* This blog post follows the story spine, as detailed by Rotman (2017), introduced in CALS 502.
Once upon a time…I embarked on a Design Thinking Challenge with three amazing students in the Master of Arts in Climate Action Leadership program at Royal Roads University. Together we formed a team, aptly named the Troublemakers, tasked with designing and developing a conceptual prototype of an educational program that would empower people to become more actively engaged in creating and implementing climate action strategies.
From the beginning, we knew we wanted to do something to support people by providing a space for them to learn from each other and from experts, and then take that learning back into their areas of work and life. Our scope was national, all-encompassing, and included a theory of change that worked outside the framework of government or formal institutions, from the bottom up.
As we moved through the program…we explored the details of climate science, immersed ourselves in systems thinking and human-centred design, learned about communication strategies and best practices, considered our positionality and inherent biases, listened and learned from Indigenous scholars about Indigenous worldview and the concept of Ethical Space, and then brought all of our deep learning back to the design challenge to iterate and develop our prototype (Bridge, 2021).
At times, we were awash with so much new information and so many different perspectives, all of us brimming with ideas to address the challenge, it felt a bit like playing whac-a-mole as we tried to solve and incorporate new things popping up at every turn. We all had somewhat different speeds, preferences, ideas, and approaches, so navigating our individual differences and returning to common ground as a group was critical to moving through the design process. We wanted to ensure our work stayed grounded in the values and principles we agreed upon, while providing the space to think big, explore ideas, and get creative with our prototype. This process could be visualized a bit like an upward spiral, building on each layer as we moved up toward our final conceptual prototype. It was sometimes a challenge to ride that tension between narrowing in and landing on something to build upon, and then going wide again to explore the possibility space, innovate and incorporate new ideas.
But one day…our multitude of ideas and values crystalized around the concept of designing and developing a community of practice that would focus on nature-based climate solutions, while centering on decolonization and an Indigenous worldview. What that meant to us, was that our prototype would be focused on relationships between people, their relationship with nature, embracing the practice of reciprocity with nature (Kimmerer, 2014). Helping people reconnect with the land would be a central pillar of our program, which would also support capacity-building for Indigenous-led projects, training products, etc.
Because of this, we were able to focus on some of the more tangible elements of our prototype, specifically, the development of a website that would house future resources, like training and guidance materials, provide virtual connection space, link to resources and programs that already exist. We wanted to have a broad, national, virtual space that would connect people from other places, while project work would be local, community-led and mostly small scale. We understood that we didn’t have to change the world with projects, we could change the world by changing minds, by connecting people to community, by helping people get their hands in the dirt, and find solutions to climate change within the wisdom of nature herself.
But we could only take it so far. We had to slow down and realize that in order to walk our talk, we would have to take this idea out into the world for more testing and gathering of potential members to help with refining the framework. We would need to spend much more time listening and iterating based on what other founding members of this community might want to see.
Finally…we were able to articulate both the tangible and the more nebulous aspects of our prototype in a way that satisfied all the Troublemakers involved in its design and development. On June 8th, 2020, the team presented our idea and the story of our process to our cohort, answered questions and gathered feedback. We noticed how other team’s prototypes would fit well as either resources or as partner projects within the container of our community of practice.
In the end, we were satisfied with all the deep work we did and created a concept that can be further iterated upon, revised, improved and implemented in the future.
References
Rotman, S. (2017). “Once upon a time…” Eliciting energy and behaviour change stories using a fairy tale story spine. Energy Research & Social Science, 31, 303-310. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.033
Bridge, G. (2021). Evolving towards ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge in Western and Indigenous societies. CALS500 Lecture, Royal Roads, August 12, 2021.
With the effects of climate change bearing down on communities across Canada, how can local governments leverage climate risk assessment processes to support effective action on the unique set of climate change impacts they face now and in the future?
In the northern Ontario region, the Climate Risk Institute (CRI) worked together with Sault Ste. Marie (SSM) city staff to complete a climate change risk assessment process as part of the Northern Climate Change Network initiative (CRI, 2020). The Climate Change Risk Assessment report highlights the results from two workshops to identify and assess risks to the City of SSM associated with climate change in the region. While this risk assessment process identifies key climate impacts and risks for the City, it misses some important elements and best practices outlined in CCME (2021) Guidance on Good Practices in Climate Change Risk Assessment that would better support climate adaptation action.
The Sault Ste. Marie risk assessment relied on a workshop-based process led by climate change specialists (Climate Risk Institute) with participation from city staff and representatives from three external agencies (15 participants total). Participation from local First Nations was absent, both from an urban resident perspective and from neighbouring First Nation reserves. As a result of its reliance on a smaller number of experts, this assessment only captures the opinions of a small subset of expertise and experiences and misses some critical perspectives from a wide range of residents, workers, and visitors/tourists, to name a few.
Analyses of sensitivity and resiliency of each service area were not completed, so the community’s overall vulnerability to impacts from projected climate change events is unclear. CCME (2021) highlights the importance of including consideration of vulnerabilities, exposure and climate change hazards, and the consideration of likelihood and consequence.
ICLEI (2019) highlights that local governments are well-positioned to tailor their work according to their particular local conditions and the unique climate impacts they will face. Sault Ste. Marie’s risk assessment lacked the identification of specific, localized impacts and risks to particularly vulnerable areas, and the results end up sounding fairly generic without clear “so what” statements.
Overall, the Climate Risk Assessment for Sault Ste. Marie provides a practical, high-level consideration of climate hazards and risks in the region that can inform further adaptation planning work in the future. The process could have been strengthened with a more inclusive and participatory process with partners and stakeholders and by conducting a robust vulnerability assessment to help prioritize key risks in the region (CCME, 2020; ICLEI, 2019). A more detailed consideration of specific impacts in the context of local social, environmental, and economic conditions would support the next iteration of climate change risk management and adaptation planning (ICLEI, 2019).
References
Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME). (2021). Guidance on good practices in climate change risk assessment.
Climate Risk Institute (CRI). (2020). The city of Sault Ste. Marie climate change risk assessment 2020. www.climateriskinstitute.ca
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This aphorism comes to mind as our team works through the design thinking challenge for CALS 501. While we have brought thoughtful consideration of multiple perspectives into our design, we have also faced the risk of numerous pitfalls. Bringing our unconscious cultural biases and preferences into our design, unchecked, is one pitfall we are actively working to avoid. We have committed to continual self-reflection to ensure that as we make design decisions, we are practicing the values and principles we espouse within our conceptual project prototype. To maintain our integrity, we must walk the talk toward our goals for this project.
The coursework in the MACAL program has pushed us to look deeply at our ideas, to connect with the cultural and historical origins of those ideas, to hone what we are trying to say (and to whom), and ensure our design prototype provides value to our audience. As we iterate and innovate our design, we are conscious that we are a team comprised of four western, white women in positions of privilege attempting to create a prototype that embodies diversity and embraces different cultural worldviews. As such, we must repeatedly examine our positionality, cultural orientation, perspectives, values and cultural constructs (Holmes, 2020; Tuhiwai Smith, 2012 ). We are embracing an adaptive approach to our work while deepening our connection to different ways of knowing, being and doing in the world, mainly centring on an Indigenous worldview in this era of reconciliation here in Canada. As such, we have been very intentional about bringing diverse perspectives into our interviews to inform our conceptual design and shine a light on our blind spots. In this way, we hope to create a program that will exemplify community-led climate action centred on diversity, inclusion, accessibility and equity. Integrating an Indigenous worldview into our design has been a critical element since our earliest discussions.
Values common to an Indigenous worldview include reciprocity, connection, and respect in relation to other humans and with the natural/more-than-human world (Kimmerer, 2014). The western view of nature as being separate from people, as something to be tamed, rearranged, and altered is an example of a Euro-centric cultural conception of space (Tuhiwai Smith, 2012). Upon reflection of these differences in worldview about human relationships with nature, we had some concerns about using the term”nature-based solutions” to describe the climate solution in our prototype (e.g., basic natural infrastructure, restoring/rebuilding wetlands, planting trees, removing invasive species and replanting indigenous landscapes, etc.). We recognize that using the term “nature-based solutions” could come across as “using” nature as a self-serving solution, a means to an end, rather than as an act of relational reciprocity.
The term “nature-based solutions” also wears the stain of greenwashing from some perspectives, so we want to be cautious about our language. As a result, we have decided to use a different term, “rebuilding nature,” which will be clearly defined within the framework and values on which this project is centred. Indigenous worldviews have informed our design prototype as a whole, including the language we use to describe the notion of “rebuilding nature” as a climate adaptation strategy for community-led climate action.
A common thread woven throughout the fabric of the MACAL program relates to the importance of connection. Connection with the historical context and systems of colonialism, relationship to other people and community, connection with nature, and connection to knowledge and resources to support effective action. Meaningful connection takes effort. By committing to a practice of reflection and reflexive thinking, we hope to walk the walk on the road that leads us to our intended outcomes, rather than just talking the talk, and paving the road to you-know-where.
References
Darwin Holmes, A. G. (2020). Researcher positionality – a consideration of its influence and place in qualitative research – a new researcher guide. Shanlax International Journal of Education, 8(4), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.34293/education.v8i4.3232
One of the things I have enjoyed so deeply about my sit-spot visits, whether from my front window or sitting out under the plum tree in the elements with my more-than-human relatives, is watching the hummingbirds. One particular species, Anna’s Hummingbird, lives here year-round, without migrating south as others from their family, Trochilidae, do (like Rufous Hummingbird). I have watched in appreciation of this tiny bird’s tenacity, spunk, and fortitude to stick it out here over the winter, in the cold, rainy and snowy months when food supplies are low. They have inspired me to think about hope.
In the face of increasingly dire future climate projections, climate-related disasters unfolding in the present, and a deepening of our understanding and reckoning with the socio-economic structures (e.g., colonialism) from our history that the present is built upon, what hope can we find and hang onto as the going gets tougher? The anatomy of “hope” I mean here, is not one of unchecked optimism, so sure that everything will work out just fine no matter what; rather it is gathering the courage to have a really good look at the evidence and see what is happening, even the really terrifying parts, and with eyes wide open, also look for the good…the opportunities beyond the wreckage. It is shifting the narrative toward stories that acknowledge the problem of climate change, while at the same time, focusing on the work toward solutions and building strong, resilient, self-sustaining communities based on a foundation of kindness (Hull, 2019; Huggins, Skuliski & Gifford, 2020).
Radical hope is based squarely within the plausible futures we face given the GHG emissions we have historically emitted and continue to emit into the atmosphere – it is not a shortcut to some unattainable utopia and does not require it (Hull, 2019). This is hopepunk: the idea that we can live and behave the way we know we should, even when the future is uncertain and we know the severity of the climate issues confronting us. It is taking the punk DIY ethic to transformative change through social disruption, both as an individual and collective act of resistance against the status quo around fear, shame, and guilt-based messages prevalent in communication and conversation related to climate change. It is hope as a motivating force to inspire people to act positively, rather than just in opposition to something else. (Hull, 2019; Diem, 2020; Huggins, Skuliski & Gifford, 2020).
“Be the change you wish to see in the world”.
– quote often attributed to Ghandi
We need to build upon the frameworks of the past and present, taking what is working well and replicating that, while leaving behind what is no longer serving us. Good things should be copied (Huggins, Skuliski & Gifford, 2020). When we can actually see the things that are working well, then we don’t have to start at square one every single time. This is taking a design-thinking approach to climate action, iterating, prototyping, and testing, then sharing with other communities to test and adapt solutions in their own places and spaces. Narratives can be framed around what has already been done, what is currently being done, and what we can do next as individuals, communities, and as a society.
Framing the climate crisis through a lens of hope speaks to our human need for connection and belonging (Diem, 2020). Hope is a self-perpetuating cycle, just as much as despair is. The more hope-inspired things we do together, the more stories we tell that are hopeful, the more we will see the outcome of those actions, which can, in turn, make us more hopeful. When we do something collectively, in community, it helps us tap into our capacity to act with empathy, kindness, and caring (Hull, 2019). I’ve often thought that if there were a silver bullet solution to the world’s problems, it would include a mass culture shift with a curriculum for humans to learn how to become better humans, to enhance our human capacity for empathy, and level up our ability to deal with relational conflict intelligently.
So where could that begin? What societies could we model after? Where might we look for good things that already exist that we could replicate? Indigenous ways of knowing, wisdom, and worldview would be a good start. No need to start at square one. kQwa’st’not Charlene George emphasizes that in the context of embracing change and building a hopeful future, we need to look inward first (Huggins, Skuliski & Gifford, 2020).
“The biggest part of being a warrior is looking at your own self“.
kQwa’st’not Charlene George
We need to learn to see ourselves as human beings as one part of a much larger, more complex whole (Huggins, Skuliski & Gifford, 2020). We need to see ourselves in relation to the rest of nature, not above it, separate and in control. We need to harness our collective ingenuity and use it for good, to help us move forward with more grace and harmony as a species, in service to the land, water, and more than human relatives upon whom we all rely for our survival. We should take the teachings of the hummingbird in winter, with its tenacity, spunk, and fortitude, to do what we know we must in order to push forward and find the opportunities to thrive into the future, against all odds.
“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
#hopepunk
References
Diem, R. (2020). Hopepunk and the new science of stress. TOR. https://www.tor.com/2020/03/02/hopepunk-and-the-new-science-of-stress/
Huggins, A., Skuliski, M. & Gifford, R. (2020, May 20). Hope Punk. (Chapter 1). In Scales of change. Future ecologies. https://www.futureecologies.net/dragons#ch1
While I did not directly reference these in my post, the following readings influenced my own thinking and the way I addressed some of the topics in my post.
The rain fell not as drops, but in sheets. It splashed and flowed down the concrete pathway toward my house, which sits on a slight downward slope from the road. I sat at the front window, looking down at my sit spot saturated and flooded with water. The force and volume of rainfall eroded the soil in the garden beds surrounding it, cutting little muddy streams through the slope. Heavy rain is common here. Atmospheric river events, colloquially termed “Pineapple Expresses”, are also common here. The meteorologists said one was going to be different, though. And it was.
That night, with my bedroom window open and the sound of rain relentlessly thundering down outside, I couldn’t sleep. Having a background in the science of geomorphic processes and hazards, (e.g. debris flows, etc.), I knew this event posed risks beyond rivers topping their banks. Bleary-eyed, I took to Twitter to see what was happening elsewhere during this event, and there it was: the first reports were coming in about hundreds of people trapped on a highway between a pair of debris flows on Highway 7 near Agassiz, BC. Highways and roads were getting washed out. Bridges/overpasses were failing. The force of intense rainfall on a huge scale, playing out in steep mountain terrain, steep valleys, massive river systems, all with a ribbon of asphalt cutting through them. And that was the first of many failures.
Fear is a normal, human response. It is an appropriate emotion in times like these. Earth’s physical processes are vigorous and powerful, and they carry uncertainty with them in exactly how they play out, where and to what extent, even when we know something is coming. There is nothing inherently bad or terrible about atmospheric rivers, flooding, debris flows, or any other physical hazards. It is when they interact with, adversely affect, and expose the vulnerability of our human-made infrastructure on the land and waters upon which we depend; when they impact something or somewhere that we have an attachment to, or when these processes and hazards pose a risk to our lives, or livelihoods, or our ability to function in the world.
A swollen creek flows under a washed out bridge at the Carolin Mine interchange with Coquihalla Highway 5 after devastating rain storms caused flooding and landslides, near Hope, British Columbia, Canada November 17, 2021. Picture taken November 17, 2021. B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure/Handout via REUTERS. https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/pineapple-express-pummels-northwest-british-columbia/1047699
So there is a place for fear in communication, particularly during a crisis, but it must be used judiciously. It could be used effectively for encouraging safe behaviour and helping others by staying out of harm’s way. Stay off the roads. Evacuate. Don’t make things worse by putting yourself in more danger, which could in turn put more people at risk. In many cases, people’s emotional fear would already be heightened, so amping up doomsday scenario messaging would likely exacerbate existing distress, potentially causing overwhelm, which could lead to numbing out and emotionally shutting down.
Post-crisis, I would argue there is also a place for using fear to communicate the scale of the climate risk we face into the future, using recent crises to ignite people to action, using real events and imagery to connect the dots on what climate change impacts look like in their own backyards. Fear-based communication can leverage recent, lived-experience and tap into emotional states that energize people to act. But once the crisis is perceived as “over”, then some people may want to (try to) just “get back to normal life”, not hear about more scary things coming down the pipe in the future.
The role of fear in communication about climate change is narrow and limited in both temporal, spatial, and depth of scale; meaning, it can likely only be used effectively over short periods of time, at the right time and place, and is more limited to the issues playing out on the landscape in that time and space.
Fear, in my opinion, is not the fuel for the marathon required for climate action – it’s the fuel for a sprint, a short-term, short-acting accelerant, and its use needs to be considered as such.
Addendum:
For this Tiny Ecology entry, I drew upon my own reflections of the Wallace-Wells (2017) and Solnit (2016) articles and my own experience of the Nov. 14-15 event on the west coast of BC. Even though I didn’t get to the hope discussed in Solnit (2016), it informed my thinking about the limits of fear framing in communication.
References
Soinit, R. (2016). Hope is an embrace of the unknown: Rebecca Solnit on living in dark times. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/15/rebecca-solnit-hope-in-the-dark-new-essay-embrace-unknown
Version 1: Text-based “Primer” report for Project Managers and Engineers
Version 2: Voiceover presentation video for the same audience
Addendum for Assignment 4
Audience Analysis:
Project managers, asset advisors, and engineers who design and deliver on the construction of built assets and infrastructure projects in national parks and protected areas in British Columbia. This audience holds specialized technical knowledge and expertise related to conventional approaches to project design and delivery, but may not know how to practically integrate climate considerations into their project planning and design. Demographically, this group works in a male-dominated field that most often have technical and/or professional designations in their respective fields (e.g. Professional Engineer, Project Management Professional, etc.). They use mathematical and scientific knowledge to engineer solutions to problems, have a high threshold for detail, and have worked primarily in the realm of “grey” (human-made, built of concrete and steel) infrastructure.
Communication Strategy
This climate communication product attempts to bridge the gap in understanding by framing Nature-based Solutions around the values (budget, efficiency, effectiveness) of the target audience, using language/terminology that makes sense to them, and offering practical information and knowledge to bring into practice. I see this approach as a first part of the bridging process, so really wanted to keep the cultural/values orientation of this audience in mind and not go too far into territory way outside their comfort zone and lose them altogether.
Addressing Different Accessibility Needs or Preferences
Version 1 is a text-based report with images for my new audience of engineers and project managers. Alt text descriptors have been incorporated.
Version 2 is a video presentation with more emphasis on visuals and audio than text.
Once upon a time, there was a peaceful corner in the front yard of my house where I would sit and commune with the birds. This spot was in view from my front window, so on very cold and rainy days, I would watch from behind the glass. There was a mature ornamental plum tree and numerous shrubs that were common in gardens in the area at the time, some native species, some not. Beyond the sit spot, the front yard comprised mainly of lawn that sprawled from the house toward the road. It was a bit of an ecological dead zone, even when it was lush and green.
Every day, the birds would visit my peaceful corner, chatting and chirping as they flitted from bush to tree to ground, pecking at seeds from dead flowers, and lichen from the tree trunk. They would move around the perimeter of the yard where the shrubs and trees were. I rarely, if ever saw them on the lawn. Nothing there for them. They would come swooping down during rainstorms, bathing, and frolicking in the showers while plucking any available food from the plants.
One day, we decided to reimagine the land in our yard, this tiny ecology that we had some ability to influence with our own action. At that time, I already knew the changes to the climate coming…we were already seeing change, but the worst was yet to come. We had just experienced the extreme heat dome of 2021, and that experience woke a lot of people up to the here-and-now-ness of climate change. The imagery of climate change for me had always been more active, violent, and stormy; more about waves crashing on shorelines and hurricanes and even extreme cold from polar vortex winter conditions. In contrast to those imaginings, the oppressive, ominously still, humid, quiet heat was breathtakingly horrible and many people, plants, and animals died that year due to heat-related illness.
The climate projections for our region indicated that by 2050, we would be experiencing warmer winter temperatures, fewer days below freezing, more extreme heat in summers, longer droughts in summer months, more precipitation in fall, winter, and spring, and more intense extreme weather events. At the time, it was hard to imagine what that would look like in our lives, but it didn’t take long for the lived experiences of impacts to keep rolling in.
One particularly stormy autumn, we had an atmospheric river event that dropped so much rain for days on end, that it overwhelmed the drainage systems around our house and flooded the basement. Not long after that, we had an extreme wind storm, which when coupled with the oversaturated soils and drought/heat-stress from the previous summer, resulted in the toppling of two large old Douglas-fir trees in our neighbour’s yard; trees that were there for nearly a century, wind-firm and adapted to the old climate, but unable to keep rooted in these changing conditions.
Because of that, we explored ideas of how to build resilience for ourselves and the ecosystem we were part of; adapting and responding to our climate future with every decision taken on behalf of the land. We selected drought-tolerant, native plants to replace the lawn, creating pollinator-friendly refugia for birds and other critters during the hot dry summers. We planted with food security in mind, so over time, we nurtured a food forest to life in our front yard. At one time there were multiple varieties of edible, native berries and greens that were shared among our human and non-human neighbors and relations.
To accommodate the intense rain events, we incorporated rain gardens that could absorb loads of water, and then used bioswales to direct excess flow away from the foundation of our house. We had a rainwater capture system and a cistern to collect rainwater for summer irrigation. We planted drought-tolerant trees that grew tall and shaded our house from the heat of the summer months, which also provided habitat for birds and other wildlife. We collaborated with our local community, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, sharing ideas and stories of trial and error, building up our knowledge and practice, adapting and iterating as we went along. There were many errors and missteps, but over time, with an attitude of continuous learning, and acting in reciprocity with the land and all the living and non-living beings, we learned how to actively manage for the impacts of climate change, which came faster and with more intensity than scientists expected.
And in the end, as I look out upon that peaceful spot now, it is a different world than it was 25 years ago. The plants that grow here now are different species than the native ones from the past. The birds are different too. The usual residents are still coming around to feed and bathe in the rain, but the colourful migrant birds have shifted their routes and timing, so it’s hard to know who is coming and when anymore. Some years are better than others, and I have seen new visitors from the far south that are now able to reach our latitudes due to the long summers and mild winters. The landscape of our yard is a wilder space than it once was, and it is ever-changing due to the dramatic shifts in our climate. Some things thrive, others have long since died, and the changes remain dynamic and unpredictable. Adaptation to climate change, for us, has been a continuous, iterative journey filled with gains and losses, grief and joy, and we are so grateful we are still here to tell the story.
* This story was created following the story spine, as detailed by Rotman (2017):
Rotman, S. (2017). “Once upon a time…” Eliciting energy and behaviour change stories using a fairy tale story spine. Energy Research & Social Science,31, 303-310. doi: 10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.033
Upon reflection of my learning from CALS500: Climate Science, Impacts, and Services, I can say that one idea that intrigued me most was less about the science itself and more about gaining an understanding and appreciation for the differences between Western and Indigenous worldviews related to science; specifically, where science is situated within our respective governing societal structures, and what that tells us about efforts toward climate adaptation and mitigation measures. CALS500 also provided an opportunity for me to deepen my understanding of the science that supports climate action generally, but also emphasized how important it is to focus on adaptation efforts, knowing that while mitigation is still required, it is an insufficient response to the problem on its own (Moser et al., 2017).
Exploring solutions for a low-carbon, resilient future needs to address mitigating climate change through reducing emissions, and addressing climate hazards of the present and future to support the built and natural systems on which we depend (Moser et al, 2017). For example, we can build a carbon-neutral, energy-efficient LEED-certified building, but if it isn’t built for future climate, it will not be sustainable (Moser et al., 2017; Shuttleworth & MacAskill, 2021). It will not function properly when there are extreme heat events. It will not shed/drain water adequately during prolonged, intense precipitation events. It may be constructed in a location that will increase its risk of flooding; e.g. built on a floodplain, in the coastal zone subject to sea-level rise and storm surge, etc. (Moser et al., 2017; Moudrak & Feltmate, 2019). We need to construct buildings and infrastructure to be responsive and resilient to future climate extremes, yet building codes still utilize historical data to assess the risk of climate-related events; e.g., flood return rates, heat, etc. (Infrastructure Canada, 2020).
In our western approach to decision-making in the face of change, we tend to wait for the observational evidence to roll in before we act. We can’t afford to do that anymore, as the climate has already started changing in response to emissions from the distant past, and more change and impacts are locked in from those past emissions. We need to find ways to empower action based on the science of future climate projections. The planet is giving us all kinds of information and scientists have translated it, yet decision-makers in government seem unable to look at the potential climate future and make the meaningful, transformative change that is required to support the built and natural environments in closing the resiliency gap (Moser et al., 2017).
In a guest lecture this past August, Gwen Bridge (2021) discussed the differences in how science is positioned in western and Indigenous societies (see Figure 1), and this provided such an “ah-ha” moment for me in understanding why our system isn’t functioning as it needs to.
Figure 1: Adapted from Gwen Bridge’s lecture: Evolving toward ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge (science) in Western and Indigenous societies (2021)
I hadn’t fully considered how due to its position at the bottom of that societal system, science in our Western context, seems destined to inform but never drive meaningful change in decision-making because it has to push up from the bottom. Conversely, Indigenous frameworks generally hold the Earth and science/ecological information second only to the Creator, which means that it drives behaviour and decision-making around management and how to live. This was such a powerful distinction that provided great insight into both understanding the problem we face, as well as potential solutions. The importance of understanding not just the contents, but also the structure of societal systems, led me to wonder about what that would mean for mitigation and adaptation efforts and actions.
Transformational change will require people to challenge their dominant worldviews and culture…to find the space where there is overlap between different ways of knowing, ways of doing things, and then explore respectfully within that overlap. Prioritization of efforts to deeply understand various underlying societal systems broadly and at community levels will be necessary and helpful to inform and stretch our collective imaginations to co-create new ways of organizing and operating within planetary boundaries, as dictated by nature and science. We may not know the exact details of our climate future, but we know how things are trending (Bush, et al, 2019). We know things are already changing beyond the stable climate normals from the past that continue to be used as a basis for things like building codes and infrastructure planning decisions (Infrastructure Canada, 2019). By using climate projections and feeding those into different scenarios, it becomes easier to paint the picture of various futures for people. To paint pictures that are relevant to people, we must ensure climate projections and scenarios are tailored to local contexts to inspire action.
In terms of how we have integrated some of this thinking into our team design challenge, the key considerations were related to scoping our audience, and taking local knowledge, impacts, physical conditions, etc. into account as a first step; appreciating the local experience of impacts, while linking climate change as a global phenomenon that plays out in the context of local and regional settings. We will need to bring forward an understanding of the regionally downscaled climate models and scenarios to make them locally relevant and scoped to each particular audience. Talking about sea-level rise in the coastal zone to a farmer in the prairies isn’t likely to inspire action. Talking about the loss of ice in northern communities may generate concern from someone living in an urban centre, but is unlikely to empower them to take action in their communities.
As such, our approach to the design challenge shifted from a national, multi-sectoral audience, to a community-based audience that would work with the local conditions, concerns, circumstances, and desired outcomes of each community using a design-thinking approach to affect change from within. By working outside the confines of our Western societal governance structure that positions science at the bottom (see Figure 1), we can take the science to communities and use it to inform and generate the stories, principles, and ways of living that will increase their resilience to climate futures, modeling the Indigenous societal governance structure. We can give science a more prominent position in our decision-making process while putting pressure on the existing Western structure of governance to make the required changes to support adaptation measures and make climate-informed decisions when planning things like building construction/retrofitting and infrastructure development at a local government level. Then hopefully, it will trickle UP.
References
Bridge, G. (2021). Evolving towards ethical space: the authority of Earth knowledge in Western and Indigenous societies. CALS500 Lecture, Royal Roads, August 12, 2021.
Bush, E., & Lemmen, D. (Eds.). (2019). Canada’s changing climate report. Government of Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/eccc/En4-368-2019-eng.pdf
Shuttleworth, A. and MacAskill, K. (2021). Net-zero adaptation—a review of built environment sustainability assessment tools. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability. 1. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2634-4505/ac1c5e
That was the question running through my mind as I sat under the plum tree in my yard for the first time. I chose this particular spot as the place from which I would practice increasing my awareness and connection to nature. It is just outside my front door, which will increase the likelihood of frequent visits.
So there I was. Sitting. In my spot. Observing with all my senses. Wondering about how on earth I was going to stay mindfully aware for a whole 30 minutes. Wondering what on earth I would write about.
As someone who loves nature, being outside, watching birds, gardens, trees, bees, butterflies, and the like, I was surprised at my resistance to this project and to using the sit-spot as a mechanism for practicing climate communication. What stories of interest could I possibly tell from my front yard that relate to climate change?
I looked around my immediate surroundings at first, looking at things and cataloging what I saw with my eyes, looking in my usual way for the obvious things with no detail: tree, bird, sunlight, and shadows, a lizard darting out of the rock wall. I listened to the dominant sounds from traffic, the hum from the highway down the hill, and cars driving by my house.
I recalled the TEDx talk by John Young and thought about connection to nature. About really getting quiet and paying close attention to everything. I drew upon my inner “bird-watcher”. Observant. Quiet. Still. Wide-eyed. Ears perked. Connecting my senses beyond the noise.
I zoomed in.
I looked more closely at the plum tree, noticing the lichen and moss-covered trunk. I thought of Kimmerer’s (2014) notion of nature having “personhood” and wondered how old this tree-being was, and what it has experienced throughout its life in this yard. Has a child climbed up its branches? How many birds and insects have nested or rested here? I noticed the sun filtering through the deep purple-maroon coloured leaves as they rustled softly in the breeze and the silvery flash of a spiderweb through the sunlight. I heard the sound of a hummingbird squeaking from the top of the tree, making his/her presence known. I listened to the chatting of the chestnut-backed chickadees and the “tick tick tick” of the dark-eyed juncos as they rustled around in the leaves beneath the nearby rhododendron searching the soil for snacks. I felt the moss under my feet that has taken hold over the concrete slab my chair rests on. I surveyed the yard just beyond where I was sitting and saw some mushrooms sprouting up in the grass, reminded of the hidden world of mycelial networks, and the subterranean community of critters living in the soil, doing their important work.
I looked up and softened my gaze and opened my senses beyond my immediate surroundings. A pair of gulls flew overhead toward the lake. Turkey vultures circled up higher, off in the distance, maybe riding the thermals or looking for carrion. A jet cutting through the sky so high up I couldn’t hear it but could see its contrail and the silvery shimmer of its body as it moved through the bright blue backdrop. The not-so-distant sounds of lawnmowers and backyard construction projects. I became acutely aware of this tension between the human world and the natural world. The fast-paced, hard-surfaced, noisy human landscape within the slow, rich, interconnected world of birds, insects, fungi, trees, and dragonflies.
Questions started percolating up.
I thought of the concept of reciprocity as introduced by Kimmerer (2014). How can I support this place and the beings that live here? How can I give back to this tiny ecology, this little corner of soil and vegetation providing habitat to so many beings? Knowing the effects of climate change that we can expect here – increasing heat and drought in summer, more intense wind storms, and more intense precipitation events in fall and winter – how can I help build resiliency in this place?
Ah. So this is what I’m doing here.
I’m here to practice applied mindfulness, to learn from these ancestral lands and all their inhabitants. I’m here to communicate from a hyper-local place and reduce the abstractions of the global scale language of climate change. I’m here to restore and do what I can to support resiliency here in this little corner of the earth and see what happens next. I’m here to reawaken my connection with the natural world right outside my doorstep.
“Big awareness equals big connection” (Young, 2020).
Drawing upon our course readings thus far, I have selected a number of evidence-based criteria and these are listed in the table below:
Values: Speaks to the shared values of the target audience (Christiano & Neimand, 2018; Dupar, et al., 2019; Hodson, 2019; Moser, 2015)
Holistic framing for action through hope: Messages about climate change are framed holistically (linking people and social/economic systems to ecological systems) in a way that empowers the target audience to take action by evoking feelings of hope (Armstrong, et al., 2018; Hodson, 2019; Young, 2021)
Local narratives and visuals: Uses narratives/stories and images that have local/community relevance (Bayer & Hettinger, 2019; Dupar, et al., 2019; Hodson, 2019)
Audience Analysis
The Narwhal is an independent, non-profit, online environmental magazine based in Canada that endeavors to “bring evidence-based news and analysis to the surface for all Canadians”. From this description, I can infer that the core audience they are writing for is Canadians who care about the natural world and are looking for more in-depth information on topical environmental issues. Having said that, I think they are also appealing to Canadian audiences who might not necessarily consider themselves “environmentalists”, but care about nature. In the context of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication’s, “Global Warming’s Six Americas”, the audience profile for The Narwhal’s core readers would likely fit into the “alarmed” category, while they might be reaching a wider audience nationally when cited in major new media outlets like the Globe and Mail and CBC (Yale Program on Climate Communication, 2021; “About Us”, 2021). This means the core target audience, “the alarmed”, believes in global warming and represents those most concerned and motivated to support climate policies and take individual action.
Climate Content Analysis
For this assignment, I have selected an example of open climate communication content in the form of an in-depth news article about the June 2021 heatwave in British Columbia, written in August 2021 and published in The Narwhal online magazine. I will assess the visual and narrative approaches in this article, using a set of evidence-based criteria that I argue are suitable to the target audience and style of communication, as defined above.
The approaches I used for this analysis first involved pulling apart the various topics covered within the article to look at the framing, language, and key messages they highlighted by creating the following subheadings:
From 570 devastating heat-induced deaths, to fish die-offs, to berries being baked on the stem, British Columbians are experiencing the multitude of impacts of a growing climate emergency that the province urgently needs to adapt to
‘There was no escape. None’
Action needed to address inequality, mitigate effects of extreme heat
Climate change means hotter, drier, riskier B.C. summers
Extreme heat a threat to B.C. wildlife
Economic impacts of B.C. heatwave could be ‘huge’
B.C.’s adaptation plan called ‘disappointing’
Then I reviewed the visuals/images and links to other Narwhal articles and external information sources they used to support their narrative report.
Criteria 1: Values
A key strategy for effective climate communication found throughout the literature reviewed was the approach of speaking to the shared values and goals of the target audience. Christiano & Neimand (2018), highlight the evidence that “people engage and consume information that affirms their identities and aligns with the deeply held values and worldviews”. This requires stepping into the world of the audience and messaging accordingly. Speaking at a values level also helps the audience connect to how they see the world and be motivated to action (Christiano & Neimand, 2018). Social identity challenges are addressed with targeted values-based messages that are framed in the most effective way for that community/target audience (Hodson, 2019).
Given the audience profile comprising people who already care about nature, The Narwhal article does a good job of speaking to a multitude of likely values associated with their core audience. These include speaking about impacts to various key subjects, like wildlife, people (including vulnerable populations), food systems, and the economy. By covering a wide range of impacts in this way, the article has a wider reach within the target audience, and possibly beyond, to capture those shared values.
Criteria 2: Holistic framing for action through hope
Framing messages in a way that is more likely to empower people to action is important for climate communication (Armstrong et al., 2018; Dupar et al., 2019; Hine, et al., 2016; Hodson, 2019). This includes the way the science is framed and how positive and/or negative emotive content is used (Christiano & Neimand, 2018; Hodson, 2019). The Narwhal article does a relatively good job of framing the impacts from a holistic perspective (ecology, human, economic), though Indigenous perspectives are missing throughout, which was a notable gap.
This article focused on reporting the reality of impacts due to the heatwave, from health consequences, including deaths, of seniors and other vulnerable populations, to the impacts of heat on birds, salmon, and marine life and ocean-dependent industry sectors to food security. The article did a great job of communicating the gravity of impacts arising from the heat event, however, leaving the reader with a sense of hope and empowerment is also important, and I don’t think this article did as well on that front (Armstrong, et al., 2018; Dupar et al, 2019; Hodson, 2019). Hine et al. discussed the use of negative emotive content to motivate action on adaptation in particular, so perhaps a case could be made for that here, though the call to any specific action is missing as well. The only mention of action is within the final sentences of the article, stating:
“The risks were laid bare this summer: illness, death, economic losses, and ecological destruction. Some of those consequences can be avoided or at least minimized, but only with concerted action.“
The Narwhal article fails to provide the reader with possible concrete actions to take, in light of all the impacts “laid bare” in the article. Overall, the framing was effective for explaining the science and the impacts of the heatwave but does not inspire action.
Criteria 3: Local narrative and visuals
As outlined in Bayer & Hettinger (2019), stories can serve as an effective tool, particularly when they are place-based with local knowledge. Krauß & Bremer (2020) highlight that matching people’s lived experience of climate change at a local level through narratives, rather than focusing on the scientific abstractions often discussed at a global scale, can help motivate people to action.
In the Narwhal article, each subheading topic links directly to the main heatwave event and uses vignettes to illustrate impacts with first-person accounts of extreme heat experiences from multiple perspectives, and through interviews with meteorological science, wildlife, and health experts. The article does a good job of weaving together the myriad impacts of the heatwave and builds trust with the audience by using place-based narratives and local expertise to back them up. Additionally, the article embeds links to relevant, local stories and reports that provide more information to the reader to click into, including the Lytton wildfire, links to BC government statements and reports related to heat-related deaths, and another Narwhal article on the connection between clear-cut logging and the heatwave.
Visuals were used primarily to illustrate the place-based context of this story, which mainly centered in Greater Vancouver, so the largest images were of people in the Downtown Eastside, and a scenic shot of Burnaby. Video satellite imagery of a storm-cell building near Lytton, and a screenshot of a tweet from one of the wildlife groups were also used in the article.
In terms of how these visuals supported the local narratives, I think they mostly aligned well. The satellite video imagery seemed a little out of place, as the article did not speak specifically to the weather/storm cell development shown in the visual. It was embedded within a brief general discussion about the increased risk of wildfire with increasing temperatures and drought conditions, but even that was more focused on the Okanagan region, not Lytton. I think the author could have used images of fire as a more effective visual representation of the narrative there. Hodson (2019) highlights how image selection to accompany a story can affect how people engage with the information in the message, therefore a more careful consideration of aligning the images with the key messages would have strengthened parts of this article.
Conclusion
Overall, the Narwhal article effectively conveys the key messages and climate content to its intended audience through speaking to shared values, holistic framing of the issues with its audience in mind, and highlighting local, place-based narratives throughout the story. The effectiveness of the article reaching its audience could have been strengthened with some suggestions and support for actions to take, to answer the question of “ok, now what?” that follows after reading the article. Additionally, some better/more effective use of visuals could have supported the messaging and helped to explain some of the more technical concepts touched on in the article.
Bayer, S., & Hettinger, A. (2019). Storytelling: A natural tool to weave the threads of science and community together. Bulletin of the ecological society of America, 100(2), 1-6.
Hine, D.W. et al. (2016). Preaching to different choirs: How to motivate dismissive, uncommitted, and alarmed audiences to adapt to climate change? Global Environmental Change 36, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.11.002
Hodson, J. (2019). An ecological model of climate marketing: A conceptual framework for understanding climate science-related attitude and behavior change. Cogent Social Sciences 5(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2019.1625101
Krauß, W. & Bremer, S. (2020). The role of place-based narratives of change in climate risk governance. Climate Risk Management 28, 100221.
Young, A. (2021). Episode 232: Gopal Dayaneni on the exploitation of soil and story. for the wild. [Transcript of podcast
