Feb 05 2009
Talking About Climate Change
We have work to do. For anyone who cares about climate change, our first job is talking to people about global warming — oops, I mean climate change. We all have to help in educating the public, because what the public doesn’t know will hurt us all.
Tip #1: First, we should stop calling climate change “global warming”. It’s climate change. The climate is changing. It warms here and there, it warms over all, and it’s warming on average, But, in some little pockets it’s getting cooler and that throws everyone off. People get confused just because winter came and it got cold. Yes, simple things like changing seasons confuses people. Call it ‘climate change’ and some of the confusion melts away.
Tip #1.5: (this is optional, depending on who you are talking to) Keep it simple: Storms, and hurricanes getting stronger, migration of large amounts of people due to sea rise as ice melts., etc. Insurance gets more expensive. Carbon talk can make people’s eyes glaze over. Say “parts per million” and see what happens.
Tip #2: Stop arguing with “Deniers”. It just gives them credibility, and since the denial movement is now approaching cult level, the last thing they need is credibility. Refer to them as flat earthers, to their face if possible. And please keep evolution out of analogies. (Evolution is currently undergoing its own bad street cred phase.)
Tip #3: Let go of your astonishment of what things cost. Fighting climate change will be very very expensive, but we have to do it. We have no choice. This is not optional. Whatever it costs, we have to do it. Let your elected representatives know this because they are reluctant to spend money on things that aren’t saving banks or a war.
Skeptics are still definitely worth talking to. Think of deniers vs. skeptics as the difference between an atheist and an agnostic. With the atheist, there is no possibility of convincing, so don’t waste your time. With an agnostic, you have a chance to convince them because their mind is still open. There have been many guides written on how to talk to a climate skeptic. The most effective thing to tell climate skeptics at the onset of your conversation is that you understand their skepticism. Tell them you were once a skeptic too. Then tell them that climate change can never be proven as being caused by humans with 100% certainty, but we have to act on it now anyway, like we act on other unproven things, like terrorism, because the stakes are so high. We can’t wait. Will terrorism happen again? We don’t know, but we have spent billions trying to prevent it, just in case, because the stakes are so high. And we didn’t wait. (That is not an endorsement of what we did, but war is another subject).
When people are receptive to your message, show them articles like the following. Don’t start out with hard science articles. Most people relate more to anecdotal type stories that segue into topics they can relate to.
