Radically reframing the climate debate: The rhetorical strategies of The Hartwell Paper

Goodwin, Jean. (2019). Radically reframing the climate debate: The rhetorical strategies of The Hartwell Paper. In Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen, Argumentation in actual practice: Topical studies about argumentative discourse in context (pp. 157-72). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

“Everyone knows” what the climate debate is about. There are two sides, and each side has developed a tightly-knit constellation of standpoints on the existence, seriousness, and policy approaches to anthropogenic global warming. This study performs a rhetorical analysis of a whitepaper crafted by a group of deeply experienced climate experts that attempted to disrupt the existing constellations, consigning old issues to oblivion and opening new ones. In order to open the way for new arguments, the authors draw on non-argumentative strategies including pointing out what is conspicuous to all, narrative, dissociation, metaphor, and enactment. Such strategies of evocation provide the necessary grounding within which civic argumentation can productively proceed.