These notes were taken during one of our Climate Conversations. The conversation guide and resource list may be helpful if you’d like to learn more, or if you missed the meeting.
Background
The conversation topic for today is talking with people we know – our friends, family and colleagues – about the action they’re taking on climate change. It can be difficult when we hear someone talking about actions that seem small or insignificant to us, but they seem to think it’s sufficient and that they’re “doing their bit”. We might want to give information or raise awareness of what more they could be doing but we don’t want to come across as lecturing or patronising. So how can we have these conversations in a good way?
Do you recognise this problem? What’s your experience of being in conversations about climate action?
We started by reflecting on and sharing our experiences, thoughts and feelings.
- I think let people do their bit.
- Individual action seems useless.
- I don’t want to be judgemental.
- It’s really about the system. Probably half a dozen people could change the lot if they wanted to.
- I avoid people.
- Is it defeatist to think like this?
- I don’t want to seem weird.
- Having these conversations might shift the norm a bit. It’s hard to see the return on the action though, and what’s missing is collective action you can invite people to join.
- There are lots of different shades of green action.
- Raising consciousness and awareness is important but the solutions are so complicated.
- It’s very hard to have an authentic conversation.
- I hate conflict.
- I have friends who do some things e.g. refill shops and recycling but I wonder if they know about other things like bank accounts.
- I want to tell them about other things but…
- I don’t want to be judged.
- I don’t want them to think I’m better at doing these things than I am.
- I feel I should be doing more so I can’t tell other people.
- I don’t feel I have the right.
- Is it more about having conversations and raising awareness?
- I want to tell them about other things but…
Advice from experts
A lot of the suggestions here come from the work of Rosemary Randall and others on Carbon Conversations. We looked at a few excerpts from that work.
They suggest we shift our aim in having a conversation from trying to give information, convince, or motivate people to change to creating connection, collaboration and support.
They suggest that to do this we need to learn how to listen, empathise and understand. We need to learn how to use stories. We also need to learn about different audiences and target our message accordingly.
For this conversation, we focused on the first of the three, and on looking for the levels in the conversation. Rosemary Randall was that there are different levels to a conversation. The content, what the conversation is about is only the surface layer. At the same time, other things are also going on like the existing relationship dynamics between people who know each other, and unequal power might come into play. There’s also the feelings of both people, any assumptions we might have made about each other, and what we’re trying to get out of the conversation. Thinking about the different levels in a conversation helps us to see what’s going on beneath the surface. It might help us to understand what’s going on for someone else and why they react the way they do.
We took one of the conversations we’d described earlier and in pairs, looked at the conversation to see what we thought was happening at each level. We found the exercise helpful.
Our thoughts after looking for the four levels in a conversation:
- It’s helpful to expand the situation – see it’s not straightforward.
- It gives you a bit of space.
- I can’t imagine doing it in real time in a conversation but I think it might help me when I’m thinking about it afterwards.
- I can imagine using this in conversations with practice.
- Don’t talk to your friends like a therapist would!
- Notice what’s going on for you.
- Don’t focus on facts and figures, make it about emotion.
Thoughts about today’s conversation
- I feel like I don’t have to keep convincing people that climate change is happening.
- I like the idea of being mindful in conversations.
- I realised how few of these conversations I have.
Sources
Carbon Conversations
Carbon Conversations was a project to get people talking in small groups about climate change, and take action to reduce their carbon footprints. It ran from 2007-2016. Last year (2023) a revised version was launched calledLiving with the Climate Crisis. The new version has updated information as well as a much larger focus on our emotional response to climate change and coping with the shocks.
I read these the older Carbon Conversations material as well as the new version for this topic. There’ lots of inspiration for questions and activities to start activities as well as explanations of theories that are still in use.
You can find the original materials here if you want to take a look. Though do bear in mind that there has been a lot more research in climate emotions and engagement since the first Carbon Conversations guides were published and the facts and figures may be out of date.
Randall, Rosemary, and Andy Brown. In Time for Tomorrow? The Carbon Conversations Handbook, 2017.
Randall, Rosemary. “The Carbon Conversations Facilitator’s Guide,” n.d.
Randall, Rosemary, Rebecca Nestor, and Daniela Fernandez-Catherall. The Carbon Conversations Guide to Living with the Climate Crisis Facilitator’s Guide. UK: The Climate Psychology Alliance, 2023.
Randall, Rosemary, Rebecca Nestor, and Daniela Fernandez-Catherall. “The Carbon Conversation’s Guide to Living with the Climate Crisis Participant’s Hanbdbook.” The Climate Psychology Alliance, 2023.
And the new version Living with the Climate Crisis is here.
Climate Outreach
Climate Outreach aim to support people to talk about climate change. They are a British charity producing resources and research around climate engagement.
The Talking Climate Handbook contains advice for learning to have constructive conversations around climate change in everyday life. There’s also a video on the same page.
The Britain Talks Climate website shares the findings of a report into British feelings about climate change. They identified seven different segments of the population who each have different ideas, and respond to different messages, in order to help climate organisations develop and tailor their messages. You can download the report or explore the seven different segments.
Webster, Robin, and George Marshall. “Talking Climate Handbook – How to Have a Climate Change Conversation.” Oxford Climate Outreach, 2019. https://climateoutreach.org/reports/how-to-have-a-climate-change-conversation-talking-climate/.
Climate Outreach. “Britain Talks Climate: A Toolkit for Engaging the British Public on Climate Change.” Climate Outreach. Accessed July 28, 2024. https://climateoutreach.org/britain-talks-climate/.
Powell, David. “How to Start Conversations about Eating Less Meat – Case Study.” Climate Outreach, March 5, 2024. https://climateoutreach.org/eat-less-meat-hubbub/.