Ten recommendations in the IPPR’s recent document “Consumer Power: A Communications Guide for Mainstreaming Lower-Carbon Behaviour”:
1. “Don’t focus on climate change"
2. “Focus on saving money now”
3. “Prevent the rebound effect” (in which people spend money saved through low-carbon behaviours on other, high-carbon practices)
4. “Talk about carbon pollution, not CO2 emissions”
5. “Satirise high-carbon behaviours”
6. “Make lower-carbon options desirable”
7. “Remember that being in control matters” (e.g. with regard to controlling personal energy costs)
8. “Make it fun”
9. “Avoid guilt and the ‘environmental’ label”
10. “Use messengers that ‘keep it real’”
What with this being a communications guide, it’s inevitable that it has something to say about the kind of stories we tell about climate change. But numbers 5, 8 and 10 open a role for storytelling (and appropriate / engaging storytellers) in a straightforward way. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the document, however, is its insistence that the people who must be compelled to change their lifestyles in the interest of mitigating anthropogenic climate change are not currently operating in blissful ignorance. The discourse of public policy documents, journalism and activism in relation to climate change is beset by the notion that the world is currently suffering from a deficit in climate education, and that information-giving or awareness-raising strategies are the way to address behavioural change. “Consumer Power…” states that, in fact: “A lack of awareness of climate change is not the problem. Most people are aware, but awareness is not motivating enough. For many, climate change is just boring. […] Recognition of that should be the starting point of all communications efforts to encourage mainstream consumers to adopt lower-carbon behaviours.” It is pleasing to see this addressed directly and in plain terms. Too often, an audience for climate education or activism is sketched in the broadest terms, and its ignorance presumed. The vagueness of the sketch allows unpleasant assumptions about the class, educational level and political leanings of its constituents, the “great ungreened.” But the discourse of climate change is so widely promulgated that, as the IPPR’s report reflects, information fatigue is already kicking in. For this reason, the dissemination of facts is of only limited use. We are back, then, to stories; back to the move from “Thou shalt not…” to “once upon a time.”
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