Avoid Framing Traps in Climate Action Conversations!

Podcast below. This works both digitally and in person: Remember to focus your time on talking to people who are actually on the fence – not people who will never agree with you or people who already agree with you completely! Better to have 10 one hour conversations with 10 people who might agree with you than 1 ten hour conversation with someone who will never agree to action on climate change.

Indeed a lot of people in the middle are open to conversations: somewhere between 56% and 72% of Albertans are now stronger advocates for climate action than our Federal Government.

Remember to use metaphors that your ‘audience’ will understand and start from common ground but then move things towards action and solutions. Assess where they are coming from so you can then SHIFT their view towards climate action (instead of just meeting them halfway and leaving it at that). And repeat, and repeat, overtime.

The folks doing public relations for oil and gas interests don’t divide the ‘radical’ and the moderate in seeking what they want. They don’t only use moral or economic arguments.

They use both to pull the centre of the debate toward their viewpoint by reframing where the centre sits. It’s not ‘either/or,’ it’s ‘and’ with the aim of creating momentum.

Our environmental / social movements can adopt this approach:

Don’t appease the centre, nor ignore it, BRING THE CENTRE TOWARDS CLIMATE ACTION via framing.

More talking points on these issues here and here’s a detailed breakdown of public polling and the faulty economics of oil and gas.

Learn more on shifting the centre of a discussion, not appeasing it, in the full podcast (also available to watch below).