Long-term audience engagement in climate advocacy

Conservationists like to think facts speak for themselves. They don’t. In a world where allegiance often trumps evidence, who delivers the message often matters more than what’s being said. The same data, spoken by a nurse instead of a scientist, can land differently. In Amazonia, credibility travels along social lines. Farmers listen to agronomists, not activists. Urban families may heed pediatricians warning about heat-related illness before they trust an NGO ad. Pastors, teachers, and co-op leaders often reach places journalists and policymakers cannot. Matching voice to audience isn’t a branding exercise; it’s simply being honest about how people decide what to believe. That realism also means differentiating the message without diluting it. Indigenous leaders remain central, both as stewards and as narrators of success on their lands. Yet many who influence the forest’s future—like mayors, truckers, ranchers, and small business owners—don’t identify with Indigenous causes. Messages typically work best when they’re tailored to their audience: stewardship told as rainfall insurance for farmers, public-health policy for city dwellers, and fiscal stability for mayors who need predictable budgets. The goal isn’t to make everyone an environmentalist; it’s to make the forest relevant to each person’s daily choices. None of this can be faked. Trust is borrowed first and earned slowly. It grows when people see that acting on information pays, as in lower bills, steadier harvests, clearer skies, or fewer fires. For communicators, the task is to equip credible messengers with verified, usable material: sermon guides, WhatsApp videos, radio spots, farm bulletins, and committee briefs. Over time, authority shifts from the messenger to the message itself. What saves the forest, in the end, may not be a single voice but a variety—each carrying the same plain facts: e.g. protecting forest keeps rain falling; law in the Amazon means law at home; standing forest cools the air; healthy ecosystems make for healthy economies. Repetition stops being spin and starts being education. Once that logic comes from trusted voices, it no longer sounds like activism. It just sounds obvious. [I contributed a section on how to communicate about the Amazon for 'The Endangered Amazonia' report, published by COICA ORG this week. This is the second of three parts summarizing my contribution. This one is titled, "Why the messenger matters in efforts to save the Amazon] 👉 The report: https://lnkd.in/gpZs8JBW

What motivates people to take collective climate action? 🔍 In this large-scale behavioral megastudy, scientists from across disciplines collaboratively developed and evaluated 17 theory-informed interventions designed to catalyze public, political, and financial climate advocacy. These interventions were first proposed by teams of behavioral scientists, then ranked by subject-matter experts, and the most promising strategies were tested experimentally on a quota-matched sample of over 31,000 U.S. residents. This work is a great example of collaborative, open science aimed at understanding what really motivates collective climate action. 🔥 One of the most effective interventions — the one I co-designed with Xinhui Chen — emphasized collective efficacy alongside the emotional benefits of climate action. It consistently boosted advocacy outcomes (e.g., sign-ups, commitments to act, even political engagement) more than other tested approaches. This suggests a crucial insight: People may not be fully aware that collective mobilization works, because its effects are often long-term and intangible. Showing that mobilization does make a difference can itself motivate sustained engagement. 📊 This project stands out not only for its scale but for its methodological innovation — bringing together diverse scientific perspectives, expertise, and theory in an open, competitive design. I’m glad to be part of this collaborative effort and excited about what it means for future climate advocacy research. Huge congratulations to Danielle Goldwert for leading this project ! 👉 Feel free to check out the paper here: https://lnkd.in/e7yZV86M

During my break from social media, I realized the need for more thoughtful and intentional ways to engage with the world's many conflicts. This resource is a testament to that journey—a way of conditioning my body and mind for the long-term work of making change. It's offered with humility as just one approach among many, hoping it might resonate with others looking for ways to sustain their activism. Crafting resilience, focusing amidst the chaos, and battling the fog of forgetfulness in our activism journey require intentional practice and dedicated care. So, I review this every month and quarter. Here are the sections in my personal blueprint: 🧠 Top of Mind: This section identifies the three issues that currently occupy most of my time, attention, and learning efforts. It's about prioritizing what matters most at any given moment, recognizing emergent issues that are just coming onto my radar, and maintaining a consistent focus on areas of long-term engagement. This practice helps in directing my energy where it's most needed 📣 Voices + Organizations: Here, I list the voices and organizations I trust and follow for dependable insights and information. This involves curating a list of reliable sources that can guide my understanding and actions. It's about connecting with communities of knowledge and practice that align with my values and focus areas, enriching my perspective and grounding my activism in informed empathy and strategic action. ✅ Current Actions: This block outlines my actions, largely inspired by the leaders and voices I trust within my top issues. Whether it's sending support to communities in need, engaging in advocacy, or spreading awareness, this section is about translating awareness into tangible actions that contribute to the causes I care about. 🤝 Communities I'm Engaging With: Engagement takes many forms, both online and in-person. This part of the resource emphasizes the importance of community—finding solidarity, support, and shared purpose with others committed to similar causes. It's a reminder that we're not alone in our struggles and that collective action is powerful. 📕 Learning: Recognizing that the journey of activism is also one of continuous learning, this section prompts me to reflect on what I need to learn more about. It's about staying curious, asking questions, and engaging in research that deepens my understanding and effectiveness as an activist. 💰 Donating: This part acknowledges that support can be material as well as moral. It encourages thoughtful consideration of how I can contribute resources—be it time or money—to causes and organizations that make a difference. 📖 Reading: Finally, this section is dedicated to sharing resources and recommendations for further reading. It's about fostering a learning culture and sharing knowledge that can inspire and inform others.  #Activism #Resilience #SelfCare #CommunityEngagement

Recent research on climate communication with young audiences shows that narratives centred on catastrophe and individual responsibility can generate anxiety and disengagement rather than mobilisation. When the message becomes overwhelming, concern does not translate into action but into inactivism, a form of emotional paralysis that weakens both understanding and agency. The alternative is not to dilute the urgency of climate change, but to rethink how it is communicated. Evidence from classroom-based outreach suggests that participatory approaches fundamentally change how young people respond. When communication moves away from one-way transmission and becomes interactive, through discussions, simulations and problem-solving exercises, it reduces anxiety while increasing trust in science and motivation to act. What emerges is a shift in the role of communication itself. It is no longer sufficient to inform. Communication must enable people to engage, understand and see pathways for action. This requires avoiding both denialism and doomism, while maintaining scientific accuracy and a sense of urgency. In a context shaped by misinformation, polarisation and declining trust, this distinction becomes operational. For younger audiences in particular, the framing of the message determines whether they disengage or participate. Authors: Marta Galvagno, Chiara Guarnieri, Sofia Koliopoulos, Paolo Pogliotti, Gianluca Filippa, Federico Grosso, Nicolas Lozito, Francesca Munerol, Sara Favre, Edoardo Cremonese, Alessandro Benati, Simone Gottardelli, Fabrizio Sapone, Francesco Avanzi

Most advocacy campaigns look successful. Almost none of them change what people actually do. I’ve seen this across advocacy work, especially in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) but the pattern holds from climate to governance to public health. Campaigns launch, hashtags trend, reach looks impressive and yet almost nothing shifts. That’s because attention is not impact. It’s only a window. One of the biggest mistakes in advocacy communication is measuring success by noise. If it trended, it worked. If it sparked conversation, it must have landed. But conversation is not conversion. Sometimes conversation is the goal especially when breaking silence. Other times, it’s only the entry point. When that distinction isn’t made, teams celebrate visibility while impact quietly disappears. Another mistake is assuming audience readiness. Campaigns are built on what should resonate, not what people are actually prepared to receive. Messages feel imposed, disconnected from lived realities, and resistance is misread as ignorance instead of a signal that listening came too late. Another overlooked failure is what happens after attention is captured. Many campaigns treat conversation as the finish line, even though meaning is still being negotiated. If that narrative space is left unattended, it gets filled with misinformation, fear, or distortion. Strategic advocacy doesn’t just spark conversation, it stays with it and actively guides how meaning forms while attention is still alive. Without this, campaigns win visibility but lose control of the story. Too often, campaigns are also designed for platforms instead of people. Content is optimized for algorithms, not understanding. Performance looks strong online, while real-world comprehension stays shallow. Clarity alone doesn’t create change. People don’t just need information, they need permission, reassurance, and relevance. Otherwise, even correct messages feel alienating. Here’s what strategic advocacy communication looks like instead: 1. Map power before you design messaging: Who benefits from misunderstanding you? Narrative resistance is rarely accidental. 2. Design for change, not just visibility : Start with what must move, belief, behavior, trust and work backward. 3. Assess readiness before messaging : Resistance is data, not failure. Treat conversation as a strategic phase 4. Attention opens a window : What happens during it determines impact 5. Actively shape narratives once attention is captured : Campaigns don’t end when people start talking that’s when meaning is decided. 6.Measure interpretation, not just interaction : If people misunderstood you at scale, the campaign didn’t succeed. It's time for advocacy communication to be treated as strategic design work, not promotional output. Because when campaigns stop chasing attention and start enabling change, that’s where impact actually begins. #StrategicCommunication #NarrativeFraming #DevelopentAdvocacy #Campaigns

It is time to rethink how we talk about climate change 🌎 Sharing my latest article for Inc. Magazine on why fear alone is not an effective long term strategy for climate communication. Over the past decades, the climate narrative has centered on alarming data, catastrophic projections, and worst case scenarios. While this approach has successfully elevated the urgency of the issue, it has not always translated into meaningful behavioral or systemic change. Fear is a powerful motivator for immediate reaction, but its effect diminishes over time. Constant exposure to catastrophic framing often leads to emotional fatigue, desensitization, and disengagement. Without clear solutions or a sense of agency, the public is left concerned but uncertain about how to engage. The article argues for a more balanced and constructive communication approach. One that complements the sense of urgency with a forward looking and relatable vision. Rather than focusing only on sacrifice and decline, climate change can also be framed as an opportunity to rethink how we live, move, and produce. Drawing on insights from Futerra’s Sell the Sizzle report, the piece outlines four critical elements of effective climate messaging: Vision, Choice, Plan, and Participation. These components can help build a narrative that is not only accurate, but also engaging and action oriented. Reframing the story of climate change is not about reducing the severity of the issue. It is about increasing the relevance of the message. By presenting tangible and near term benefits, and by inviting people into the solution, communication can become a catalyst for broader participation and deeper commitment. You can read the full article here 👇 https://lnkd.in/g4hcb-Sd #sustainability #business #sustainable #esg

Exciting New Findings: The Key to Boosting Public Support for Climate and Environmental Policies 🌱 As a co-founder of a renewable energy startup and a passionate advocate for climate action, you'll be thrilled to learn about a groundbreaking study that could revolutionize how we approach climate and environmental policies. A recent study highlighted in a notable scientific journal has made significant strides in understanding public support for climate action. Researchers found that targeted communication and education are crucial in enhancing public buy-in for environmental policies. By effectively bridging the information gap, individuals become more aware of the scientific consensus on climate change and the urgency of implementing robust policies. The findings suggest that well-informed individuals are more likely to support and participate in sustainable practices. This emphasizes the need for clear, accessible information that underscores the benefits and effectiveness of climate policies, fostering a more informed and engaged public ready to take action for the environment. To achieve this, the researchers suggest several strategies. 1️⃣ Firstly, Policymakers should craft effective communication using accessible language, simplifying complex concepts, and emphasizing the practical benefits of climate policies to engage the public. 2️⃣ Secondly, Incorporating personal experiences and local impacts in communication strategies makes climate issues more relatable and underscores their relevance, enhancing public engagement. 3️⃣ Continuous education and consistent updates on policy progress are crucial for building public trust and support for climate initiatives, encouraging a communal sense of responsibility and action. Additionally by employing these communication strategies, policymakers can boost public involvement and support for sustainable practices like transitioning to renewable energy, essential for combating climate change and promoting environmental sustainability. #ClimateAction #SustainableFuture #RenewableEnergy #PublicEngagement #EnvironmentalPolicy #ClimateChangeAwareness #GreenInitiatives #EcoFriendlyLiving #SolarPower #ClimateCommunication If you're interested in diving deeper into the study, you can find the full article here: [ https://lnkd.in/gHb9eBsX ]

💡 The supply of climate journalism is declining. To fix that, we must focus on the demand. 💡 Temperatures are rising. Yet global media coverage of the changing climate fell from 2021-2025, and recent layoffs of climate journalists at places like Reuters and The Washington Post certainly won’t help reverse that trend. Why is this happening? Articles this past month (links in comments) point to the stark climate policy reversals of the Trump administration and the resulting fears of speaking publicly about the issue—fears that extend to media owners. There’s also competing newsroom priorities amid worsening financial struggles, and the problem of audience fatigue. Media ownership changes, so does who’s in political power. But the question of audience is systemic and existential—and I worry that we’re not talking nearly enough about it. The data tells us that people care very much about the climate and environment, yet that doesn’t seem to have translated into their news consumption – if the increased climate coverage of the early 2020s had reliably led to more web traffic, more subscriptions, more viewers, would it really have been so easy for news orgs to pull back? Is it possible that (with many notable exceptions) the ways media outlets are telling the story just aren’t landing with the public? Reuters Institute’s report on climate news trends in December noted that audiences identify “give me perspective” and “help me” as important desires for climate news, and they see big gaps in the categories “inspire me” and “give me perspective.” Are news media responding to those signals? Now let’s throw in the migration of audiences to social/video channels, especially younger people, who also happen to have strong demand for the topic. Yet more investment is needed across the field to tell climate stories on these channels properly, in ways that will resonate. The Pulitzer Center provides resources that journalists often need to make their stories the strongest they can be, and our climate/environment program is one of our largest. We also know that strong journalism works best when paired with smart audience thinking, real investment in engagement and creative approaches to bringing journalism to audiences rather than expecting them to find it themselves. That means translating stories into educational resources for students, university curriculum, art exhibitions. It means organizing community events where journalism becomes a prompt for conversation and collaborative action. It means partnering with content creators, and helping journalists at traditional outlets improve their own social and video storytelling. We can’t do much about media ownership or politics. We can make sure we’re producing climate journalism that truly serves audience needs.

How do we make climate communication resonate with the very people it affects the most? 💡 🌎 In my latest essay for Question of Cities, I reflect on this pressing question, drawing on my experience in journalism and storytelling, as well as research and fieldwork in the climate space over the last few years. The article outlines how dominant climate narratives often remain inaccessible, overly technical, and disconnected from everyday lived realities. Some key takeaways: 🔁 1. Translation isn’t enough—localisation matters. Efforts like the UNDP Climate Dictionary are welcome, but we need to go further. People don’t say “Jalvayu Parivartan”—they talk about rain delays, changing festivals, and crop failures. Climate terms must emerge from how people experience change, not how we define it. Climate must be framed as an everyday issue. For most people in India, climate change competes with daily concerns like food, housing, and livelihoods. 📚 2. Storytelling enables agency. We need to shift from policy briefs to bottom-up storytelling, where a fisherwoman in the Sundarbans or a tribal woman in Odisha becomes the knowledge holder. 🎭 3. Embrace diverse media and people’s science. From metaphor-rich language to theatre, dance, and music—creative formats hold emotional and cultural power. Even community-defined terms like “wet drought” offer nuance and should shape climate adaptation strategies. 📰4. Mainstream media must build capacity. At a recent workshop in Maharashtra, we saw how rural reporters struggle to differentiate between climate and weather. There’s little support for them—especially women—to cover these stories. Climate needs to be integrated into all beats, not confined to disaster or weather coverage. 🎯 5. Climate communications is not just outreach—it’s strategy. Too often, communication is underfunded and under-prioritised. But to build inclusive, impact-driven programmes, we must invest in grassroots media literacy, storyteller training, and long-term behavioural change campaigns. 🌏 In the coming years, we will witness a growing wave of efforts to communicate climate change in new and compelling ways as climate becomes centre stage in policy and mainstream narratives. But the real test of these approaches won’t lie in international recognition or polished campaigns. It will lie in how meaningfully they resonate on the ground—in how a coal worker in Jharkhand or a landless labourer in Maharashtra understands, imagines, and navigates a world that is 1.5 degrees C warmer. 🔗 Read the piece here: https://lnkd.in/dGG8ZNZn A big thanks to Smruti Koppikar and Shobha Surin for trusting me with this piece. And of course, this would not be possible without Asar and all the fabulous work that I have got to be a part of in the last 3+ years! #ClimateCommunication #ClimateJustice

Climate Communication Reimagined: Appealing Across Moral Foundations Recently, while working on energy transition scenarios for the Netherlands’ decarbonization by 2050 with TenneT, Jonathan Haidt’s insights from The Righteous Mind came sharply into focus. Full article: https://lnkd.in/gKQ4HfaQ Haidt research highlights six moral foundations — Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity, and Liberty — and argues that conservatives broadly use all six, while progressives strongly emphasize Care and Fairness. This explains why traditional climate messaging, dominated by progressive framing around harm prevention and fairness, struggles to resonate with broader audiences, especially conservatives. Effective climate advocacy requires blending messages to activate moral intuitions across this entire spectrum. For example, on clean energy jobs, progressives emphasize economic fairness, while conservatives focus on national strength and independence. A blended message: “Let’s revitalize America with clean energy, creating good jobs for all to keep our nation strong and independent.” On pollution, progressives speak to health impacts, conservatives to purity and national pride. Combining these, we get: “Cutting pollution protects our children's health and maintains America’s beautiful landscapes and clean air.” Framing climate change as a shared national challenge connects progressive concerns about global justice with conservative values around national security and heritage protection: “Protect our homeland from climate threats, safeguarding communities and the American way of life we cherish.” Even innovation and tradition can align: “Clean energy innovation continues America’s proud history of leadership, preserving the land and values we cherish for future generations.” In the Netherlands, debates around overhead transmission expansion benefit from similar messaging. Instead of purely technical arguments, framing transmission infrastructure as essential to national pride, heritage preservation, and economic vitality can resonate widely: “New transmission lines represent Dutch innovation, safeguarding our landscapes, health, and economy for generations.” I encountered this effective moral framing earlier while co-authoring Canada’s municipal guide for planned retreat amid climate risks. Communities rallied behind retreat initiatives when messaging emphasized collective good and community identity. European research, especially around Brexit, reinforces that messaging inclusive of national identity, sovereignty, and cultural integrity resonates more deeply than approaches limited to individual-focused morality. Ultimately, climate advocacy must leverage the full range of moral foundations to bridge divides and build broader consensus. Haidt’s framework is not only insightful, it’s essential for effective communication on climate and energy transitions.