Climate communication has often been neglected in terms of attention, investment, funding, planning, and strategy — including by institutions and NGOs working in the climate sphere. The field is facing a difficult conundrum: while fear-based and guilt-based messaging may grab our attention, they don't necessarily inspire action. Those tactics are often perceived as manipulative and can lead to a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and even resistance among the public.1
The climate crisis is not only one of communication, but also a crisis of imagination — or more accurately, a lack thereof. Author and professor of environmental politics Paul Wapner argues that our response to climate change is limited by our “hardening of the categories”, and that this restricts our ability to explore new possibilities and narrows the range of potential solutions to the climate crisis. Conventional political, economic, and cultural understandings dominate our climate response, and the need to appear practical and realistic often stifles more imaginative, transformative ideas.2
Susan Joy Hassol
Though there has been improvement in climate communications, there is still too much abstraction, an overemphasis on numbers and on dates far in the future that are not meaningful to most people, and an air of inevitability. Most of us are experiencing climate change through the increase in extreme weather. We should explain how climate disruption is making extreme weather worse, creating a New AbNormal filled with UnNatural Disasters.
But we can still avoid the worst by acting urgently and decisively. We must keep the focus on real climate solutions: phasing out fossil fuels, deploying clean energy, and protecting our forests and other natural lands. And let our story not be one of sacrifice and deprivation, but of opportunity and improvement in our lives, our health, and our well-being — a story of human flourishing in a post-fossil-fuel age. We can create a better world. The future is in our hands.
Media coverage on climate change is often over-represented by extreme weather events or political news (such as COP or climate protests), rather than a balanced portrayal of scientific publications.3 Climate communication has been found to play a vital role in policy and governance, but many best practice findings are not reflected in the current media landscape (see Current Frames And Narratives On Climate Change). While news media is seen as a trusted source on climate change which can influence collective action, it often doesn’t align with psychological mechanisms which can trigger such actions. Mere awareness-raising has been found ineffective for inspiring behavioral changes.3
Adding to the challenge is the fact that much of the communication coming from governments and other institutions is based on the flawed assumption that people will change their behavior once they are provided with the correct information. This top-down approach is commonly used, despite repeated evidence that it is ineffective.2,4 To create meaningful change, we need to find new and innovative ways to communicate climate issues that are empowering and inspiring, rather than fear-mongering or guilt-tripping. By doing so, we can engage the public in a way that inspires collective action towards a sustainable future.
David Fenton
The Yale Project on Climate Communications’ polling numbers paint a bleak picture: Two thirds of people in the United States report that they rarely or never hear or see anyone talking about climate change. Only 20% of Americans know that all climate scientists agree that humans are causing the earth to heat. This misunderstanding is the result of years of fossil fuel industry propaganda and underinvestment in climate communications by philanthropic and NGO sectors. According to Tony Leiserowitz, of The Yale Program on Climate Communication, we're in a propaganda war — but we're not even on the battlefield.
Many people incorrectly believe that climate change is caused by the ozone hole and that clean energy is expensive. In most of the world, a significant portion of the population has never heard of climate change. This lack of awareness and knowledge is a massive failure. In the United States, there was a brief surge in climate awareness following the release of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, but due to lack of consistent effort, that awareness has declined and stayed down.
Climate change is now a deeply polarized political issue, and efforts to convince conservative audiences of the reality of climate change using their spokespeople and values have been insufficient and largely invisible. Climate communication is in a sorry state, but the good news is that of the 30% of people that are alarmed, half of them want to do something about it.
The issue also lies with a lack of investment in communication, a lack of unified language and imagery. Our discussion of climate change with the public is like the Tower of Babel, with everyone talking about it differently. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry and those who deny climate change are unified in their discussion. We need to use language and imagery that works with the public. The bad news is that the current state is a failure, but the good news is that we know what to do — we just need the resources to do it.
To summarize, the overemphasis on scientific data in climate change communications has created six categories of problems we need to address:
- Scientific language can be difficult for the general public to understand, as it often uses jargon and other technical terms that are not familiar to laypeople. This leads to a communication gap between scientists and the public, and makes it difficult for people to engage with climate change information. 5 Science communication for non-scientists needs to be made stronger, but simpler6 — with initiatives like Climate Science 20307 making great progress on this front.
- Many scientific journals and research articles are behind paywalls, making it difficult for the general public to access them. This creates an accessibility issue, as only those who can afford to pay for or have access through their institutions are able to read and engage with the latest scientific research on climate change. To address this issue, many scientists and organizations are advocating for open science.
- Scientific research on climate change is often conducted in countries in the Global North and through a Western lens, which may not reflect the lived experiences of communities most affected by climate change. This can lead to a lack of understanding and empathy for those communities, as well as a failure to address their specific needs and concerns. Analysis by Carbon Brief found that climate science research is lacking diversity, with women and scientists from the global south being under-represented. Of the 100 most-cited climate science papers from the past five years, less than 1% of authors were based in Africa, and only 12 papers analyzed had female lead authors.8
- Scientific research is often not distributed through the channels where people get most of their information, such as television, online news sites and social media. This can make it difficult for people to access and engage with climate change information, as they may simply not be aware of it. Making scientific information more available in a centralized and consistent way could help build trust and reduce feelings of confusion and overwhelm that are widely present in the public.
- Most people do not think in data and probabilities, but in images, stories, and experiences.5 This means that even if scientific research is broken down into bite size chunks and explained in plain language, it may still not be engaging for most audiences. To address this, scientists and communicators should incorporate storytelling and visual representations of climate change into their communication strategies, and work to make scientific information more relatable and meaningful for the general public.
- An overemphasis on scientific data also neglects the development of future literacy within the media. The future we must create does not exist, and media and science communicators can help the general population envision this (an important prerequisite to creating it).
If scientists and communicators focused more on future literacy and outlining solutions, rather than just highlighting catastrophic data-riddled reports, it would enable people to comprehend options for transformation.
Will Travis
Reclaiming our human potential
Humanity is brimming with the talent, skill, know-how, and capacity to affect significant change - just look at our global response to COVID. Unfortunately, the narrative of individual accomplishment, fueled by capitalism and our education system, overshadows this. Instead of evaluating self-worth, we ought to be assessing our planet's worth. Are we deserving of the planet's sustained support? Will it even continue to support us when places are aflame?
Tragically, it seems that force, resulting from personal impact, is the only catalyst for trajectory change. I don't fault individuals for our current state, but the visionless approach to installing habits that set us on this destructive path. Here's the silver lining - our brains are wired to allow habit change within just a month, given the right strategy. David Ogilvy, a titan in global creative thought, once said, if you hurl half a dozen tennis balls at someone, they won't catch any. If you throw one, they'll catch it. Today, the issue isn't just about throwing a single tennis ball - the problem is that even if we're throwing a single ball, it's amongst a barrage of others bearing different messages. People aren't intentionally ignorant; they're simply catching other messages.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought much of the world to a standstill, sparked changes in the way we think about climate change. UK data reveals that during the first lockdown, Google searches related to climate change, carbon footprints, and pollution levels increased dramatically. Searches for "what is global warming" grew by 120%, while "human causes of climate change" were up 80%. People were also using the search engine to learn more about fossil fuels (+500%), renewable energy sources (+150%), sustainable clothing (+150%), and "how to reduce your carbon footprint" (+140%).9 These statistics are a testament to the growing concern people have about the impact of climate change, and the latest IPCC report, with its dire "code red for humanity" warning, only added to this sense of urgency, with searches for "what can I do about climate change" skyrocketing by 2,600%.10
Psychologically, there are several barriers which prevent current dominant media narratives on climate change from leading to action:3
- People tend to focus on information that reinforces their existing beliefs, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. This is more pronounced in online spaces, where algorithms reinforce echo chambers.
- Information can often be processed superficially, and current climate framings suffer from an over-focus on long-term and distant effects, such as temperature and sea level rises by the end of the century. This leads to reduced motivation in individuals to process information on a deeper level.
- The lack of action-oriented messaging in many climate framings leads to a lack of empowerment — which is essential for fostering pro-environmental behavior. Even if climate stories attract attention, the way they are communicated does not help grow a collective sense of efficacy — the feeling that our actions could make a difference.
In an interview with Outrage and Optimism, John Marshall, CEO of the Potential Energy coalition, emphasizes the need to understand people's concerns and priorities in order to effectively engage them as climate communicators. Simplicity is key — it is important to speak in a language that the average person can understand and relate to. But we also need to appeal to people’s humanity — the most effective messages often center around personal stories, illustrating how someone is affected by the issue at hand. For example, an experiment conducted by PEC found that it is five times more effective to prompt action by talking about "saving Florida" rather than aiming for "net zero by 2040".11 According to Marshall, the popular phrase "fighting climate change" may also be too abstract for many to grasp. Instead, rebranding the fight against climate change as a battle against pollution or polluters could be more impactful — particularly in regions like the global South, where air pollution is a major concern.
Paddy Loughman
Our credit card is overdue
The crises we face are symptoms of an economical design that is not accounting for true cost. To redesign our economy, we need to reveal this, and tell a better story. ‘Eco’ originated from the Greek word for ‘household’, and ‘nomy’ means manage — so ‘economy’ means ‘Household management’. As the world burns, floods, fills up with rubbish and runs out of food and water, it becomes ever clearer that the system we have designed to manage it is failing.
A root cause of this is the narrative about our relationship to the world that modern science is now proving to be wrong — the separation narrative. It tells us that we are separate from nature and should dominate and control it. What recent scientific breakthroughs are recognizing is that the ancient wisdom we have dismissed in Western countries is in fact scientifically provable reality: we exist in a state of entangled, integrated relationships with the natural world. By destroying the natural world, we are destroying ourselves.
We need a narrative of ‘interbeing’, one that has been carried by cultures around the world for thousands of years. The converging of polycrises we face can be understood to be symptoms of this narrative misalignment, this disconnection with reality. A disconnection which led us to design an economic system that is quite clearly out of step with reality, and allowed us to celebrate economic growth without accounting for the true costs.
We’ve identified a cost, massively underestimated it, decided not to pay it, and then claimed to be making a profit. And that cost is the destruction of the thing that makes everything possible in the first place. Much like paying with a credit card and not paying the debt until it gets blocked — but the debt is damage to life, and getting blocked is the collapse of the systems that make life possible. This is a terminal condition.
We have been living beyond our means, dreaming in a fantasy land. It’s time to wake up, change the narrative, and redesign our system in-line with what science, ancient wisdom and basic common sense reveal. If we don’t, we’re in for a rough ride. “Nature bats last”, as the saying goes. A good place to start is recognizing the true importance and sanctity of nature in law, so that we can start collecting the true cost and start incentivizing the protection of the life we need to live.
Despite growing awareness of, and interest in climate and environmental issues, a fundamental challenge remains. The media continues to under-represent or even omit climate change issues in media discourses, even as public concern rises. Recent research commissioned by Good Energy revealed an alarming lack of climate change discourse in mainstream TV and film in the US — with climate-related terms appearing in less than 0.56% of scripts from 2016 to 2020. Even as public awareness and concern for the climate crisis grows, this reality is not reflected in the media — contributing to a phenomenon termed climate silence. A recent example of this is the record-breaking Texas heatwave of June 2023: Analysis by Media Matters revealed that the extreme weather event was linked to climate change by only 5% of 310 segments and weathercasts across national TV news which reported on the heat wave.12
Despite 75% of Americans expressing concern about climate change and a growing sense of personal responsibility to address it, these sentiments are not echoed in popular entertainment narratives. This silence contributes to a lack of climate conversations in everyday life and exacerbates feelings of anxiety and isolation among climate-aware audiences. The film industry holds the power to change this narrative — with climate-focused productions like Adam McKay’s Don't Look Up recording high viewership numbers — illustrating audience receptivity to climate-related storytelling.
In the UK, climate silence in the media was vividly demonstrated in a report by Albert, a Bafta-backed sustainability project, which highlighted the disparity in the representation of climate change issues on UK television in 2020. For example, the term "cake" was mentioned 10 times more often than "climate change", and "banana bread" was more common than a combination of "wind power" and "solar power".13 Such findings emphasize the need for broader and more meaningful engagement with climate issues in media to spur collective awareness and action.
According to Susan Joy Hassol, a widespread misconception has been growing that it's too late to combat the imminent global climate catastrophe. This can be partially attributed to the media's overfocus on disasters instead of solutions, fostering a sense of despair and fatalism, particularly among younger generations. In fact, a Lancet study in 2021 revealed that 84% of young individuals are worried and 75% find the future frightening. Hassol stresses the importance of communicating clearly that it's not too late to prevent the worst outcomes — but urgency is still needed, as every delay results in a hotter and costlier future.14
“The biggest challenge we face isn’t science denial. It’s a combination of tribalism, complacency, and fear. Most don’t think climate change is going to affect them personally or that we can do anything reasonable to fix it; and why would they, if we never talk about it?”
The language we use to describe the climate crisis matters – global warming, for example, is not used widely anymore as it paints a misleadingly innocuous picture of reality. On the other hand, the term 'climate change' fails to reflect the urgency and immediacy of the situation we're experiencing, which is why terms like 'climate crisis' or 'climate emergency' are favored by many. Other terminology popular among climate experts – like Net Zero, decarbonization, or 1.5 degrees — is often misunderstood by the general public due to their complexity or ambiguity. The term climate justice, as PR specialist David Fenton notes, is particularly difficult as 'justice' is more commonly associated with courts or police, leading to confusion rather than resonance when it's linked with 'climate'.15 Our choice of terms can either clarify or confuse — properly understanding how and when to use them will shape how the public perceives and responds to the climate crisis.
While media attention towards climate change has increased in recent years, it often fails to address the interconnected issues of nature, biodiversity, and social justice. Media portrayals of climate change often depict it as an isolated single-issue problem, disconnected from larger systems. By doing so, the media often misses the opportunity to highlight how climate change is intertwined with issues of inequality, poverty, and access to resources — all of which are powerful angles for climate communication.
What the media often overlooks is that climate change isn't just a distant environmental concern. It is an immediate and deeply personal matter, affecting every aspect of our lives — from our health to our economy. As author Margaret Atwood famously put it, "it's not climate change, it's everything change." The climate crisis is not only about polar ice caps and exotic species but also about the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the communities we live in.
By failing to link climate change to social justice, the media overlooks a compelling narrative that could help make the climate crisis more relatable and urgent to a broader audience. This narrative could highlight that acting on climate change isn't just about preserving nature; it's about creating a fairer and healthier society for us all. This shift in storytelling could generate more engagement, empathy, and ultimately, a more powerful and widespread demand for climate action. Unfortunately, achieving this shift is an uphill battle in a media landscape that, in many ways, reflects the unhealthy state of our planet.
“Lack of social sciences and humanities in climate knowledge due to the domination of natural sciences, including modeling, has resulted in science that has not been implemented. Bypassing detail and contextual knowledge in the search for reductionist, simple messages has resulted in techno-optimism and a solutionist perspective that does not sufficiently recognize climate justice, equity dimensions nor acknowledge that the way forward requires societal transformation.”
A 2018 study suggests that large-scale social changes require the active engagement of about 25% of the population.16 As of late 2022, the majority of Americans (53%) express either alarm or concern, with most willing to act,17indicating that we're approaching this critical threshold of engagement. Effective communication is vital in engaging the public and stakeholders with climate, nature, and sustainability issues — bringing together the scientific and creative communities could help create a compelling narrative that inspires action (see The Rise Of Citizenship). By making these issues personal and relatable, we can connect with people on an emotional level and inspire them to take action towards a more sustainable future. However, it’s not just about how we frame climate narratives, but also the platform we use to distribute them. As such, it’s crucial to examine our current media landscape and how it is influenced by both political and cultural factors, contributing to widespread polarization and uncertainty around climate issues.
The Political and Cultural Landscape of Media
The media and entertainment sector is an under-acknowledged player in influencing public attitudes and behaviors, and the role of media in shaping public perception and discourse around climate change cannot be overstated.
Keep reading- Olano LV. Communicating the Climate Crisis. Climate-XChange. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/
- Wapner P, Elver H. Reimagining Climate Change.; 2017. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.routledge.com/Reimagining-Climate-Change/Wapner-Elver/p/book/9781138304215
- Perga ME, Sarrasin O, Steinberger J, Lane SN, Butera F. The climate change research that makes the front page: Is it fit to engage societal action? Glob Environ Change. 2023;80:102675. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102675
- Simis MJ, Madden H, Cacciatore MA, Yeo SK. The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication? Public Underst Sci. 2016;25(4):400-414. doi:10.1177/0963662516629749
- Olano LV. Communicating the Climate Crisis. Climate-XChange. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/
- Firstlight Group. Re-Thinking Climate Communications: Lessons from Deniers and Delayer. Firstlight; 2023. https://www.firstlightgroup.io/app/uploads/2023/01/Rethinking-Climate-Comms-final.pdf
- Climate Science 2030. Home. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://climatescience2030.com/
- Tandon A. Analysis: The lack of diversity in climate-science research - Carbon Brief. Carbon Brief. Published 2021. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-the-lack-of-diversity-in-climate-science-research/
- MyEnergi. Environmental Google Searches Quadrupled In COVID Lockdown. myenergi UK. Published August 7, 2020. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.myenergi.com/news/environmentally-friendly-google-searches-quadruple-during-covid-lockdown/
- Yoder K. It’s not just you: Everyone is Googling ‘climate anxiety.’ Grist. Published October 4, 2021. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://grist.org/language/climate-anxiety-google-search-trends/
- Figueres C, Rivett-Carnac T, Dickinson P, Marshall J, Mei H. How to talk about climate change so people will listen. Outrage and Optimism. Published June 22, 2023. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.outrageandoptimism.org/episodes/how-to-talk-about-climate-change-so-people-will-listen
- Fisher A. Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change. Media Matters for America. Published July 3, 2023. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.mediamatters.org/media-matters-studies-climate-change-coverage/only-5-national-tv-news-segments-record-shattering
- Carrington D. ‘Cake’ mentioned 10 times more than ‘climate change’ on UK TV – report | Climate crisis | The Guardian. The Guardian. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/15/cake-mentioned-10-times-more-than-climate-change-on-uk-tv-report
- Hassol SJ. The Right Words Are Crucial to Solving Climate Change. Scientific American. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0223-64
- Freedland J. As heat records break, the climate movement has the right answers – but the words are all wrong. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/14/big-oil-climate-crisis-fossil-fuel-public. Published July 14, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2023.
- Centola D, Becker J, Brackbill D, Baronchelli A. Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science. 2018;360(6393):1116-1119. doi:10.1126/science.aas8827
- Leiserowitz A, Maibach E, Rosenthal S, et al. Global Warming’s Six Americas, December 2022. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Published 2023. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://live-yccc.pantheon.io/publications/global-warmings-six-americas-december-2022/
Figure 31: Searches of "what can I do about climate change" skyrocketed by 2,600%. Source: Google data provided to the Grist.
Figure 32: Searches of terms 'dog' and 'cake' were 10-20 times far more common than 'climate change'. Source: The Guardian.
Figure 33: The way the COVID-19 pandemic changed the search for knowledge on climate change. Source: MyEnergi.
Figure 34: Share of scripts that mention 'climate change'. Source: Good Energy.
Source: TED
Climate communication has often been neglected in terms of attention, investment, funding, planning, and strategy — including by institutions and NGOs working in the climate sphere. The field is facing a difficult conundrum: while fear-based and guilt-based messaging may grab our attention, they don't necessarily inspire action. Those tactics are often perceived as manipulative and can lead to a sense of helplessness, hopelessness and even resistance among the public.1
The climate crisis is not only one of communication, but also a crisis of imagination — or more accurately, a lack thereof. Author and professor of environmental politics Paul Wapner argues that our response to climate change is limited by our “hardening of the categories”, and that this restricts our ability to explore new possibilities and narrows the range of potential solutions to the climate crisis. Conventional political, economic, and cultural understandings dominate our climate response, and the need to appear practical and realistic often stifles more imaginative, transformative ideas.2
Susan Joy Hassol
Though there has been improvement in climate communications, there is still too much abstraction, an overemphasis on numbers and on dates far in the future that are not meaningful to most people, and an air of inevitability. Most of us are experiencing climate change through the increase in extreme weather. We should explain how climate disruption is making extreme weather worse, creating a New AbNormal filled with UnNatural Disasters.
But we can still avoid the worst by acting urgently and decisively. We must keep the focus on real climate solutions: phasing out fossil fuels, deploying clean energy, and protecting our forests and other natural lands. And let our story not be one of sacrifice and deprivation, but of opportunity and improvement in our lives, our health, and our well-being — a story of human flourishing in a post-fossil-fuel age. We can create a better world. The future is in our hands.
Media coverage on climate change is often over-represented by extreme weather events or political news (such as COP or climate protests), rather than a balanced portrayal of scientific publications.3 Climate communication has been found to play a vital role in policy and governance, but many best practice findings are not reflected in the current media landscape (see Current Frames And Narratives On Climate Change). While news media is seen as a trusted source on climate change which can influence collective action, it often doesn’t align with psychological mechanisms which can trigger such actions. Mere awareness-raising has been found ineffective for inspiring behavioral changes.3
Adding to the challenge is the fact that much of the communication coming from governments and other institutions is based on the flawed assumption that people will change their behavior once they are provided with the correct information. This top-down approach is commonly used, despite repeated evidence that it is ineffective.2,4 To create meaningful change, we need to find new and innovative ways to communicate climate issues that are empowering and inspiring, rather than fear-mongering or guilt-tripping. By doing so, we can engage the public in a way that inspires collective action towards a sustainable future.
David Fenton
The Yale Project on Climate Communications’ polling numbers paint a bleak picture: Two thirds of people in the United States report that they rarely or never hear or see anyone talking about climate change. Only 20% of Americans know that all climate scientists agree that humans are causing the earth to heat. This misunderstanding is the result of years of fossil fuel industry propaganda and underinvestment in climate communications by philanthropic and NGO sectors. According to Tony Leiserowitz, of The Yale Program on Climate Communication, we're in a propaganda war — but we're not even on the battlefield.
Many people incorrectly believe that climate change is caused by the ozone hole and that clean energy is expensive. In most of the world, a significant portion of the population has never heard of climate change. This lack of awareness and knowledge is a massive failure. In the United States, there was a brief surge in climate awareness following the release of Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, but due to lack of consistent effort, that awareness has declined and stayed down.
Climate change is now a deeply polarized political issue, and efforts to convince conservative audiences of the reality of climate change using their spokespeople and values have been insufficient and largely invisible. Climate communication is in a sorry state, but the good news is that of the 30% of people that are alarmed, half of them want to do something about it.
The issue also lies with a lack of investment in communication, a lack of unified language and imagery. Our discussion of climate change with the public is like the Tower of Babel, with everyone talking about it differently. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry and those who deny climate change are unified in their discussion. We need to use language and imagery that works with the public. The bad news is that the current state is a failure, but the good news is that we know what to do — we just need the resources to do it.
To summarize, the overemphasis on scientific data in climate change communications has created six categories of problems we need to address:
- Scientific language can be difficult for the general public to understand, as it often uses jargon and other technical terms that are not familiar to laypeople. This leads to a communication gap between scientists and the public, and makes it difficult for people to engage with climate change information. 5 Science communication for non-scientists needs to be made stronger, but simpler6 — with initiatives like Climate Science 20307 making great progress on this front.
- Many scientific journals and research articles are behind paywalls, making it difficult for the general public to access them. This creates an accessibility issue, as only those who can afford to pay for or have access through their institutions are able to read and engage with the latest scientific research on climate change. To address this issue, many scientists and organizations are advocating for open science.
- Scientific research on climate change is often conducted in countries in the Global North and through a Western lens, which may not reflect the lived experiences of communities most affected by climate change. This can lead to a lack of understanding and empathy for those communities, as well as a failure to address their specific needs and concerns. Analysis by Carbon Brief found that climate science research is lacking diversity, with women and scientists from the global south being under-represented. Of the 100 most-cited climate science papers from the past five years, less than 1% of authors were based in Africa, and only 12 papers analyzed had female lead authors.8
- Scientific research is often not distributed through the channels where people get most of their information, such as television, online news sites and social media. This can make it difficult for people to access and engage with climate change information, as they may simply not be aware of it. Making scientific information more available in a centralized and consistent way could help build trust and reduce feelings of confusion and overwhelm that are widely present in the public.
- Most people do not think in data and probabilities, but in images, stories, and experiences.5 This means that even if scientific research is broken down into bite size chunks and explained in plain language, it may still not be engaging for most audiences. To address this, scientists and communicators should incorporate storytelling and visual representations of climate change into their communication strategies, and work to make scientific information more relatable and meaningful for the general public.
- An overemphasis on scientific data also neglects the development of future literacy within the media. The future we must create does not exist, and media and science communicators can help the general population envision this (an important prerequisite to creating it).
If scientists and communicators focused more on future literacy and outlining solutions, rather than just highlighting catastrophic data-riddled reports, it would enable people to comprehend options for transformation.
Will Travis
Reclaiming our human potential
Humanity is brimming with the talent, skill, know-how, and capacity to affect significant change - just look at our global response to COVID. Unfortunately, the narrative of individual accomplishment, fueled by capitalism and our education system, overshadows this. Instead of evaluating self-worth, we ought to be assessing our planet's worth. Are we deserving of the planet's sustained support? Will it even continue to support us when places are aflame?
Tragically, it seems that force, resulting from personal impact, is the only catalyst for trajectory change. I don't fault individuals for our current state, but the visionless approach to installing habits that set us on this destructive path. Here's the silver lining - our brains are wired to allow habit change within just a month, given the right strategy. David Ogilvy, a titan in global creative thought, once said, if you hurl half a dozen tennis balls at someone, they won't catch any. If you throw one, they'll catch it. Today, the issue isn't just about throwing a single tennis ball - the problem is that even if we're throwing a single ball, it's amongst a barrage of others bearing different messages. People aren't intentionally ignorant; they're simply catching other messages.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought much of the world to a standstill, sparked changes in the way we think about climate change. UK data reveals that during the first lockdown, Google searches related to climate change, carbon footprints, and pollution levels increased dramatically. Searches for "what is global warming" grew by 120%, while "human causes of climate change" were up 80%. People were also using the search engine to learn more about fossil fuels (+500%), renewable energy sources (+150%), sustainable clothing (+150%), and "how to reduce your carbon footprint" (+140%).9 These statistics are a testament to the growing concern people have about the impact of climate change, and the latest IPCC report, with its dire "code red for humanity" warning, only added to this sense of urgency, with searches for "what can I do about climate change" skyrocketing by 2,600%.10
Psychologically, there are several barriers which prevent current dominant media narratives on climate change from leading to action:3
- People tend to focus on information that reinforces their existing beliefs, a phenomenon known as confirmation bias. This is more pronounced in online spaces, where algorithms reinforce echo chambers.
- Information can often be processed superficially, and current climate framings suffer from an over-focus on long-term and distant effects, such as temperature and sea level rises by the end of the century. This leads to reduced motivation in individuals to process information on a deeper level.
- The lack of action-oriented messaging in many climate framings leads to a lack of empowerment — which is essential for fostering pro-environmental behavior. Even if climate stories attract attention, the way they are communicated does not help grow a collective sense of efficacy — the feeling that our actions could make a difference.
In an interview with Outrage and Optimism, John Marshall, CEO of the Potential Energy coalition, emphasizes the need to understand people's concerns and priorities in order to effectively engage them as climate communicators. Simplicity is key — it is important to speak in a language that the average person can understand and relate to. But we also need to appeal to people’s humanity — the most effective messages often center around personal stories, illustrating how someone is affected by the issue at hand. For example, an experiment conducted by PEC found that it is five times more effective to prompt action by talking about "saving Florida" rather than aiming for "net zero by 2040".11 According to Marshall, the popular phrase "fighting climate change" may also be too abstract for many to grasp. Instead, rebranding the fight against climate change as a battle against pollution or polluters could be more impactful — particularly in regions like the global South, where air pollution is a major concern.
Paddy Loughman
Our credit card is overdue
The crises we face are symptoms of an economical design that is not accounting for true cost. To redesign our economy, we need to reveal this, and tell a better story. ‘Eco’ originated from the Greek word for ‘household’, and ‘nomy’ means manage — so ‘economy’ means ‘Household management’. As the world burns, floods, fills up with rubbish and runs out of food and water, it becomes ever clearer that the system we have designed to manage it is failing.
A root cause of this is the narrative about our relationship to the world that modern science is now proving to be wrong — the separation narrative. It tells us that we are separate from nature and should dominate and control it. What recent scientific breakthroughs are recognizing is that the ancient wisdom we have dismissed in Western countries is in fact scientifically provable reality: we exist in a state of entangled, integrated relationships with the natural world. By destroying the natural world, we are destroying ourselves.
We need a narrative of ‘interbeing’, one that has been carried by cultures around the world for thousands of years. The converging of polycrises we face can be understood to be symptoms of this narrative misalignment, this disconnection with reality. A disconnection which led us to design an economic system that is quite clearly out of step with reality, and allowed us to celebrate economic growth without accounting for the true costs.
We’ve identified a cost, massively underestimated it, decided not to pay it, and then claimed to be making a profit. And that cost is the destruction of the thing that makes everything possible in the first place. Much like paying with a credit card and not paying the debt until it gets blocked — but the debt is damage to life, and getting blocked is the collapse of the systems that make life possible. This is a terminal condition.
We have been living beyond our means, dreaming in a fantasy land. It’s time to wake up, change the narrative, and redesign our system in-line with what science, ancient wisdom and basic common sense reveal. If we don’t, we’re in for a rough ride. “Nature bats last”, as the saying goes. A good place to start is recognizing the true importance and sanctity of nature in law, so that we can start collecting the true cost and start incentivizing the protection of the life we need to live.
Despite growing awareness of, and interest in climate and environmental issues, a fundamental challenge remains. The media continues to under-represent or even omit climate change issues in media discourses, even as public concern rises. Recent research commissioned by Good Energy revealed an alarming lack of climate change discourse in mainstream TV and film in the US — with climate-related terms appearing in less than 0.56% of scripts from 2016 to 2020. Even as public awareness and concern for the climate crisis grows, this reality is not reflected in the media — contributing to a phenomenon termed climate silence. A recent example of this is the record-breaking Texas heatwave of June 2023: Analysis by Media Matters revealed that the extreme weather event was linked to climate change by only 5% of 310 segments and weathercasts across national TV news which reported on the heat wave.12
Despite 75% of Americans expressing concern about climate change and a growing sense of personal responsibility to address it, these sentiments are not echoed in popular entertainment narratives. This silence contributes to a lack of climate conversations in everyday life and exacerbates feelings of anxiety and isolation among climate-aware audiences. The film industry holds the power to change this narrative — with climate-focused productions like Adam McKay’s Don't Look Up recording high viewership numbers — illustrating audience receptivity to climate-related storytelling.
In the UK, climate silence in the media was vividly demonstrated in a report by Albert, a Bafta-backed sustainability project, which highlighted the disparity in the representation of climate change issues on UK television in 2020. For example, the term "cake" was mentioned 10 times more often than "climate change", and "banana bread" was more common than a combination of "wind power" and "solar power".13 Such findings emphasize the need for broader and more meaningful engagement with climate issues in media to spur collective awareness and action.
According to Susan Joy Hassol, a widespread misconception has been growing that it's too late to combat the imminent global climate catastrophe. This can be partially attributed to the media's overfocus on disasters instead of solutions, fostering a sense of despair and fatalism, particularly among younger generations. In fact, a Lancet study in 2021 revealed that 84% of young individuals are worried and 75% find the future frightening. Hassol stresses the importance of communicating clearly that it's not too late to prevent the worst outcomes — but urgency is still needed, as every delay results in a hotter and costlier future.14
“The biggest challenge we face isn’t science denial. It’s a combination of tribalism, complacency, and fear. Most don’t think climate change is going to affect them personally or that we can do anything reasonable to fix it; and why would they, if we never talk about it?”
The language we use to describe the climate crisis matters – global warming, for example, is not used widely anymore as it paints a misleadingly innocuous picture of reality. On the other hand, the term 'climate change' fails to reflect the urgency and immediacy of the situation we're experiencing, which is why terms like 'climate crisis' or 'climate emergency' are favored by many. Other terminology popular among climate experts – like Net Zero, decarbonization, or 1.5 degrees — is often misunderstood by the general public due to their complexity or ambiguity. The term climate justice, as PR specialist David Fenton notes, is particularly difficult as 'justice' is more commonly associated with courts or police, leading to confusion rather than resonance when it's linked with 'climate'.15 Our choice of terms can either clarify or confuse — properly understanding how and when to use them will shape how the public perceives and responds to the climate crisis.
While media attention towards climate change has increased in recent years, it often fails to address the interconnected issues of nature, biodiversity, and social justice. Media portrayals of climate change often depict it as an isolated single-issue problem, disconnected from larger systems. By doing so, the media often misses the opportunity to highlight how climate change is intertwined with issues of inequality, poverty, and access to resources — all of which are powerful angles for climate communication.
What the media often overlooks is that climate change isn't just a distant environmental concern. It is an immediate and deeply personal matter, affecting every aspect of our lives — from our health to our economy. As author Margaret Atwood famously put it, "it's not climate change, it's everything change." The climate crisis is not only about polar ice caps and exotic species but also about the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the communities we live in.
By failing to link climate change to social justice, the media overlooks a compelling narrative that could help make the climate crisis more relatable and urgent to a broader audience. This narrative could highlight that acting on climate change isn't just about preserving nature; it's about creating a fairer and healthier society for us all. This shift in storytelling could generate more engagement, empathy, and ultimately, a more powerful and widespread demand for climate action. Unfortunately, achieving this shift is an uphill battle in a media landscape that, in many ways, reflects the unhealthy state of our planet.
“Lack of social sciences and humanities in climate knowledge due to the domination of natural sciences, including modeling, has resulted in science that has not been implemented. Bypassing detail and contextual knowledge in the search for reductionist, simple messages has resulted in techno-optimism and a solutionist perspective that does not sufficiently recognize climate justice, equity dimensions nor acknowledge that the way forward requires societal transformation.”
A 2018 study suggests that large-scale social changes require the active engagement of about 25% of the population.16 As of late 2022, the majority of Americans (53%) express either alarm or concern, with most willing to act,17indicating that we're approaching this critical threshold of engagement. Effective communication is vital in engaging the public and stakeholders with climate, nature, and sustainability issues — bringing together the scientific and creative communities could help create a compelling narrative that inspires action (see The Rise Of Citizenship). By making these issues personal and relatable, we can connect with people on an emotional level and inspire them to take action towards a more sustainable future. However, it’s not just about how we frame climate narratives, but also the platform we use to distribute them. As such, it’s crucial to examine our current media landscape and how it is influenced by both political and cultural factors, contributing to widespread polarization and uncertainty around climate issues.
Figure 31: Searches of "what can I do about climate change" skyrocketed by 2,600%. Source: Google data provided to the Grist.
Figure 32: Searches of terms 'dog' and 'cake' were 10-20 times far more common than 'climate change'. Source: The Guardian.
Figure 33: The way the COVID-19 pandemic changed the search for knowledge on climate change. Source: MyEnergi.
Figure 34: Share of scripts that mention 'climate change'. Source: Good Energy.
Source: TED
The Political and Cultural Landscape of Media
The media and entertainment sector is an under-acknowledged player in influencing public attitudes and behaviors, and the role of media in shaping public perception and discourse around climate change cannot be overstated.
Keep reading- Olano LV. Communicating the Climate Crisis. Climate-XChange. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/
- Wapner P, Elver H. Reimagining Climate Change.; 2017. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.routledge.com/Reimagining-Climate-Change/Wapner-Elver/p/book/9781138304215
- Perga ME, Sarrasin O, Steinberger J, Lane SN, Butera F. The climate change research that makes the front page: Is it fit to engage societal action? Glob Environ Change. 2023;80:102675. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2023.102675
- Simis MJ, Madden H, Cacciatore MA, Yeo SK. The lure of rationality: Why does the deficit model persist in science communication? Public Underst Sci. 2016;25(4):400-414. doi:10.1177/0963662516629749
- Olano LV. Communicating the Climate Crisis. Climate-XChange. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://climate-xchange.org/communicating-the-climate-crisis/
- Firstlight Group. Re-Thinking Climate Communications: Lessons from Deniers and Delayer. Firstlight; 2023. https://www.firstlightgroup.io/app/uploads/2023/01/Rethinking-Climate-Comms-final.pdf
- Climate Science 2030. Home. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://climatescience2030.com/
- Tandon A. Analysis: The lack of diversity in climate-science research - Carbon Brief. Carbon Brief. Published 2021. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-the-lack-of-diversity-in-climate-science-research/
- MyEnergi. Environmental Google Searches Quadrupled In COVID Lockdown. myenergi UK. Published August 7, 2020. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://www.myenergi.com/news/environmentally-friendly-google-searches-quadruple-during-covid-lockdown/
- Yoder K. It’s not just you: Everyone is Googling ‘climate anxiety.’ Grist. Published October 4, 2021. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://grist.org/language/climate-anxiety-google-search-trends/
- Figueres C, Rivett-Carnac T, Dickinson P, Marshall J, Mei H. How to talk about climate change so people will listen. Outrage and Optimism. Published June 22, 2023. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.outrageandoptimism.org/episodes/how-to-talk-about-climate-change-so-people-will-listen
- Fisher A. Only 5% of national TV news segments on the record-shattering heat wave that scorched Texas mentioned climate change. Media Matters for America. Published July 3, 2023. Accessed August 24, 2023. https://www.mediamatters.org/media-matters-studies-climate-change-coverage/only-5-national-tv-news-segments-record-shattering
- Carrington D. ‘Cake’ mentioned 10 times more than ‘climate change’ on UK TV – report | Climate crisis | The Guardian. The Guardian. Accessed May 31, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/15/cake-mentioned-10-times-more-than-climate-change-on-uk-tv-report
- Hassol SJ. The Right Words Are Crucial to Solving Climate Change. Scientific American. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0223-64
- Freedland J. As heat records break, the climate movement has the right answers – but the words are all wrong. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/14/big-oil-climate-crisis-fossil-fuel-public. Published July 14, 2023. Accessed July 19, 2023.
- Centola D, Becker J, Brackbill D, Baronchelli A. Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science. 2018;360(6393):1116-1119. doi:10.1126/science.aas8827
- Leiserowitz A, Maibach E, Rosenthal S, et al. Global Warming’s Six Americas, December 2022. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Published 2023. Accessed May 23, 2023. https://live-yccc.pantheon.io/publications/global-warmings-six-americas-december-2022/
