Hyper, Broken, and Artificial: How (Not) to Communicate about Climate Change

Abstract

This rhizomatic essay maps the communicative-geographical dimensions of our current cultural moment in relation to climate change communication, which characterizes climate as hyper and broken, proposing the artificial as the fix to this brokenness. Drawing on more-than-human sensibilities of communication geography, I work through three intricately connected modalities of current cultural discourses in relation to climate. First, hyper allows me to locate an implosion of scale in the context of the hyperobject of climate change. Second, broken asks questions about the dialectical tension between whole-ness and broken-ness, a longing for a nostalgic past and an urgent futurity. And finally, artificial engages the seeming solution to this broken-ness as it lures on the horizon of our perception: I argue that our flight into the realms of techno-solutionism do not absolve us from being concerned with the current planetary moment as the artificial is very much grounded in the material.