How to talk to your uncle about the Climate Crisis

The human-generated Climate Crisis threatens to be a civilization-ending event. By the end of the century, storms will increase, wildfires will increase, droughts will increase, weather will become more erratic, millions of people will be displaced, and areas that produce much of the world's food will become increasingly untenable for farming.

Except that's not happening "by the end of the century." It's already happened.

That first paragraph is the way too many people , especially mainstream media, talk about the threat of human-caused climate change. It is a miserable pitch. However, it does illustrate exactly why a problem that affects everyone on the planet, keeps getting pushed way down the list of things that most concern voters.

It’s an issue of scale.

It's very hard for anyone (myself included) to grasp events that happen over an extended period or have enormous effects. Yes, cities will be drowned. That's not "may be." It's "will." Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced. Widespread famines and crop failures will occur. Governments will fall. Wars and violence will be very difficult to avoid.

But if that's your whole message when it comes to the Climate Crisis, no one is going to listen.That especially true of your uncle who has spent the year bathing in Fox News. However, there is a better approach.

Whether it's Godzilla Minus One or The Perfect Storm, when filmmakers want to lend emotional resonance to overwhelming destruction, they don't do it by opening up the camera lens and showing the full scope of the damage. They focus in. They bring the story down to one young couple in the street. One small boat at sea.

That a combination of massive low-pressure systems brought hurricane-level winds to a Nor'easter resulting in damage across a dozen states is an abstraction. Watching blue-green waves fall across a handful of fishermen looking desperately for a way home to their families is a kick to the heart.

When talking about the Climate Crisis, news articles very often use a wide angle. It's not hard to understand why. This is a huge issue. It affects everyone and every aspect of our lives. New information, when it appears, often comes in the form of reports from academics and government agencies that deal with extended periods and multiple topics.

It's not only important to talk about those reports and all the information they bring, it's vital. There is a whole network of climate-knowledgable folks out there that needs to be fed with the latest information and with good analysis of what can be difficult scientific data.

None of this should be taken as a call to dumb down the discussion over the Climate Crisis, to ignore long-term consequences, or to stop looking at the difficult politics and engineering around the best solutions.

But here are a few tips when you're talking to someone who is not climate-savvy. Think of it as a tool kit to lure in the climate curious, prevent them from falling into the clutches of skeptics, and turn them into someone who may listen to more details in the future.

• As soon as you say "by the end of the century" or even "by 2050," you have lost 90% of your listeners. People don't trust these longer-term projections. They know the weather guy on their local station can't accurately predict the weather two weeks out, and the difference between specific weather at a particular location and general trends over a global model is not something you're going to be able to defend in five words or less. To make an impact, talk about what's happening now. Best of all, talk about things that are happening locally.
• Don't hedge when talking about damage like that caused by Hurricane Helene, extended periods of drought, or radical changes in the weather. When asked if this is connected to the Climate Crisis, the answer is "yes." Save the nuance for discussions with people who are already knowledgable on the topic. If you start with something such as "well, we can't say anything about this particular storm, but..." whatever comes after the "but" doesn't matter. The answer that your uncle will take away from this statement is just "No." Anything other than "yes" will only reinforce the BS that's being handed them by fossil fuel companies.
• The Climate Crisis is not something that requires people to "think about your grandchildren." It's happening right now. It's fires in California. It's flooding in North Carolina. It's people stacked up at the border. It's prices at the grocery store. Tell those stories. So many of the issues that show up higher on voters' lists of concerns are deeply impacted by climate. Tell them how.

If you want to communicate effectively about the Climate Crisis to someone open to discussing the issue, but not necessarily knowledgeable or even sold that this is something that affects their lives, do what the movies do: Bring the lens in as close as you can. The smaller and more personal story you can tell, the better.

If they're not talking about the Climate Crisis, listen for the things that do motivate them. Is it immigration? Inflation? Look for opportunities to insert how climate is driving those issues. And again, be as specific and tightly focused as you can manage.

However, just because you may not be leading with a chart showing parts per million of CO2, that doesn't mean you don't have to know your facts. Look for people like Meteor Blades whose articles are sources of both those big sweeping scientific studies and the stories of how people are engaging with climate on a local basis. To be a good advocate, you need to do your homework.

Not everyone is going to be convinced. There are a million messages a day telling people that this shouldn't be at the top of their list, and no end to media spreading climate doubt. But if you can start by thinking small, it can have a big impact.

And don’t pass on the gravy. Go on, it’s a holiday.