Earth Protect Blog

Wake Americans up to climate change

By Nicholas Goldberg

Los Angeles Times

Why is the greatest threat to the planet of so little concern to most Americans?

It’s shocking, frankly, that global warming ranks 24th on a list of 29 issues that voters say they will think about when deciding whom to vote for in November, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. Only 30% of voters say they are “very worried” about it, and more than two-thirds say they “rarely” or “never” discuss the issue with family or friends.

How can people be so blithely unconcerned when the clear consensus of scientists is that climate disruption is reaching crisis levels and will result not only in more raging storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves but very possibly in famine, mass migration, collapsing economies and war?

Sure, there are some obvious reasons for the apathy: High among them is that fossil fuel companies have spent decades pulling the wool over the eyes of Americans. And Republican politicians have been complicit.

But that’s not the whole story. To try to understand a little more, I had a conversation recently with David Fenton, a political activist who more than 40 years ago turned his hand to public relations.

In his forthcoming book, “The Activist’s Media Handbook,” due out in November, Fenton says the forces trying to rouse the world to fight climate change have by and large ignored the most rudimentary tenets of marketing and advertising, to their detriment and the planet’s.

Instead of spending money and resources on shaping public opinion, they keep commissioning more policy reports from think tanks and convening more global meetings of scientists — on the presumption that the steady accretion of irrefutable facts ultimately will prevail.

The other side knows better. “People at the fossil fuel companies and their allies go to business school, where they learn cognitive and marketing science — and believe me, it is a science,” Fenton told me. “They learn how to sell products and services. They invest in defining messages and reaching people. Our side does not.”

What are some of these scientific techniques of persuasion and public communication that work so well?

Deliver simple messages, for one thing. In general, climate activists lean toward complexity and nuance because they don’t want to patronize or condescend or mislead by oversimplifying to their audiences.

Once you have a simple message, repeat it over and over. Did you know consumers generally have to see an ad more than half a dozen times before they will be persuaded to buy a product?

Embed facts and data in what Fenton calls “moral stories that tug at the emotions.”

Talk about what people care about. There’s been too much talk about the effect of climate change on polar bears and not enough on what it means for humans.

Use language people understand. Research shows, Fenton says, that many people don’t understand the phrases “existential threat” or “net zero” or “climate justice.” They understand what pollution is, but not what an “emission” is — which suggests that it might make more sense to use the former term.

I know deep down marketing works. And if the fate of the Earth depends on delivering a simple but understandable, rousing and persuasive message, then I think it’s worth it. As Fenton notes, it’s not about manipulating people — it’s about un-manipulating them.

And the way to do it, he says, is with a big, well-funded campaign to build the public support, public understanding — and then the political will — required for social change.

Here’s my only concern about Fenton’s argument: He believes messages shouldn’t be too downbeat because “sacrifice doesn’t sell.” Is he right when he says the climate problem can be solved in a way that enhances economic prosperity? I hope so; that’d be great. But I worry — and this is just my opinion, not an expert’s analysis — that we’ve waited too long, and that to avoid the worst effects of climate change we are going to have to sacrifice, whether it sells or not. I take the gloomy approach.

Either way, we can all agree there’s an awful lot to be done. And Fenton is certainly right that you can’t mobilize people for war if they don’t know they’re under attack. Public education is a missing piece of the puzzle.

Somehow we need to awaken a nation of sleeping, underinformed and insufficiently motivated citizens and persuade them to rise to the great challenge of modern times. To do that, the unmanipulation process needs to begin in earnest. Nicholas Goldberg is an associate editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times.