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Climate Book Review: Re-Imaging Change

2023-03-24T19:48:40+00:00March 19th, 2023|Book Review, Climate Communications, Climate Strategy, Environmental Messaging|

I almost didn’t read Re-Imaging Change by Patrick Reinsborough and Doyle Canning. I’ll tell you why, though I’m going to bury the lead here, so stick with me. I first opened the book and sampled a page. Here’s an example: “As the story-based strategy approach has evolved, it has [...]

Book Review: The Activist’s Media Handbook – Lessons from Fifty Years as a Progressive Agitator

2023-02-22T18:37:57+00:00February 22nd, 2023|Book Review, Climate Communications, Climate politics, Stories|

David Fenton’s new book is a must read for any climate justice activist or climate communications professional under the age of 40. For anyone over that age, it is also a delightfully raucous walk through the history of liberal movements when activism was fun. For all, it illustrates the [...]

So You Want To Ban Gas Stoves? Oops.

2023-03-01T17:06:06+00:00February 16th, 2023|Climate Communications, Climate politics, Climate Strategy, Environmental Messaging, Framing, Language|

The Strategy and Language of the Gas Stove Culture Wars So you want to “ban” gas stoves? A firestorm erupted in January over the pollution of gas stoves. As climate activists, we reacted without a solid strategy and without testing the language we are using. Consequently, we may lose [...]

Almost All Climate Messages Can Be Made Better – Here’s How!

2023-01-18T19:58:33+00:00January 13th, 2023|Climate Communications, Environmental Messaging|

Almost every climate message can be made better. While we are admonished to not make perfect the enemy of good, climate messages are often lacking and ineffective despite our best intentions. We can and must do better if we want to save ourselves and preserve a habitable earth for [...]

What Climate Leaders Might Fail to Understand About the Election

2022-12-02T20:18:38+00:00November 27th, 2022|Climate Communications, Climate Strategy, Identity|

... And What We Can Do About It. The election is over. We didn’t get shellacked as bad as we thought. We took a few state houses. Many political and climate leaders are calling it a victory. So we feel pretty good about our efforts. Even though we know [...]

Is the Marlboro Man Really the Identity We Need To Help With Climate Collapse?

2022-11-28T20:04:24+00:00November 27th, 2022|Climate Communications, Climate Strategy, Identity|

I saw an ad for a Chevy truck last night. It had all the requisite touch points: the deep base male voice-over, the truck driving up an impossible mountain, a female passenger adoring the ride, and by association, her driver. What caught my attention was the line “… equipped [...]

The One Question Every Climate Activist Needs To Ask…

2023-01-21T16:57:31+00:00August 21st, 2022|Climate Communications, Climate Strategy, Framing|

In the late 1950s, Phillip Morris & Co. hired Leo Burnett Advertising to change the image of their feminine filtered cigarettes to make them more masculine. Filtered cigarettes were a technical ruse. They were supposed to be healthier and were mostly smoked by women. Burnett launched one of history’s [...]

What the Climate Movement Is Missing With the New IRA Climate Bill

2022-08-18T15:57:07+00:00August 12th, 2022|Climate Communications, Climate Strategy, Environmental Messaging|

… And We Better Figure It Out Fast As liberals, progressives and climate activists we are busy analyzing and dissecting the new (poorly named) “Inflation Reduction Act” climate bill. Does it contain too many giveaways to fossil fuel companies? Is it enough? How much will it lower our carbon [...]

How to Frame the Right’s Bad Climate Ideas and Delay

2022-08-02T15:30:29+00:00July 24th, 2022|Climate Communications, Climate politics, Climate Strategy, Environmental Messaging, Framing, Language|

“We can no longer tolerate Republican’s bankrupt delay on climate.” Do you get an image or feeling on the quality of their delay from this sentence? If we want our ideas to spread, we must use words that create images and feelings and connect them to stories and narratives [...]

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