How to talk about climate change (or any other issue, for that matter)

One of the most important things that sustainability advocates can do is to persuade more people to care about the issues we find important, and to support solutions that will work.  Because—thank heavens—we don't live in a dictatorship, we must do this to make progress.  It's difficult, frustrating work, but we have some resources and ideas to help.  The things I'll be writing about in this post are specifically for talking about climate change, because it's one of the most difficult issues to do this with, but the advice translates to any contentious or sensitive issue you want to persuade people to listen to you about.

Joe Brewer, who is part of our Leadership Circle and taught last month's How To Bring About Large-Scale Behavior Change workshop, recently published an excellent article: Responding to Climate Skeptics' "Change Argument".  You should read the whole thing, but the gist is that it's essential to build trust in order to be listened to at all, and to understand where the skeptic is coming from in order to respond well to their argument.  This is good general advice that we should all follow, and in the article Joe expands on this and adds some specific advice about climate change and some common reasons why people who are neither malicious nor stupid continue to deny that there's a problem.

I can read as many articles about this as I like, but when it comes to using the theory there's no substitute for practicing.  To give you a chance to practice how to talk about climate change, we are putting on an evening workshop on October 7th called Stop Global Warming With Words.  It will start with a short lecture by Louise Stonington, but most of the time will be devoted to practicing your message, and giving each other feedback on this.  We hope it will serve as a good warm-up for the 10:10 campaign and worldwide work party.

We're also planning another intensive workshop with Joe early next year - watch this space for details.

Event | Making a picture of 350 with squash in Bergen Square in central Ballard on International Climate Awareness Day, October 24, 2009

When: October 24, 9:30 AM

Where: in Bergen Square in central Ballard.

What: we will make a picture of 350 squash laid out to uplink to International Climate Awareness Day, and it also is United Nations Day. On this day, demonstrations all over the world will feature the number 350. Bring your Halloween pumpkin, your hubbard or acorn dinner squash, to help create the visual. Professional photographers will be on hand to take our picture from a near by roof. Any squash we have over the 350 safe mark will be "squashed" according to your preferred method into a bucket labeled cap and trade, carbon tax or compost and reuse. The original 350 squash you may take home or leave for a food bank donation. We will also have a message from the Citizen Climate Lobby right around 10 AM.

Why: The scientific community has concluded that 350 parts per million (ppm) in earth's atmosphere is the tolerable level of carbon dioxide for human life. As we are currently at near 390 ppm due to continuing greenhouse gas emissions, it will take all of us demanding that our governments get serious about containing the problem at the upcoming climate talks in Copenhagen, even while we reduce energy use at home, on the road, and where we work. Sustainable Ballard provides the tools for us to change our individual carbon footprints, but the challenge at hand is so great, we must urge our own government and the world community to create an international treaty to replace the Kyoto Accords that is much stricter, and gets us moving faster toward the use of renewable energy.

Who: If you would like to help with setting up and carrying out this activity, please contact Andrea (andrea@sustainableballard.org or 206-783-6963). We'll need squash counters, arrangers, and crowd control on the day, and flyer distributors before.

Andrea Faste