António Guterres has rescued the biblical resonances of hell: guilt and condemnation. The Secretary General of the United Nations sends increasingly alarming messages about the effects of global warming, resorting to metaphors that surpass themselves in drama. “We are at the gates of hell” or “we have entered the era of boiling” are part of his speech without a trace of rhetoric.
With this, it aims to denounce the weakness and ineffectiveness of political responses to the climate crisis, in contrast to the warnings of science. Is it a successful strategy?
“I can imagine the anguish and perhaps the eco-anxiety that underlies this crescendo of Guterres' statements. It is a feeling that I can only share,” says Pablo Meira, doctor in Philosophy and Educational Sciences from the University of Santiago de Compostela.
Meira sees these expressions as justifiable given that the climate crisis manifests itself as a matter of life or death, with extreme climatic phenomena, expansion of infection vectors associated with increased temperatures or bioclimatic changes. Guterres' particular dictionary is missing some words, such as “collapse” and “apocalypse,” but “we will soon see them written,” Meira predicts.
“What the UN Secretary General is doing is a call for climate action by countries, although talking about boiling seems a bit exaggerated to me. The warming we are experiencing does not surprise us as it is in line with the projections we have been making for more than 20 years, although of course there are extreme years, like this one. But, despite everything, the reality is still quite alarming,” says Francisco J. Doblas Rees, Icrea professor and director of the Earth Sciences department at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.
The use of metaphors and striking language “can be an effective communication tool to raise awareness and motivate people to action,” explains psychologist Unai Aso, from the Buencoco.es platform; but it can also have “counterproductive effects.”
Visual metaphors capture the audience's attention more effectively, help them perceive messages with more attention and interest, and can serve as a “catalyst” to keep the issue at the center of the public conversation. However, the constant use of alarmist language can lead to a “paralyzing attitude towards the future of the environment and the planet”, says Unai Aso.
His argument is that if everything is presented as a crisis without nuances and the same mantra is always repeated, “people can come to feel that there is nothing to do or that their individual actions do not matter. And when people perceive that they cannot do anything, they can become inhibited and fall into passivity and fatalism,” he adds. For this reason, he sees it necessary to combine the ideas of urgency, hope, and action.
Javier Peña, environmental disseminator on YouTube (in Hope. Standing for the Planet), maintains that Guterres is doing “great pedagogical work and defending the general interest. Well versed in these speeches, the YouTuber explains that, beyond the headlines, his words always include a measured balance with messages where hope and emergency converge.
“Guterres explains the economic opportunities that arise from protecting the climate and nature and avoiding a climate catastrophe. And he does it very well…” he summarizes. Javier Peña practices eco-hope in his videos as a vaccine against paralysis; He thus combats “the feeling of anguish in decisive years in which actions must be accelerated to reduce emissions by half in 2030.”
And in these videos he shows images of a highway to heaven: renewables, energy storage, the electrification of transport, heat pumps for heating or regenerative agriculture.
“Guterres' words are alarming, but not alarmist; They are based on scientific data that any minimally informed person can compare,” says Aníbal G. Arregui, professor of social anthropology at the UB.
However, the political communication of science, which is what Guterres does, “has a lot of room for improvement,” he warns. For Arregui, Guterres' speech reflects the data, but neglects the multiplicity of experiences, because while many people are experiencing the effects of warming, others see it as a temporary discomfort. Therefore, it is “easy” for political and economic elites outside of that experience to support “a fictitious falsification of scientific data, which benefits their status quo, demobilizes environmentalism and harms everyone.”
Various experts point out that Guterres' words can fuel the phenomenon of "eco-anxiety", although for others this is "a necessary evil for social mobilization" to confront the crisis. Ecoanxiety also takes root among vulnerable people or groups (due to their socio-ecological or psychological circumstances), when to add strength “it should extend to the offices where the most important decisions for the planet are made,” says Arregui.
Clara Pizzinato, head of energy campaigns at Grenpeace, emphasizes that this language is “much more alarming than before,” but responds to the most recent and best-documented scientific information. The activist maintains that although there is a risk that her interventions may be labeled as “sensationalist,” it can help to change the long-term values of citizens.
Pizzinato admits that creating new terms and images with which to express the climate crisis is a challenge. And he considers it peremptory to renew the modes of alarm, because “in the balance is the survival of the human species against the interests of certain industries, such as fossil fuels.”
“Guterres' narrative is suitable for communicating with heads of state and government, given the existential risk of human civilization, but I do not think it will be very useful for public opinion, because it is so catastrophic that it can lead to paralysis” says Jordi Vilardell, specialized journalist for TV3.
Given that political discourse in general is “euphemistic and does not help to understand that this is a crucial issue,” Vilardell sees it necessary for new actors to emerge in politics, science and communication that focus not only on the risk, but in what needs to be done. In the same way that inside the plane we are alerted to the risk of an accident and safety measures are given, “we would have to think of something similar to confront the climate crisis,” he points out.
María José Sanz Sánchez, scientific director of the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3), prefers not to dwell on the idea of messages of helplessness. "The relevant thing is to accelerate action and take advantage of the great opportunities for change that are opening up towards a more inclusive society and a state of well-being in line with the protection of the planet."
