Resource Library

While Rudy Giuliani’s “truth isn’t truth” comment might go down as one of the worst legal defense lines, it may include a small (probably unintentional) nugget of truth in terms of how people process political information.
Communicating on climate change and clean energy can be a juggling act of different facts, figures, messages, and messengers. But what information is likely to stick, and why? This week’s alert reviews the social science literature on “political cognition” – i.e., how people think about politics – and examines how organizations can apply those insights when engaging supporters and external audiences.

In just under a month, the Rise for Climate, Jobs & Justice march, the Global Climate Action Summit, and the Solidarity-to-Solutions Week (Sol2Sol) are coming to the Bay Area (!!!). In this week’s alert, we review recommendations from other major climate moments, mobilizations, and marches to encourage Lab members to proactively implement best practices for public engagement around these events. We’re also including a special spin on our events section to highlight a (not at all exhaustive) list of events that members of the Lab community are involved in or may find of particular interest in and around the Global Climate Action Summit.

Last week, the New York Times magazine published a feature about the failure to address the climate crisis when the science of the issue first came to light in the late 1970s. While the author argues that collective inaction is to blame, many critiques (see here, here and here) have argued otherwise. And while there were many dynamics discussed that aren’t in the Lab’s wheelhouse, we did want to weigh in on two of the article’s points related to engaging the public on climate change.