Climate stories to communicate risk and encourage action
Storytelling is the oldest form of communication and is a means of sharing ideas, thoughts, and values. It relies on creating more human and relatable communication by tapping into emotional and personal aspects, providing a common ground between the narrator and the listener. Establishing this common ground helps to keep the listener focused and interested, and improving understanding and retention of topics communicated through the story.
Climate stories are a climate service using storytelling techniques to share knowledge and encourage action. Scientists and engineers often struggle to communicate effectively with policymakers, societal actors and citizens. In climate science, the complexity of data, elaborations and models, as well as future uncertainties associated to climate changes represents a significant challenge for communication of risk and creates a gap between climate knowledge supply and climate service demand. Climate stories bridge this gap by combining personal and emotional narratives with data visualization such as maps, infographics and tables.
Figure 1: Bridging the gap between climate knowledge supply and climate service demand (graphic by CAS, 2022)
The narrative is the story itself, including characters, locations, situations and actions, providing the context for sharing of the climate data and knowledge. There are many classic narrative structures, for example The Hero’s Journey, Three Act, Seven Point, Harmon’s Story circle, Save the Cat, and many others. The Hero’s Journey is a narrative structure describing transformation, and the idea of transformation is often an appropriate choice for climate stories encouraging the audience to take action, embrace knowledge or make changes. The fairytale Little Red Riding Hood is an example of a Hero’s Journey narrative. As a more modern reference – The Hunger Games, The Lion King and The Matrix are also examples of books and films relying on this narrative form
The climate story narrative can also be formed in positive or negative typologies (moods). For example, risk prevention may focus on the probability of extreme hazards, uncertainties in predictions or the effectiveness of measures such as green roofs. On the contrary, value creation narratives emphasize possibilities and opportunities, for example measures that can be implemented and the social/economic benefits of these. The first example would easily convey a negative, pessimistic mood, whereas the second would be associated with a more positive outlook.
The implementation of a climate story can be described as a pyramid of basic elements, where the highest order element is the story, the middle tier are the resources needed to give the story form and structure, and the lowest tier is the technical platform needed to implement and share the story to an audience. Each of the tiers influences the others – for example the choice of platform (presentations, posters, short films/reels, podcasts, story maps, performance art etc.) will influence the type of resources needed to produce the story. The story itself will be developed considering the capabilities and limitations of the platform, the resources available, but also in deference to the target audience, objectives and mood of the story to be conveyed.
Climate stories in REACHOUT cities
In REACHOUT, most of the climate stories were created using a commercial production tool (ESRI ArcGIS StoryMaps), however one city chose to create a climate story as a short video. Co-creation is a developmental approach that ensures engagement and feedback from stakeholders, creating a sense of ownership and community. Involvement can be in the form Basic elements needed to develop a climate story of events or workshops with relevant parties to gather input supporting story development. The experience from REACHOUT is that co-creation with the City Hubs has resulted in noticeable and positive engagement, however it was noted that the target audience for the climate story should have been actively engaged in the co-creation process. Climate stories have their place and purpose. As a tool for communicating messages, knowledge, or information these stories help transform or influence the listener. They contribute to understanding and evoking emotional responses. However, storytelling is not an efficient approach for communicating detailed information, large data sets, or complex instructions. This climate service can be used as an introduction to a topic, creating interest and enthusiasm that encourages diving deeper into a subject.
Three key takeaways from REACHOUT on Climate stories as a climate service:
• What worked well: Connection to local identity of the city and its citizens.
• What was challenging: Working within the complicated processes and restrictions of a public municipality.
• What needs improvement: Co-creation of the stories should better involve the target audiences (ordinary citizens in this case).
Summary
Reflection
1. Why are climate stories and how are they used?
2. What is the Hero’s journey narrative and how can it be applied to the context of climate change?
3. What are the components of a climate story?
