An ongoing dialogue on climate change: The Boulder Manifesto

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511535871.034

31 - An ongoing dialogue on climate change: The Boulder Manifesto

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2009

Robert Harriss

Edited by

Susanne C. Moser and

Lisa Dilling

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Robert Harriss: Affiliation:
Houston Advanced Research Center
Susanne C. Moser: Affiliation:
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder
Lisa Dilling: Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder

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Summary

As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few … The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have troubles.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The rich and diverse perspectives reported in this volume reflect the emergence of a new and unique social learning network on climate change communication and social change. The threads for a new fabric of knowledge have been gathered. The next steps are to weave together these fragments of thought, to move from knowledge sharing to actual dialogue, and to create a new learning ecology that effectively encourages the more environmentally sustainable behaviors necessary to avoid the dangerous impacts of climate change. This chapter presents the Boulder Manifesto that articulates the book's contributors' collective way of seeing the climate change communication challenge and of understanding our part in creating it – as it is and might be. The utility of a manifesto lies in providing a conceptual aperture, an opening through which future social realities may unfold. The nature of the Boulder Manifesto rests on the expertise, spirit of barn-raising and commitment to a common cause that is threaded through the preceding chapters. A continuing and successful dialogue among the diverse stakeholders represented in this volume will be an enormous challenge – dialogue is a state out of which we are continuously falling (Isaacs, 1999).

In the case of sustained local and regional action on threats posed by climate change there are potential pitfalls ahead.

Type: Chapter
Information: Creating a Climate for Change
Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change
, pp. 485 - 490

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511535871.034 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2007

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