How to communicate the climate emergency

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What are effective ways of engaging people in conversation about the gathering climate crisis and the need for an emergency response? Let's start with some key content:

1. Urgency and courage   
 

The Earth is already too hot: we are in danger now, not just in the future. Warming will accelerate, and 1.5°C is only a decade away, yet annual emissions are still growing and the current, post-Paris emissions trajectory will result in catastrophic warming. The Great Barrier Reef and other coral systems are dying. We are greatly exceeding Earth’s limits, and food and water shortages are contributing to conflicts and forced migration.

Climate change communication: Key psychological research findings (and why you haven't heard about them yet) (2)

Research has identified a number of psychological barriers that can prevent people from believing in or acting on messages about climate change. Luckily, it has also suggested strategies for overcoming these barriers. Second of a two-part report by Paul Connor.

Second of 2 parts | Part 1

5. Some messages can get through to conservatives! Sort of…

One of the most common analyses one hears about the social psychology of climate change is that the issue has become increasingly politicised over the last decade. More and more, it is said, people are making up their minds on the issue according to their political allegiance, and not by an objective assessment of the facts. And certainly, there has been an observable trend for opinions on the issue to increasingly diverge across political and ideological lines.

Climate change communication: Key psychological research findings (and why you haven't heard about them yet) (1)

Research has identified a number of psychological barriers that can prevent people from believing in or acting on messages about climate change. Luckily, it has also suggested strategies for overcoming these barriers. First of a two-part report by Paul Connor.

Part 1 of 2 parts | Part 2

1. Climate change activists are pretty decent social psychologists. Social psychologists are terrible activists.

Most climate change activists I know are at least to some degree also social psychologists. They constantly consider questions like ‘how can we change the way people think’, ‘how can we make people care more’, and ‘what is the sound bite that is going to be most effective for this campaign?’. Generally, they hold reasonable theories about human psychology and societies. And for the most part, they’re willing to revise these theories as experience dictates.

Landmark TV series puts people at centre of the climate change story

Introduction: Regular readers of  this blog will know we have argued long and hard that to communicate climate change effectively and to maximise public engagement, people need to be put at the centre of the story, as for example here and here. So unusaly for a climate blog the often focuses on new science, there were smiles all round when this story from Joe Romm was published this week.

Click to watch preview

by Joe Romm, via Climate Progress

This April (2014), Showtime will start airing its ground-breaking climate change TV series on the experiences and personal stories of people whose lives have been touched by climate change. Years Of Living Dangerously is an 8-part series produced by the legendary storytellers and film-makers James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jerry Weintraub -– together with three former 60 Minutes producers who have 18 Emmys between them.

Reigniting the debate: Climate change is fundamentally a human story

A British group says people's interest in global warming has dwindled, and new ways of telling what is essentially a human story should include talking to those who may be sceptical about climate change.

By Kieran Cooke, via Climate News Network

George Marshall is a co founder of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN), an organisation based in Oxford in the UK which specialises in climate change communication.

Whenever he can, Marshall tries to engage people in conversation about global warming: he finds it a tough task.

Connecting the dots can turn the table on denialist prime minister

by David Spratt, first published at The Guardian and RenewEconomy

It's hard to imagine that one tweet from Australian Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt could change the terms of the climate change policy debate in Australia. But it has.

View PDF of how the story evolved

On 17 October, as fierce, out-of-season bush fires erupted around Sydney and destroyed 200 houses after the hottest year on record in Australia, Bandt tweeted that Australia would experience more terrible climate impacts if newly-elected conservative prime minister Tony Abbott got his way and abandoned the carbon pricing and renewable energy legislation enacted by the Labor government in 2010.

The previous day, Bandt had written in The Guardian that: "Faced with the biggest ever threat to Australia's way of life (bush fires), Tony Abbott is failing in the first duty of a prime minister which is to protect the Australian people." This struck a chord with many people and launched a long overdue, but until now suppressed, public discussion about the relationship between a hotter and more extreme climate and worsening disasters.

Apocalypse Not: The Oscars, The Media And The Myth of ‘Constant Repetition of Doomsday Messages’ on Climate

By Joe Romm, via Climate Progress

The two greatest myths about global warming communications are
1) constant repetition of doomsday messages has been a major, ongoing strategy and
2) that strategy doesn’t work and indeed is actually counterproductive!

These myths are so deeply ingrained in the environmental and progressive political community that when we finally had a serious shot at a climate bill, the powers that be — led by team Obama! — decided not to focus on the threat posed by climate change in any serious fashion in their $200 million communications effort (see “Can you solve global warming without talking about global warming?“).

To fear or not to fear...

.. as Australia’s contribution to climate change on track to double in next decade or so thanks to fossil fuel exports

Note: As a followup to the post of my contribution to this year's Melbourne Sustainability Festival Great Debate, here is the contribution by Guy Pearse. – David

by Guy Pearse

OK, some personal questions to start… Who’s got a BMI of over 30? What about a tattoo completely covering just one arm – come on I know you’re out there... People are a bit shy... Let’s try an easier one… Who’s got a Facebook account, or has tweeted or felt the need to follow someone who does. Congratulations – you’re part of rapid social change. Not so long ago, very few of us would have answered ‘yes’ to any of those questions. Now, maybe you signed up to Facebook hoping to stalk your high school sweetheart; or got that tattoo fearing you might not fit in without it at the nursing home later in life. But, I’m guessing fear and optimism played little role. Yet, here we are debating which is the stronger driver of rapid social change.

Fear, optimism and activism: What drives change?

It's  a fair bet that my Brightsiding series in 2012 was responsible for the topic at this year's Melbourne Sustainability Festival Great Debate held last Friday: "Fear is stronger than optimism in creating rapid social change".
      So six of us lined up, not in teams, but with clear instructions to take one side or the other and not fence-sit (more of this later). The participants were Bob Brown, Jon Dee, Fiona Sharkie, David Spratt, Guy Pearse and Tanya Ha, and the debate host was ABC TV's Bernie Hobbs.
      Given the brightsiding that still dominates the poor performance of the government and many of the big environment groups on climate action, I felt obliged to bend the stick in the opposite direction, even though the question was poorly framed. Ten minutes is hardly time to canvas the meaning of life, so this was my contribution:

Connecting the dots to local climate impacts is a key to community engagement

by Graeme Taylor

Notwithstanding Australia’s record-smashing heatwave, the impacts of climate change are often perceived to be distant in time and space.
     Most Australians do not yet understand the scale and urgency of what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the climate emergency—the most serious threat facing humanity. The reasons are many, including the poor performance of much of the media, and the complacency of political and business leaders. The most broadly disseminated view is that climate change is a distant and very long-term problem; an international problem (and therefore too big and complex for you or me to influence); and something that can and will be eventually managed with adaptation and new technologies.

A sober assessment of our situation (2)

by David Spratt

The first part in this series described some characteristics of the climate debate and the climate action advocacy movement in Australia.

• Read Part 1: Where we are
• Read Part 3: Challenges
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014) 

2. How we got to here  [Part 2 in a series of 3]

2.1 Climate in the media

In the USA (and Australia too), concern about climate change (as measured by the climate change threat index - see chart below) peaked around 2007.  Research studies find that media coverage of climate change directly affects public concern levels, and that the actions of political elites turn out to be the most powerful driver of public concern. Concern in the USA was at its heightat the time of media focus on the IPCC’s 2007 fourth assessment reports and Al Gore’s “The Inconvenient Truth”.

The Climate Change Threat Index aggregates data from 6 different polling organizations gauging how much people worry about global warming

A sober assessment of our situation (1)

by David Spratt 

Where we are   [Part 1 in a series]

• Read Part 2: How we got to here
• Read Part 3: Challenges 
• Related post: As Tony Abbott launches all-out war on climate action, what's the plan? (2 Feb 2014) 

1.1 Introduction

In the last five years, Australia has signed the Kyoto Protocol, legislated a price on greenhouse gas emissions, established a Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC), and more than doubled the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to 20 per cent of electricity production by 2020. The Contracts for Closure of around 2GW of dirty coal power is due to be resolved soon. Household electricity demand is falling and the wholesale price has dropped substantially. Energy efficiency measures, installed household solar PV and higher prices have already reduced demand by the equivalent of Hazelwood power station’s full capacity.
     The Greens’ vote and influence has increased, the Transition Towns and sustainability movements are growing, and a formidable community campaign against coal seam gas is gaining significant political power. The coal industry in Queensland is a hot topic. The cost of renewable energy, especially PV solar, is falling quickly and household rooftop solar is already grid competitive. Community support for replacing dirty fossil fuels with clean, renewable energy is strong.

Why we are going nuts

As noted in the End game for the climate policy paradigm post, I am re-posting two articles by the US environmentalist Ken Ward, because they are so relevant to our circumstances today. Next week, I will start a 3-part series, tentatively entitled "A sober assessment of our situation" — David


Why we are going nuts
Lessons from cognitive dissonance theory for US environmentalists

by Ken Ward, first published on Grist, March 4, 2009

"If we do not raise our sights and ambitions, then we are guaranteed to fail. Itʼs a tough but simple choice and if we continue down our present road, we will leap from foggy thinking into pure madness, there being no other means of keeping reality at bay."

If we accept the worst, or precautionary assessment, then US environmentalists have perhaps a year to avert cataclysm and nothing we are doing now will work. We are dealing with this terrible situation in a very ordinary and human way, by denying it.
     Our denial comes in a variety of forms: we believe that President Obama can and will solve the problem; we ignore Jim Hansenʼs assessment and timeline; we concentrate on our jobs and organization agendas and pass over the big picture; we focus on the molehill of climate policy rather than tackle the mountain of climate politics; we assess our efforts by looking back on how far we have come and do not measure the distance still to be traveled; we scrupulously avoid criticizing each other, lacking conviction in our own courses of action and not wishing to invite criticism in turn; and we are irrationally committed to antique approaches that are self-evidently inadequate.

The climate for Labor backflips

Update 15 May: So now the Gillard government has started its advertising campaign in support of... well, it's impossible to tell. As the Age reports today, the "advertising blitz spruiking the carbon tax 'household assistance package' [contains] no mention of carbon, climate change or clean energy".   The $14 million campaign tells viewers that the lump-sum payments starting this week are ''the first part of the Australian government's household assistance package''. Assistance for what?  Here is the final irony in Labor's capitulation to opposition leader Tony Abbott's agenda. First they fall for his framing of the climate issue – as being about a carbon tax rather than the impacts of climate change on peoples' lives – and now they are campaigning in support of the tax without mentioning it, or what it is for. Of all the examples of a government losing its way, surely this is the most graphic.

by David Spratt / First published in Climate Spectator, 3 May 2012

This year the federal government has been very quiet about climate change. Climate Change Minister Greg Combet’s most recent media release on climate was on 23 March.
     That his statement was devoted to the coalition’s policy, not Labor’s, is indicative of the strategic failure that has beset Labor’s climate communications since 2008.

Climate change is not a ‘message.’ It’s an objective reality and an urgent crisis. That’s why we must talk about it.

KC Golden, via Climate Access

[Note: This post touches on many of the issues we've been covering here recently, including cognitive dissonance, the problems with climate messaging, and the urgency of the challenge; especially in The real climate message is in the shadows. It’s time to shine the light and in the Bright-siding series.   DS]

Have climate campaigners learned the art of political communication too well?  We poll and focus group.  We segment audiences and target swings. We “go to people where they’re at” – activating live communication frames and salient issues. We move the dial. There is tactical merit in all this … but climate change is not a “message.” It’s an objective reality and an urgent crisis.

Putting climate in the corner

by David Spratt / First published in Climate Spectator, 7 May 2012

This is the final of a three-part series on Labor's climate policy. Part one was published on 4 May and Part Two on 5 May 2012

[Note: this is condensation of some of the Bright-siding posts]

Labor has not succeeded in selling its climate legislation, and neither has the environment NGOs because of a strategic failure in communicating the case for climate action.
In ‘The real climate message is in the shadows. It’s time to shine the light’, Daniel Voronoff drew on lessons from health promotion to argue persuasively what effective climate messaging requires. He identified the problem as bright-siding:

The risk we face with the present suite of messages is that without stating the problem – namely the severity of the threat and our susceptibility to it – there is no argument for change. Without stating the threat, the public mind is lead to question, why a tax for innovation and jobs when the mining industry makes jobs anyway? Imagine the anti-smoking advertisement that fails to mention mouth and lung cancer, telling the smoker they should give up a pleasurable habit of ten years because, well, they’re certain to feel better. The evidence shows this appeal just doesn’t work.

On the bright side of Labor's climate policy

[Note: this is condensation of some of the Bright-siding posts]

by David Spratt / First published in Climate Spectator, 4 May 2012

This is part two of a three part series on Labor's climate policy. Part one was published yesterday. 

The Obama administration, Australia’s Labor government and the 2011 ‘Say Yes’ campaign by Australia’s environment NGOs share a common view on how to market action on climate: sell ‘good news’ about ‘clean’ or renewable energy,  and avoid ‘bad news’, such as climate impacts and discussions about coal and gas.
     The Obama administration tried, unsuccessfully, to frame legislation to reduce greenhouse emissions as being about “energy independence”. It did not pass, although that was not principally Obama’s fault. But taking climate off the agenda was, says Jonathan Lash of the World Resources Institute: 

The real climate message is in the shadows. It’s time to shine the light.

Updated 28 April 2012

The presentation '"Saving Lives: reframing climate change around health and livelihood" explores the issues presented in this post.  It makes the case for reaching out to conservative audiences so as to widen the political space for the necessary social-economic transition. It takes a critical look at climate change messaging to date, identifies its shortcomings, and, drawing on the cognitive sciences, outlines a human-centred communication that acknowledges the threats, demonstrates agency and inspires empathy.

• View presentation as powerpoint with audio
• View presentation as video

by Daniel Voronoff

Posted 30 August 2011

There was more than one kernel of truth in the speech made by the Shadow Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull at the Virginia Chadwick Foundation back in July. But the one I’d like to look at is the analogy about how not listening to the science on climate change:

Rethinking climate communication and engagement

by David Spratt / Concluding a 5-part series

PDF download IN THIS SERIES... “Always look on the bright side of life”: Bright-siding climate advocacy and its consequences Part 1: Introduction Part 2: What bright-siding climate advocacy looks like Part 3: Is all “good news” and no “bad news” a good strategy? Part 4: The consequences of failure Part 5: Rethinking climate communication and engagement

‘Happy talk’ was not the approach taken by Lincoln confronting slavery, or by Franklin Roosevelt facing the grim realities after Pearl Harbour. Nor was it Winston Churchill’s message to the British people at the height of the London blitz. Instead, in these and similar cases transformative leaders told the truth honestly, with conviction and eloquence. – David Orr, preface to “Down to the Wire”

In The real climate message is in the shadows. It’s time to shine the light, Daniel Voronoff drew on lessons from health promotion to argue persuasively what effective climate messaging requires. He identified the problem as bright-siding:

“The risk we face with the present suite of messages is that without stating the problem – namely the severity of the threat and our susceptibility to it – there is no argument for change. Without stating the threat, the public mind is led to question, why a tax for innovation and jobs when the mining industry makes jobs anyway? Imagine the anti-smoking advertisement that fails to mention mouth and lung cancer, telling the smoker they should give up a pleasurable habit of ten years because, well, they’re certain to feel better. The evidence shows this appeal just doesn’t work.”

Bright-siding: The consequences of failure

by David Spratt / Part 4 of a 5-part series

"Political reality must be grounded in physical reality or it's completely useless."
– Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute

PDF download IN THIS SERIES... “Always look on the bright side of life”: Bright-siding climate advocacy and its consequences Part 1: Introduction Part 2: What bright-siding climate advocacy looks like Part 3: Is all “good news” and no “bad news” a good strategy? Part 4: The consequences of failure Part 5: Rethinking climate communication and engagement

If you avoid including an honest assessment of climate science and impacts in your narrative, its pretty difficult to give people a grasp about where the climate system is heading and what needs to be done to create the conditions for living in climate safety, rather than increasing and eventually catastrophic harm. But that’s how the big climate advocacy organisations have generally chosen to operate, and it represents a strategic failure to communicate.
     Climate policy in Australia is trapped in a culture of failure and low expectation. The reason given for advocating solutions that would still result in dangerous climate change is that what really needs to be done is "too big” to message effectively.The Australian Conservation Foundation, for example, adopted a 350 policy several years ago, but never made in part of their advocacy because (unofficially) “the comms people couldn’t find a way to message it”.
     Ken Ward, a former deputy-director of Greenpeace (USA), identifies "a consensual public policy hallucination that abrupt climate change can be addressed without great conflict". Everybody from the UN Secretary-General to business commentator Alan Kohler now calls climate an emergency, but it is still a non-no for most climate campaigning organisations.