Messaging Solutions

'Messaging' is the field of public relations, communications and political persuasion that permeates our highly connected societies via conventional media and social media. The language used in tweets, public announcements and media articles can have a bearing on how well climate teachings, climate campaigns and climate protests are received.

See related topics of Activists Solutions and Political Solutions.

Framing the Discussion

With the explosion of material online and in social media, linguist and cognitive scientist George Lakoff points out that framing the conversation properly is always important see:

“Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate” – George Lakoff, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014

George Lakoff has retired as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is now Director of the Center for Neural Mind & Society at UC Berkeley.

Excuses

To help with discussions VOX writers found 12 common defeatist excuses for doing nothing, e.g. Isn’t it already too late to prevent catastrophe?

12 excuses for climate inaction and how to refute them - Vox - Eliza Barclay and Jag Bhalla - September 20, 2019

The Audience: ‘Opinions’ Differ DRAFT

According to the IPCC, the biggest impediment to predicting what will happen with global warming is how people will respond. Political will is largely absent but there are signs as of 2019 that this is changing. Moving the ‘Neutrals’ below is expected to be a key factor in any campaign.

Several types of responses seem common when raising concerns about the climate crisis:

Response	Philosophy	Working For or Against	Percent of Electorate
Right, I agree, what can I do?	concerned supporters	For
It’s a matter of national security, we need to have a plan.	patriots	For
Oh, no not again I’m so tired of hearing about climate change, I don’t want to think about it.	apathetics	Neutral
It’s fine the techies will find a solution and all will be well.	optimists	Neutral
I agree but it’s too late, there’s nothing we can do, let me go.	fatalists	Neutral
It’s even worse we’re all going to die.	extinctionists	Neutral
I agree but it’s all part of God’s plan, relax.	evangelicals	Neutral
It’s all bunk, it’s all natural variation.	anti-science deniers	Against
It’s a dark conspiracy by liberals trying to impose a socialist agenda.	right wing fanatics	Against
Doing anything when it’s probably not a problem anyway is going to destroy the economy and jobs – don’t even think about the GND, we can’t afford it.	Fossil fuel industry and their beneficiaries, wealthy conservatives	Against

An analysis of these types would allow us to construct targeting messaging. Areas of analysis might include by Rep, Dem, Ind, etc,; by Members of Congress; by demographics, etc. etc.; by State.