Language & Climate

Thursday, March 17, 2022 | 12:00 p.m.

As a science communicator, author, and climate activist, Alice Bell has thought a lot about the language used to describe climate change. Because the concepts involved are abstract and intimidating, our vocabulary for talking about it, when we bother to talk about it, is limited. And the language often comes with an agenda — to magnify concern or to minimize it — which makes word choice particularly fraught.

Alice Bell is Director of Communications for the climate action non-profit Possible, and author of a new book on the history of the climate crisis, Our Biggest Experiment. The Language & Series is made possible by a grant from the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.