Students and researchers on the Master’s in Accounting, Control and Finance of HEC Lausanne (Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne) are using Twitter to tackle climate sceptics.
#LetsConvincetheDonald is the hashtag used in several hundred tweets about climate change. The account @MCCF4Climate brings together all the contributions produced by Master’s students and researchers at HEC Lausanne. They contain links to scientific facts, arguments or images to challenge the views of climate sceptics.
A spontaneous response
“At the end of my first course, in the spring semester 2017, I could see that my students were depressed by Donald Trump’s attitude to climate change,” recalls Anette Mikes (@AnetteMikes), professor in the Department of Accounting and Control. How do you overcome a sense of powerlessness? By taking action, using the US President’s favourite means of communication: Twitter. And so @MCCF4Climate was set up, quite spontaneously.
A group of students who were interested in the idea got to work. “We all look for information about climate change and tweet it on our personal accounts,” explains student Raphaël Moesching (@Raphael_Moschin). Anyone who would rather not open an account can post via student assistant Anna Massimino (@anna_massimino). What sort of items are posted? “When I find an article about electric cars on bloomberg.com, I share it with #LetsConvincetheDonald. My message is then retweeted by @MCCF4Climate,” explains student Ahmad Khoshi (@ahmkho).
An exercise in rhetoric
Contrary to Anette Mikes’ expectations of her students – the rational accountants or auditors of the future – @MCCF4Climate does not only feature links to scientific facts. The participants pass on statements from influential figures such as Emmanuel Macron, Al Gore or Bernie Sanders, striking images and humorous messages. “By doing so, we use a range of possible rhetorical devices,” notes student Simon Gaillard (@SimonMccf).
Why practise the art of persuasion? The young contributors to @MCCF4Climate obviously do not believe they will change the President’s views. But intellectually, it is an interesting exercise to try, “because Donald Trump embodies the most difficult climate sceptic to convince. He’s the archetype of someone who could take action, but doesn’t,” explains Anette Mikes.
Learning to persuade
Although the aim of #LetsConvincetheDonald may not be achievable, reaching closer targets is more realistic. “In our working lives, we’ll be implementing tools such as environmental accounting,” says student Augustin Debroeck (@debroeckaugust). “We’ll need to justify our decisions and persuade managers who are older and quite likely reluctant.” In the future, “we’ll have to take more account of the environmental costs of economic activities,” adds Simon Gaillard. So-called “carbon accounting” is one example. “Introducing the costs of the CO2 produced by the business’s operations and their knock-on effects on customers is going to change a lot of things,” comments Ahmad Khoshi. “For example, cheap fruit imported from Spain by lorry would be a lot more expensive if we included the carbon costs.”The four students we met were all very aware that their generation is going to bear the brunt of climate change. In brief, as they put it, “Donald Trump won’t be here in 20 years’ time. But we will be!” Anette Mikes is keen to continue the @MCCF4Climate experiment with the next group of students when the new academic year starts in the autumn. With the secret hope that one day, @realDonaldTrump will come up with a tweet about it.