People Need to Hear About Climate a Lot More Often – Let’s Talk About It

I’ve written often about the importance of our talking with people about climate change. While polls show that more people are worried about climate change, it is not yet a major salient issue for most people. Jessica Lu and John Marshall, of the Potential Energy coalition, write that we need to talk about climate a lot more often. Their study of the data shows that “frequency of exposure strongly predicts growth in climate supporters.”

People need to hear about climate 80 times a month
Polls show that less than 15% of the population talks about climate often and roughly 75% of people report that they hear other people talk about it less than once a month. Lu and Marshall write that people are simply not hearing about climate often enough. “Based on the data, our best guess is that the average person needs to see and hear about climate at least 80 times a month — potentially even more — to become an active supporter of significant climate action.”

What’s most effective for us to say?
Clearly it would be useful for us to talk about it a lot more often. What should we say? How do we start these conversations? Here are some recommendations:

• Consistently express your desire for clean energy and a livable world.
• Talk about fossil fuel companies as polluters and about “fighting pollution.” (That seems more do-able to people than “fighting climate change.”)
• Include one little nugget of good news. “What’s Happening with the Climate” is an excellent source of good news, which gets new entries regularly.
• Always share something you have done, even if it’s only signing a petition. Actions you can take in only a couple of minutes are always available at Inside the Movement. Take some small action and then tell people about it. (You may want to bookmark this resource and the one above so you can reference them frequently.)
• Be sure to listen, not just talk. Many people need to unload their upsets and other thoughts and feelings by talking and being listened to before they can hear you and think about taking action.

Conversation starters
While all of my blog posts make good conversation starters, here are a couple of new items that I think might be interesting to you, and also be useful conversation starters:

Biden spurs production of electric heat pumps
On June 6 President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to spur the production of electric heat pumps, declaring that “ensuring a robust, resilient, and sustainable domestic industrial base to meet the requirements of the clean energy economy is essential to our national security, a resilient energy sector, and the preservation of domestic critical infrastructure.” These heat pumps are the key to electrifying heating and cooling of buildings and eliminating the use of fossil fuels.

This is excellent news, but it didn’t just happen because someone in the administration had a good idea. When Putin invaded Ukraine, climate activist Bill McKibben promptly proposed that Biden activate the Defense Production Act and have millions of heat pumps manufactured and shipped to Europe, so Europe could stop paying Russia for gas and oil. Other activists worked out details for the program and Third Act, a new national activist organization of people over 60, went into action writing letters and contacting political leaders to push for the idea. (I wrote one of those thousands of letters.) This pressure led to much faster than usual action in Washington. (These heat pumps will be for the U.S., but because oil is a global market, they will reduce the demand for Putin’s oil.)

Guns and climate are connected
Speaking on a climate panel at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President, drew a straight-line connection between gun violence and climate policy. He said that our failure to respond to mass shooting tragedies and our inability to pass climate legislation stem from the same reason: “the control of politicians with money [and] lobbyists.” Gore said, “Our democracy has been paralyzed, bought, captured. It has to stop.” This is a different way to talk about mass shootings and the climate than focusing just on guns, solar panels, mental health, or climate denial. Calling out the control of the political process by those with large amounts is key.

Let’s talk about climate a lot. One simple way to begin is to tell someone you’ve read one of my blog posts. Tell them something I wrote and ask them what they think of it. You don’t need to defend it or be able to answer questions. Just asking them for their opinion will get their mind engaged on the topic of climate change. That’s a good step. I’d love to hear about your experiences. Please share successes, failures, and questions in the “Leave a Reply” section below.

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The photo above was taken on a woodland trail in western Massachusetts by Russ Vernon-Jones.

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