How to Engage and Win the Conversation About Climate and Energy - by Joe Romm

After a wave election for conservatives, it’s always a good idea for progressives to go back to the basics — like good, consistent messaging.  Certainly, the 2014 political tsunami was so big it easily overtopped efforts to make a modest levee out of climate change.

So we must redouble our efforts.  How timely, then, that Betsy Taylor of Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions has updated her excellent messaging guide on climate and clean energy, Climate Solutions for a Stronger America.

Back in 2012, she “commissioned a national survey of likely voters to determine how leaders can engage and win on climate and energy in key races around the country.”  She then consulted with leading communications experts to weave together a coherent narrative from the threads of those findings.  This year, Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions went through the process again, combining polling data and other recent surveys with input from communications experts.

The result is another must-read for those who, like me, believe in coherent narratives.  The research “identified three top-performing messages” that form a “persuasive narrative triangle” (see figure above).  Here is more on the first of the three major messages:

SEVERE WEATHER/KIDS


• Message: “We can no longer ignore our strange and increasingly severe weather. We have a moral obligation to our children to protect them – that means preparing for tackling climate change now.”
  Underlying Value: Moral Responsibility
• Tips & Talking Points: Stress urgency. Emphasize that we’re seeing climate impacts now.  People who feel more urgency are more likely to support efforts to cut carbon pollution.  But it’s important to also show them the solutions.
• Talk about kids growing up today (not “future generations,” which creates the misperception that impacts and costs are far off.)
• Talk about the costs of inaction far outweighing investments in solutions.  We are already paying the price for weather disasters, crop failures, and higher insurance rates.

Certainly the moral argument is the winning one, as I’ve argued.  And it’s key to focus on increasingly extreme weather since we know linking that trend to climate change is scientifically accurate (see Trenberth on How To Relate Climate Extremes to Climate Change).  And costs are rising (see The $188 Billion Price Tag from Climate-Related Extreme Weather).

We also know this message resonates with people (see Poll: Majority of Americans Understand Global Warming Worsens Extreme Weather and Want Nation to Act and Poll: Americans’ Understanding of Climate Change Increasing With More Extreme Weather, Warmer Temperatures.

Read More at How to Engage and Win the Conversation About Climate and Energy