The climate-change bubbles thesis: Rethinking communication in a climate crisis

As unwelcome news on climate change temperatures continues, recent narratives have dampened any collective optimism on this problem being the most pressing one to address. Inspired by calls in the climate communication space to do everything we can and to pivot our ideas away from doom and gloom, this article considers a new concept to better understand and progress communication during the climate crisis: the climate-change bubbles thesis. It synthesizes three important ideas: Timothy Morton’s ‘hyperobjects’, where things of a certain scale can be difficult to comprehend; Julia Leyda’s ‘climate unconscious’, which suggests a climate lens can be applied to many forms of media and culture not ostensibly about climate change and, finally, Sally Weintrobe’s ‘climate bubble’ idea that she uses to critique the communication spaces perpetuated by bad actors in the petrochemical era. This contribution further examines the nature of the term ‘bubble’, its etymology, discourse and current use to frame problematic information in the digital age. Climate change is referred to as a wicked problem because time is running out to make meaningful change. The climate-change bubble thesis argues that climate change is treated as a priority or the first problem. As such, everything can be contextualized with reference to the climate crisis via diverse types of climate-change bubbles: these are the differing perspectives from which people come to the climate crisis, whether they realize it or not. Just as Billy Bob Thorton’s Tommy Norris remarks in the 2024 TV show Landman that fossil fuels are in everything humans interact with, it is in everything that we must start to see climate change if we are to make meaningful change.