The beginning of a new world. How we tell ourselves about climate change without falling silent

The beginning of a new world. How we tell ourselves about climate change without falling silent

284 pages

Hardcover

Genre: Nature, Sociology, Essay, Nonfiction
To muster the courage to think a changing world, we need the culture, the narratives and the thinking from many points of view. This is the only way to get to action.

The consequences of global warming are closing in on us. They can now also be felt in Germany. They are confirmed by ever new measurement records. The change in the climate reveals a destabilized world that we no longer recognize as our own. When talking about climate change, many therefore get caught in a downward spiral, at the end of which they run out of words. That language is lacking seems contradictory at first, because for a few years now there have been few topics that have been talked about so much. But words alone do not reach our imagination, we cannot process the knowledge. It is too frightening and hopeless. Birgit Schneider tries to find answers to the question of how people in temperate latitudes imagine climate change, which imaginations and stories guide them. She highlights changes of perspective, contradictions and also unusual ways of looking at things, which are able to broaden our limited imagination. For in order to overcome the gap between knowledge and action, it makes a big difference how we tell ourselves about climate change.

German title: Der Anfang einer neuen Welt - Wie wir uns den Klimawandel erzählen, ohne zu verstummen
ISBN: 978-3-7518-0373-1
Publisher: Matthes & Seitz Berlin
Publication date: 2023

Sample translation

English sample translation

Birgit Schneider, born in 1972, teaches as Professor of Cultures of Knowledge and Media Environments at the University of Potsdam. The image and media scholar's current research focuses on images and modes of perception of climate and atmosphere, critical cartography, images of ecology and questions of natural aesthetics.