“Talk like a human about climate change.” Good advice. But can humans be curious and vision-seeking, as well as loss-averse and fearful?
From the Potential Energy Coalition’s Talk Like A Human PDF
“Talk like a human about climate change.” It’s a highly urgent challenge. But what does it mean to “talk human”? Veteran environment correspondent Roger Harrabin wrote the other day about a forthcoming speech at COP28, by the Swiss solar aviator and environmentalist Bertrand Piccard. His claim is that:
…many climate terms can numb people with fear instead of inspiring them into action, and proposes new language that will reframe our situation as an opportunity, rather than a crisis.
Take the key phrase “green economy”: Piccard says this motivates environmentalists but repels those who discern an assault on their lifestyle or a rise in their bills. Why not, he says, rechristen it the “clean economy”, because no one likes “dirty”. Likewise “clean energy” instead of “green energy”. He has come up with an entire list of terms in common use that he believes need a rebrand.
They include swapping: “cost” to “investment”; “crisis” to “opportunity”; “problem” to “solution”; “sacrifice” to “advantage”; “lost jobs” to “new professions”; “ecological” to “logical”; “saving the planet” to “improving quality of life” (or “saving humankind”); “degrowth” to “efficiency”; and “next generation” to “current generation”.
Does this sound like corporate business speak? Harrabin notes the dangers of this. It could also be another snow of abstractions, landing on people whose lives are ever more disrupted by radical changes they can’t seem to affect. And alienating them further.
Harrabin quotes a report from the Potential Energy Coalition of media agencies, which draws the conclusion - from four years of research - that
abandoning technocratic language and scrapping abstract terms like anthropogenic and decarbonisation. Instead, he says, communicators should “talk like humans”, engaging people with their own experiences of extreme heat, wildfires and floods.
His group’s guide to climate language notes that keeping messages local helps a lot. The phrase “Save Florida” beats “Get to Net Zero by 2040” when you ask regular people. His motto is: “Show the climate matters to people like me.”
Here’s the publication, “Talk Like a Human” (PDF). It has some challenges for us at AG. In their “keep it local” section, the “word to avoid” is planetary (words to use include our state, our town, my neighbour, our kids). We respectfully disagree… given than the scale of the environmental challenge is indeed planetary, and we have to build a joyous consciousness ready to live and operate at that level.
Another piece of advice is “humans not concepts”:
People care about people, not abstract concepts. Spare us the theoreticals: global competitiveness, green innovation boom, economic leadership arguments. What works is that people like me are being affected.
What the data tells us:
Every time we test a message with a human face in it, it outperforms anything else
Time and time again, loss aversion frames beat gain frames. “If we don’t stop polluting, the things you love [insert what works] are at risk.” This works so much better than “if we solve climate change, the economy will be better and you will have a new green job.”
More here. We’re clearly not opposed to the advice to “talk like a human” in communicating a climate message. But can we be curious, novelty-and-vision-seeking humans too, who might need a new word to seize and express a different (and better) reality? However, this is a proper discussion - we’d like to hear your thoughts below.