Politicizing Climate Change: Challenging Power Through Fossil Fuel Divestment

• In Event: Media, Social Media, and Environmental Action

Abstract

This paper is an analysis of 350.org’s Go Fossil Free divestment campaign which has taken hold at college campuses across the US and internationally. The paper offers a critical discourse analysis of campaign material and media coverage related to the divestment campaign. The divestment campaign offers a contrast to other environmentalist interventions in the economic realm. Campaigners use three major lines of argument: economic, moral, and political. While superficially economic in nature, the divestment movement aims for a broad societal transformation, based on confronting power and bringing a politicized discourse to public debate on climate change. The paper considers how this case informs social theory regarding risk, modernity, and human-nature relationships in the Anthropocene.

Author

• Rowan Howard-Williams, U of Pennsylvania