News
Better Understanding and Improving Climate Communications
Bud Ward January 25, 2012
Some 100 social scientists, communications experts, and climate scientists convene at University of Michigan’s Erb Institute/Union of Concerned Scientists session to better understand, improve climate communication dialogue.
Host of Key Insights on Communications
Among key messages shared by expert presenters throughout the session, and seemingly accepted in large part by many of those in attendance:
- Climate change “engagement” strategies and messages need to be specifically targeted to different audiences, including those across a spectrum of acceptance or denial of established climate science evidence;
- As important as the message to be delivered is the specific messenger delivering that message: An ideal message or speaker for one audience may fall flat before other audiences, notwithstanding possible similarities in the message being delivered;
- Providing climate science “knowledge” to specific audiences is necessary, but ultimately insufficient if that audience’s emotions, values, ideology, and overall belief systems are not accounted for and addressed. In addressing an audience, speak directly to their aspirations and values, one participant advised, and avoid confounding facts and values. “You’ll otherwise lose the battle for attention …. The ‘should’ claims provide an excuse for the audience to run away.” Basing your views primarily on the much-ballyhooed “knowledge deficit,” “science illiteracy,” “knowledge gap” assumptions leads only to a fool’s errand.
- Three critical steps in devising a climate communications strategy: A clear sense of “present realities”; a clear sense of where we want to go; and a roadmap to get there.
- Avoid an attitude of “We’re right. They’re wrong. How can we change them?”
- Try to avoid the audience’s conflating a policy response, for instance “cap-and-trade,” with the foundational scientific evidence. They can understand and support the latter while objecting to the former. “Embed sustainability into the DNA of civilization itself,” one expert suggested, so citizens “would almost have to make a conscious decision NOT to be sustainable.” Adopt an attitude of “amnesty,” another suggested, for those who, for instance, have put people at high risks by building in flood plains and vulnerable areas.
- People conform to information processing consistent with their cultures, one expert social scientist said. “Your processing is motivated to affirm the dominant view of your group; you search for affirming information, and you best remember affirming information.” Another: “Open communications by reaffirming the listener’s worth … come as a friend, a friendly communicator. Find connections, and tap into cultural values that speak to that audience … People will defend their sense of self before they will change their behavior.” In a hero-oriented society, make it heroic “to act to protect the environment,” and give people “a reason to become heroes in a climate protection culture.” Another suggestion: “Start with where they [the audience] are, not with where you are.”
- Consider focusing on climate change risks to motivate particular audiences to take concrete actions. The insurance example — home owners annually buy fire insurance not because we think our home will burn down, but rather because we don’t know that it won’t — is one example of effective risk story-telling.
- In the case of those who might be considered to be “conspiracy theorists” (for instance, suspicious of an agenda they see as seeking to deprive rights and freedoms) providing more information may well be counterproductive: the more information provided a conspiracy theorist … the bigger the conspiracy they perceive.
- The public at large cannot be expected to “study” and absorb or substantially understand climate science. Instead, they will “take their cues” from the political leaders and activists or spokespersons they most admire, whether it be an Al Gore or Bill McKibben or a Rush Limbaugh.
- Public understanding and acceptance that there is a strong consensus on climate science across the scientific community is crucial, but for now too large a segment of the public is unaware that such a consensus indeed exists.
- Constructive policy action on an issue like climate change can be driven by a majority of public opinion, and consensus does not mean “unanimity.” The “let me persuade you” model is flawed in addressing the general public. Better to think of the model of a jury trial: “We don’t have to convince the opposing lawyer, but rather the jury,” one speaker emphasized.
- The public is unrealistic in thinking the scientific community can substantially reduce or eliminate legitimate uncertainty, but uncertainty (which cuts both ways) is not an excuse for inaction in the face of overwhelming evidence.
- Repetition of key points by respected messengers is crucial. For instance: Climate change is real; it’s the result of human activities this time; the scientific community agrees; and there are things that can be done to mitigate its worst impacts.
- In addressing faith communities, several speakers said that notwithstanding strong scientific evidence, an effective message can be that “You should care because God cares.” “God cares for those suffering from desertification,” a speaker emphasized. “Think about it theologically …. God will hold us accountable.” Another speaker: “Love God and love your neighbors as yourself,” and if we love our neighbors — defined to include future generations — we do not pollute or foul their space.
- A positive attitude, and the very word “solutions” can be invaluable. “Industry loves focusing on ‘solutions,’” an industry representative advised. Another approach discussed as being helpful in capturing corporate interests: engage them on notions of emerging technologies and long-term business and employment opportunities.
- A question raised: Should there be a climate social sciences “extension service” analogous to the agricultural extension service?
- Consider the notion not of “global warming” but rather of “local warming.” How would your community look in a four-degrees warmer climate? What impacts on water supply, on local farming? What would be involved in adapting to it? How would it be financed? What winners, what losers? Etc.
- Just as climate scientists are not “monolithic,” neither are social scientists. Each field has its own prestigious journals, its own institutional pressures (e.g., tenure pressures), its own culture.
Conference report
Changing Climates: Integrating Psychological Perspectives on Climate Change
A conference organised by Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR) and the Climate Psychology Alliance
2 July 2011, NCVO, London
Therapists and Climate Change
by Garry Coope
Published in Psychotherapy Networker online magazine
Since the early 1990s, ecopsychologists have been a marginal but persistent voice in the field, warning that separating ourselves from the natural environment creates a wide range of mental disorders, including anxiety, depression, and addiction. Now as evidence mounts about the growing impact of climate change, recognition of the link between the environment and mental health issues is increasing within the field.
As evidence of this trend, the May/June 2011 issue of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) flagship journal, American Psychologist, includes recommendations from the APA’s Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change. Psychologists, says the Task Force, have a responsibility to motivate individuals, communities, organizations, corporations, and governments to address climate change and “help humanity effectively mitigate and adapt to it.”
The Task Force’s call is a sobering acknowledgment that the question has shifted from whether we can stop climate change to whether we can eventually slow it down and learn to live with its serious consequences. A stark statement of that later position was Bill McKibben’s much-discussed recent book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, a look at what our lives will be like in the next half-century. He purposely changed the spelling of Earth to emphasize that, in the future, we’ll be living on a different planet. According to McKibben and many other environmentalists, the dire effects of climate change—species extinction, ocean acidification, droughts, severe storms, rising temperatures, and dwindling water supplies and arable land—are already evident. Even if the major countries took unprecedented steps tomorrow to reduce greenhouse gases, those already released would likely continue to cause a rise in the world’s average temperature for several decades—well above the 2-degree centigrade increase that marks the tipping point of runaway environmental change.
Climate change triggers and is partly fueled by psychological processes that therapists are presumably experts at addressing—denial, dissociation, apathy, and despair. In her article, “The Myth of Apathy,” on Sustainable Life Media, psychosocial researcher Renee Lertzman, who consults with organizations and individuals about taking action on environmental issues and teaches courses on psychology and sustainability, says that what appears to be apathy is really a “‘tangle’ of confusion, emotions and desires.” This results in a gap between our values and behaviors.
While the overwhelming majority of people are in favor of saving the environment, she says, many of the habits of consumption they consider integral to their well-being and comfort contribute daily to climate change. A common technique that people use to solve dilemmas like this is to dissociate from them. Furthermore, she says, some people have a difficult time even contemplating the long-term consequences of a problem so vast and of such catastrophic consequence.
What, if anything, should psychotherapists do to deal with climate change? Justifiably, therapists are wary of injecting their own social agenda into therapy. A therapist whose depressed client says she feels so hopeless about climate change that she’s no longer doing well at work is likely to turn the focus toward the client’s cognitive processes and personal history, rather than focusing on the issue of climate change. But while that may be standard clinical procedure, has the time come to question whether the broader issue also needs consideration?
Only when we get in touch with our own fears, ecotherapists say, will we be able to help our clients explore what climate change means to them. But therapists first need to do their own work and make sure that their apathy, fear, confusion, and denial don’t deafen them, however subtly, to what their clients tell them. Discussing climate change, says British therapist Ro Randall, can open up exploration of “existential questions about the purpose of life, re-evaluations of basic beliefs about human nature . . . and assumptions about solutions.”
Psychologist Mary Pipher’s upcoming book, The Green Boat, calls upon therapists to acknowledge the new reality and take action. “Therapists are experts at navigating complex changes, problem solving, listening deeply, and purveying hope,” she says. Allowing—not forcing—discussion of climate change names the elephant in the living room, Pipher notes, and turning toward things we’re reluctant to face is a bedrock principle of therapy. Openly discussing fears won’t stop climate change, but it may allow for that human connection that opens the door to hope and action, which, Pipher says, is “often the antidote to despair.” Just as therapists know about making referrals to support groups and social services, in these days of climate change, she says, therapists ought to make themselves aware of, and explore with clients, opportunities for doing something to address the problem.
Pipher, who grew up in a rural county immersed in nature, has dealt with her own despair and grief about the environment by founding a local chapter of 350.org, a grassroots organization that mobilizes people around local environmental actions. Now she’s vowed to speak about climate change at every public opportunity. “I once had a gay client in a homophobic community,” she says, “who ended up killing himself,” and as a result, she vowed to talk about and try to normalize homosexuality whenever she could in her public and personal life. “We shouldn’t be running from our despair and anxiety about global climate change,” she says. “We should be exploring and processing it and, ultimately, turning it into something useful for us and the planet.”
Study says majority believe in climate change
ABC Fri Jun 3, 2011 6:47am AEST
A national survey reveals most Australians believe in, and are concerned about, climate change. The study by Queensland's Griffith University surveyed more than 3,000 Australians across the country and found 74 per cent believe the world's climate is changing and 90 per cent believe human activities are playing a role.
The research found less than 6 per cent of Australians are true climate change sceptics.
Griffith University Professor Joseph Reser says the results show public opinion has been greatly misrepresented in the media. "An accurate reading of what the science is, and an accurate reading of where the public is at, are really both very, very important," he said.
The study also found more than half of respondents believe they are already experiencing the effects of climate change and around two thirds have strong concerns about it.
Professor Reser says the psychological impact of climate change needs to be given more consideration. He says climate research should not just focus on environmental adaptation. "Equal attention has to be paid to psychological adaptation, that is how people are coming to terms with this and adjusting their view of the world. Because the world's going to be a very different place," he said.
