Andrew Frank will be defending his Master’s Thesis on Friday, December 9, at 10 am in the School of Communication conference room. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Title
Presenters of An Inconvenient Truth as Intermediaries of Environmental Communication

Abstract
This study investigates the role of the intermediary in public engagement on climate
change, through interviews with twenty presenters of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Despite mounting evidence that climate change impacts are likely to be more severe and
arrive sooner than previously imagined, public interest in climate change has been
dropping since 2006. In the absence of deep and immediate reductions in carbon
emissions, scientists predict temperature increases that will threaten the very life support
systems of earth. Perversely, the temperature increases that scientists say “should be
avoided at all costs” are greeted with a shrug, or at best, a commitment to sustainable
degradation. Our survival depends on greater affective and behavioural engagement on
climate change and low carbon social innovation. Accordingly, this study recommends
the adoption of a truer, more effective, more resilient public engagement on climate
change.

Keywords
environmental communication; climate change; global warming;
intermediary; An Inconvenient Truth; sustainability

Committee
Shane Gunster, School of Communication, Senior Supervisor
Martin Laba, School of Communication, Supervisor
Meg Holden, Urban Studies and Geography, Examiner
Katherine Reilly, School of Communication, Chair

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Posted: Thursday, December 8th, 2011 @ 2:09 pm
Categories: Events.
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