Don’t just talk about “climate”—zoom into “issues” and “places”, if you want such conversations to be effective. And other wise tips from A Larger Us
Good to check in on Alex Evans’ A Larger Us project, which we’ve worked with and covered since our start in 2017, and their current prototyping of “climate conversations”.
We’ll pick from their blog on this, but we share their interest in finding new pathways to solidarity in fractious times - especially finding a consensus for action, in the context of climate catastrophe. (Their partners here were UNISON, Parents For Future, Tearfund and Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire, and here’s the story so far).
Some stark facts to begin with:
57% of people in the UK say they rarely or never talk about climate change,
Polls show the UK has the least welcoming climate movement of any country in Europe, and
Conversations are a vital part of building support for urgent action on climate change – or indeed any other issue – and creating pressure for politicians to act.
What kind of conversations were these? They explain:
We were aiming less at conversations with close friends and family, or with strangers on their doorsteps (like in deep canvassing), and more on what sociologists call ‘weak tie’ conversations: the kind we have at school gates, in supermarket queues, at water coolers, or over garden fences.
Their takeaways from this work are:
ONE: We’re more sure than before that there’s real potential here. 85% of Workshop participants and 95% of Challenge participants reported that they feel more able and confident to have climate conversations.
We think a lot of this success is rooted in how our approach is rooted in psychology and relationships. In feedback sessions, trainees frequently highlighted both the connection they found in their groups (e.g. “It was quite nerve-wracking joining the group, but I feel sad that it’s finished now, I feel like I’ve developed relationships with [everyone]”), and how their own confidence and sense of agency had grown.
TWO: We need to frame conversations differently – the focus needs to be more specific than “climate”, and instead zoom into issues (e.g. warm homes or the oil and gas sector) or places.
First, by making conversations more issue-specific – for instance, about warm homes, or the oil and gas sector, or the effects of climate change on nature and wildlife. And second, by making them more localised – so about a particular place or neighbourhood, which is also where we think some of the biggest political impacts might be (we’ll be publishing a separate post soon on what we learned about political strategy).
THREE: Do conversations need to lead up to an ‘ask’? Having a clear ask can give a real sense of impact – but also slides back into the dynamic where we’re the experts, talking at our audience. We have thoughts on a possible way through on this in the next round.
The case for an ask is clear at first glance: it gives a stronger, and more quantifiable, sense of impact. Back when I used to run digital campaigns, I knew to a tenth of a percent how many people opened each test email, clicked ‘sign’ on the petition, and shared it on socials – and there is a lot to be said for the goldmine of data this approach generates.
The problem with that approach, though – which, of course, is the one we tend to take in the climate movement – is the ‘we know best’ aspect. Even if we make a show of nodding along, we’re still assuming that we’re the ones with the solutions. It’s not really a genuine conversation; it’s a show of one. And the risk with that is that people end up feeling like pawns in someone else’s chess game, and tune out.
So for the next round we plan to focus not on asks but on questions: a sense of where we as a community might be trying to get to, creating a conversation in which both people have space to marshal their thoughts, and both people share their ideas for what to do about it.
It’s then about shared problem solving, not one person ‘selling’ an action to another. It builds agency rather than making people feel overwhelmed. And it’s rooted in an idea of distributed, self-organised system change in which all of us matter, rather than top down control.
FOUR: What does impact look like? We’ve been thinking lots about what successful conversations look like – especially how conversations can help seed new values in society, as happened with the seismic values shift on equal marriage.s
Let me explain with a story from the project. It was week 5 of one of the Challenge sessions, in the section where participants check in and report back on how their conversations have gone. One participant, Laura, had a brilliant tale to tell.
She’d been away for a weekend as a respite break from caring responsibilities, staying at an upmarket pub on the coast. On the Saturday night, while she was enjoying a drink at the bar, there was a huge noise outside as a helicopter landed on the lawn. Shortly afterwards, its pilot sauntered into the bar for a drink, clearly enjoying having made such a big entrance.
Laura felt torn. She didn’t want to cause a scene or get into an argument. But on the other hand – flying your helicopter to the pub for a quick drink? Really? And wasn’t this exactly what the conversation training had been for? So she decided to say something. But not to call the pilot out, or shame him in front of everyone – instead, more like gentle teasing.
So how did it go? There was a good natured debate. Some other people in the bar joined in. But, Laura reported, “I don’t think anyone had their minds changed”.
Or did they? Because actually, this anecdote has some really interesting implications to unpack in terms of what impact looks like.
To start with, I bet that helicopter pilot does think twice before flying to the pub again. Well, you might think, even if that’s true, so what? It’s still firmly at the level of changes in personal consumption patterns (even if it’s a change from the usual ‘eat a bit less meat, recycle a bit more’) rather than a bigger systemic shift – right?
Well, maybe not. We’ve reflected a lot on the team about Laura’s story, and we’re not so sure. Because what happened in that pub, as Laura gently made her point and others joined in, was not only about breaking the silence on climate change – it was also about modelling new values.
It’s through conversations like this that what’s acceptable or normal shifts in a society – just like what happened on support for equal marriage, say, or how drink driving became not OK.
And the new values that Laura was modelling weren’t just about climate change, either. She was also ‘calling in’ rather than calling out, avoiding showdowns that shame people, instead seeking to engage and have a conversation.
This is the kind of change-making that’s too often absent from the kind of climate campaigning that hits the news – but maybe it’s exactly the kind of change-making we need, if we want to win people over from outside our traditional audiences.
We’re more sure than before that there’s real potential here.