Climate Communications Isn’t Hard. Just Pass the Mic.
We need to move beyond our usual carousel of climate spokespeople and support diverse networks of storytellers speaking to their circles about why this moment matters
It’s all too common for the media, climate organizations and donors to get caught up in the latest celebrity-endorsed, climate-themed HBO/Netflix documentary — or the most recent high profile climate spokesperson. From Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth up until the present media frenzy around Greta Thunberg, there has often been an obsession with the single entity or person that folks hope will bring the massive shifts society needs. Meanwhile, scholars wring their hands as to why climate communications is so difficult — why can’t we get more people to care about this crucial issue? The reality is that getting people to care about climate change isn’t hard — we just need to pass the mic.
The climate crisis is a massive reality that impacts every person and every community on earth. In order to bring the change that is needed, we need a huge, ongoing upsurge of momentum — from the grassroots up. It doesn’t take much research to know that we can’t leave it up to politicians and the Paris Agreement. It truly will take millions of acts of organizing — and this requires a stark shift in how we do climate storytelling. We need to move beyond our usual carousel of climate spokespeople and support diverse networks of storytellers speaking to their circles about why this moment matters, the impacts on their local communities, and what we must do.
In September, with the Global Climate Strike we saw an unprecedented 7.6 million people all over the world demanding strong climate action. I was on the streets of Lower Manhattan, as 250,000 young people converged with their chants echoing up and down Wall Street. The press was hurriedly trying to get their iconic shots of Greta’s speech, the front of the march, and Jaden and Willow Smith’s performance.
But past the media focal point, I also saw lots of young kids and their guardians/parents/teachers who were letting their own communities and social networks know what was happening. When I got back to my computer and continued to monitor all the tweets and posts throughout the world there were people like Ibra Cassis, a Senegalese blogger, who had been sharing updates and reporting to much of Francophone, Africa about various actions over Twitter. There were also teams like the Pacific Climate Warriors, a network of Pacific youth climate activists, sharing powerful videos of young Islanders chanting boldly “we are not drowning, we are fighting” via Instagram.” During the week of the Global Climate Strike, there were over 2.3 million social media posts about the actions (and even more if you wanted to add posts just about Greta). People told stories about their concern for and commitment to climate justice in a variety of languages from Thai to Turkish. There was no one story of the Climate Strikes — but millions.
Some of my favorite social posts during a day of action are the family selfies. The ones where people show how their mom, dad and cousin came with them — even if it was their first time to go to a climate march. Many of the most recent research about climate communications reveals how people are more likely to change their minds about the issue if they hear from someone they know and someone who shares their same values. A June study in Nature Climate Change showed that children, especially teen girls, are some of the best spokespeople to change the mind of their parents. The Climate Outreach project in their studies also highlight the importance of showcasing the lives of real people, understanding your audience, and showing local climate impacts.
The reason we need everyone to tell stories is that the climate crisis impacts everyone, but it hits everyone in very unique ways — for some it might be floods, for others loss of ice, or the rising seas. Furthermore, the solutions we need can also be very localized. For example, there are the indigenous communities working to halt the Kinder Morgan Transmountain pipeline — making sure it doesn’t go through Secwepemc, Coast Salish or other lands/waters. This is an absolutely crucial struggle to hold at bay the tar sands, one of the worst carbon bombs on the planet. In Australia, a movement of people has emerged to block the massive Adani coal mine — also led by indigenous communities such as the Wangan and Jagalingou Council. But, not every part of the world has a carbon bomb to stop. We all have work that needs to be done beyond just skipping straws and driving less. The most fundamental thing we can do is organize together. It could be pushing your city to towards a just renewable energy transition. It could be as crucial as constructing seawalls or making sure your neighbor’s house is cleaned up after a terrible storm.
This is why we need storytellers everywhere, speaking to those around them about what we must do next. For surely, organizing and storytelling are deeply intertwined. The well-known social justice trainer Marshall Ganz said that “Movements have narratives. They tell stories, because they are not just about rearranging economics and politics. They also rearrange meaning.” Whether we’re using tools of structure-based organizing or mass protest — they both require building strong relationships. Sharing our stories and truths is at the heart of that work.
As I was watching the images role in during the Global Climate Strike, with epic aerial shots of the half million in Montreal or the march in Tokelau where 20% of the whole population showed up — I also knew that what was really important was what comes next. The climate movement needs to ensure that everyone who joined also knows how to keep on taking real action. There are beautiful values that are shared by many climate activists all over the world, but the way these values get translated on a local level is diverse. There’s a reason that the young musician and activist Mia Kami might resonate with more Pacific Islanders than Greta Thunberg ever will. I love following Mia’s social media and seeing Instagram videos that speak of faith, resilience and culture. We need Gretas AND Mias. And we need many more like them. What I also appreciate about Mia’s and Greta’s social media is how they are always amplifying and lifting up the work of others. For truly, it will never be a single person who changes the world, but a community. The climate movement will not reach its goal if it’s built on the shoulders on singular individuals or singular stories. There is still space for global narratives that showcase our collective power — but it can’t be a single note. We must be diverse, we must play the symphony of all our truths.
The climate movement also need to make sure to provide extra support to indigenous and frontline storytellers. There are so many youth of color who have been pushing for strong climate action long before Greta appeared on the scene.
This won’t be easy, but this is also why I appreciate teams like the Million Person Project. We do need more than quick tweets or forgetful Instagram re-grams. To really help drive people to join the work it takes skilled and communication. So let’s invest in that.
