Climate Change (old guide)
Communication Studies and Climate Change
Credit: https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/12/11/new-guide-aims-at-how-we-talk-about-climate-change/
The discipline of communication studies provides an understanding of effective and ineffective ways to communicate a message, including why the standard "deficit model" of communication used by scientists and climate activists is not successful:
"Proceeding from the assumption that your audience lacks facts —that is, that they have a deficit —all you need to do it give them the facts, in clear and eloquent and dramatic enough terms, and you can make them feel like you want them to feel, how they ought to feel, how you feel. But research on the practice of risk communication has found that this approach usually fails, and often backfires. The deficit model may work fine in physics class, but it’s an ineffective way to try to change people’s attitudes. That’s because it appeals to reason, and reason is not what drives human behavior." https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/time-climate-change-communicators-listen-social-science/
From the website Climate & Mind, here are some questions to ask about communicating the climate crisis:
- What is the best way to bring about awareness and action in response to climate breakdown and environmental destruction?
- How do humans take in (or not take in) information that can be scary and overwhelming?
- Is it better to scare people in to action? Or inspire them with hopeful possibilities?
- What is the psychological impact of words like “Global Warming” and “Climate Breakdown”?
- How do differences in language impact behavior?
- Why does climate breakdown receive so little attention so little attention, given the existential implications for life on earth?
Source: https://www.climateandmind.org/climate-communication
Web Resources
- Yale Programs on Climate Change Communication"Climate change communication refers to the diverse processes by which climate change-related information, knowledge, ideas, emotions, meaning, values, and behaviors flow between individuals and through societies. "
- Climate change communicationFrom the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, an overview of how communication theories, research methods, and practices have many potential roles in reducing climate change and its effects.
- The Climate Communications ProjectA collaboration of academics and practitioners with expertise on climate change communication in the U.K.
- These Days, It’s Not About the Polar BearsNew York Times, May 2019
- The Psychology of Climate Change CommunicationPublished by the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University.
- Entering climate change communications through the side doorFrom Stanford Social Innovation Review, July 2018
- Stories in Communicating ClimateFrom Yale Climate Connections
- Why your brain doesn’t register the words ‘climate change’Article published in Grist, 2019
Who Are Global Warming's Six Americas? Research from Yale Climate Connections on the different audiences for climate change communication. (1:18 minutes)
Books and ebooks
Communicating Climate Change: The Path Forward by Call Number: Southeast Main Collection 333.7201 P75c 2016Publication Date: 2016-12-28
Why We Disagree about Climate Change by Call Number: Cascade Main Collection 363.738 H85w 2009Publication Date: 2009-04-30
DVDs and streaming videos
The Secret to Talking about Climate Change (4:01 minutes), from Our Climate Our Future
TED Talk by Katherine Hayhoe: The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: talk about it. (17 minutes)
TED Talk by Greta Thunberg, who helped spark an international youth moment. (11 minutes)
- Changing the Conversation on Climate Change Video2 minute video from the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation (NNOCCI)