Transcript Slides

Connecting on Climate:
Communications to Build Political Will
Climate and Health Summit
Washington, DC • September 20, 2015
Meighen Speiser
[email protected]
Who to Engage on Climate
How to Open and Hold the
Conversation
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How NOT to be THIS Guy
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WHO to Engage
Your PEERS
Patients and
Public
Local and
National
Policymakers
(This is you)
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Collaborate for Leverage and Scale
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MomentUs
 lead by example
 engage others
 institutional
leadership
 collective
impact
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THE 13 STEPS
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1.
Start with people, stay with
people
2.
Connect on common values
3.
Acknowledge ambivalence
4.
Scale from personal to planet
5.
Sequence matters
6.
Use facts, not “science”
7.
Inspire and empower
8.
Be solutions-focused
9.
Describe, don’t label
10.
Have at least 1 powerful fact from
a trusted messenger
11.
Prepare don’t adapt
12.
Speak from the mountaintops,
don’t fight in the trenches
13.
Message discipline is critical
1
Start with people, stay with people
• Do your homework
• Open with your audience,
refer to them often
2
Connect on common values
• Celebrate their common values
• Connect your to theirs
• Show your humanity
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Broadly Resonant American Values
Exceptionalism, compassion
• We can all make small steps to make the world better (94%)
• People can be the solution (90%)
• Compassion for those who are suffering (86%)
Personal rights to clean environment for all
• Clean drinking water (84%)
• Clean air (83%)
• Safe neighborhood, free of toxics (79%)
• Access to natural spaces, parks (75%)
Responsibility to do something about climate
• Companies that pollute (81%)
• EPA (78%)
• Me (75%)
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Family, Community
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3
Acknowledge ambivalence
• Acknowledge that people have
many priorities, demands
• Talk about your experience,
connect with their’s
• Tell a conversion story
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I Shop,
therefore I am
Concern about climate change can be alienating, elite
2013: 10,885 Peer
Reviewed Articles
Only 2 reject man
made climate change
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4
Scale from personal to planet
• Easy on the impacts!
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Inspire and empower
• Focus on solutions
• Sell the benefits
• Preparedness motivates
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1 powerful fact from
a trusted messenger
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7
Focus on facts, mind “science”
• Focus on what people can see with their
own eyes
• People think “science” can be challenged
8
Describe, don’t label
• Avoid jargon, trigger words
“There is change happening right in our backyards, in the
backyards of all of Iowa, and throughout the country. The
water level is down, and higher water temperatures are
impacting fish counts and fish health. Our main source of
clean drinking water is diminishing.”
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9
Message discipline is critical
• Simple messages
• Repeated often
• Your communications, collaborations, sector
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You don’t have to be THIS Guy
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http://ecoamerica.org/research/
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THANK YOU!
[email protected]
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