Resource Type: Experiments

From September to November 2025, GoodPower’s Good Data Lab fielded a survey of households within 3 miles of battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in Arizona. This survey aimed to understand BESS neighbors’ support for and views about the projects as well as their community needs and concerns. They found that people do not know much about BESS. Despite this limited knowledge, there is moderate support for BESS among neighbors, although many were unaware of the projects near them. People were concerned about the fire risk of BESS, but providing them with basic information about BESS fire safety helps to alleviate some of this concern. Respondents also found messaging related to grid reliability, boosting renewables, and cost savings potential of BESS to be the most convincing, although all message frames shown to participants were convincing. While traditionally resistant audiences like conservatives have lower support for BESS and more negative views of living near it, they were convinced by pro-BESS messaging. The findings suggest there is an opportunity to get ahead of opposition messaging to educate and communicate about BESS, its risks, and its benefits.

Winter storms are rocking much of the country (along with disinformation about the reality of climate change that can prey on our psychological biases). Here are some evidence-based tips on winter weather.

Lessons from Two Years of Storytelling in Rural America shares what happens when rigorous research meets relationship-based storytelling rooted in rural communities. Produced by Resource Rural in collaboration with the Climate Advocacy Lab, this report distills insights from more than 200 people-first stories across 41 states and two large-scale message tests with over 7,500 rural participants. Together, these learnings offer practical guidance for anyone working to build trust, understanding, and durable support for public investment in rural America.

The landscape for clean energy buildout in the US has changed dramatically in the last year. Yet one constant is the ongoing barrage of mis- and dis-information1 from a variety of actors, from industry-backed anti-wind front groups to the President. The narratives and debates continue to evolve, however, and this report collects relevant research and insights from practice from the past 12 months, to provide guidance for anti-disinformation practitioners on two key emerging topics in the clean energy information space:
Affordability: electricity costs and clean energy
Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)

The WaterHub and the Climate Advocacy Lab collaborated on research to investigate audience perceptions of government investment in and responsibility for disaster resilience. Though support was widespread for a government role in disaster resilience, those with the strongest support for a government role were more liberal, and held more progressive values, such as environmentalism and compassion, and believe in government involvement and community-based solutions. A test of four natural defense message frames (Collectivist, Equity, Individual Benefit, Cost Savings) found that they all increased support generally, especially among conservatives. In terms of likelihood to take action, the Collectivist and Equity frames were only effective among non-conservatives, whereas the Individual Benefit and Cost Savings frames were only effective among conservatives.

From the latest on perennial topics such as engaging rural audiences, to new frontier insights on building support for climate superfunds or for battery storage, join the Climate Advocacy Lab and our research partners on the ground across the country for an hour packed with presentations on our latest research. Presentations include projects in collaboration with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (message test among Six Americas audience segments, especially among Asian & Latino populations), Evangelical Environmental Network (testing testimonial videos), Water Hub (disaster resilience opinions), Vermont Public Interest Research Group (Climate Superfund Act attitudes), Alliance for Climate Transition (maintaining support for battery energy storage systems), and Resource Rural (persuasive message framing and rural narrative analysis).

This tipsheet synthesizes information from the webinar Mastering Facilitation: Transforming Tensions and Conflict Management.