We Can Fix It

5 Steps to Talk Effectively

about Climate Solutions

Our thanks to Prof. Kimberly Nicholas, PhD, for graciously allowing us to reproduce this post originally published on her We Can Fix It blog.

“Talking about climate action is important to break the false perception that others don’t care, to build community, and to inspire others.”

“So how do we avoid falling into the zero-sum-thinking trap of framing climate action as EITHER individual or systemic? Here’s some quick advice on how to talk about both together. Try it out!”

1. Acknowledge power and accountability

• Climate responsibility scales with power. Of COURSE governments must be held accountable to deliver their climate pledges. Most of their policies are currently insufficient, to say the least. (Check out your country’s performance on Climate Action Tracker, and engage with a climate group or contact your rep directly to push for better.)

• Hold corporations accountable, including the fossil fuel industry’s history of denial, delay, and obstruction. Call out powerful interests using an individual frame (like oil producers claiming they are “just meeting demand”) to avoid their systemic responsibility. Take action at work and as an investor to stop supporting fossil fuel companies.

2. Present solutions together

• Talk about individual and systemic solutions together, not in isolation. Show their complementary roles, rather than treating them as alternatives. As Omid Ghasemi and colleagues write, making a false dichotomy reinforces the “mistaken belief that one kind of policy is sufficient, whereas the success of systemic solutions often hinges on individual trust, support, and behavior."

3. Focus on high-impact actions!!

• Prioritize effective climate actions! (No mention of recycling allowed.) Research shows people are really bad at identifying effective actions. There’s also too much focus on consumer actions.

• Increase people’s sense of efficacy; provide evidence and direct experience of high-impact actions making a difference.

• Use the SHIFT guide to prioritize actions, and link personal to system action through the roles of citizen, professional, investor, consumer, and role model.

4. Take accountability for what you can change

• Holding titans of industry and politicians accountable doesn’t fully let you off the hook. If you’re a high emitter (quick test, if you flew on a plane in the last year), you have work to do too!
  

  Personal changes from high emitters (not marginalized low emitters) are also needed; it’s both/ and, not either/ or.

  
  

  The argument that the only changes needed are political and not individual is one way of denying responsibility. I fully agree that those with low incomes are constrained in their ability to make lifestyle changes— but they don’t need to; these are the individuals who already produce the lowest emissions. I’m less sympathetic to relatively well-off carbon overconsumers arguing they’ll change if and only if everyone else is forced to change too.

  Responsibility scales with power. Certainly, there are people with much more power and responsibility than I have: deceptive oil executives; politicians who have kicked the climate can down the road for election cycle after election cycle. But that doesn’t let me off the hook for being accountable for doing what I can to help prevent climate breakdown now, starting with where I am.

  -Kimberly Nicholas, Under the Sky We Make

5. Connect to values

• Link actions with personal values. Research shows “reflecting on behaviors in connection to one’s values or identity actually increases climate policy support, and leads people to feel that policies like a carbon tax, even if personally costly, reflect their values and identity.”

“There you have it folks, the final word on the mutually reinforcing relationship between personal and collective action! That should settle this debate for good... or at least until the next social media post making this false dichotomy pops up.”

Prof. Kimberly Nicholas, scientist and Associate Professor of global Sustainability Science at Lund University in Sweden, describes the urgent need for us to move completely away from the Exploitation Mindset that has ravaged our planet for profit, to a Regeneration Mindset–a complete reassessment of how we inhabit our living planet, how we prioritize what we truly value in our lives, and how to strategize and move inclusively and sustainably into the future. Her inspiring book, Under the Sky We Make: How to Be Human in a Warming World, is a refreshing and honest account of her emotional personal experiences with climate change and how we must find deep meaning in the changes we need to make.