Overview

Create a new overarching communications entity or project to design and execute a well-financed public education campaign on climate change science and its implications. This multifaceted campaign would leverage the latest social science findings concerning attitude formation and change on climate change, and would use all available media in an effort to disseminate rigorously accurate information and to counter disinformation in real time.

Participants | Objectives | Related Initiatives

Objectives

  • Substantial resources. $50-100 million may be needed to fund this effort, mostly for advertising creative work and ad buys, and $2-3 million in annual costs reserved to cover the other ongoing functions. Required seed money to start the effort was estimated at $100,000 over the first year.
  • Broader base of messengers. The campaign would recruit a range of messengers, from leaders in key sectors of society to celebrities (novel voices from the professional sports world and other popular cultural icons with credibility and prominence in target communities).
  • Target leaders. Many feel that high-frequency messaging to leaders and other elites would have more impact than a broad campaign to the general public.
  • Vehicles. This multi-media campaign would include a range of print and broadcast media (example: a $1 million buy of space on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal – once per week for 20 weeks). Lower-cost buys in trade journals could also be influential. Other popular culture ideas include incorporation of climate change messages into songs, concerts, movies and other visual arts.
  • Repetition and simultaneity. Repeated exposure to the messages would be especially important, and simultaneous reception from multiple sources would favor success.
  • Visual drama. Dramatic visual portrayals of climate change are persuasive, even in animated form (for example, one recently exhibited animation has been touted for its persuasive influence on a prominent financier: it showed reinforcing feedbacks whereby melting arctic ice lowered the reflectivity of the earth’s surface to the sun, and thereby accelerated global warming).
  • Message discipline. Even though different messages would be
    crafted for different target audiences, it is important to discipline the overall effort with a coordinated set of core messages so that the impact is cumulative and reinforcing.
  • Pre-testing. Messages should be pre-tested, using not just standard qualitative focus groups, but also quantitatively rigorous methodologies. Persuasive impacts should be evaluated, along with resiliency to counter-arguments that opposing interests could launch in response.
  • Measurable outcomes. Baseline measurements of beliefs and attitudes should be performed before the start of the effort and measured against results afterward. The best social scientists should be recruited to conduct surveys and other evaluative processes.
  • Round-the-clock monitoring. The communications project would continuously scan the news media, climate change science findings, entertainment and advertising outlets and educational materials for misinformation or disinformation on climate change, and respond quickly to counter it.
  • Air and ground effort. The advertising effort should be simultaneously
    reinforced by grassroots-level activities.
  • No public face. The communications project entity itself would likely have a low public profile. Its key objective would be to promote climate change science in a compelling and accurate way. The issue of climate change science would be regarded as the client
    and key resources and services of the project would be available to all individuals and organizations working in that field.
  • Avoiding duplication. It will be vital to ensure that all the key players in all key domains are on board with this strategy and not institutionally threatened by it. If there are parallel initiatives already in process, it will be necessary to find out who is involved
    in these initiatives and to explore whether to collaborate in a joint, unified effort.

Related Initiatives

  • National Environmental Trust - The National Environmental Trust is a non-profit, non-partisan organization established in 1994 to inform citizens about environmental problems and how they affect our health and quality of life. NET’s public education campaigns use modern communication techniques and the latest scientific studies to translate complex environmental issues for citizens. Furthermore, NET works in states across the country to localize the impacts of national problems, as well as to highlight opportunities for Americans to engage in the policymaking process.
  • Global Cool - Global Cool is a foundation (Global Cool Foundation UK) and a production company (Global Cool Productions Ltd) that are working together to stir anyone who cares about the planet to do their bit to save the planet they care about. Global Cool is backed by the biggest names in popular entertainment and the biggest brains in environmental science, all of whom know that a billion people x a modest reduction of one tonne of CO2 per person = a billion less tonnes of carbon and a significant slowdown in global warming.
  • The Climate Project - The Climate Project is a movement to educate and challenge citizens, and governments into action against the growing crisis of global warming. As a non-profit group, we work to bring education, community information, research and citizen action programs to communities across the country. Our first initiative, sponsored by Participant Productions, is the training of 1,000 lecturers who will present the information delivered in An Inconvenient Truth to audiences across America.

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