Does climate change scare you?
It should, but for different reasons than many journalists and comms people believe.
Does climate change scare you? It should. And that’s not just hardcore activists talking. It should scare you, but it’s worth asking how much, and how. These are questions that should bother and guide the work of climate communications folk and journalists alike.
First, how much should this scare people? This bit is contested, whatever that lady who’s glued herself to a Van Gogh might tell you. In the worst cases we’re on the brink of doom-spirals thanks to the break-up of the ice caps, the melting of permafrost and the steady destruction of tropical forests (etc). We are, then, in line to lock in temperature rises of significantly over 2 degrees, and disaster awaits. This is the Sacrifice or Doom standpoint that I’ve written about before, following the logic that an existential crisis requires a similarly extreme solution.
The counterpoint to this suggests things are much better than they seem. Real action is being taken to mitigate this, it’s a live political issue that is leading to dramatic changes in approaches across the world, and the feedback loops are to found in the development and deployment of new technologies and behaviour. Any disaster will be localised and manageable, so don’t worry.
Reality lies somewhere in between, and it’s fluid and deeply uncertain. But it is true that different diagnoses have different outcomes. If you go along the hardcore route you’re basically calling for a revolution and that ain’t gonna happen. If what you’re looking at is extreme sacrifice, you’re not in luck (especially if you’re then spotted in a posh supermarket buying grapes imported into Britain from Chile).
The further you travel towards a more optimistic diagnosis the more you’re opening up to nuance and opportunity. For journalists you draw from a greater range of stories and localised impacts; for climate comms you bring in agency and a sense that something can and should be done. It also opens you up to a wider audience. Alarmism appeals to some, but a more pragmatic take engages more people and from a wider number of news or information sources.
This brings us to the second question of how this should scare people. I’m going to be controversial here, but that’s allowed because climate change is such a big deal. Appealing to how much ordinary folk care for tribal people in the Amazon is not going to do much. Same goes for trying to get people to care for villagers leading already-tough lives in the Sahel or Bay of Bengal, or the future of shrill blue haired teenagers who would be upset about something if not necessarily this.
The point is that people aren’t necessarily selfish, but their hierarchy of interest normally puts the welfare of tribal people in the Amazon lower than their own lived experiences and expectations. Far, far lower. If you want people to care, think about what they care about. Look instead to pensions, jobs for the next generation, air quality, things that are tangible. If you care about pensions then long-term company value and economic growth in a low carbon economy are important. Ditto jobs for the next generation. Air quality relies upon that low carbon transition.
Some of the things people care about are tough. Whisper it quietly but few things have moved western voters as much as migration. I’m not talking about doom-laden visions of an entire world on the move, but the types of crisis that the EU dealt with during Ms Merkel’s Wir schaffen das moment.
I’m not just talking about westerners – this is even more true for the newly-rich in cities like Shanghai or Sao Paulo or Jakarta. (I still plan to write something on aspiration soonish.) Tell them that they cannot own a newbuild house with air-conditioning, a car and a budget flight back to their parents’ village, and they’ll not judge climate change to be worth it.
Concentrating on how climate change and its solutions affect the things that people care most about seems sensible and even obvious, for both comms strategists and journalists. So why is this not happening? My guess is that it cuts across the self-professed ethics and politics of many who communicate about and report on the environment. This is a structural problem in both industries. In journalism, it’s arguably one of the main reasons why so many people failed to get it about the issues that underpinned phenomena like the rise of Trump, Brexit, or the multiple populist parties that have risen across Europe. In communication, it’s why so many environmental organisations tend to preach to the converted.
I’ve written before about the environmental agenda now being dominated by the question of how we go about converting to a low carbon economy, rather than simply raising attention or getting people to believe in it. That is why it is critical that journalists and comms strategists focus hard on what matters to people, and pay less attention to either the far-fetched and alarming, or the irrelevant.
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I’m a journalist, author and think-tank-comms worker. I’ve lived and worked all over the world, and I’m currently in Italy. My free substack is aimed at unpicking a few thoughts about the world of environmental actions/communications/journalism, but I’ll branch out more broadly - probably looking at how to understand countries and places by getting out and walking around them. Get in touch at nicholaswalton99-at-gmail.com, or on Twitter @npw99.