Getting Started

When narratives backfire

Many climate narratives focus on “saving the climate.” These narratives cast climate action as something we do for the planet’s sake rather than our own – a kind of collective charity toward an abstract system, rather than a response to  what people already hold dear: their homes, their communities, the nature around them, and the future their children will inherit. As Anat Shenker-Osorio puts it: “sell the brownie, not the recipe.” Narratives that focus only on policies, technologies, solutions, or even saving the climate, explain what needs to happen – but not what people stand to gain.

The emotional tone of some of these narratives has made it worse. When they focus mainly on alarm and urgency without a credible and compelling vision of what we are moving toward, people are left without a clear direction. Climate psychology research shows that people need both an honest account of what is at stake and a meaningful sense of what is possible.

When people cannot see a future worth moving toward, or a coherent account of how to get there, many conclude that it is too late or that nothing they do will make a difference. As a result, people become overwhelmed or apathetic, and they check out.