Kia ora from Jess,
We care, yup most of us care about climate change. So why don't Kiwis understand the most impactful things they can do about climate change? Why does recycling (important but not impactful) keep coming up as Marc Daalder reported recently?
There is a lot to unpack here. Most simply it boils down to the most powerful narratives about climate change are insufficient to help people understand what to do.
Cultural mindsets and narratives eat research and facts for breakfast.
The big kicker is this one: Consumerism. It is pushed most by people in the fossil fuel industry, but used just as much by people in government, NGOs, and business who support climate change. A consumerism narrative tells us that as individual consumers we can buy our way out of climate change. This often sounds like "reduce your carbon footprint" and this is how we have come to reason collectively about climate action.
The impact of this shared consumerism mindset is that, even when faced with the impacts of climate change on our doorsteps, without a mental framework for what is the most impactful thing to do, people will grab the most available explanation and solution. And that is individual level behavioural action, often as consumers. Hence the recycling solution coming up so often.
People need a deeper understanding about how to act as citizens, communities, to come together, to plan, to build power, and shift systems and structures that impact the creation of carbon pollution, like bike lanes and public transport!
So what can be done? It is not going to work to just point out this problematic narrative. In fact the more we draw attention to it the more people think about it. Rather we need better narratives to amplify with a clear goal of deepening public understanding. Providing people with a mental framework to understand the issues, the best solutions and the most effective role they can play.
Narratives infused with shared values and simple explanatory models about climate disruption, how it happened, what it does, and what to do. And we need to push them consistently and at scale.
There are lots of tips in the various guides we have produced on exactly this, including a new one on transport and climate - How to talk about transport and climate action.
To find all our guides about climate and transport go to our website
Ngā mihi
Jess