Giving Compass' Take:

• Charles Eisenstein discusses the problem of current climate change messaging and how advocates can better frame climate risks. 

• How can philanthropy help to shift the conversation and messaging around climate change? 

• Learn more about climate change messaging. 

Here is what I want everyone in the climate change movement to hear: People are not going to be frightened into caring. Scientific predictions about what will happen 10, 20, or 50 years in the future are not going to make them care, not enough. What we need is the level of energy and commitment that we saw at Standing Rock. We need the breadth of activism we saw in Flint, Michigan, where everyone from yoga teachers to biker gangs joined in relentless protest against lead contamination. That requires making it personal. And that requires facing the reality of loss. Facing the reality of loss is called grief. There is no other way.

Could we still drill new oil and gas wells, build new pipelines, open more quarries, and dig new coal mines if we came from a place of love for the Earth and water around us? We could not, and anthropogenic global warming would be a moot question. True, the Standing Rock movement failed to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, yet it revealed a tremendous latent power in that so many people were willing to go to such great lengths in defense of the sacred. What will be possible when that power is fully mobilized?

By framing environmental issues in terms of CO2, we distance people from grief and horror. Averting our eyes from the bulldozers toward graphs of CO2 concentrations and average global temperatures, it seems perfectly reasonable to say, “Well, we’ll offset that gas field by planting a forest. And besides, it’s transitional until we get enough wind turbines operating.”

Read the full article about conveying climate change messaging by Charles Eisenstein at YES! Magazine.