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Planet Now
Blog on Effective Environmental Communication
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Being part of Generation Z often means loving TikTok, wearing oversized clothing and feeling terrified of climate change. If you resonate with that last part, you may wonder why some people say they believe climate change is happening but still do not take steps to help the environment. A strategy for communicating about the environment is to connect the impacts of climate change to a person’s values. Speaking of TikTok, this strategy will help you keep “Pushin’ P” as you work to protect the earth that you value. Connecting climate to communities, justice and the economy are just a few ways to help people realize they should care about climate change. Communities People tend to view climate change as a distant threat in time and space, but it is already affecting many communities. For example, climate change has caused sea level rise at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Even small storms flood the roads. Residents may have to move away or pay significant property taxes for new infrastructure. Flood insurance rates are high, which can make the area unaffordable. Climate communicators should help people see how climate change is a problem here and now since it harms communities in people’s home states or areas where they like to take vacations. Justice Some people may not realize that protecting the environment is about protecting people. Climate injustices occur when impacts of climate change do not affect all people equally. These injustices take many forms. Wealthy people are responsible for more carbon emissions because they tend to buy more items and travel more often than others, but they have more money to evacuate during climate-related natural disasters. Younger people, over their lifetimes, will experience more of the climate impacts that older people caused by emitting greenhouse gases throughout their lifetimes. Communities of color often face more risks from air pollution compared to white communities as a result of a history of residential segregation and unequal access to health care. Climate change worsens air pollution in these communities. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to slow climate change will help create a just society. Environmental communicators should discuss these injustices to show that caring about climate change means caring about people. The Economy If people value a healthy economy, they should know that climate change could cost the United States $1.9 trillion each year by 2100. Major reasons for this cost include hurricane damage, real estate destruction, increased energy demand and limited water supply. Damage from Hurricane Florence cost North Carolina $22 billion in 2018. Some people think climate policies will hurt the economy, but reducing climate impacts saves individuals, governments and businesses money over time. When someone says they think climate policies will hurt the economy, make sure they understand that failing to slow climate change will have huge economic costs. Your Turn!
Do not feel discouraged if that person does not immediately express more concern about climate change. Recognizing connections between climate change and values could make that person pay more attention to climate news and care more over time. Eventually, they may explore ways they can help solve climate change. If you use this strategy, share your experience in a comment below! If you have not talked with someone yet, you can also share ways you plan to help them understand connections between climate change and their values.
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From arguments over COVID-19 vaccines to debates about different ways to respond to climate change, people often disagree about policies in the United States. Climate change is polarizing since more Democrats than Republicans think the federal government should take further steps to slow the problem. Have Americans ever come together to protect the environment? Yes, partly thanks to Rachel Carson! Carson was a marine biologist who studied human impacts on wildlife. In the mid-twentieth century, people used pesticides like DDT to grow crops and kill insects that could cause disease. However, Carson found that these pesticides had tragic consequences. These pesticides killed birds and could cause cancer in humans. Carson faced challenges communicating these dangers to the public because she was battling breast cancer and knew that chemical companies would attack her for sharing the dangers of their products. Nevertheless, Carson published the book Silent Spring in 1962 to call attention to the need to limit harmful chemicals in the environment. She claimed that chemical companies had spread disinformation about pesticides to make them seem safe when they are deadly. (Disinformation is incorrect information that has been intentionally spread.) As Carson expected, chemical companies attacked her, saying she was spreading disinformation and that people should not listen to a woman. Carson’s personality was as calm and quiet as the waters she studied, so it might be surprising that her written voice captured the attention of Americans. The book helped Americans understand the dangers present in the environment, leading to bipartisan support for policies protecting the environment. Carson targeted housewives, who had various political views, because many of them had seen dead wildlife in their yards and might experience moral concern about the dangers of pesticides to people. Carson died of breast cancer (possibly as a result of working with pesticides) in 1964, just two years after publishing Silent Spring, but her writing led to an environmental revolution. In 1970, President Richard Nixon established the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress passed the Clean Air Act. In 1972, the Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT and Congress passed the Clean Water Act. In some ways, the debate about pesticides in the 1960s is similar to the debate about climate change today. Fossil fuel companies attack environmental scientists who write about the threats of climate change for humans. These companies spread disinformation to make people think climate change is not as big of a threat as scientists say. Polarization around the environment has made an increased awareness of science less likely to make people support environmental policies. Rachel Carson’s work is one of the reasons I became interested in environmental communications. When I was in high school, I did a project about her life and impact on the environment. I realized that writing about the environment to make people aware of problems is a way to encourage change.
Given Carson’s contribution to the environmental movement, climate advocates should know her story and share it with other people who may wonder about the importance of environmental communication. I am thankful that Carson helped the American public understand the dangers of pesticides despite knowing that she would receive criticism from chemical companies. Perhaps Carson’s story will encourage more people to advocate for slowing climate change and see that it is possible to bring people together to protect the environment like Silent Spring did. The following documentary segment from PBS provides a further look at Carson’s life and the battles she faced when communicating about environmental dangers. Discussions about climate change with friends and family members can lead to frustration if those people do not trust climate science. However, a March 2021 report from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication said 70% of Americans think that climate change is happening and only 15% of Americans deny that climate change is happening (other Americans are undecided). Instead of spending time and energy attempting to convince people about climate facts, environmental communicators should show those people who already trust climate science how to take steps to slow the problem. To encourage people to make environmentally friendly decisions in their own lives, environmental communicators can share stories about why they care about the environment and the steps they are taking to protect it. For example, I began caring about human impacts on the environment as a kid when I saw neighborhoods replace forests in my rapidly growing hometown of Apex, North Carolina. My concern about climate change led me to start an environmental club at my high school and study the environment in college. I was shocked to learn that the world’s oceans will likely have more plastic than fish by 2050! Now that I am older, I recognize that sometimes people need to cut down trees for homes and that trees probably once stood in the same spot as my own home. Nevertheless, my experience seeing deforestation helped me realize that humans should be careful about how they affect the environment, especially when polluting oceans or releasing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change and its devastating consequences, including severe hurricanes, wildfires and droughts. Why should you read my advice about environmental communication? I am in the Environment and Science Communication dual-degree program at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC-Chapel Hill. Through this program, I have taken several courses in environmental science, environmental policy, sustainability and communication. In September 2020, I published a book called Planet Now: Effective Strategies for Communicating about the Environment. My next goal is to use this blog to share strategies from my classes and research to help people learn how to effectively communicate about the environment to slow climate change. Some people may not have personal stories about climate change, but they could use several other strategies to communicate about the environment. These strategies can help them influence other people to take steps to reduce climate change. In this blog, I will share strategies to help people discuss climate-related problems and solutions with other people in their lives, especially those people who are willing to listen. People who want to help the environment should have a communications strategy for discussing the urgent problem of climate change, so they need to plan it now, or rather, “Planet Now.” |
Welcome to my blog! It is a combination of posts from my strategic writing (spring 2022) and personal branding (spring 2023) courses at UNC. I hope you will enjoy reading the posts and learning about the environment and communication.
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