Cambio Climático 2011: Argentina gives hospitality to the thrid Internation Congress on climte changes and sustainbility

by Silvia Musso

Since 8th to 11th August will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the third international conference on climate change, organized by UNLP, the Unidad de Comunicación Institucional Facultad de Ciencias Económicas.

Among the experts who will participate as speakers there will also be Erik Balzaretti, coordinator of the Italian Master in Communication of Sustainability and member of the Scientific Committee of AICA presenting a paper with a certainly intriguing title, "El Calent global, entre el Apocalipsis y el marketing" ("Global warming, between apocalypse and marketing). Envi stuff reached and asked him some questions.

What do you expect from this conference and from the dialogue with other experts?
«Firstly I want to say that the call as an expert in this international conference is an evidence that my work and AICA activity in these years were not in vain but rather of a certain value. Then, you always hope in some new ideas or at least some new points of view that that let the research to advance or to find some partners to work on issues of our interest. My paper, dedicated to the relationship between the media and climate change, is part of a strand devoted to issues of communication and culture and education. Now it seems clear that global warming is real and we need to find "the words to say it" and to prepare a quantitative and qualitative turnaround into the use of energy resources».

Your speech focuses on the collective imagination in the Environmental Communication of climate change. Can you explain briefly what it is?
«At the heart of our society there is not the people but the media. They, through various forms of narration, have taken the task of building our opinions, our hopes, our denials. The social and economic system through the media constructs the identity of each of us and of us all together. A good rhetoric to push for change must keep in mind the collective imagination and act on it if it wants to achieve effective communication. This is valid for climate change, better to say global warming because also the words have a more or less impactful meaning, as with all environmental issues».

In the paper you are presenting , you talk about "Cassandra syndrome that characterizes the environmental information". What do you mean by that?
«How you know Cassandra had received as a gift from Apollo, the ability to predict, but after he had broken his promise the Greek god had revoked the ability to be believed. Information firstly, but also environmental communication in general, suffers from this syndrome: you carry data, and it is expected that the future of humankind will be difficult if you don not decide to change the development system, but the citizens and the institutions find it hard to believe and to take action despite signs are getting stronger».

What should the Environmental Communication linked to climate change do to avoid an ideological interpretation of the data?
«Get out of the impasse of rationality and logic that allows the interpretation of data and relates to the citizen as a clenched fist that forces you to believe and stand up for working with the rhetoric, poetics, and the paradigm of desirability that instead is perceived by citizens as an open hand that caresses and persuades. In this sense, to act on imaginary, even through the most catastrophic one, allows the movements of consciousness and introjection of the subject that does not always you can get on a scientific-rational level. Ours is a society of mass consumption used to be flattered by the rhetoric of goods, including cultural ones, through the language of marketing and advertising. We need to develop emotions, as the rationality is not working».

Environmental communication and climate change: the thems to reflect are definitely numerous. While we are waiting to receive the report of the Professor Balzaretti on his participation at the congress, the debate can be also opened on these pages.