Creating Constructive Dialogues Around Climate Change

Abstract:

Presenting scientific facts to the general public often creates strong emotional responses in listeners. This is especially the case around issues like climate change, in which strong resistance can arise in individuals and groups. This is an inherent psychological characteristic when conveying disturbing information to people. In this presentation, I will describe personal experiences of presenting climate change science in various public forums. In particular, I will describe two experiences: one in which I was able to effectively work with the emotional reactions to the scientific information and another in which the resistance was difficult to resolve within the group. Based on these experiences and others, I describe an innovative four-stage process for working with situations in which there is strong resistance to the science of climate change (or other challenging scientific issues). I conclude by discussing how this approach can be employed and potential pitfalls with such an approach.