This article employs aspects of Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative action and his concept of a lifeworld, alongside composition theory's use of community, to examine the effectiveness of guilt as a rhetorical strategy in two national environmental publications. It finds that, ultimately, for long-term cdmmunicative action to occur, environmental groups should not rely on guilt as a rhetorical strategy because outside their "discourse communities," it will not lead to "dialogue, deliberation, and consensus-building."