Over the last year or so, a group of us – including academics from NCAS and Leeds, Manchester Met and Cardiff Universities, as well as the climate charities 10:10 and Climate Outreach – have been taking stock of what we know about public engagement with climate change, and how to communicate about it in the
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Dr Sam Illingworth on the Orinoco Communications Podcast
Shortly after his return from the Conference of Parties (COP24) climate talks in Poland, Dr Sam Illingworth appeared on the Orinoco Communications podcast to talk about climate communication. “How can you talk about climate change without getting angry? Or without getting upset? It’s just not possible” Sam posited to Peter Barker from Orinoco Communications, pointing out that
The challenge of communicating unwelcome messages
Mitigate more. Adapt now. Be afraid. Feel guilty. Pay up. Change everything. Few people want to hear these messages, yet they have been at the heart of the most successful communication campaign ever. Over the span of a couple of decades, the world has become aware of the risk of climate change. A multitude of
Emotions and climate communication
Climate change is an issue with a huge emotional range. It can elicit passionate opinions and emotions in some, and complete indifference in others. However, while emotions are forceful drivers of behaviour, there are chronic issues in their study and use in climate change communication, in both research and practice. While certain emotions tend to
Values, worldviews and ideology
Values Public engagement with energy and climate change can’t be easily reduced to a simple rule of thumb, but some aspects of human psychology are more fundamental – and explain more variation in attitudes and behaviours – than others. People’s attitudes on different topics may morph and shift over time; they may switch allegiances between
Public engagement with, and acceptance of, energy transitions
Energy transitions underway in the UK, and many other countries around the world, have been fuelled by the need to address climate change and the sustainability of energy systems while maintaining affordable energy services. This implies significant changes in terms of how energy is produced, consumed and governed. To better understand the technological and societal
Science & advocacy: should climate change scientists engage in policy advocacy?
Confronting the risks presented by climate change will involve input from scientists – but scientists are not decision-makers elected to make policy decisions. So how should the expertise and opinions of scientists be factored into political and societal choices about climate change? Most people want scientists to remain politically neutral and independent; climate-change scientists should
Communicating the risk of ocean acidification
The oceans provide half of the oxygen in the atmosphere and have absorbed 30% of human-caused carbon emissions and 90% of the heat produced by global warming over the past few decades. They are changing as carbon emissions continue to increase, and concern about ocean acidification is growing. While public understanding of this change is
What determines whether we act in an environmentally-friendly way? A (mostly) psychological perspective
The carbon emissions of any one person are minute in the context of global climate change. And yet, in aggregate, in the developed world at least, our environmental footprints give rise to the host of problems faced today: we are all a small part of something bigger. The recognition of the importance of individual actions
Individual and structural level action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: beyond recycling
One of the key questions for anyone concerned about climate change mitigation is: “what must we do about it?” For climate change communication and engagement projects that translates to: “what recommendation should we be giving to people or policy makers in order to reduce emissions?” In climate change action one might distinguish between individual level