“Every person needs to talk about climate change.”

Not just a small group that meets monthly at a local UU church, Climate conversations are healthy for addressing the issues and solutions. Not a growing group of different ages that meets weekly to consider how to help all our neighbors with local climate change.

We don't necessarily need to be convinced it's real any more.

Swannanoa Watershed Action Network is shown playing a Climate Change game that New York Times published.

“It’s important for climate communication today to really focus on how to include different perspectives, different ideologies that can give viable hope — because there is hope — in terms of how to address climate change differently than what’s been proposed in the past,” said Hanna Morris, an assistant professor at the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto, who researches climate change media and communication."

Source: WP Climate Solutions

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/09/16/climate-change-conversation-action/

"... doomism” views on climate change and the future aren’t grounded in reality, some experts say.

“It’s definitely not too late for each and every one of us to have a real meaningful impact on ... climate action,” said Kimberly Nicholas, a sustainability and climate scientist at Lund University. “There, fatalism really worries me because it’s not a scientific question of the technical details, ‘Are they possible?’ It’s a question of, ‘Will enough human beings actually undertake any of the necessary actions?’ ”

It is, however, important to acknowledge and help people process their grief and anxiety around climate change, said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a climate nonprofit.

“A lot of people in the climate conversation are younger or new, which is great,” Foley said. “But not surprisingly, people who are suddenly paying attention to this are saying, ‘Oh my God, this is horrible.’ ”

The key, Nicholas said, is not to get stuck in the “doom” stage — and to use those feelings as a source of motivation to take action.

While experts said it’s critical not to entirely dismiss individual actions, they underline that certain actions matter more.

There are downsides, for instance, to the “every little bit helps” idea, Nicholas said. You should turn off the faucet every time you brush your teeth so you don’t waste water — but “that’s not a high impact action” when it comes to the climate, she said.

“Basically, the only things I talk about are flying, driving and eating meat, I actually think it’s not really worth spending much time on much else,” she said. “We have to focus on where most emissions are and focus on reducing that as quickly as possible.”

While it’s improbable that any one person is capable of single-handedly creating major change, actions can have “ripple effects,” Nicholas said.

She compared it to how cathedrals were built by hand — a process that involved hundreds, if not thousands, of people over years.

But individual action should be seen as “part of an ecosystem of change that requires systemic level changes,” Tran said.

Messaging about solutions shouldn’t be limited to reducing emissions, he added. Social solutions that address inequities and environmental justice issues “need to go hand-in-hand” with discussions about physical or economic solutions to climate change, he said.

A key component of talking about climate issues revolves around making climate solutions equitable, said Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice.

“The people who have been most impacted by climate are people of color in general and poor people,” Wright said. “If we just addressed the question from the standpoint of, ‘Climate change is here, we have to reduce greenhouse gases,’ but don’t talk about how we do that, then you end up with communities being presented with what we call false solutions or our legislature being presented with false solutions.”

There should also be communication that gets those most impacted involved in the solutions, experts said. For one, Tran encouraged more trusted messengers to participate in the climate conversation.

“You need people who look like the people in the communities who are dealing with a problem to be able to motivate them to take action,” he said. “They understand what’s at stake. They understand how people are being harmed. They understand what solutions are needed to be put in place.”

“We need everyone to be a climate communicator and not just rely on one or two people or not just scientists,” he said. “Every person needs to talk about climate change.”