I really liked the stories piece and thought this summary of a New Scientist piece on myths might add some fodder:

Key ideas:

There is a scientific consensus which provides the idea of physical
transformation provoked by human caused climate change. There is no shared idea about its meaning.

Meaning can be understood by the myths or stories we tell of the idea. There are at present 4 main myths about climate change.

1. The Edenic myth which uses the language of lament and nostalgia, reveals our desire to return to a simpler more innocent era, sees climate as part of the fragile natural world that needs to be protected and shows we are uneasy with our unsought powers we now have to change the global climate. It paints us as oppressive powerless victims and lacks a call to action.

2. The Apocalyptic myth talks about climate change in terms of disaster and fear. It reveals our worry about the future but lacks a call to action.

3. The Promethean myth (the god who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals) talks about climate as something we must control revealing our desire for domination over nature but also that we lack the wisdom and humility to exercise it.

4. The Themisian myth (goddess of natural law and order) talks about climate change as an idea around which calls for environmental justice are announced revealing the human urge to right wrongs.

The 4 myths suggest that even were we to know precisely what we wanted, wealth, harmony, social justice or mere survival, we are limited in our abilities to acquire or deliver those goals.

Rather than placing ourselves in a “fight against climate change” we should use the idea of climate change to rethink and renegotiate our wider social and political goals.

We can use the imperative of climate change to examine projects closely and honestly to focus on the long term implications of short term choices and recognize the global reach of our actions asking both “What is the impact of this project on the climate?” and “How does the reality of climate change alter how we can achieve this goal?” ( Patricia adds: My experience is that while in our community we have begun to ask the first, the second is not yet
really on very many agendas.)

Establishing climate change as as much of an idea as a physical phenomenon allows us to become creative. Stimulate new thinking about technology, theology, ethics, art , interlinking science and culture, new ways of living in rural and urban environments, and invigorate efforts to protect ourselves from the hazards of climate change. None demand consensus over its meaning. They thrive in conditions of pluralism.

Making climate control our number one political priority might not be the most fruitful way of using the idea of climate change. The climate will keep on changing. So too will the idea of climate change a we find new ways of using it to meet our needs.

“Whereas a modernist reading of climate may once have regarded it as merely a physical condition for human action, we must now come to terms with climate change operating simultaneously as an overlying but more fluid imaginate condition of human existence.”