“Telling the truth about climate change, even if it hurts”. How environmental activists raise awareness of the cause

This article looks at how environmental activists raise awareness of climate change by employing both the objectivist approach of science, and the emotional charge of eco-anxiety, attachment to nature, and anger towards that which is destroying it. It begins by examining the way in which two activist educational systems mobilize science and emotion. Raising awareness of the cause can be seen as a process of emotional socialization undertaken by the activist institution and by the activists themselves, who take on a form of self-awareness based largely on their cultivated dispositions. Thus, raising awareness of ecological issues and the emotional work that accompanies it contribute to shaping a cause stemming from the innermost being of the people mobilized, that is, from their reason and their feelings. Ultimately, the author shows that investment in this type of strategy stems from the learning dispositions and environmental sensitivity of the class segments involved in these struggles.