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Abstract
Climate rhetorical scholars have worked to understand how climate rhetoric influences climate action, but their focus has been primarily on the apocalyptic imaginary of traditional climate rhetoric. In this thesis, I explore climate inaction through the temporal, spatial, and affective-emotional complexity in newer climate activist groups. Expanding Mikhail Bakhtin’s chronotope, I argue for the need to consider more fully the time, space, and affective-emotional relationships shaping our understanding and perceived ability to respond to climate change. Further, I add competing chronotopes and chronotopic intensities to the chronotopic framework and advocate for a more nuanced engagement with the concept in the rhetorical discipline.