Most recent 40 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Communicating
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Hurricane misinformation festers, revealing a new side to the climate fight - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Oct 10) |
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Oct 10 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
After Hurricane Helene dumped over 20 inches of rain on towns in western North Carolina, emergency response kicked into gear. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, requested a major disaster declaration, which was quickly approved by President Joe Biden, speeding federal funding and help. Search and rescue teams took to the air and water. Linemen rushed in to get the power back up and running. Community aid organizations began collecting and distributing supplies.
And online, false rumors about the response began to spread.
The rumors ... Read more ...
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U.S. Virgin Islands native returns to St. Croix to support environmental changemakers - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Oct 2) |
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Oct 2 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Chickens were roaming the sunny waterfront of Frederiksted, located in the west of St. Croix, the southernmost island of the U.S. Virgin Islands, as I walked under the scorching but beautiful sun to meet Olivia Walton, an environmental educator native to the historic town.
That same waterfront saw her enjoy snorkeling as a child with her mom. Now, for her work at St. Croix Environmental Association - known locally as SEA - a nongovernmental organization focused on environmental conservation, stewardship, and education, she takes students to the spots ... Read more ...
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Canadian city invites neighbors to tackle climate change together - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Aug 30) |
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Aug 30 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
If you’re worried about floods in your street or power outages on your block, there’s a good chance that your next-door neighbor is, too.
And if disaster strikes, people who live close by can often help each other out.
So the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, is working to get neighbors talking about climate change and preparing together.
Danahy: “It could be as simple as planting some native plants, or getting an emergency preparedness kit together, collecting contact information. … It might be knowing who doesn’t have air conditioning ... Read more ...
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Let’s keep this going - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Aug 15) |
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Aug 15 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
This Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of Climate Connections, our national radio program. Launched during a low point in mainstream media coverage of climate change, when only about 15% of Americans believed human-caused global warming was an urgent threat, the program was designed to get listeners talking about climate change and climate solutions.
From the beginning, we aimed to use our bite-sized, 90-second segments to show that climate action wasn’t just the province of scientists and distant technocrats who lead negotiations in United Nations ... Read more ...
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How to fight climate change in your close relationships - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jul 3) |
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Jul 3 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
One of the most important things you can do to fight climate change is to talk about it. Your editors sat down with Laura Thomas-Walters, research specialist and deputy director of experimental research at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, to get her expertise on how best to have these essential conversations.
This roundtable discussion has been edited and condensed.
Sam: I thought it might be funny to start by sharing a memorable conversation we’ve each had about climate change.
Laura: I have one. I work from home, and I ... Read more ...
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How do you picture a heat wave? - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 26) |
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Jun 26 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our newsletters.
Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
It’s never easy to capture the feeling and the impact of a dayslong stretch of intense heat in photographs. Heat waves often spawn or exacerbate other weather disasters - wildfires and crop-snuffing drought in particular - and those are much easier to capture visually. But as Earth’s climate keeps warming from human activity, the direct effects of intense heat on human bodies are gaining ever more attention, and these effects are devilishly difficult to convey in a ... Read more ...
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What’s the deal with terms like “greenhouse effect,” “global warming,” “climate change,” and “the climate emergency”? - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 5) |
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Jun 5 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Almost two decades ago, Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” raised awareness of the problems associated with what was then commonly called “global warming.” Although most people had moved away from referring to the heating of our planet as the “greenhouse effect,” we were still a few years from adopting the term “climate change,” a more accurate though less evocative label, as the leading descriptor of our profound environmental challenges.
The words we use to characterize our climate concerns can influence how we view the issue, and as ... Read more ...
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Resources for debunking common solar and wind myths - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 3) |
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Jun 3 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Some statements you hear about solar and wind energy are just plain false. Some are a little bit true but so unbalanced, incomplete, and out of context that they might as well be false. And some tap into genuine complexities. When the facts are complicated, nuanced, mutable, or otherwise hard to pin down, statements may mislead (both deliberately and accidentally) by oversimplification.
The links below are primarily about the first two categories, that is, wholly or mostly false statements.
Perhaps because rooftop solar panels are now so ... Read more ...
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Venezuelan-American journalist brings climate change awareness to both Spanish- and English-speaking audiences - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (May 8) |
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May 8 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Mariana Atencio was only 14 when President Hugo Chávez came to power in Venezuela. Her family was distraught as they watched his victory together on the television.“It was a pretty doomsday environment at home,” she remembered.
The military officer entered office with promises to alleviate poverty after decades of poor oil investments and policies left the country reeling. In Chávez’s first year, he instead moved to dismantle the country’s Supreme Court and Congress, setting in motion the government infrastructure for Nicolás Maduro to continue to ... Read more ...
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How to talk to a climate doomer (even if that doomer is you) - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 23) |
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Apr 23 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
So someone you love is feeling doomy about climate change. Maybe they’ve experienced a catastrophic storm and know there’s more where that came from. Maybe they lost hope when the latest round of temperature records were shattered. Maybe they think it’s too late to fix the problem (it’s not), or that not enough people care.
Maybe the doomer is you. At least on some days.
To help ease those doomist feelings, we asked a couple of experts for their take: Susan Joy Hassol, the climate communication veteran who served as senior science writer on three ... Read more ...
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'Step on the gas,’ 'well-oiled machine,’ and other fossil-fuel phrases that pervade our language - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 15, 2024) |
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Apr 15, 2024 · In a webinar on April 19, we'll explore how climate organizations are currently using storytelling in their work, the impacts of these stories, and lessons learned from other movements.
Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Fossil fuels can be hard to quit. They’re woven into our society and are endemic in energy sources, plastics, and countless other products. They’ve even infiltrated our language.
The other day while teaching skiing, I was describing the performance benefit of putting one’s weight on the downhill ski. “It’s like stepping on the gas pedal,” I said. I caught myself - ... Read more ...
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How to normalize the climate conversation - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Mar 04, 2024) |
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Mar 04, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Advice on how to communicate about climate change - to children, to skeptics, to elected officials, and to audiences of nonscientists - is plentiful. And it’s widely understood that talking about this crisis is key.
Yet it can still feel hard to discuss this subject with the people we know best - that is, not to “give a talk” but to chat casually or have an informal but substantive conversation. Bringing up the subject at a dinner table is still likely to stop the conversation cold - or worse, to unleash a storm of frustration and anxiety that few are ... Read more ...
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How to speak with your family and friends about environmental issues - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Feb 07, 2024) |
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Feb 07, 2024 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
This article has been adapted and republished with permission of the authors.
We are facing a wide range of enormous environmental crises, including biodiversity loss and climate change. Human activities are driving many of these problems and it is normal to feel hopeless. However, our actions at both individual and policy levels can help address these challenges - and one of the most powerful, yet underappreciated, ways we can take action is by engaging our social networks in dialogue.
Think of your social network as your conservation ... Read more ...
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13 tips for lobbying your elected officials about climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jul 13, 2023) |
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Jul 13, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Climate policy is an important tool in tackling climate change. And you don’t need to be an elected official to get involved - you can make an impact just by talking to one. By lobbying your federal, state, or local representatives, everyday citizens can help advance climate legislation, one informed and well-organized conversation at a time.
To lobby means to seek to influence; in the case of climate lobbying, your goal might be to explain why you think your representative should support a climate-related bill targeting anything from pollution ... Read more ...
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What caused the wildfires in Canada? - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 08, 2023) |
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Jun 08, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our newsletters.
Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
As smoke plumes from Canadian wildfires descended on New York City and other parts of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, many wondered if it was part of the “new normal” of climate change. Yale Climate Connections meteorologist Bob Henson joined KXAN, a television station in Austin, Texas, to talk about the smoke event and what climate change means for future wildfires.
Henson noted that the hot, dry spring in Canada that laid the groundwork for these fires is a ... Read more ...
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Where to find training, fellowships, and classes on climate journalism - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 12, 2023) |
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Apr 12, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Yale Climate Connections
Like global warming, the need for effective climate news is growing more urgent. To meet the moment - and rising demand - a number of colleges, universities, and nonprofits have created programs dedicated to training the next generation of climate reporters and helping seasoned pros ramp up their coverage.
In 2022, mentions of “climate change” and “global warming” in global media were up 38% over 2020, making it the year with the second-highest climate coverage overall, according to the Media and Climate Change Observatory at the University of Colorado ... Read more ...
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An extreme weather/climate change communications 'masterclass’ - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Aug 04, 2022) |
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Aug 04, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections
The subject of the July 30 three-and-a-half-minute interview with CNN weekend anchor Pamela Brown was the horrific flooding that by now has killed more than three dozen persons in Kentucky.
Veteran meteorologist Bob Henson, since June 2020 a regular contributor to this site, delivered what might be considered a “master class” on how to conduct such an interview in a nationwide cable or broadcast context. His interview is posted here with permission from CNN.
Bud Ward is Editor of Yale Climate Connections. He started his environmental journalism career in 1974. He later served as Assistant Director of the U.S. Congress's National Commission ... Read more ...
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Young people care about things that matter - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 09, 2022) |
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Jun 09, 2022 · Yale Climate Connections
The excellent Julia Steinberger essay posted at this site in May provides a disturbing window into the psychology of teaching climate change to young people.
It’s critically important to talk with youth about hard topics: love and sex, deadly contagion, school shootings, vicious unprovoked war in Europe, climate change. Everybody wrestles with these subjects. It’s worse than useless to pretend there are easy answers, and it helps to be open about ambiguity.
I had a GREAT visit to Chatfield High School in Littleton, Colorado, the day Steinberger’s essay was posted. Several of these students were among about 300 who attended a “Climate ... Read more ...
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Tips for talking to kids about climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Dec 17, 2021) |
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Dec 17, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
As a parent, it can be hard to know when and how to introduce the topic of climate change with your kids. But it’s already on many young peoples’ minds.
“Kids are asking about it at a very young age,” says Daniel Masler, a clinical psychologist in Washington state. “We’ve had smoke all over the West. We’ve had hurricane warnings. Kids are dealing with these events, so parents have to start answering,”
Masler is co-founder of an organization called Talk Climate that aims to get families discussing climate change.
“We really want to help model, give ideas for, just anything we can do to help people start up conversations about climate ... Read more ...
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Dictionary update shows how changing climate changes language, and much more - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Dec 02, 2021) |
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Dec 02, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
Climate change really does change everything, including language.
New words and new word compounds have been invented at the same time as new meanings, or senses, have been added to old words. To keep up, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has released an update on the language of climate change and environmental sustainability.
Reading it as the world left Glasgow after the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) is fascinating, depressing, and yet strangely hopeful.
As a rule of the thumb, the OED doesn’t include chemical formulas, but it has made an important exception ... Read more ...
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Tips on talking to your family about climate change over the holidays - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Nov 20, 2021) |
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Nov 20, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
At family gatherings this holiday season, it may feel tempting to steer clear of big, weighty topics.
But there’s one that Seattle-based climate scientist Heather Price urges you not to avoid.
“Absolutely people should be talking about climate change with their families over the holidays,” she says.
Price says extreme weather is already on people’s minds.
According to a Washington Post analysis, almost one-third of Americans live in a county that was declared a disaster area because of a wildfire, storm, or flood just this past summer.
“When those things come up, just mention that it’s because of climate change,” she says. Read more ...
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How to talk about climate change: Ask questions - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Nov 16, 2021) |
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Nov 16, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
Dear Sara,
What’s something that, as a climate-conscious individual, I may not already be doing that I should be (or shouldn’t be doing that I am doing)?
- Moe L. via Twitter
Dear Moe,
You’re probably not talking about it much. If my guess is correct - that is, you’re not having many conversations about climate change with friends, family, neighbors, and others in your community - my colleague Jennifer Marlon and I hope you’ll consider speaking up more often in the future.
To help you get started, she and I developed a strategy for talking about climate change in a way that will deepen your relationship with the people you ... Read more ...
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How to effectively show climate change in 25 images - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Sep 07, 2021) |
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Sep 07, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
For decades, polar bears and melting ice were the face of climate change. Now, however, the heat-trapping blanket that we’ve wrapped around our planet by burning fossil fuels has begun to do much more harm than just melt ice and starve polar bears.
Wildfires have decimated parts of Canada and the Pacific Northwest. Deadly floods struck the subways of Zhengzhou and London. Climate change is wreaking havoc on millions of people around the world.
Images via Dino Adventure, Jack Dredd/Shutterstock, and A Lesik.
However, many people are still confused about the root cause of these extreme weather events and how we can limit them by ... Read more ...
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Talking climate with those holding different worldviews - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Jun 03, 2021) |
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Jun 03, 2021 · Yale Climate Connections
We all live on the same planet, but we experience different worlds.
Some farmers might understand climate change as short-term weather change, while others perceive shifting rainfall and temperature patterns across decades. Some climate modeling scientists see climate change as interlocking cause-and-effect chains. Others understand that beyond computer models, culture also influences climate change. One point that seems increasingly certain, nonetheless: These differences do not emerge from just differing levels of climate knowledge, they emerge from different worldviews.
By understanding that people with different worldviews actually ... Read more ...
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The making of a one-of-a-kind climate change PR professional - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Mar 24, 2021) |
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Mar 24, 2021 · In the world of environmental communication, we are learning as we go. For years, we thought facts and outrage changed minds in ways we now know they don’t. We need to explore reliable new ways to speak, listen, and connect in the face of environmental disinformation and polarization.
For that we need ongoing research that helps educate us as it explores and advances the principles of effective science communication and highlights the harms of anti-environmentalism.
My own journey from corporate PR consultant to co-founder of a new media website investigating climate change disinformation was eye-opening. We launched DeSmogBlog in January 2006 to “clear up ... Read more ...
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The climate reporting of Elizabeth Kolbert - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Mar 03, 2021) |
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Mar 03, 2021 · New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert has long been one of the most prolific and closely-watched journalists regularly reporting on climate change. Her pieces are well worth reading, her topics serious and, at the same time, enjoyable, perhaps because her style is so personable and lucid: she takes us along as she explores and learns.
Note: The New Yorker allows several free reads per month before its paywall appears.
If you missed Kolbert’s influential 2006 book Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change, it deserves your time even now. Or you can read the three magazine pieces (“The Climate of Man,” 2005) that comprise much the ... Read more ...
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Emphasizing ‘opportunity’ to help bridge divide on climate action - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Dec 10, 2020) |
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Dec 10, 2020 · ‘Opportunity’ through clean energy initiatives may be a key to bridging the divide and getting more engagement for climate action.
After four years of widespread climate despair over inaction, and worse, in the Nation’s Capital, the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is about to mark a 180-degree change on federal climate policy, prompting renewed optimism among climate crusaders. While there are steps the incoming administration can take through Executive branch actions, with control of the Senate still up in the air, optimism about aggressive climate policy remains qualified.
Analysis and commentary
Even if Democrats squeak out a narrow ... Read more ...
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Why frightening facts don’t always move people to action on climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Nov 23, 2020) |
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Nov 23, 2020 · Anger, anxiety, overwhelm … climate change can evoke intense feelings.
“It’s easy to feel dwarfed in the context of such a global systemic issue,” says psychologist Renée Lertzman.
She says that when people experience these feelings, they often shut down and push information away. So to encourage climate action, she advises not bombarding people with frightening facts.
“When we lead with information, we are actually unwittingly walking right into a situation that is set up to undermine our efforts,” she says.
She says if you want to engage people on the topic, take a compassionate approach. Ask people what they know and ... Read more ...
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Some stirring examples of ‘blunt’ talk on climate - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Nov 19, 2020) |
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Nov 19, 2020 · The strength of Greta Thunberg’s voice is inseparable from her bluntness. Unconstrained by all the research on effective climate-change communication that tells us we should include reasons for hope and action items, Thunberg simply and directly says what she knows, what she thinks, how she feels. For example, watch or read her brief, viral words to the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit.
Sometimes such bluntness is just what we need to punch through the fog of familiarity. Here are some other powerfully direct pieces:
Use & Privacy Policy•Podcast Read more ...
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Recent pieces on importance of ‘sliding baselines’ - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Sep 23, 2020) |
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Sep 23, 2020 · Yale Climate Connections
Here is a question posed by Vox reporter David Roberts: â??Recent research shows that â??extremely hot summersâ?? are 200 times more likely than they were 50 years ago. Did you know that?â? And then, â??Do you feel it?â?
Even if your answer to the first question is yes, which for many is unlikely, the answer to the second is almost certainly no. This example illustrates the â??sliding baselineâ? syndrome.
Coined as it applies specifically to fisheries, this simple, powerful term turns out to be highly relevant to grasping and dealing with climate change. As journalist John Sutter (see below) puts it, it's â??a phenomenon of lowered ... Read more ...
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How to talk with kids about climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Aug 11, 2020) |
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Aug 11, 2020 · It’s natural for parents to want to protect their children from hard truths like climate change. Like many of life’s challenges, however, ignoring this problem won’t make it go away, and it’s not like they won’t be hearing about it from others anyway. Today’s kids will bear the brunt of serious climate change impacts in the future, with or without discussion.
But by talking about the issue openly and honestly, parents – precisely the information source children most trust – can help prepare their children to stay resilient and find meaning through climate change.
1. Consider your child’s age. Some advise against ... Read more ...
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How a teen changed his stepdad’s mind about global warming - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Aug 07, 2020) |
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Aug 07, 2020 · Children’s beliefs are often shaped by their parents. But sometimes, young people influence the adults in their lives.
Lance Lawson is a recent high school graduate from Florida. For a long time, he believed climate change was a hoax because that’s what his stepdad said.
But then a friend challenged him to read the research.
“I naturally started Googling something along the lines of ‘proof climate change isn’t real’ et cetera, et cetera,” he says. “And I found that the deeper I dug, the harder it became to find something that was credible.”
He realized that nearly all climate scientists are convinced that ... Read more ...
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'What can I realistically do about climate change?' » Yale Climate Connections - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 30, 2020) |
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Apr 30, 2020 · I was born in 1988, which apparently makes me an older millennial. My question is, what changes can I make and realistically recommend to contribute to fighting climate change? I already vote conscientiously, I've moved closer to my office — reducing my commute. I can't afford a new electric car, I don't own my own home where I can install solar panels. I'm largely vegetarian. I recycle and compost dutifully.
I feel like I do most of the things that are supposed to be helping, but short of giving up the gains I've made since surviving the Great Recession along with the rest of my cohort and chaining myself to a pipeline, I don't feel like I can make a difference.
What ... Read more ...
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‘What can I realistically do about climate change?’ - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 30, 2020) |
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Apr 30, 2020 · I was born in 1988, which apparently makes me an older millennial. My question is, what changes can I make and realistically recommend to contribute to fighting climate change? I already vote conscientiously, I’ve moved closer to my office - reducing my commute. I can’t afford a new electric car, I don’t own my own home where I can install solar panels. I’m largely vegetarian. I recycle and compost dutifully.
I feel like I do most of the things that are supposed to be helping, but short of giving up the gains I’ve made since surviving the Great Recession along with the rest of my cohort and chaining myself to a pipeline, I don’t feel like I ... Read more ...
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How online communities can help neighborhoods endure disasters » Yale Climate Connections - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 15, 2020) |
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Apr 15, 2020 · In times of crisis, neighbors often come together. Working alongside each other, they rebuild after storms, take in those who have lost their homes, raise money, and gather supplies.
But that changes when a disease is keeping neighbors apart. With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, physical communities must support each other from a distance. For many, the solution has been to get online.
One place where that's happening is Cross Plains, Wisconsin, a village of fewer than 4,000 people near Madison. There, an online community that formed in the wake of a flooding disaster a year and a half ago has been repurposed to lend support to community members in a time of ... Read more ...
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How online communities can help neighborhoods endure disasters - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 15, 2020) |
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Apr 15, 2020 · In times of crisis, neighbors often come together. Working alongside each other, they rebuild after storms, take in those who have lost their homes, raise money, and gather supplies.
But that changes when a disease is keeping neighbors apart. With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, physical communities must support each other from a distance. For many, the solution has been to get online.
One place where that’s happening is Cross Plains, Wisconsin, a village of fewer than 4,000 people near Madison. There, an online community that formed in the wake of a flooding disaster a year and a half ago has been repurposed to lend support to community members in a time ... Read more ...
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Hope is a critical component in addressing climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 04, 2020) |
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Apr 04, 2020 · There’s a lot of bad news out there about global warming, and it can make people feel afraid or sad about how the Earth is changing.
But at Knology, a social science think tank, John Fraser is studying hope.
Fraser is a conservation psychologist, and he says feelings of fear can cause people to disengage from the issue of climate change.
“They tend to lead people to draw inward,” he says. “They tend to cause people to limit what they’re saying to try to minimize the pain, minimize the concern, and that can be self-destructive.”
Fraser says that it’s important to create supportive communities where people can ... Read more ...
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Kayaking, canvassing, and cooking classes: Cities experiment with climate outreach - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 04, 2020) |
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Apr 04, 2020 · In Miami, Florida, global warming has become an increasingly common topic of conversation over the past few years. As concern over rising waters grows, residents are demanding to know how local government will protect their communities.
“We constantly, constantly, constantly, constantly are getting emails and calls and things saying, ‘What is the city doing about climate change?'” said Alissa Farina, who works in the city’s Office of Resilience and Sustainability. In response, her team has developed a number of initiatives aimed at informing and engaging the public on climate.
Variations of that experience can be found across the nation. With the ... Read more ...
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Scientist Ben Santer finds climate ‘hope’ in 2020 - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 04, 2020) |
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Apr 04, 2020 · Scientist Ben Santer is widely recognized by his climate science colleagues around the U.S. and internationally as one of the most influential and admired in the field. Named in 1998 as a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and in 2011 as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Santer is known also as being one of the scientists most committed to publicly defending his research from what he sees as bogus attacks, and to defending the work of other climate scientists whose research he feels has been maligned.
That reputation carries with it some risks. He and Michael Mann of Penn State University for two decades have been frequently vilified by ardent climate ... Read more ...
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Three thought-provoking analogies for climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Communicating (Apr 04, 2020) |
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Apr 04, 2020 · Though by definition no analogy is perfect, a good one can create a flash of insight or provoke thought. A strong analogy can clarify a point or an argument. It can bring dry facts to life, attaching them to images and emotions and showing us why they matter. And it can help us work through something complex and difficult.
Given a wicked problem like climate change, those who want to write, speak, or think clearly are well advised to keep an eye out for strong analogies used well.
By using a relatively obvious analogy as an expandable thinking tool, each of these three inviting essays works its way to some unexpected and useful insights.
(And for a different way of ... Read more ...
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