Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Climate change. If you listen to this show, I’m going to assume that you care about it, and you feel like you know, at least in a basic way, what it is. But have you ever had a hard time explaining climate change to a friend?
Well, we understand.
Today, Meg Talikoff and Juliana Merullo are here to walk us through how climate communication experts go about it. Hey there!
Meg Talikoff: Hey Megan!
Juliana Merullo: Hi!
Megan Hall: So who are we hearing from today?
Juliana Merullo: We talked to one climate scientist, two science journalists, and two professors who research climate communication.
Meg Talikoff: And we gave them a pretty tricky task: to explain climate change in two sentences or less.
Juliana Merullo: Then they told us why they chose the explanation they did.
Megan Hall: Alright, let’s do this! Who’s our first explainer?
Juliana Merullo: Let’s start with Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz. He runs the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, and hosts a radio program called Climate Connections.
Meg Talikoff: He answered us with a poem.
Anthony Leiserowitz: “Climate change. Scientists agree. It’s real, it’s us, it’s bad, but there’s hope.”
Meg Talikoff: Anthony really wanted to get across that the vast majority of scientists agree the climate is changing.
Juliana Merullo: He also wanted to make clear that climate change is already causing lots of suffering.
Meg Talikoff: But it wasn’t an accident that he said there’s hope.
Anthony Leiserowitz: We know what to do. We have the solutions. They’re sitting on the shelf. We just need to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Megan Hall: Did the other experts focus on those same points?
Meg Talikoff: Sort of! Dr. Wändi Bruine de Bruin, a provost professor of public policy, psychology and behavioral science at the University of Southern California, came up with this:
Wändi Bruine de Bruin: “Most people in US are now concerned about climate change, but many don’t know what to do. One of the most climate-friendly actions you can take yourself is to eat less red meat, and together, we have the power to vote for a better climate.”
Juliana : That wasn’t exactly the same. But like Anthony she’s saying that we already have the power to fix the problem. She thinks it’s counterproductive to spend too much time making people feel bad.
Meg Talikoff: Our first science journalist, The Guardian reporter Dharna Noor, agrees. Her explanation helps take the blame off individuals.
Dharna Noor: Climate change is an existential threat we’re facing, primarily due to the actions of like a tiny minority of people who own companies. But taking on the crisis could also present the opportunity to make life much better for people all around the world.”
Juliana Merullo: She says it’s important to be clear that climate change is human-caused, but we need to remember which humans are doing most of that causing.
Megan Hall: Did anyone actually talk about the science of why the climate is changing?
Meg Talikoff: Yeah! Dr. Baylor Fox-Kemper is a professor at Brown University in the department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary sciences. He also served as a coordinating lead author for a chapter of the sixth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Juliana Merullo: That’s basically the UN’s climate research group. And his explanation came straight from their report.
Baylor Fox-Kemper: Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years. Future emissions cause future additional warming, with total warming dominated by past and future c02 emissions.
Meg Talikoff: He says those sentences went through over 250 rounds of revisions by lots of scientists. Besides, Baylor thinks non-scientists don’t need to know much more than that.
Juliana Merullo: Former NYT Science Editor Cornelia Dean had a similar take.
Cornelia Dean: “People have been burning fossil fuels like coal and oil for at least 150 years, and all the while, we have been using Earth’s atmosphere as a garbage dump for the waste gasses that result, chiefly, carbon dioxide. These waste gasses accumulate, and they trap heat, so Earth is getting warmer and warmer.”
Megan Hall: So that was everyone. What’s your takeaway? How should we try to explain climate change to our friends?
Juliana Merullo: First- keep it simple about the actual mechanics of climate change. Burning fossil fuels makes greenhouse gasses, and greenhouse gasses make our planet get warmer.
Meg Talikoff: Also point out that scientists are absolutely sure this is happening, that it is human caused, and that the warming is a major threat to all humans.
Juliana Merullo: But then remind your friends that they aren’t alone in being scared, and that a lot of the crisis is caused by bad policies and big corporations.
Meg Talikoff: And make sure to emphasize that real, effective solutions are already in reach. We have the tools – we just need to deploy them.
Juliana Merullo: One great place to start is by voting for the climate-friendly policies that will make life better for everyone.
Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks guys.
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Possibly is a co-production of The Public’s Radio, Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, and Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative.