Wildfires, health and money: How to talk about climate change with skeptics

Monday marked a major day in climate change news. The United Nations published a new report that found global warming will likely rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the next two decades, a level that will bring more instances of extreme weather.

At this point, Californians are all too familiar with droughts and fires of increasing intensity: though the blaze slowed slightly this week, the Dixie Fire is the second-largest in California history and has burned more than 480,000 acres. The UN report, released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, found that these kinds of conditions will worsen even if governments pull together to reduce emissions.

There’s a lot to process in the report, which runs many thousands of pages. But critically, it suggests that humans still have a chance to put the brakes on and stop warming from going beyond that 1.5 degree increase. Here’s how to understand the report - and how to talk about it with skeptics - according to an expert on communicating climate science.

UN climate report basics

So what is this report, really?

It’s the sixth assessment report by the IPCC, a group of 195 member nations (including the U.S.) that was established in 1988 to study climate change. More than 200 scientists contributed to this most recent report, which is based on more than 14,000 studies.

The group was “unequivocal” in its finding that humans are causing global warming, and that the scale of climate change is unprecedented. It also found with high confidence that the plans countries submitted for reducing emissions as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement - which the U.S. rejoined earlier this year - are “insufficient” for keeping global warming below a 2 degrees Celsius increase compared to levels seen prior to the industrial revolution.

David Colgan is an environmental writer and the director of communications at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Colgan taught a class for undergraduates on communicating the issues of environmental science with the public, and he told The Sacramento Bee that talking about the issues detailed in the UN report can be a double-edged sword. If it sounds too doom-and-gloom, people get turned off. Too optimistic, and people aren’t able to recognize the urgency of the problem.

“What you need is kind of a balance, they need to see a problem and they need to see a potential way out of it,” Colgan said.

Focusing on climate change solutions

Reframing the discussion toward solutions is a useful way to engage when it comes to climate change, and Colgan said focusing on collective action in particular is important. While Sacramentans as individuals can make changes in their daily lives to reduce their carbon footprints, it’s policy changes at the macro level that are really going to make the difference.

Ralph Propper, board president of the Environmental Council of Sacramento, mentioned one community-level solution that people can focus on: Sacramento’s “slow and active streets” initiative, instituted during the pandemic, was a great way to reduce emissions in the community. But that pilot program ended in July.

Talk about cross-cutting impacts

That initiative leads to Colgan’s next tip: talk about the ways in which climate change affects daily life, or parts of life that we don’t necessarily associate with climate issues. With droughts, wildfires and power outages directly altering life in California, it’s getting easier to point to real-life examples of the kind of extreme weather detailed in the UN report.

But Colgan also pointed to issues like health care as a way to communicate with others about climate change. With people moving away from regions that have become inhospitable due to global warming, they may bring illnesses with them. With the coronavirus pandemic still at large, that’s an avenue for discussion that may be particularly salient.

“If you’re going to talk to your neighbors, talk to them about something that will meet them on their terms,” Colgan said. It could be health, economics or ease of city living, but it’s important to find what people care about, he said.

Avoid global warming burnout

Given the increasing regularity with which major climate events are hitting Californians, it can be tough to avoid burning out. Colgan said it’s important to take care of your emotions when it comes to climate change, otherwise it can be hard to stay engaged. Sometimes that means taking a step back. One way to find some optimism is to have faith in other people, Colgan said.

“The idea that you have to feel really dismal as you fight this problem isn’t the case,” Colgan said. “You can absolutely fight the problem with everything you’ve got, but also know that some of this, you know, you can’t do it alone.”