McKibben’s frequently turns to the visual in both Eaarth and The End of Nature to evoke a response in the reader. Eaarth begins with the image of a creek that “burbles along”, and then adds a “scene of real violence”—one where a flood has created a gash through the woods. Already, McKibben’s provocative works pull emotion out of the reader. An idea (global warming) that is normally represented through a series of facts is brought into full color, an effective rhetoric technique on behalf of the author. He is able to bring every day objects, such as streetlights, into his argument and utilize them to support his claims—in The End of Nature, he tells how a single streetlight takes away from the town’s view of the stars, how it “breaks up the feeling of the night”. McKibben fills his descriptions with emotion, and adds warmth to what is normally a very cold and factual debate. He lets the reader immediately picture a setting, a piece of nature, and then is able to slip in the argument. This is a very effective tactic for it appeals to one of our senses, rather than solely our mind. As Luke said in his blog post, “McKibben’s main motive is to inspire activism in his readers” and his vibrant images are a powerful way in which he does this.
After attending his talk last night, I definitely missed the visual part of his argument. While he certainly showed plenty of pictures of the 350.org activism participants, he didn't show any pictures which illustrated his points about climate change. Pictures of flooded villages and bridges would have been better than just telling us about them. Given the visual nature of his prose, I thought he would certainly use visuals as a part of his presentation. I think that was a missed opportunity on his part.
ReplyDeleteI also found McKibben's rhetoric quite interesting; In The End of Nature, his use of metaphor and simile was particularly pointed, and worked to attach abstract issues and stats to human concerns (baking bread, lung cancer, and so on), often at the end of paragraphs. Eaarth uses these techniques as well, along with some clever turns of phrase--"we're running Genesis backwards, re-creating" (p). In his talk he emphasized that he is writer, not a speaker, which seems to be part of what Jim is getting at: McKibben's written style calls up imagined scenes, but transferring this style into a talk, it didn't work the same way. I apprecaited his calm, unflappable stage presence, but he certainly wasn't rousing the crowd to action--the rhetorical flourishes of his writing didn't flourish on the stage.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with both of you on McKibben's use of imagery in his speech. It didn't make me feel particularly compelled or inspired to action. The same urgency didn't seem present in his speech, and I think this was in part due to the lack of tying in the environmental problem to our every day lives. His focus in the speech seemed to be based on the effects of the problem on a worldwide scale and solving the problem on that same scale, rather than embracing the local. Even when he did focus on places in the United States where activism was happening, it seemed like a lot of it centered around Washington, D.C. His facts tended towards what was happening to the world, not to us individually in our own localities, and I think this took away from the persuasive power of his argument.
ReplyDeleteI think the reason McKibbens focused on the worldwide scale was because remedies to global warming can only be global. As he said in his speech, so many third world nations have done practically nothing to alter the natural balance of CO2 in the atmosphere but because of the actions of a few nations they are experiencing the consequences of global warming. One nation's efforts to decrease CO2 emissions means nothing if other nations are producing CO2 at twice the rate that they are reducing it. Also, even though each of us may be able to personally reduce our carbon footprint I think that relying on this method has proved ineffectual - so many people don't really care enough to make even little changes and when industries are belching so much CO2 into the atmosphere the efforts of a few ecologically conscious people won't really do much. The real problem is our government's failure to put restraints on industry, therefore, we must focus on D.C.
ReplyDelete