the U.S. economy, resulting in undesirable outcomes for citizens as well as

corporations. These frames are based on the mapping SOCIETY IS A BUILDING, where

the American people constitute the builders and the social system is the building (Xue et

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al., 2013). From a conservative perspective, God is the architect overseeing the construction and the GOP constitutes the supreme foundation. In other words, if God’s master plan is obeyed, the foundation remains solid and the building will progress vertically following the orientational metaphors GOOD IS UP and BAD IS DOWN (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

However, if the foundation is replaced by an immoral entity the whole building risks collapse:

Text 5.8

“

The GND would also undermine U.S. national security, because the United States is 100 percent import-dependent on China, Russia, and other nations for more than half of the critical minerals that are the foundation of green technologies.

”

Heartland Institute Burnett (2019)

Here, the NATION IS A BUILDING ties in with the conceptual metaphor: A WORTHWHILE ACTIVITY IS A BUILDING (Charteris-Black 2004). By using metaphors such as ‘undermine’ and ‘collapse’, CTTs frame social endeavours designed to reduce CO

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emissions not only as worthless, but also as catastrophes where society will crumble if scientists and progressives are allowed to have their way. That is, if the general public does not support a conservative moral foundation, America will break down and cease to exist.

5.1.5 Journey metaphors

In political discourse, journey metaphors also tend to focus on social efforts in terms of worthwhileness, with Lakoff describing journeys as: PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY TRAVELLING ALONG A PATH TOWARDS A DESTINATION (1993). For a society, changes can also be expressed as SOCIETAL DEVELOPMENT IS A JOURNEY. In the ACCC, CTTs rely on both of these conceptual metaphors, often using journey metaphors with a strong negative orientation:

Text 5.9

“After her office… posted a similar version on her congressional website, they were met with withering criticism — prompting Ocasio-Cortez to furiously backtrack, seeking to disown and discredit documents [GND] her office had produced, posted, and distributed.”

American Enterprise Institute Thiessen (2019)

In this case, the journey metaphor is used to describe a particular political opponent. Rather

than travelling decisively and competently along a path until reaching the goal of making

the world a better place, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is framed as someone forced to retrace her

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steps, making her seem irate, unsuccessful and thoroughly lost. As seen in Table 7, this is a recurring tactic used by CTTs to invoke feelings of lengthy efforts and sufferings:

Table 7

ACCC journey metaphors establishing negative frames by implying that the destination is far away, that the journey has stalled or is characterised by confusion.

Not only are the metaphors selected to highlight the negative aspects of journeys, but they are also designed to make the reader question the worthiness of the destination:

Text 5.10

“They are milestones on the way to the new world order.”

Heartland Institute Wojick (2018)

Text 5.10 refers to the UN and the COP24 climate summit, and constitutes an example of the most frequent use of journey metaphors in the ACCC, where governmental, organizational and societal activities are conceptualised through journeys. Here, journeys are used to convey the message that efforts towards reducing CO

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means abandoning America’s moral trajectory in favour of a global socialist regime.

5.1.6 Water metaphors

Previous studies have shown that the financial market is understood as an ocean, where

consumption is de-emphasized by using the conceptual metaphor MONEY IS WATER or

LIQUID (Oberlechner et al., 2004; Wilk, 2004). Although water metaphors constitute the

smallest group of metaphors examined in this study they are noteworthy because they

directly relate to the destruction of the people and the state (Table 8):

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ACCC water metaphors, either used in the sense MONEY IS LIQUID or MARKET CHANGES ARE WAYS OF MOVING IN THE WATER/NAUTICAL CONDITIONS.

Viewing the economy as an ocean, Text 5.11 constitutes an excellent example of giving substance, as well as a negative frame, to research grants. In this case, it is particularly easy to negatively frame scientists as grants are a fuzzy concept to most people:

Text 5.11

“This tsunami of government money distorts science in hidden ways that even the scientists who are corrupted often don’t appreciate.”

The Heritage Foundation Moore (2018)

To the general public, frames like this not only make grants seem like an extraordinary waste of tax money, but they also distort the way people think about researchers and funding: 1) it suggests that climate scientists accepting grants are corrupt, 2) that the impending disaster is not climate change itself but rather in the exploitation of science, and 3) drawing on the analogy of an impactful natural disaster they also suggest that America risks drowning under a tidal wave of immoral money. Similarly employing frames of drowning, CTTs also use a modified version of the conceptual metaphor: MARKET IS A BOAT (Chung et al., 2003):

Text 5.12

“Unless you desire an army of federal bureaucrats barking more orders than a drill sergeant and a mountain of debt that will sink the U.S. economy faster than a hole-riddled boat, the Green New Deal sure seems like a raw deal for Americans.”

Heartland Institute Talgo (2019)

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Here, the mapping invoked is that of America rather than the stock market, giving:

SOCIETY IS A BOAT. Using this conceptual metaphor, the GND is framed as a ship failing to move to a safe harbour, or a desirable destination, instead bringing the nation down as it sinks to the ocean floor. Moreover, the hole-riddled boat conjures images of a boat that is neglected, which could also be seen as a metaphor for how the Democrats would run the country. Rather than maintaining the image of America as a powerful warship, a nation able to protect and defend itself independently, the Democrats’

incompetence would steer the country towards chaos, immorality, and death.

5.1.7 Product metaphors

Finally, the ACCC shows that CTTs also use metaphors to convey the message of environmental policies as poor products that progressives try to sell to the general public (Table 8):

Table 8

ACCC product metaphors, where the conceptual metaphors are: POLITICS IS SALES/A PRODUCT. Here, climate change is framed as the main product, GND as by-product, and progressive politicians as the untrustworthy salespeople.

CTTs create negative frames by using words such as ‘salespeople’ and ‘showroom’:

Text 5.13

“Although Green New Deal salespeople love to tout how its brand-new product will fight

“catastrophic” climate change, supposedly preventing it from becoming an extinction-level event, that messaging is just designed to get you in the showroom.”

Heartland Institute Benson (2019)

By using metaphors such as ‘showroom’, the author once again paints progressives as

adversaries by invoking frames of immoral car salesmen (car being the most frequent

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collocate to showroom, COCA freq. 998), only interested in personal gain rather than safe and happy customers. In addition, CTTs also frame progressive policies as expensive to individuals by using words such as ‘price tag’ when talking about the GND:

Text 5.14

“They place the price tag at roughly $1 trillion a year.”

While most people are unable to grasp this type of sum, anyone can relate to a price tag and that sinking feeling when you turn it over only to realize that it is way out of your budget.

By promoting this type of frame, CTTs might be able to get the general public to believe that reforms such as the GND are too expensive, and in extension make them vote for conservative policies even if that generates larger, even immeasurable, costs in the future.

5.2 Twitter: metaphors and political action

Viewing the ACCC, a similar set of ideas are echoed in the choice of metaphors:

Democrats use climate change as a disguise to lead us towards socialism, scientists facilitate this agenda as they are corrupted by money, and if these ideas are allowed to infect America the societal effects will be devastating. We will return to the root of these viewpoints in the discussion, but first we need to establish whether or not these ideas and metaphors are restricted to CTT websites and blogs or if this type of rhetoric has also become part of the established political domain. To answer this question, a smaller dataset was compiled with tweets published by Republican senators. As stated in the methods section, the available data were limited as the majority of Republican senators choose to ignore the issue of climate change. However, perhaps as a testament to the media attention given to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the GND, the majority of Republican senators (33 out of 47) did break their silence on climate related issues to voice their disapproval of the package.

Analysing these tweets, some of the metaphors used by CTTs are clearly echoed in the rhetoric of senate leaders. Out of 91 different instances of metaphor usage, divided over 16 different domains, all eight main categories defined in the ACCC occurred in Republican tweets:

Table 9

Summary of source domains and resonance in tweets by Republican senators reacting to the Green New Deal (modified from Charteris-Black, 2004).

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However, comparing Table 9 with Table 2, it is evident that the resonance differs between the datasets. War is much smaller in the twitter set, and religion, the second largest domain in the ACCC, is barely represented, whereas health metaphors are used to a much higher degree in tweets than on CTT platforms. Part of this disparity could be explained by the small size of the twitter set, or differences related to search terms and time frame, but the crossover still indicates that the rhetoric broadcasted by CTTs is also audible in conservative political discourse.

Looking closer at the metaphors used by Republican senators, two domains stand out as health and journey metaphors comprise close to 50% of the total resonance.

Comparing these domains to the ACCC, Republican senators similarly use health metaphors to draw parallels between environmentalism and mental illness:

Text 5.15

“The “Green New Deal” is nuttier than a pot of boiled peanuts. This resolution is chock- full of socialist strategies for invasive government intervention. It calls for outlandish initiatives that contradict many of our American capitalist values.”

Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana

Attacking the GND as mentally unsound frames the proposal as invalid and misleading, a reform based on faulty logic that must be ignored. However, some senators take the health metaphors even further:

Text 5.16

“The #GreenNewDeal could have deadly serious consequences for many struggling communities. I spoke yesterday about this proposal and the impact that responsible resource development has had on the health and well-being of Alaskans.”

Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska

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Here, the GND is no longer framed as something that can be dismissed as ‘batty leftist fantasies’, instead it is cast as a mortal threat to individuals, communities and the nation.

Rhetoric like this is dangerous; framing climate mitigation efforts as the enemy, and the GND as the weapon used by immoral Democrats to attack innocent and vulnerable Americans, can cause fear and trigger people into violent action.

As for journey metaphors, the ACCC indicates that CTTs often use journey metaphors with a strong negative orientation. This connection is also made in Republican tweets:

Text 5.17

“How we do things matters, and while we must continue working to conserve our environment, the #GreenNewDeal is a divisive step backward that takes away from serious policy discussions about efforts to address our changing climate”

Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas

However, more frequently than in the ACCC, the senators selected metaphors invoking frames of straying from a path:

Text 5.18

“The Democrats’ #GreenNewDeal goes far beyond the mainstream and includes policies completely unrelated to the environment…”

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri

Text 5.19

“Nothing encapsulates the Democrat’s hard left turn towards socialism more than the Green New Deal.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky

In these cases, journeys are not only seen as a PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY TRAVELLING

ALONG A PATH TOWARDS A DESTINATION, but the action/motion is also related to

morality (Lakoff, 1995). As the conservative societal path relies on fossil fuels, anyone

steering towards green energy threatens conservative American values and is thus seen as

immoral.

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6. Discussion

As the results indicate, conservative agents in the U.S. feed the idea of climate change being a scam by primarily using metaphors belonging to the domains of WAR, RELIGION, HEALTH, BUILDING, JOURNEY, WATER and PRODUCT. At a first glance, this list might seem an odd collection of unrelated words, but once you consider the message and context of these metaphors it becomes clear that they share a common root. By relying on a set of conceptual keys relating to an overarching notion of ‘struggle’, conservatives link scientists/environmentalists/progressives to the idea of unhealthy principles → which, if given free range, will drive society off its proper moral path → causing the nation to

collapse and result in ⇒ widespread suffering (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 A hierarchical cognitive model of conceptual metaphors and the conceptual keys (displayed in the grey field) they relate to.

Previous research has shown that the notion of ‘struggle’ is central in political discourse

(Straehle et al., 1999), and this study supports these results with the core conservative idea

being that LIFE – for individuals as well as countries – is a STRUGGLE FOR

SURVIVAL. This idea of having to battle for one’s survival is in turn related to the concept

of enemies, victims and saviours, where enemies are viewed as corrupt and sinful cowards

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whereas saviours are seen as just and virtuous heroes. From this perspective, life becomes a moral battle between good and evil.

6.1 A war on Earth

Constructing an image of a common enemy (Feindbild) to strengthen bonds, forge solidarity and strengthen certain worldviews (Weltbild) is an important component of political power (Straehle et al., 1999; Merskin, 2004). As the conservative perspective is based on capitalism (McCright et al. 2016), where the planet is viewed as an infinite source of wealth, conservatives see no need to use less of the very fuels they consider necessary for our economic well-being. Hence, by challenging the ideological foundation of conservatism, environmental values and mitigation efforts are considered a direct threat to conservative interests. As such, conservative politicians and CTTs will not only refuse to reduce CO

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emissions, but they will also attack environmentalists and the very concept of global warming as immoral (Lakoff, 1995):

1) The conservative view on morality requires the world to continue on with business as usual - to follow a prescribed path. As climate change mitigation requires a shift from a carbon to a green economy, conservatives consider climate efforts a departure from said moral path.

2) Climate change mitigation is thus seen as immoral, and as immorality is considered a disease, environmentalists are automatically viewed as unhealthy and dangerous.

3) Sick and immoral individuals are a threat to society, incompatible with

“…American exceptionalism” (Scott, 2019), and need to be fought and defeated for the nation to survive and prosper.

Based on these premises, environmentalists must recognize that American conservatives view life not only as a struggle but also as a moral war, and any entity that is morally corrupt must be overpowered (Lakoff, 1995), as clearly expressed in the following quote:

”Green is the new red, as the saying goes, and unless conservatives defeat and discredit these dingbat ideas, Donald Trump will be proven wrong”

Tailoring their messages so that they create an image of a common enemy – a ‘we’ against

‘them’ – conservative agents efficiently feed the division between conservatives and

environmental values in an effort to manipulate voters to think and behave within a

capitalist frame. In this light, it does not matter how much data you have to prove the

dangers associated with climate change. As conservatives picture you as evil, you are roped

into a moral war over Earth, and to stand any chance of winning you will have to adapt to

the playing field.

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6.1.1 Science: responsibilities and collaborations

As fundamentally important as science is, the sad truth is that no gladiator ever won their freedom by walking out on the arena all alone armed with nothing more than a stack of scientific reports. So what can scientists do to strengthen their case? I would argue that the moral aspect of global warming must be incorporated into every single paper focusing on climate change. Only when we collectively acknowledge that it is our shared moral duty to safeguard the planet for coming generations will the costs and sacrifices associated with climate mitigation make sense to the general public. As part of this effort, scientists must also recognize that metaphors are not synonymous with being vague ore elusive, but that they are vital components of communication. In fact, texts without metaphors tend to make for an unexciting read, meaning that they risk being read by little more than a handful of scientists in the same field. At a time when our future is at stake, this is no longer a viable option. Hence, climate scientists must learn to speak to the general public, and to utilize metaphors to channel personal fears and feelings.

Fighting a moral war, where facts do not matter to one’s opponent, and simultaneously having to reinvent one’s language is no small task and could easily trigger feelings of frustration or helplessness. In order to avoid feelings of disempowerment, I firmly believe that climate scientists must branch out and invite interdisciplinary collaborations. By breaking professional isolation and involving scientists from the social sciences, climate scientists could strengthen their perceived self-efficacy through producing more approachable papers while simultaneously improving our understanding of the planet.

As scientists experience a heightened sense of efficacy, their motivation and personal sense of well-being will also improve (Bandura, 1994), energizing them to keep creating messages that resonate with the public in order to challenge the status quo and the conservative worldview.

6.1.2 Environmentalism: heuristic techniques

Once you learn to recognize conceptual metaphors you will notice them everywhere, from the metaphors lacing your family dinners to the frames repeatedly promoted in political speeches. This ability is a superpower, an ability to see the meaning behind the words.

However, identifying the conceptual metaphors used in climate conspiracy discourse is not

enough to trigger the changes needed to protect Earth. Apart from developing a societal

awareness of sceptic metaphor manipulation, environmentalists need their own set of

climate metaphors to create new perspectives that speak to the public. Creating a war cry

that can be echoed through society is neither straightforward nor easy, but something

simple and concrete is more likely to achieve this goal than metaphors that are too complex

and abstract (Charteris-Black, 2004). This does not mean settling for uncreative and

uninteresting metaphors, just that the words must resonate with as big a population as

possible. War metaphors have previously proven successful as they create a sense of

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urgency and need for firm action (Flusberg et al., 2017; Dunford & Palmer, 1996), but I would argue that it is fundamental that we first rethink the way we view Earth. Under the conservative system our planet has been reduced to a commodity: EARTH IS A RESOURCE. However, by retraining ourselves to view our planet through a different metaphor, EARTH IS HOME, we might be able to avoid a global environmental disaster.

This idea, thinking about Earth as an extension of our homes, might seem simplistic but the fact is that we currently do not think about our planet in this context. A COCA search for EARTH IS HOME resulted in no more than two hits, and when HOME was used as a collocate with EARTH there were only 171 hits of which most were not related to the subject (e.g. “My parents were on their way home from an Earth, Wind & Fire concert”).

Considering that this planet is the only one known to host life, we must start to think about Earth as something close and precious. We need to retrain our brains to think about it as something to protect, and just as we would do anything to shelter our children we must do everything in our power to create a safe future for our planet.

Environmentalists might be able to achieve this cognitive transition by introducing metaphors designed to trigger images of Earth as home instead of a resource. As the concept of home is frequently associated with a sense of well-being, your home being connected to feelings of wealth, happiness and safety, it holds significant metaphorical power especially as well-being is strongly connected with morality (Lakoff, 1995). Hence, environmentalists might be able to utilize this connection by linking the idea of fossil fuels with environmental collapse, homelessness and immorality. In one sense, activist Greta Thunberg has already introduced this frame, “I am here to say, our house is on fire”

(UPFSI, 2019). This quote illustrates how home metaphors provide a relatable image of the dangers we are facing, with the plethora of home-related words also facilitating the creation of novel metaphors. To demonstrate this point, the following examples have been assembled based on a corpus search (COCA) using common collocates to HOME:

Treacherous Words: How Climate Change Conspiracy Sceptics use Conceptual Metaphors to Extinguish our Future

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