Why We Need New Words for Nature
Dr. Stibbe’s book, The Stories We Live By, and free online course are full of real-life examples: of economics textbooks that describe people as “consumers” who are driven by an insatiable need to buy; the government documents that position cows and horses as “units” as though they are as lifeless as a kitchen cupboard; and the United Nations’ Sust
... See moreDeep Ecology • Why We Need New Words for Nature
Analyzing the language we use to describe climate change is particularly urgent, according to Dr. Stibbe, as our words directly influence how we tackle it. For example, the neutral-sounding term “anthropogenic climate change” collapses human responsibility for the climate crisis into a neat, innocuous noun. “There’s no actual agents doing anything,
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