The bushfire crisis is on everyone’s lips – but how can we make the most of these conversations to increase understanding and motivate action?
The following six resources can help:
- How to talk about climate change (School Strike for Climate)
- Bushfire Crisis Conversation and Action Guide (School Strike for Climate)
- This is not normal: Explaining Bushfires and Climate Change (Climate Council)
- Communications Primer: The bushfires and where to from here (Australia reMADE)
- Let’s speak about climate change (Psychology for a Safe Climate)
- Facing the Heat: stories of climate change conversations (Psychology for a Safe Climate)
How to talk about climate change
Many of us who care deeply about climate change tend to overestimate how many people disagree – the reality is that a lot of people feel overwhelmed by the problem and don’t know what to do about it. That’s why conversations are a great way to bring out this underlying support and help people turn their support into action! Every conversation is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself and the people you care about.
Includes:
- Start with curiosity and be open to change
- Build trust
- Be genuine
- Listen
- Look for shared values
- Stay cool
- Be frank
- Look after people
- Move to action
Read the full article on the School Strike 4 Climate blog.
Bushfire Crisis Conversation and Action Guide
These bushfires are testing us in enormously challenging ways – our health, homes, work and mental health. During times like this, conversations can make a big difference.
Includes:
- Start with Conversations
- One-One Conversation Tips
- Getting the Conversation Going
- Tips for Group Chats
- Sample Conversation Structure
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Action Ideas
- Further Resources
- Contact Us
Read the full guide by School Strike 4 Climate.
This is not normal: Explaining Bushfires and Climate Change
We know it’s sometimes hard to explain the link between bushfires and climate change with your family and friends. Here’s a quick guide, backed by science, for how you can have a conversation about these issues.
Includes:
- How are these fires ‘not normal’?
- How does climate change make bushfire conditions worse?
- Why do some people keep blaming the ‘fuel loads’ or the lack of hazard reduction burning?
- How are coal and gas linked to climate change?
- What must our leaders dp to address climate change?
Read the guide by the Climate Council.
Communications Primer: The bushfires and where to from here
This summer represents, for a critical mass of Australians and to some degree the wider world watching on, a great disruption and paradigm shift. We must consciously respond to this, and choose to speak about these fires within a frame of transformation.
Australia reMADE issued a ReMAKERS’ Memo primarily written for organisational leaders as a communications brief. They’ve also made it available to the wider reMAKER community and all interested people as a useful tool.
- Introduction: A Summer of Disruption
- Useful comparisons
- Where to from here?
- Name the good (community, public institutions, First Nations voices) and lead with values
- Speak about this crisis and its solutions in a transformation frame.
- Name what we want.
- Reach out to conservatives and people they trust.
- Conclusion
Download the ReMAKER Memo PDF by Australia reMADE.
Let’s speak about climate change
We have written this guide to help with understanding and managing feelings. We hope to help people stay alive to what is stirred up in us, rather than avoid it. Then these emotions can be used constructively to engage in what needs to be considered now and for the future.
Includes:
- The great taboo
- The problem
- Being in two minds
- Coming to terms with reality
- Feeling our way to reality
- Building our resilience
- Climate leadership
- Hope, creativity and courage
- Preparing to speak up
- Keeping the conversation alive
Download the booklet (or order a printed copy) from Psychology for a Safe Climate.
Facing the Heat: stories of climate change conversations
The most powerful climate change communication comes in the form of personal stories that express commitment and conviction. Conversations and negotiations between friends and workmates may be as important for social change as the fattest scientific report – George Marshall
Includes stories of climate conversations with these insights:
- The power of conversation
- Listening beyond words
- Being careful of assumptions
- Being real
- At times, disappointments are inevitable
- It takes courage
Download the booklet (or order a printed copy) from Psychology for a Safe Climate.
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