Part V When I became a climate activist, I believed that there must be some phrase or a set of magic words that would get others to see the climate threat and act. Searching for these words was a fool’s errand. I knew words held power. But I was [...]
Part IV I’d like to tell you a story… I called my daughter and said, “Your son is home from the ER now, and he is going to be OK.” Imagine that you are driving in Atlanta rush hour traffic. In the middle lane. Your eight-year-old grandson is in [...]
(originally published July 2020) Part III I am giving testimony to an administrative law judge on the impact of climate change on Minnesota crops, and why we shouldn’t allow a dirty tar sands pipeline to be built in our state. There are three hundred people in the room. To [...]
Part II One day a friend of mine was helping me refine my climate talks approach. He asked me why I was interested in working in the climate movement. It’s easy I said, “I want to help others.” Then he did something very valuable for me. He asked me [...]
Part I I am frustrated. Walking out of my talk on the climate crisis, I know that I have failed. I’d prepared, rehearsed and had lots of facts about climate. The audience was polite, but at the end, their applause was tepid. While they likely care, they are unlikely [...]
My next personal act of climate responsibility is to limit my driving to no more than 6,000 miles per year. For those without cars this may still seem like a lot. I'd rather not have to use a car. Maybe this will be hard? We’ll see. In December of [...]
I received an email from the New Yorker on a post by Bill McKibben. The subject line was “Big Oil’s Bad Day.” McKibben is the founder of 350.org of which I am an active member. He probably didn’t write the email subject line, but whoever did, fell into a [...]
I spend a lot of time around climate activists helping them with climate communications. Like most of us, their perceptions of where others are in their climate journey are based on where they are themselves. This is a common human characteristic. But if we want to move people to [...]
It’s possible. If your campaign isn’t boring, then don’t read this. But boring can be deadly. We live in an attention-based economy. 1000 messages a day compete for our attention and we respond to buzzes, rings, and the crisis of the minute, to say nothing of commercials of fat [...]
Chance are if you’re posting about climate on Facebook, you have positive intentions (deniers excepted) and want to avert the worst effects for our families, communities, and the planet. But sometimes the way we post has unintended consequences. Here are the three top mistakes we all make, and what [...]
