Category: Uncategorized

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

This is another chapter that should motivate you to buy Heidi’s book. I cannot do justice to her thoughtful, well written expressions of gratitude, celebration, and resolve.

Here I am at the end of my first 100 days. Tomorrow will be a time for a pause to collect my thoughts on what is next for me in this journey of climate action. But today is reserved for reflection on expressing gratitude to those taking action, celebrating their successes, and for adopting an attitude of positive encouragement for all that are joining and sustaining the fight for progress in the face of climate change.

Way back in Day 0, I mentioned that I know the author of the book I committed 100 days of mindshare to explore and highlight. I first met Heidi Roop when I joined the committee that selects the Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership (MCAP) Awards, which “celebrate exceptional achievements in leadership, education, research, policies, and practices” for groups and individuals working to implement climate adaptation strategies in Minnesota.

The MCAP is a group of focused, dedicated, deeply passionate professionals committed to helping Minnesota residents adapt equitably to the climate as it changes. They recognize the need to celebrate all those that do this work – hence the MCAP Awards. As a member of the committee, it is inspiring to read nominations of individuals and groups who are working to make a difference everyday to make sure climate change will impact all of us a little less.

We know that celebrating success and showcasing the actions and leadership of our peers can help to accelerate adaptation across Minnesota, and beyond. 

Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership

The award nominees and winners are not social media savvy activists or best-selling authors or Ted-talking experts. These are real people who look around, see what has to be done, and get to work. People like Meredith Cornett and groups like the South Washington Watershed District, both recent MCAP Award winners (which would be two of my favorites, if I was allowed favorites as a committee member).

Who wakes up and decides to take action in the face of an existential threat? There are many that are making it their profession, perhaps even their vocation. Throughout these 100 days, I have repeatedly argued that we all can take action and work to convince others to take action in turn. And we also have to make our voices heard – scream if you must – to the institutions that have the real power to drive the massive response we need to limit warming – governments, corporations, billionaires.

But everyday more people are making the decisions to take focused, decisive action. And many of them are early career professionals who know they need to make a difference before it is too late. But like any generation that rises to a crisis, it will take a toll on the committed individuals, and they (if not you) will require support from all of us.

Even if you are not deciding to take climate action on as a vocation, the little actions you take require energy, industry, and resolve. And even those taking the little daily actions “may be experiencing loss, anxiety, or feeling totally overwhelmed”. Your decision to take action may expose you to negativity, cynicism, and ultimately cause you doubt, confusion, and maybe even despair. Everyone will have to find the motivation within themselves, but sustainable personal power comes with knowing that that there are kindred spirits that will join with you, no matter what you decide to do.

Decide to take a little step of gratitude. Send a note of thanks to someone making a difference. Forget Greta Thunberg or Michael Mann or Katharine Hayhoe of other visible climate leaders. Find the real people and amplify their actions and empower them by recognizing their work and thanking them for doing it. Do it by yourself of organize a collective effort of gratitude. Maybe consider starting an award program to acknowledge your local climate leadership.

Who is doing work you admire? Call them. Who is the person that is setting up the food scraps collection site in your county? Write them a letter telling them how important their work is. Know a local farmer with sustainable agricultural practices? Get the word out and visit them at the farmer’s market.

And yes, you have to make sure your voice is heard at all levels of the government – starting, of course, with your home town. And yes, you have to vote. And yes, you may have to do some, any, or all of the other 99 actions we have explored – the myriad little actions that need to be taken by individuals and amplified by groups and within communities.

But make sure you recognize and celebrate your own actions, which hopefully come from a place of strength. And consider stretching just a little to make your voice heard. As Heidi puts it, “something you care about is at risk from climate change”.

I know I did the book list in the last post, but I wanted to finish my 100 days with what I consider to be the most important one of all. Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times by Paul Rogat Loeb is a masterful exposition on how to overcome the real barriers to action – our personal feelings of powerlessness and cynicism. “The reward of our action, we learn, is nothing less than a sense of connection and purpose not found in a purely personal life”. If you want to read one book to find your voice and your personal path to action, read this one.

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

I am the son of a librarian and I love books. I love to read and read as much as I can. I am finding myself reading more on my e-book reader these days, enjoying the instant gratification of reading a book that I’ve discovered almost immediately in a convenient format.

I think Mom would be disappointed a bit as she loved the bookstore browse, choose, buy, repeat cycle that resulted in the stacks of unread books in the home library. She also liked the visceral sensory experience of opening and holding a book, which you certainly do not get from an e-reader. And that new (and old) book smell!

All that said, I do have a love/hate relationship with climate change books. Many of them are tough to read. I challenge you to get through Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet by Mark Lynas, The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells, or The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell.

Check the status of your mental health, pick ’em up and read as long as you can. If you do take a shot at them be sure to drop a comment or review below. And if you need some brain bleach afterwards, I recommend Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Create Power by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone and All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson

There are a number of hopeful books that you can use to convince yourself that we have it in us to find and execute the solutions to keep the planet from killing us, including Naomi Klein’s controversial and well-written This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate. I will let you figure out the controversy. I would put How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates in the same bucket.

The breakthrough we need, Bill, is for the billionaires to step up…

If you want a combination read, start with Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming edited by Paul Hawken, followed up with Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe. Add Heidi Roop’s book The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions for Everyone and you will be all set for a good read with a wide coverage of the issues!

And I loved the snarky irreverence of pissed-off grizzled veteran Michael Mann’s The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet. As a contrast, Greta Thunberg’s No One is Too small to Make a Difference is written with the strong voice of a young activist. I also encourage you to read Greta’s The Climate Book: The Facts and Solutions which is an excellent primer with her take on solutions.

And we all should read Our House is on Fire: Scenes of a Family and a Planet in Crisis which is written by the Thunberg family, telling the story of the family crisis that led Greta to decide “to go on strike from school, igniting a worldwide rebellion”.

And for more, here is a really good, curated list of climate change books from Earth.org. Another good list from Penguin Random House, a list from goodreads, and another list from Wikipedia.

To escape the sobering non-fiction, there is a whole genre of climate fiction, or “cli-fi” that you can dive into. I am an avowed science fiction pleasure reader and have not explored the cli-fi booklist extensively, with the exception of one of my favorite books Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. Highly recommended! Here is a curated list of climate fiction books that you may find compelling.

And we all should read The Ministry For the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. “Chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year, this extraordinary novel from visionary science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson will change the way you think about the climate crisis”.

So read about the diversity of expressions and interpretations of climate change, in any form that suits your style, preferences, and values. And as much as I love real books, alas, like chocolate and coffee, there is an environmental and climate cost for the production of paper to make the books I so love. As Heidi points out,”in 2019, over 40 percent of Penguin Random House’s carbon dioxide output came from the paper used in its books”. It is an industry that is hard to decarbonize.

If it concerns you, and it should, check for the Forest Stewardship Council designation on the copyright page, showing that the publisher is concerned about sustainable sourcing for their paper.

One solutions is to read digitally, but there are likely trade-offs that you will have to consider mostly regarding fair compensation for authors. And many have opinions on their use, including The Atlantic Monthly’s belief that Ebooks Are an Abomination and Psychology Today’s take on The Case for Paper: Books vs e-Readers.

Whatever you decide, I hope your choices are fulfilling and help enrich your understanding of the climate crisis. As John Green put it, “great books help you understand, and they help you feel understood.”

I would love to hear from you about your recommendations.

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader

Margaret Fuller

And enjoy that new (and old) book smell, explained by a chemist..

Next Up: Climate Action 100: Celebrate Success and Express Gratitude

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

Summarizing, let alone addressing, the complexities of social media’s impact on the conduct of climate action by individuals is way beyond the scope of The Frog Blog. We all must decide our relationship to social media and act accordingly.

Knowing that much of the only discourse on climate change is taking place on social media platforms sometimes makes me question my general disinterest in the usual media sources. I only have so much time to devote to my interests and I choose not to feed the internet trolls. I probably should do more, but there are only so many hours in the day and I find social media to be a catastrophic time sink that I cannot afford.

The tradeoff to sitting out the social media disinformation wars is that, without any kind of controls, regulations, or voices in opposition, the dominant narrative is created by a mass of individuals seeking the dopamine release from playing a call and response game dictated by the two big biases that make the platforms function.

Our powerful cognitive biases are all of the mental shortcuts we use in the face of a bewildering mountain of information which result in us believing and sharing information that seems, at first glance, to fit our mental model (or simply sounds true) without confirmation. And social bias reinforces the “truth” shared through sources that we know or have chosen to trust.

Without guardrails and regulations, and with the concentration of the dominant media companies in the hands of a few individuals and corporations, the real danger is the built in, profit maximizing algorithmic bias that sophisticated disinformation practitioners use to amplify the message they require to move their agenda forward.

ExxonMobil is the best at this. Research involving analyzing climate disinformation tweets on Twitter (or X or whatever) revealed that ExxonMobil funded over 60 Twitter/X accounts that actively pushed lies about climate change. Their cynical, deliberate campaign had two main messages: climate change is not threatening and Biden’s energy plans hurt economic growth.

Don’t believe it. Don’t share it. And if see something, say something.

If you choose to fight back, you have my support. Clear your mind and remember how to craft a sticky truth sandwich with firmly stated facts enclosing a debunked myth. Remember, the key is to diminish the myth and amplify the facts.

Lead with the fact and make it simple, plausible, and sticky. Warn them that what you are about to say is a myth. Debunk the myth with the fewest words possible. Finally, reinforce the fact that provides an “alternative causal explanation” for the myth.

And as you stroll through Twitter/X, TikTok, and Instagram, geared up ready to make sticky truth sandwiches, keep Heidi’s ready list of reliable resources handy:

@nasaclimatechange
@unclimatechange
@science_moms
@futureearth
@allwecansave
@katharinehayhoe
@ayanaeliza
@icy-pete
@noaaclimate
@sunrisemvmt
@ipcc_ch
@natures

And of course, @heidiroop

And, @rescuethatfrog

Next Up: Climate Action 99: Embrace Your Inner Bookworm

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

It doesn’t have to be like this. All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Pink Floyd – Keep Talking

We need to keep talking about climate change. I mean, you and me. Other voices like climate scientists and celebrities are often discounted when communicating about climate change. And it is the rare scientist that can distill the essence of a complex scientific concept into a message that is understandable and memorable let alone resonates enough to compel action.

Many of these visible voices, like Michael Mann, have been targets of prolonged attacks as part of a concerted effort to discredit them, and thus deflect the message. Often the message is muddled by the messenger, who may have ulterior motives or may have baggage that distracts enough to discount the message.

We need to reframe climate communication and make it more personal. Big, loud, punctuated arguments from the bully pulpit are not only difficult to mount, but will are likely to be tuned out by your audience, with the opportunity to persuade lost.

No, it is the quiet but steady and firm voices that will sway one to action. You should stop thinking of changing someone’s mind through cleverly crafted arguments delivered once, but rather engaging as many people as you can as often as you can, maybe based on your understanding of the scary facts of climate change, but always with a focus on action based on hope.

But research shows that while a majority of us recognize climate change as an urgent issue, we are not talking about it often enough:

But there is a way. The New York Times called Canadian climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe “one of the nation’s most effective communicators on climate change.” Her Ted Talk is profound and I urge you to take a moment to watch it. “The number one thing we can do to change the narrative on climate change”, she says “is the exact thing we are not doing – talk about it”.

The book A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Katharine Hayhoe is well worth your time to read.

But it is hard to have heavy conversations about anything, let alone existential threats. We may avoid bringing it up because we may “underestimate pro-climate views of those around us and overestimate the amount of polarization between our views and others”. Maybe you don’t like confrontation. Maybe there never seems to be an opening. And it may seem like a daunting task if you feel like you have to be in command of all the facts before you open your mouth.

You don’t. Reflect on your values and what brought you to commit to say something. From there, make it personal and talk about how climate change is affecting you (or us) here and now in relevant ways.

As Heidi suggests, start with what you care about and look for the shared connection of us all being it in together. Her line “something you care about is at risk from climate change” is a tremendous way to initially engage. And be honest with what you hope for – for yourself, your family, your community, or other “aspect of life your hold dear that is threatened by climate change”.

The goal of the conversation is not to tell people about climate change, it’s to expand the number of people in the conversation. So my challenge to you is to talk about climate change with the people around you. Talk with them about why it matters and work together to find solutions that you can do on your own or with your community. 

Katharine Hayhoe

Next Up: Climate Action Day 98: Get Social on Social Media

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

In this series, we have been discussing the kinds of climate leadership you can seek out to support your personal climate action journey, for instance the scientific thought leaders in Climate Action 95. But there is more to addressing climate change than the science, technology and policy development focused on mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Many community groups and local governments are recognizing the urgency of preparing and taking action to support their local residents. These groups would welcome your energy and passion to support their cause. You may be able to volunteer or even join the leadership team, if you have interests and skills that may be put to use.

… many local nonprofits – whether or not explicitly focused on the climate or environment – are engaging in work that can help strengthen a community to better withstand the negative impacts of a changing climate

Heidi Roop

At a minimum these groups represent an existing framework for you to explore the scope of your advocacy and find a way for you to take action that fits your passion and values. And don’t discount the power of joining with kindred spirits. “A sense of belonging can keep us motivated and inspired to act even in the face of a large and looming challenge”.

Simply searching for groups in your area, reaching out and meeting those who share your focus can be enriching. And ultimately fulfilling.

For Minnesota, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership maintains a list of organizations focused on environmental issues and the climate.

A few that I appreciate include:

MN350 Unites Minnesotans as part of a global movement to end the pollution damaging our climate, speed the transition to clean energy, and create a just and healthy future for all.

Vote Climate A a non-partisan organization dedicated to encouraging public awareness of climate and justice issues.

Minnesota Renewable Energy Society Promotes and advocates for the adoption of renewable energy in Minnesota through education and the demonstration of practical applications.

Citizens Climate Lobby To create the political will for climate solutions by enabling individual breakthroughs in the exercise of personal and political power.

Next Up: Climate Action 97: Talk About Climate Issues With Family and Friends

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

The National Adaptation Forum is coming to St. Paul, Minnesota in May. When I attended the event the last time it was in St. Paul, in 2017, it was a profound experience for me. Since accepting the facts of climate change in 2006 and deciding to take action, I had been mostly focused on mitigation strategies, mostly on technology for renewable energy. Starting in 2008, I devoted energy, intellect, and effort to the insane growth in the global solar photovoltaic market, which was driven mostly by China’s desire to become the dominant global supplier of solar modules.

After 2014, business winds shifted, and I was no longer directly involved in the daily push to grow the solar PV market. Still passionate, I looked for a new focus for my interests in climate technology and sense of urgency for climate action. As part of that, I came to grips that mitigation was not enough and that we needed action and innovation to adapt to the changes already underway.

These thoughts condensed when, while searching adaptation early in 2017, I discovered the National Adaptation Forum was to be held in my hometown later that year. I took vacation that week and paid the registration out of my own pocket. For a variety of personal reasons, I was primed for the impact that my attendance at and engagement with the 2017 NAF had on me. Being on “vacation”, and not at all an expert, I listed my occupation on my nametag as “Concerned Citizen”.

Fast forwarded to a personal punchline, the 2017 National Adaptation Forum was a profound experience that motivated me to devote the time, focus, and industry you see reflected in my posts on The Frog Blog. I would love to tell y’all about it sometime.

The National Adaptation Forum was created by “a diverse group of professional adaptation practitioners from the private and public sector concerned about the need to anticipate and prepare for the impacts of climate change”. It brings together professionals from federal, state and tribal governments, nonprofit organizations, businesses, scientists, and frontline community groups. It is an eclectic and compelling group of committed, motivated experts – activists, scientists, managers, leaders – trying to save what they can in the face of disastrous climate change.

At the National Adaptation Forum you can easily access real leaders as they join together to compare notes, recount successes, learn from failures, and craft new strategies as they do the real work of addressing climate change. Compared to these accessible experts, the visible voices like Greta Thunberg, Al Gore, or Michael Mann are largely intellectual constructs accessible only through social media or through their books.

You don’t have to go to meetings, or actually stray too far from your home. As Heidi points out ” you can find these leaders at universities and community colleges, extension offices, state climate offices, nongovernmental organizations, and tribal natural resources offices, to name a few”.

So start looking for the experts and leaders and engage with them. In the previous post, we talked about searching the Fifth National Climate Assessment for your region and clicking on the list of authors to find a comprehensive list of experts in our area.

As an example, the list of contributors for the Midwest includes James Noel, NOAA National Weather Service, Ohio River Forecast Center; Heidi A. Roop, University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership; Sara A. Smith, Oneida Nation and College of Menominee Nation; and Dennis P. Todey, USDA Agricultural Research Service.

The US Climate Resilience Toolkit is another useful resource. You can access state climate summaries, training courses, reports, and a tool to find experts including state climatologists, and locations and contact information for the NOAA Regional Climate Centers and the USDA Climate Hubs.

You can search for their contact information, reach out, get to know them, learn from them, and let them know you appreciate the vital work they do.

Next Up: Climate Action in 2024 – Day 96: Look to Community Leaders

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC provides regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.

The IPCC has been publishing a a data-driven and supported overview of whether the Earth is warming and whether humans are causing it since 1990. The language they have used in quantifying the impact of humans on observed climate change has evolved since then.

• AR1 in 1990: The report did not quantify the human contribution to global warming
• AR2 in 1995: The balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the climate
• AR3 in 2001: Human-emitted GHGs are likely (67-90% chance) responsible
  for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951
• AR4 in 2007: Human-emitted GHGs are very likely (at least 90% chance) responsible
  for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951
• AR5 in 2013 Human-emitted GHGs are extremely likely (at least 95% chance) responsible for more than half of Earth’s temperature increase since 1951
• AR6 in 2022 : It’s real. It’s us. Experts agree. It’s bad. There’s hope.

That last one is from John Cook, who summarized climate change in those ten words.

They actually said this: “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land. Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred. The scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole – and the present state of many aspects of the climate system – are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years. Human-induced climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe.”

IPCC reports are data-dense and lengthy. They boil each Full Report down to a Summary for Policymakers and then to a set of Headline Statements, which is a good place to start. You can dig into the full report and find information specific to your region or you can use the IPCC WGI Interactive Atlas to explore the climate future in your region. It is a fascinating tool that allows you to see the impact of the various response scenarios – from a focused, global response to business as usual – and the projected impact regionally for the rest of the century.

To get a more US focused, science-based exploration of climate change, you can explore the Fifth National Climate Assessment, the result of a collaboration of US Government agencies called the US Global Change Research Program. Mandated by legislation in 1990, the assessment synthesizes the data from all agencies and provides an analysis of the “effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity”.

Read the Key Messages from the Fifth National Climate Assessment

The authors of the the 5th Assessment, published in 2023, “come from a variety of disciplines and perspectives, including universities, the private sector, indigenous communities, and state and local governments”. Many of the contributors are passionate volunteers who are driven to provide a comprehensive and incisive view of the impact of on-going climate change in the United States.

There are two incredibly useful resources in the National Climate Assessment that you can use in your climate change journey.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment Regions section allows you to focus on and explore your own backyard in great detail. For instance, in Chapter 24 Midwest you not only find the data to support the changes underway in the Midwest, but a regional roadmap for a response to climate change. The report details Midwest-specific solutions for climate-smart agriculture, ecosystem services, human health, green infrastructure, and water quality and quantity.

Explore detailed climate solutions for your region.

The other useful tool in the Fifth NCA is the list of authors, which provides contacts and context for follow up and deeper dives. The opening line of Chapter 24 states that “the Midwest is diverse in landscapes, people, and culture” and the list of authors embodies that, including local experts from Government, Universities, and indigenous communities. And, of course, our very own Heidi Roop from the Midwest Climate Adaptation Partnership!

And in a beautiful expression of the power of human artistry to capture the essence of climate change the US Global Change Research Program issued “a call for art with the understanding that, together, art and science move people to greater understanding and action”. Explore the magnificent artwork in the Art x Climate Gallery which “offers a powerful depiction of climate change in the United States—its causes and impacts, as well as the strength of our collective response”.

Next Up: Climate Action Day 95: Look to Local Climate Science Leaders

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

Misinformation. Disinformation. Inundation. We are awash in information with little time to stop and ponder its veracity. But according to the UN, rampant disinformation is delaying climate action. Especially from The Toxic Ten, fringe publishers that are fueling the majority of digital climate change denial. Breitbart. Media Research Center. The Daily Wire. The Washington Times. And many more sites amplify content from these climate change denialists with an agenda to deflect and deny.

Climate change disinformation appears in many forms, from denying the existence of climate change to promoting ‘solutions’ that in fact contribute to global warming. Undermining confidence in the scientific basis of climate change. Misrepresenting data. Cherry-Picking. Check out all the strategies at Skeptical Science.

And it is working. It is exhausting to contemplate fighting back let alone actually making headway against the information onslaught well-funded by fossil fuel companies and other interests. What can we do?

The Natural Resources Defense Council has a few suggestions. First recognize that we are not battling against one thing, but rather climate change misinformation is “shape-shifting” and has become much more subtle over time. Climate change denial has morphed into climate change solutions denial. Climate change disinformation is routinely cloaked as greenwashed promises. The methods are insidious and deliberately targeted by those with a lot of money to lose.

Learn to spot the tactics. Cranky Uncle is a great source for spotting bad arguments and offers the acronym FLICC – False expertise, Logical fallacies, Impossible expectations, Conspiracy theories, Cherry-picked data. Cranky Uncle is also an app that you can use to easily learn to spot the disinformation and practice your responses.

We should also practice safe consumption of media. Turn your skepticism dial up to 10. Vet the source. Assume bad intent. Hybridize your sources to get a broader perspective. And check the links before accepting the author’s interpretation. Goes for me too!

Take a minute to reflect before you hit the repost button. Only you can prevent misinformation, through the simple act of stopping the spread. You may decide to fight back and take on the trolls and denialists. If you do, serve up a truth sandwich. Always lead with the correct information. The acknowledge the disinformation and along with a fact-check. And then immediately, and with emphasis, layer on another statement of the correct information. And if see something, say something.

What to become an expert? Check out the Calling Bull: Data Reasoning in a Digital World Curriculum at the University of Washington, taught by  Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin West because to them “our world is saturated with bull”, and w all should “learn to detect and defuse it”

You can find the approach in their book Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World and through reading it, develop “a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data”. While not specifically focused on climate change disinformation, the advanced techniques will serve you as you do battle with the internet and all the trolls.

Gear up. It is going to be a long, exhausting battle that we will likely never win.

President Biden calls out climate change disinformation as bullshit.

Calling bull is a performative utterance, a speech act in which one publicly repudiates something objectionable. The scope of targets is broader than bull alone. You can call bull on bull, but you can also call bull on lies, treachery, trickery, or injustice.

CallingBull.org

Next Up: Climate Action Day 94: Track the State of the Science

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

We are not talking to our children enough about the biggest threat to their future. Clearly a difficult conversation. But because children will be impacted by the most serious effects of climate change AND will have to take action as they grow older, it is in everyone’s interest to engage thoughtfully but with urgency in talking about climate change with our kids.

Climate change is a complex topic and a parent’s perception may lead to a conclusion that their children are not aware of nor concerned about climate change. Yet today’s youth, if they are in the least perceptive and social media savvy, cannot escape coverage of climate change-related environmental issues and events and the insanely mixed messages about climate change they receive through the media.

Just like every important social issues, they will form an opinion and perception with or without you. It is important to address climate change for many reasons, but mainly for their mental health. Messaging can be scary and depressing, and if they are to find hope and take action as they become adults, they must be given an honest and balanced view of the causes and potential impacts of climate change, and what they (and their parents and other adults) can and are going to do to address it.

And the dialogue goes both ways. Often it is the kids coming back from school that are educating the parents and consequently raising the concern of the whole family and motivating action. In fact, it turns out that children are positively influencing their family members that either are indifferent to or actively opposed to accepting the facts of climate change. This is called the pass-through effect.

In a study published in 2019, researchers found that middle school-aged children were able to build climate change concern among their parents based on an educational intervention. It turns out that teaching children about climate change raises concerns about the issue with parents. Controlling for the demographics, fathers and conservative parents showed the biggest shift in the view point. And the research showed that daughters had the biggest effect on their parent’s attitudes!

“As a woman myself and someone who frequently engages with conservative Christian communities,” she says, “I love that it’s the daughters who were found to be most effective at changing their hard-nosed dads’ minds.”

Katharine Hayhoe – Climate Scientist at Texas Tech University

NPR provided a framework for talking about the reality of climate change with the focus being on helping them understand climate change as an approach to coping with their anxiety, providing a safe space to explore their thoughts and feelings, and helping them sort out the actions they can take.

You know climate change is here. These 6 tips can help you talk to kids about it:

Break the silence – simply beginning the dialogue, even at a basic level, is enough to open the door for a more in-depth discussion and exploration.

Give your kids the basic facts – you can decide at what level. If they come home with lessons from school, it is a perfect opportunity to amplify what they are already learning.

Get outdoors – and amplify the message that what they see in nature is an interconnected web and preserving it is worth it.

Focus on feelings – our children are faced with complexity and uncertainty that can manifest as anxiety. Listening to what they are feeling abut climate change is a big step forward in equipping them to be able to manage those feelings. Emotion-focused coping is about feelings.

Take action – if you are not taking action yourself, encouraging and supporting their action is an important step forward. Of course, modeling the behavior needed to address climate change and taking action together is even more powerful. Problem-focused coping is about action. 

Find hope – it is important to frame the problem so that we do not become more anxious or become apathetic in a problem that appears too large for meaningful action. They also have to be able to be kids while preparing to address the challenges of life. Meaning-focused coping is about hope.

“When I think about the options available to me as a mother in 2019 trying to cope with a global crisis while also paying my mortgage and packing lunches, I don’t see “hope” as a landing place or a single destination. I see myself facing the facts, taking action, and offering comfort when I feel stronger, and taking breaks, reaching out for support, and looking to others to carry on when I get tired.”

Anya Kamenetz on NPR

Check out the printable comic that NPR published. Might be a good place to start the dialogue (if your daughter hasn’t brought it up to you already!).

Next Up: Climate Action Day 93: Be a Savvy Consumer of Climate Information

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com

Education and Climate Information

The Frog will explore The Climate Action Handbook: A Visual Guide to 100 Climate Solutions by Heidi Roop in the first 100 days of 2024

Kids should be learning the fundamentals of the biggest existential threat they face in school. But they aren’t. A 2019 poll conducted showed that 2/3 of adults, when asked felt that “schools should teach about climate change and its impacts on our environment, economy and society”. The responses align with our generally held expectations of political demographics. But it is generally held that a majority of teachers and parents want schoolkids to be taught about climate change and its impacts.

Despite the support for teaching climate change in the classroom, when asked, 55% of teachers said they were not covering the subject. Despite the controversial and often contentious state of our school curricula, when the teachers were asked, they were unclear on who was actually responsible for teaching climate change, with 65% saying “not me”.

Teachers are, on average, busy, often under-resourced, overworked, and underpaid. They are also under the authority of school districts which are becoming increasingly polarized on “controversial” subjects like climate change and the targets for parents who are increasingly vocal when their kids are taught a subject they disagree with.

In the poll, almost a third of the teachers admit being worried about parent complaints.

Groups are forming to combat this and equip parents, kids, teachers and school boards to ensure and amplify climate change literacy. For instance, Schools for Climate Action is “a non-partisan, grassroots, youth-adult campaign with a mission to empower schools to speak up for climate action”. 

Their passion and focus is empowering school boards, and other groups to pass “resolutions declaring climate change a generational justice and equity issue, call on Congress to act, and celebrate and expand school district responses to the climate crisis”. Successful mainly in California, they supply templates and guidance for you to approach your local school districts for effective action.

So check in on your local school district. Maybe you have kids there and know what they are learning. Have discussions with your kids (only 45% of us do) and empower others to explore climate change with theirs.

And help teachers and school boards by: ensuring that schools are funded, and that teaching climate change is required. Given the broad nature of the subject, there should be professional development opportunities for teachers from multiple disciplines to adopt, adapt, and develop a curriculum emphasizing climate change.

And start with the US Government publication Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science “that provides a framework and essential principles for formal and informal education about climate change”. NOAA offers resources including a toolkit for teaching climate change. You can encourage teachers you know to leverage these free, authoritative sources to adapt for their classrooms.

Next Up: Climate Action Day 92: Talk Climate Change With Your Kids

Howard Creel

#rescuethatfrog
Email: rescuethatfrog@gmail.com