Shooting Elephants and the Rhetoric of Climate Change

By: Peter Cable

When rhetoric pushes us into action on climate change, we can make the problem drastically worse 

In the 1950's Africa, land degradation was a huge problem. One ecologist, Alan Savory argued that elephants were trampling down the grass and destroying their own environment. His radical claims  led to the killing of 40,000 elephants. Of Course this did not heal the land, and he now calls this one of his "biggest blunders"(Sullivan).

Desertification in the Sahel

Because of the alarm at land degradation, and the urgency of Savory's arguments, the government acted on too little evidence and created a worse situation. Global warming, like desertification is currently a major problem.
The United Nations recently released a report on climate, warning of impending storms and major destruction. The problem is clear, but the solutions have not been studied enough. The fiery rhetoric around climate change leads to quick ineffective policies, instead of long-term solutions like nuclear power.

Cold War Day One

Winston Churchill

According to the Russians, the Cold War began on March 5, 1946. On that day, Winston Churchill came to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri and gave the speech titled “The Sinews of Peace” that gave rise to the term the “iron curtain”, which is still well-known today.

The impact of this speech is largely due to the masterful use of rhetorical devices by Churchill, who was a world-renowned orator. I noticed particularly in his speech very purposeful arrangement of his ideas and a huge respect and advantage taken of Kairos, or context in which the speech was given.

The speech begins with a joke about his being British and glowing praise of the President and of the United States. From there he jumps quickly into addressing the tensions of the day and continues on to lay out his recommendations for navigating those treacherous waters.

This structure feels very logical but maintains natural flow. The order of the presentation of ideas follows the way a person would approach any encountered problem. The difference is that Churchill very readily provides the solution where we would otherwise have to dwell for quite some time on the issue.

Another aspect of arrangement I noticed was that right after Churchill introduces the brunt of his proposed solution, he very quickly quiets a potential concern or counterargument that listeners might be having. His solution is to make a cooperative world organization, but he knows that spreading knowledge of the atom bomb is a huge concern to the American people and assures the listeners that that would not be something that would be shared.

This ties in to Churchill’s use of Kairos. It is given after the Second World War. The world is still recovering and in terrible fear of a third, even more destructive thermonuclear war. This allows Churchill to pull on the raw emotions tied to the destruction and suffering from the wars to add to his plea for peace and cooperation.

This speech was monumental in looking at the approaches to the Cold War. Churchill’s oratory genius imprinted the words “iron curtain” into the American mind and urged us towards steps for peace.

Image Credit: Winston Churchill Wikipedia Commons

A Man of Ethics

Listening to. and afterwards reading, Winston Churchill's speech Sinews of Peace, multiple things stood out to me. Throughout the speech, Churchill appears to be appealing to his audience's, the students and faculty of Westminster College in 1946, sense of ethics. Throughout the speech, Churchill talks about communism and people in some foreign countries not having rights that we are fortunate to have in the United States, highlights how these things are not right, and repeatedly emphasizes how important it was for them to help those people and defeat tyranny.

Another way that Churchill appealed to the audience's ethos is through his use of language. He frequently uses very grand adjectives to describe different things, such as when he uses the word sub-human to describe the idea of not helping other nations who are in need of assistance. He also uses powerful images and metaphors, such as when he references the Tower of Babel to show what the UNO was not doing.