representing the majority and not the minority: the ... · maria loroño leturiondo1, catherine...

Geosci. Commun., 1, 9–24, 2018https://doi.org/10.5194/gc-1-9-2018© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed underthe Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Research

article

Representing the majority and not the minority: the importanceof the individual in communicating climate changeSam Illingworth1, Alice Bell2, Stuart Capstick3, Adam Corner4, Piers Forster5, Rosie Leigh6,Maria Loroño Leturiondo1, Catherine Muller7, Harriett Richardson8, and Emily Shuckburgh9

1School of Science and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK210:10, London, UK3School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK4Climate Outreach, Oxford, UK5Priestley International Centre for Climate, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK6National Centre for Earth Observation, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK7Royal Meteorological Society, Reading, UK8National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK9British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, UK

Correspondence: Sam Illingworth ([email protected])

Received: 30 April 2018 – Discussion started: 18 May 2018Revised: 24 August 2018 – Accepted: 25 September 2018 – Published: 10 October 2018

Abstract. This research presents three case studies, throughwhich a creative approach to developing dialogue around cli-mate change is outlined. By working with three distinct com-munities and encouraging them to discuss and write poetryabout how climate change affects them, we demonstrate howsuch an approach might be adopted at this level. By analysingthe discussions and poetry that arose out of these workshopswe show how this community-level approach to communi-cating climate change is an essential counterpart to wider-scale quantitative research. The engagement of each commu-nity with climate change is dependent on the lived experi-ences of their members; a failure to recognize this results inless effective communications and can also cause communi-ties to feel isolated and helpless. By considering the individ-ual needs and aspirations of these communities we can sup-port effective dialogue around the topic of climate change,and in doing so can better engender positive action againstthe negative effects of anthropogenic climate change.

1 Introduction

The communication of climate change has traditionally fol-lowed a deficit model (Bickerstaff, 2004), in which a one-way, top–down communication process is adopted. In thisapproach scientists have been tasked as the “experts”, whoserole is to educate a “non-expert” general public, by increas-ing their knowledge about a particular topic that the ex-perts deemed to be the most significant (Miller, 2001). How-ever, this one-way approach to the communication of climatechange is unlikely to bring about the changes that are neededfor adaptation and mitigation, as it fails to consider a series offactors that are key determinants of the way people perceiveand react to information (Swim et al., 2009). There is not aone-size-fits-all approach that is able to engage society as awhole with regards to climate change. In addition to the typeof information individuals need, the way this information ispresented will also have an impact on how it is perceived andtaken on board. The source of the information is another fac-tor that influences how it is perceived and assessed, and lackof trust in a source, such as the government, the media, orscientists, has proven to affect responsiveness to the message(Goodwin and Dahlstrom, 2014). Information provided by asource that is perceived as untrustworthy and through one-way communication is unlikely to be effective. For example,

Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union.

10 S. Illingworth et al.: Representing the majority and not the minority

a lack of trust in the government can affect how people per-ceive policies in relation to climate change (Lorenzoni et al.,2007).

In contrast to the deficit model, a dialogue model of two-way communication highlights the need to explore the iden-tities and social norms of different groups in society, as wellas the importance of acknowledging the existence of manypublics – in contrast to what the deficit model referred to asa single public (Priest, 2016). Furthermore, it also acknowl-edges that the “non-experts” that constitute the publics alsohave their own skills and expertise that might also be utilizedin the development of research governance (Burns and Gen-try, 1998), particularly in the case of these people’s own livesand needs, for which they could and should be considered theexperts.

The Climate Communication Project aims to understandand evaluate existing expertise in the UK on communicat-ing and engaging the public with climate change. A sub-stantial focus of this project is an expert elicitation (see e.g.de Franca Doria et al., 2009) of the climate communicationcommunity, to better understand how a range of specialistscarry out their work, to share and promote best practice inthe UK, and to point to areas where more investment and at-tention is needed. This project aims to support and enablea wider structural adjustment to how climate change is dis-cussed and communicated. However, as argued by Lorenzoniet al. (2007) alongside this approach there also needs to bea targeted and tailored information provision to, and com-munication with, individual citizens and communities. Fur-thermore, it is essential that the voices of these communitiesare solicited and considered in the construction of this widerstructural adjustment. The work that is presented here reportson a series of dialogues that were established with a smallselection of communities across the UK, in order to betterdemonstrate the importance of these individual voices in de-veloping effective climate change communication strategies.

For this study, a series of three workshops (located in Bris-tol, Stockport, and Manchester) were coordinated with threedistinct and diverse audience groups. Rather than hosting aseries of events and expecting members of the community to“come to us”, researchers travelled to established communitygroups to discuss their needs and potential barriers to consid-ering scientific topics relating to climate change. Three dis-tinct community groups were chosen: the Avonmouth Com-munity Centre in Bristol, Disability Stockport, and a collec-tion of faith groups in Manchester. It is the central thesis ofthis work that all communities and citizens offer potentiallydifferent voices, and as such we did not aim to be representa-tive of “every” community in the UK. Rather we decided topick a small number of communities in order to demonstratethe value of this approach, and to provide further evidencefor its role in developing a more effective communicationsstrategy around climate change.

These three communities were chosen because of theirvaried composition, and because previous research has high-

lighted some of the challenges and opportunities of com-municating climate change with similar groups. The Avon-mouth and Lawrence Western Ward, in which the Avon-mouth Community Centre is located, contains areas that areconsidered to be amongst the most deprived 10 % in England(Bristol City Council, 2015). Previous research has shownenvironmental concerns increase with social class (see e.g.Norton and Leaman, 2004), although actual environmentalfootprint tends to increase with wealth (Büchs and Schnepf,2013). Furthermore, since the early days of the environmen-tal movement in the 1960s, community centres have beenseen as a potential focus for effective communication strate-gies (Burgess et al., 1998). By working with the AvonmouthCommunity Centre we hoped to better understand the rolethat community centres could play in engaging with peoplefrom different social classes.

As noted by Heltberg et al. (2009) the impacts of climatechange, even in developed countries such as the UK willsometimes fall disproportionately on vulnerable individuals,with the disabled forming part of the population most at riskfrom the effects of climate change (Maibach et al., 2010).By working with Disability Stockport, we wanted to ensurethat we were giving a voice to the potentially vulnerable, andto better understand their perceptions of how climate changewould affect them both as individuals and as a community.

Finally, faith communities tend to share an emphasis onlong-term stewardship and can help disseminate informationto their publics (Frumkin et al., 2008). By bringing togethera group of faith leaders from across Manchester we wantedto get a range of different faith perspectives in relation to cli-mate change, and to better understand how this informationwas communicated to their respective communities.

As well as the specific opportunities for dialogue in work-ing with each of these communities, it was the aim of thisstudy to demonstrate that these workshops are an effectiveway of creating a safe space for discussion around climatechange. Furthermore, we wanted to show how such an ap-proach could be utilized by other researchers and how thisis a necessary accompaniment to any large-scale plans forcommunicating climate change at a national level or beyond.

2 Materials and methods

As stated in Sect. 1, the planned workshops were to takeplace in the spaces of the selected communities rather thanexpecting participants to travel to a university or neutral lo-cation. The reason for this was so that we could better cre-ate a safe space in which participants felt comfortable indiscussing how climate change affected their communities,as well as individuals’ more general concerns about climatechange. In planning these workshops, a two-way dialoguewas established between the workshop facilitator (SI) andthe community leaders and gatekeepers. Through these di-alogues, suitable dates and times for the workshops were de-

Geosci. Commun., 1, 9–24, 2018 www.geosci-commun.net/1/9/2018/

S. Illingworth et al.: Representing the majority and not the minority 11

cided, with each scheduled to last between 2 and 3 h, and attimes that were seen as compatible with the lifestyles of thecommunity members. Based on previous experiences and thenature of the activities that were planned for these workshops(see below), between 5 and 10 participants for each of theworkshops were seen as optimal, thereby ensuring that allopinions could be voiced and discussed in the time allowed.This number of participants also helped to increase the rela-tive homogeneity within each group in order to capitalize onpeople’s shared experiences (Kitzinger, 1995) relative to thecommunity that they were representing.

Following the work of Illingworth and Jack (2018), it wasdecided that as well as having a facilitator (SI) and a num-ber of community members, these workshops should also in-volve the participation of one climate communications ex-pert. The reasons for this were 2-fold. Firstly, it meant thatif any technical questions relating to climate change arose,then these experts would be on hand to provide that informa-tion, or else recommend a suitable source for further inquiry.Secondly, by involving climate change experts in the work-shop, we hoped to demonstrate to them first-hand the diversenature of the publics that they were communicating with.The recruitment of the participants for these workshops wasdone through the organizations that we were working withas part of this study, i.e. the Avonmouth Community Centre,Disability Stockport, and Manchester Cathedral. Participantswere recruited directly through the community groups andtheir gatekeepers, with a very basic flyer provided to eachof the organizations so that they could advertise the planneddate and time of the event. Prior to the workshops there wereno incentives, financial or otherwise, offered to the partici-pants to encourage attendance, other than some basic refresh-ments.

These workshops all adopted a similar format, beginningwith a pre-workshop questionnaire (see the Appendix) to befilled out individually by the participants (it should be notedthat this pre-workshop questionnaire actually took place atthe beginning of the workshop, prior to the initial conversa-tions, and so would probably have been better named “pre-discussion questionnaire”). This questionnaire involved ask-ing the participants to first consider the major issues that af-fected their community (not necessarily related to climatechange), and then to think about how climate change affectedthem at an individual and community level (if it did at all) andthe way(s) in which climate change was currently communi-cated; it was filled in after the initial scope of the researchhad been explained by SI and the consent forms had beensigned. These responses were to form the basis of the initialdiscussions amongst the participants, with their responsesacting as an aide memoire to both help direct the dialogueduring the workshops and also to serve as a record for datacollection. Following this discussion, the participants wereguided through a series of poetry-writing exercises, whichinvolved them first working as individuals and then collec-tively to write poetry about two different topics: their com-

munity, and climate change. Poetry was used in this way asit has been shown to be an effective tool in developing dia-logue amongst underserved audiences (Illingworth and Jack,2018) whilst offering an alternative form of data collectionto complement that recorded in the pre-workshop question-naire. These poems were then further discussed amongst theparticipants, following which a post-workshop questionnairewas individually completed. This post-workshop question-naire was designed to assess the opinions of the participantsin relation to the workshop and to determine whether theyhad any further questions or required any additional infor-mation about anything that had been discussed. Throughoutthe workshops, SI made detailed field notes to later help inthe analysis of the responses; this largely took the form ofrecording and observing the general nature of the discus-sions that followed the pre-workshop questionnaire and thecreation of the poetry.

Poetry can be used to help reframe and develop dialogueamongst participants and has an established history as a toolthat can be used by researchers to both communicate withand elicit engagement amongst different audiences. For ex-ample, by turning participant recordings and transcripts intopoetic performances, Finley (2003) demonstrated how po-etic responses might be used to open up new dialogues withcommunities, using their own words but presented in an al-ternative format. Similarly, poetry that is written by partic-ipants can be used as data by researchers to better under-stand the lifeworlds of the authors, serving as powerful nar-rative examples in the development of education and advo-cacy goals (Poindexter, 2002). By asking the participants towrite their own poetry, we hoped to enable them to con-sider their thoughts and opinions in a creative space, whichcould then be analysed alongside their non-poetic responses.The reasons that poetry was used rather than another artisticmedium (e.g. sculpture or drawing) were 2-fold. Firstly, theworkshop facilitator (SI) has experience in both creating po-etry and running poetry-writing workshops: as such he wasable to play the role of what Vygotsky (1980) termed the“More Knowledgeable Other”, and in doing so could help toextend the social learning of the participants. Secondly, po-etry writing is a very accessible activity that only requirespaper and pens/pencils, and which can be both easily trans-ported and also supported, for example, with regards to par-ticipants who are themselves unable to write. It should alsobe noted that reading and analysing (as well as writing) po-etry can also be used to engage different audiences with spe-cific topics, and that there is a history of such initiatives beingused to successfully explore different relationships and opin-ions across and between communities (see e.g. Furman et al.,2004). However, for the purposes of this research, we choseto focus on writing poetry as it allowed for the most collabo-rative experience within the framework of the workshops.

The poetry-writing exercises involved four basic steps.Participants were asked to write a “list poem” about the

chosen topic (either “your community” or “climate change”).

www.geosci-commun.net/1/9/2018/ Geosci. Commun., 1, 9–24, 2018


In this exercise, the participants were given 90 s to list every-thing that they associated with the chosen topic and were re-minded that this need not only be things that they could see,but rather that the list could comprise any associated sense,emotion, or experience.

Participants were asked to write one sentence about thechosen topic (either “How you feel about your community”or “How you feel about climate change”, using the list poemas a word bank for inspiration if required.

Participants were then asked to work in pairs and to com-bine their two sentences. The collaborative effort did not haveto rhyme, but it did have to reflect both individuals’ observa-tions, and could either be a combination of the two sentencesor else something new entirely.

Pairs of participants were then asked to work with anotherpair, and to combine all thoughts and sentences into a coher-ent piece. Again, this did not have to rhyme, but all partici-pants had to be happy that their thoughts and opinions werereflected in the finished piece.

The poetry-writing exercises took place after the initialdiscussion, as it was hypothesized that this initial dialoguewould help the community members to explore their opin-ions in relation to climate change, both as individuals andas a collective. Furthermore, it was theorized that the poetrywould be congruent with these discussions, presenting themin an alternative format that could be shared and analysedalongside the responses to the pre-workshop questionnaire.

All of the questions and prompts that were used through-out the workshops can be found in the Appendix and werealso sent to the gatekeepers in advance of the workshops sothat their suitability for the participants could be assessed andany necessary provisions to ensure inclusivity could be made.During this study anonymity was preserved by not record-ing any identifiable information, and during the analysis, anyspecific or personal narratives that could be seen as identi-fiable was redacted and destroyed without recording. Fur-thermore, all the participants were given sufficient time toread the consent forms, so as to avoid assumed consent, andany support workers had access to the consent forms prior tothe workshop, so that they could help advise and inform. Asuitable line of support was also established through whichany distress could be reported and suitably dealt with. Byworking alongside the support workers all participants knewexactly what the study was for, what it entailed, and whattheir involvement was. All the support workers were madefully aware of the study, and it was made clear to all partici-pants that they could take part in the activities without havingtheir responses recorded or subsequently analysed. This re-search project received full ethics approval via ManchesterMetropolitan University’s Academic Ethics Committee.

3 Case studies

The findings from the three different workshops are pre-sented as three individual case studies, followed by a discus-sion in Sect. 4 about general findings and recommendationsin terms of what this approach has taught us. As noted byMoser (2010), more case-specific research is required in rela-tion to communicating climate change, mainly because thereis no “one-size-fits-all solution”, with different audiences re-quiring different narratives, frames, media, and communica-tors. By presenting the findings of these workshops as casestudies we hope to better address this requirement and to alsoprovide further evidence for the need for this type of quali-tative research in order to develop effective climate changecommunications strategies.

Each of these case studies will begin with a generaloverview of the logistics of the workshop, followed by a pre-sentation of the discussion that occurred following the pre-workshop questionnaire. The poems that were written by thecommunity groups will then be presented and contextualizedin relation to this discussion, followed by a summary of thekey findings for each community group. With regards to thepoems that appear throughout this study, other than correct-ing for spelling they are presented exactly as they were writ-ten by the participants during the workshops.

3.1 The Avonmouth Community Centre

This workshop was conducted on a Monday lunchtime, andthere were five participants, including the climate communi-cations expert. The participants were made up of local res-idents, volunteers, and people that worked in the area. Wespent about 105 min discussing the pre-workshop questions,and about 45 min writing poetry and discussing what thismeant and why it had been written.

In the initial discussions around what issues the partici-pants considered to be most pertinent to their community,better engagement all community members, health (bothphysical and mental), and identity seemed to be the mostprevalent. In discussing these subjects, the participants re-vealed that Avonmouth often felt very geographically iso-lated (“it doesn’t even feature in some local area maps ofBristol”), and as a result many of the inhabitants found itdifficult to engage with other community groups such as lo-cal industries and policymakers. Furthermore, the issues thatpeople found to be important were acknowledged by them tobe relatively transient, likely to change on a daily basis, anddependent on a range of physical and psychological factors;for example, litter might be seen as an important issue be-cause someone threw litter outside their house the previousevening. As well as reporting on being worried about geo-graphical isolation, the participants also highlighted that thiswas linked to their concerns regarding the mental health oftheir community members, especially the elderly.



With regards to whether or not climate change affectedthemselves and their communities there was initially honestambivalence, although as one of the participants noted,

I’m not sure people talk about “climate change” –they may discuss elements such as pollution, sea-sonal changes/temperatures, recycling, etc.

To corroborate this point of view, when asked to expand onthese changes to the climate, two of the participants (who hadlived in the area for the whole of their lives) spent time dis-cussing how the area was now a lot less polluted than it hadbeen in their youth. With regards to the pollution of Avon-mouth, two of the participants discussed at length how Avon-mouth had once been known for the “black sheep” causedby the pollution of the docklands in the 1960s and 1970s.The Clean Air Act of 1970 and its subsequent amendments(Greenstone, 2004) was likely responsible for the improve-ment in air quality, although the participants revealed that tomany people “Avonmouth smells”. This smell is no longerliteral (and indeed SI noticed no such odour), but these are aview and a descriptor that are set in the minds of many peopleliving in neighbouring districts, thereby possibly contributingto the feelings of geographical isolation. In 2014, the Envi-ronment Agency installed a mobile dust monitor in the port atAvonmouth, following community concerns about dust (TheEnvironment Agency, 2015). After completing their air qual-ity and dust monitoring work the Environment Agency wasable to demonstrate that air quality in Avonmouth is typi-cal of an urban setting and should not give rise to an in-creased risk of respiratory health problems. This monitoringwork was not mentioned by the participants in this workshop,but is stated here as further evidence that the pollution, per-ceived or otherwise, in this area is something that the com-munity is deeply affected by. As Bickerstaff (2004) explains,places can suffer “environmental stigma” without there be-ing a clear episode of contamination. Stigmatization can bederived from perception, and often starts with the very samepeople who live in that community. Stigma not only affectsthe place, but also the people who live in it, making them feeltrapped, isolated, and powerless. In terms of climate changemitigation and adaptation, stigma is counter-productive be-cause the feeling of marginalization and powerlessness canresult in inaction or dismissal of the climate change problemaltogether. Therefore, including the views of communitiesthat feel stigmatized can also be a tool to break this stigma,stop the feeling of powerlessness, and encourage action.

In discussing what climate change is, and how it may ormay not affect the local community, it quickly became appar-ent that a perceived conflict within the climate change com-munity puts people off addressing it, as does the languageand negativity that are associated with the debate centred onthis topic. One of the participants stated that

People treat climate change deniers like holocaustdeniers.

Another participant stated that the way in which climatechange is currently communicated and discussed in the UK

Seems like an argument.

These opinions led to a discussion which also revealed thatthe community members felt that the politicization of climatechange made it difficult to discuss openly, and as such that itwas almost impossible to “own” and/or take responsibilityfor. This would seem to advance the work of Poortinga etal. (2011), i.e. that the acceptance of climate change is notonly rooted in people’s core values and world views, but alsoin what they perceive to be the core values and world views ofothers. Kahan (2012) has likewise argued that people for themost part take their cues from peers and their own culturalgroup on climate change. During the discussion with com-munity members, it also became clear that the participantswere not aware of the true extent of the consensus amongstclimate change scientists, and the majority of them were sur-prised when it was revealed that this number was 97–98 %(Cook et al., 2016), having previously believed it to be closerto 50 %. The participants also revealed that they were un-clear of where to go for honest and reliable information. Fur-thermore, some of the participants considered scientists to begovernment and industrial stooges, and therefore not neces-sarily to be trusted. One participant provided further evidencefor this opinion in the following statement:

If nutritional scientists are always changing theirmind about diet and what is healthy or not, thenwhy should people believe that climate scientistsare any different?

This opinion further supports why one-way communica-tions from such “experts” will remain unsuccessful (Loren-zoni et al., 2007). However, by the end of the discussion therewas a general consensus that climate change was somethingthat affected the local area at both the community and indi-vidual levels, and that in order to better relay this informa-tion and discuss what could be done to mitigate its effects,there was a need to move away from a “one-way forum” andtowards a “conversation café” i.e. the creation of an envi-ronment in which these conversations could take place in ashared space and where no one would be judged. Conversa-tions then turned towards what difference a single individualcould make, and if asking this question was having a nega-tive effect on discussing climate change and whether or notpeople could realistically be expected to take on this personalresponsibility. This discussion featured input from SI and theother expert in terms of answering technical questions andproviding information such as the true figures for consensusamongst scientists studying climate change. However, nei-ther SI nor the expert acted in any way so as to persuadeor dissuade any of the participants from a particular way ofthinking.

Following these discussions, the following two poemswere written collectively by the local community partici-



pants. On the subject of “How you feel about your local com-munity”,

Looking back through today’s eye atan interesting, friendly place full of historyappreciating what we havea bit dishevelled, sometimes unlovedbut with potential to thrivefeels caring, friendly, homeloving where we live and work.

And on the subject of “How you feel about climatechange”,

Confused, conflicted, guilty, sad, helpless but I have aresponsibility to educate myself, live simply and dowhateverI can to affect positive change. . . we can educate peopleto the real statistics of what is happening in our world.

In discussing these two poems, the participants made itclear that for both subjects (i.e. their community and climatechange), whilst work was needed to improve the current sit-uation, hope was not lost. In reading these poems, it is clearthat the participants have a strong sense of civic pride in theirlocal community, and that it is a place that they are genuinelyproud to call home. Furthermore, they believe that they havea duty of care to improve their community and the lives ofthose people in it, and that this extends to the effects of cli-mate change. Given the lengthy discussion on the consensusof climate change scientists and the surrounding ideas of me-dia bias, it is unsurprising that it features so prominently. Onreading these poems it is also evident that the participants be-lieve they have a responsibility to effect positive change andto educate people. The collective poem on climate changethat they wrote accurately summarized the previous discus-sion (even though this was not explicitly or implicitly ex-pressed to the participants prior to the exercise), i.e. that therewas a desire to have an open and honest conversation in a safeenvironment, and that this approach could then be used to ed-ucate others so that they could also make up their own minds.It should be noted that throughout this study, there is no em-phasis placed on the aesthetic quality of the poetry, and thatby emphasizing this to the participants it was easier to createa shared space for creativity and sharing.

From the post-workshop questionnaire, the main issuesthat people still wanted to address were what they could doto help, whether they were too late to help, and where thebest resources were to find out more about climate changeand how to mitigate its effects. Overall everyone seemed toenjoy the workshop, although they would have liked evenmore time to work on their poems. A response of note forthis section of the questionnaire was that one of the partici-pants now felt as though they would come to the workshopfacilitator (SI) for more information about climate change;previously this participant had been sceptical of trusting sci-entists for the reasons outlined above. Furthermore, this par-ticipant contacted SI a couple of weeks after the workshopwith the following request:

I have been thinking a lot about the workshop andI was wondering if it would be ok to use the idea ofit with other people. I wanted to try doing it withthe Quaker children meeting and our lunch group.

This request serves to underline the effectiveness of the ap-proach that was adopted for this workshop; by creating a safespace in which dialogue could be established and individ-ual voices could be heard and listened to, the perceptions ofscientists changed from untrustworthy to valued and reliablesources of information, in this case with the added advan-tage that the approach was adopted and taken on in anothercontext. This workshop also highlighted the potential rolesthat community centres can play in providing a safe spacefor discussions surrounding climate change in a neutral andnon-politicized environment. Shortly before the workshop inAvonmouth, SI also spoke to a group of “Community Pay-back” young men who were having their lunch in the com-munity centre. In these conversations, they were respectfuland honest in informing SI that they did not care at all aboutclimate change, and that there was no point as “the world wasgoing to end anyway”. They were perfectly happy to talk toSI and to express these views, but did not want to engage fur-ther on the subject. Perhaps it is the community volunteersof Avonmouth who are better served to engage this audiencearound the effects of climate change, and to help demonstratehow despite being “a bit dishevelled, sometimes unloved”,they have “potential to thrive”. The effectiveness of involvingmediators who already have access to harder-to-reach com-munities, who are already trusted by these communities, andwho understand the community’s ecology is also highlightedin other studies with a similar purpose (e.g. Ramírez et al.,2015).

3.2 Disability Stockport

This workshop was conducted on a Monday afternoon at Dis-ability Stockport, with five participants, including the climatecommunications expert. The participants were made up ofvolunteers and patrons of Disability Stockport, including oneparticipant with severe learning difficulties who needed sup-port throughout the workshop. This support was provided bySI, who worked with this participant on a one-to-one basisand then helped to feed back their input to the rest of thegroup during the discussions and poetry-writing exercises.We spent about 80 min discussing the pre-workshop ques-tions and about 40 min writing poetry and discussing whatthis meant and why it had been written.

In the initial discussions about what the participants foundto be important in their local community, social justice andequality for all were the dominant topic of conversation. Theparticipants were finely attuned to inclusivity and wanted toensure that all of their community members had a strong anddiscernible voice on matters that affected them, even if theywere not necessarily aware that this was the case. In talking



to the more vulnerable participants and their carers, it be-came apparent that they are completely reliant on friends andfamily members for information on most topics, and so it isvital that these people are equipped with the correct informa-tion and tools to help further engender this communication.Any biases, perceived or otherwise, that these carers and vol-unteers are subjected to will likewise be passed on to the vul-nerable members of the community that they help to support.In discussing the issues that were most important to the localcommunity, the importance of living in a healthy environ-ment was raised repeatedly, and what this meant in terms ofboth physical and mental wellbeing. As with the Avonmouthcommunity, the mental health of the community members,and the risk of isolation and exclusion that this could bring,were also seen as very important issues.

With regards to climate change, the responses from theparticipants were varied. The volunteers appeared to be veryaware of the subject and how it affected both them person-ally and also the people that they cared for and the widercommunity. This is perhaps reflective of the several sus-tainability initiatives that Disability Stockport has led andbeen involved with, including its use of compostable recy-cling and the installation of solar panels on the roof of theirbuilding, which they self-funded through fundraising events(Crush and Cameron, 2015). However, the more vulnerablemembers of the community were much less aware of cli-mate change and the effects that it would have on them. Thisawareness ranged from a feeling that climate change was“bad” but an inability to articulate why this was the case tohaving absolutely no concept of the processes or effects ofclimate change. This lack of awareness as to the existenceof climate change might in part be explained by the way inwhich it is communicated, with one of the volunteers statingthat this was done by

the usual suspects. . . through interest groups likeF.O.E., the UN, The Guardian, and Greenpeace.

The participants felt that as well as the “usual suspects” at-tempting to communicate climate change, the audience thatthey were communicating to also consisted of the “usual sus-pects” and did not tend to include the members of their com-munity, in terms of both Disability Stockport and Stockportmore generally. However, as one of the participants pointedout,

These people represent the majority, not the minor-ity.

In order to better engage this majority, participants be-lieved that climate change communication activities neededto happen at other more “regular” events. A local exampleof a “hate crime” awareness event that had a band and otheractivities and was not advertised as a “hate crime awarenessevent” was discussed as a good model, as it had attracteda large cohort and generated effective and meaningful dis-cussion. According to one of the volunteers, Stockport used

to have a very good local environment fair that did com-municate issues relating to sustainability and environmentalchange, in an accessible manner and to a wide audience; thisfair was allegedly very popular, but austerity and local gov-ernment cuts meant that it was cancelled. This failure of thelocal and central government was a topic that was repeatedlybrought up in this workshop, and there was a strong beliefthat there was a need for policymakers and government toshoulder the majority of the blame for the negative effects ofclimate change; as one participant put it:

When will our social leaders agree to effect changeand find ways to overcome collective greed?

Stockport is part of Greater Manchester, and Devolution tothe Greater Manchester Combined Authority (Copus et al.,2017) was seen by the participants as a great opportunity forenacting positive change in terms of both equal rights andmitigating climate change. The approach that was adopted byKen Livingstone whilst he was the Mayor of London (2000–2008) was stated as a good standard to follow (Shove andWalker, 2010), and the participants hoped that Andy Burn-ham (the first Mayor of Greater Manchester) would use hisnewfound responsibilities and power in a similar fashion.This discussion featured input from SI and the other expert interms of answering technical questions. However, neither SInor the expert acted in any way so as to persuade or dissuadeany of the participants from a particular way of thinking.

Following these initial discussions, two poems were writ-ten collectively by the participants. On the subject of “Howyou feel about your local community”:

I think community is being lost, everyone’s too busy.I feel close to my community and part of it.I feel like there are many selfish peopleBut there are people who help.My community is a lonely concrete desert where desertflowers bloom,sometimes,if they catch a bit of warm rain.

And on the subject of “How you feel about climatechange”:

Some will profit as suffering increases.Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry children of the future!We have one Earth, if we don’t save it, all else is lost.I feel like if I give as hard as I couldMy friends will live in a world that’s good.

In discussing these two poems, the participants again re-turned to themes of social justice and what was and was notperceived to be “fair”. They found it grossly unfair that aminority of people were spoiling both their community andthe local and wider environments for the majority. They alsodiscussed how despite this selfish minority, there were otherpeople who were acting as a force for good, and who could,and should, be relied upon to help enact a positive change.



As was the case with the Avonmouth poetry, both of thesepoems were reflective of the previous discussions (althoughit was perhaps surprising that local and national authorities,and their perceived failings in terms of austerity and sustain-ability, were not explicitly mentioned). In particular, the lasttwo lines of the collective poem about climate change effec-tively summarized the prevailing mood of the group, whichwas ultimately one of hope and empowerment. Rather thana burden that caused them to feel belittled and helpless, thevolunteers in the group saw it as an opportunity to provide thesupport that was needed to help the unaware and the vulner-able, both within their own community and beyond. As withthe previous discussion, it became apparent that this commu-nity was comprised of two distinct groups of people: the vol-unteers and carers, and the people that they helped. Whilstcertain circumstances dictated that some of the participantsspent time in both of these groups, the poetry that was cre-ated and the subsequent discussions made it clear that anyclimate change communication strategy that aimed to effec-tively work with this community must target both of thesepublics.

Given the restrictions that Disability Stockport, and othercommunities like it, have faced because of funding cutsbrought about by austerity measures in the UK (see e.g.Cross, 2013), it is perhaps unsurprising that the volunteerswithin this community are aware of the responsibilities ofboth local and national government, and that they are willingto take them to task on the matter. In contrast to the partic-ipants at the Avonmouth workshop, they did not express arestraining sense of guilt, but rather an acceptance that theycould not, and should not, be held individually responsiblefor the effects of climate change and our attempts to mitigatethese changes. This community is very firmly attuned to asense of justice, and they want to ensure that everyone hasa strong and discernible voice in discussing climate change,not least because they recognize that whilst many of theirmembers are contributing the least to climate change, theywill be amongst the ones that are most affected by it.

From the post-workshop questionnaire, the main questionsthat participants still had were related to how they could helpothers (especially locally policymakers) to take collective re-sponsibility for their actions. The participants appreciatedthe “egalitarian, respectful, and non-judgmental” creative ap-proach to the workshop, and its success in “including dis-abled people fully”. One request that was made was for linksto local groups and information relating to the communica-tion of climate change to be made available, which furthercorroborates the desire of the participants to help others takenotice and “motivate those in charge”.

This workshop demonstrated how important it is to fullyconsider the vulnerable members of our society when think-ing about how climate change and its effects are communi-cated. As well as ensuring that any communication strategyis not just aimed at the “usual suspects” it is essential that thecarers are also well equipped with the tools and information

to help engender meaningful and unbiased debate on the sub-ject. Furthermore, by giving these communities a voice, anyefforts to communicate the effects of climate change wouldstand to benefit from a motivated collective that is willing tohighlight issues of social injustice and help to enact positivechange.

3.3 Manchester faith communities

This workshop was conducted on a Thursday afternoon, andthere were eight participants, including the climate com-munications expert. The workshop took place in the re-fectory of Manchester Cathedral, with representatives fromthe Catholic Church, Protestantism, Judaism, and the Bahá’ífaith. Each of these representatives were leaders within theirfaith organizations and the initial discussions lasted approxi-mately 80 min, with 60 min spent collaboratively writing anddiscussing poetry.

Initial discussions with this group focussed on what wasmeant by the word “community”, with participants dis-cussing which communities they did and did not belong to.For the faith leaders that were represented here, they all feltpart of their faith communities, but also the local communi-ties where they lived, as well as more regional, national, andeven global non-faith communities. This attitude of belong-ing to a global community was summed up by one partici-pant:

We all belong to the wider community of humanity.We all bleed red blood, we all breathe the same air.

With regards to issues that were seen as pertinent to theirlocal faith communities, the environment and food awareness(i.e. food waste and food poverty) were highlighted and dis-cussed at length. All of the participants felt that these issuescould be addressed in a meaningful and effective manner byfirst better developing educational awareness around thesetopics, and by promoting better interconnectedness, both be-tween the communities and across the topics of importance.As with the other two workshops, the importance of a healthyenvironment was discussed at length, and all of the partici-pants expressed (without being prompted) that the effects ofclimate change were amongst the greatest issues that theywere currently tackling in both their local and wider faithcommunities.

This was a very informed group in terms of climate changeand its effect on both individuals and their wider communi-ties. Given that this workshop was advertised as an opportu-nity to discuss climate change, this might be expected, butas was revealed in the discussions, many of the faith com-munities are already taking considerable steps to address theeffects of climate change at both a global and a more locallevel. Organizations and initiatives such as Green Bishops(Dakin, 2004), the Public Issues Team at Methodist ChurchHouse (The Methodist Church, 2012), and Pope Francis’Laudato si (Francisco, 2015) were all discussed as both



sources of inspiration and useful references for further infor-mation. From these discussions it was apparent how each ofthese faith leaders belonged to a much larger community thatthey could work with and on behalf of, and as with the volun-teers within the Disability Stockport community, these par-ticipants believed they had a duty of care to help improve theenvironments of the more vulnerable members of their com-munities. There was also an extended discussion about howmany of the more vulnerable members of these communitieswere seen as “problems that needed to be solved”, whereasthey should instead be viewed as potential solutions to manyof the issues facing the communities, especially those sur-rounding the effects of climate change. As one of the partic-ipants noted,

If people knew then they could make any informeddecision.

Despite their own knowledge on the subject of climatechange, and the resources that were available to them throughtheir faith communities, the participants still expressed aneed for reliable and unbiased information that they couldthen direct their communities to. All of the participants be-lieved that whilst the effects of climate change were going tohave a negative effect at both a global and local level, thesechallenges also presented an opportunity to bring people to-gether and empower the impoverished by working in unisonto tackle the negative effects of climate change. This discus-sion featured very little input from SI and the other expert interms of answering technical questions, and nobody acted inany way so as to persuade or dissuade any of the participantsfrom a particular way of thinking.

Following the initial discussion, the participants were splitinto two groups of four, and worked in these groups to createtwo sets of poems, two on the subject of “How you feel aboutyour local community”:

Community is the space where weare cherished and appreciated, a placeof encounter where all belong,Supporting each other with acommon vision; we are a kaleidoscope of life.

AndI like my community – its resourceful people with famil-iar sparkling eyes of hope, sensing potential to beautify.Strangers need not feel aloneWhere diverse community cherishes home.

And two on the subject of “How you feel about climatechange”:

I have come to see that climate change affects us allMy consumption is at the expense of my neighbour’slackAnd my recklessness may lead to my neighbour’s dan-gerMy careless lifestyle causing so much natural beauty tobe lostI sense the urgency that I change to help save the planet

For the future me that this haunts drives me, transfusesmy life.

AndThere are too many of usDisposing of too much fareInto our atmosphere and our worldWe need to take more care,Fossil industrial growthThat diminishes water soil and airGrow to green and cleanTo make the world more fair.We need to change behaviourIt is urgent that we share,The joy is living simplyRight here and not out there.We must reduce the harm we causeBoth personal and corporate wareA better carbon footprintBefore our world we tear.

These poems, and the discussions that followed, servedto further highlight the congruence between these partici-pants. Unlike the participants in the Stockport and Avon-mouth workshops, this group did not all belong to one com-mon community, but the similarities in their beliefs with re-gards to their collective responsibility were striking. Fromthese poems it is clear that the faith leaders consider com-munities to be places of strength and belonging, and that weshould work hard to connect these communities so that no-body is ostracized; it is the similarities between communitiesrather than their differences that should be cherished and nur-tured. These participants accepted their collective guilt withregards to the effects of climate change, but also saw it as anopportunity to develop cohesion and as belonging amongstthe most vulnerable. As with the Stockport group, they real-ized that they had a responsibility, but saw this as somethingthat was achievable rather than overbearing.

Both of the poems written about climate change recognizethat the negative consequences of climate change (and anyresponse to it) have come about because of an imbalance.The line “My consumption is at the expense of my neigh-bour’s lack” is very similar to the ideas that were expressedby the Stockport group, i.e. that the privileged minority hasbeen living at the expense of the disadvantaged majority, andin many instances has been responsible for maintaining andeven strengthening that disparity. On reading the lines “Thereare too many of us/Disposing of too much fare”, ThomasMalthus and the relationship between population growth andclimate change might initially spring to mind (Kelly and Kol-stad, 2001). However, these lines should also be read along-side “The joy is living simply/Right here and not out there”.It is not necessarily rapid reductions in population growththat are being advocated in this poem, but rather the notionthat we need to better consider exactly what is meant by “sus-tainable living” and the changes to our personal lifestyles thatmight be necessary in order to mitigate the negative effectsof climate change for everyone (Carley and Spapens, 2017).



These poems do not promise easy answers, and they alsopoint to a sense of immediacy, i.e. that something needs tobe done now, and by the authors of these poems, rather thanwaiting and hoping for a future solution or future author topresent themselves.

As with the Avonmouth group, these poems (and the sur-rounding discussions) pointed to a need for open and honestdebate, and with it an interconnected approach to educatingpeople in a safe environment, one in which they felt welcomeand cherished. Throughout all of the discussions there was awillingness to assume collective responsibility, and a desireamongst the participants to use their positions of responsibil-ity to not only help their communities, but to work togetherso that they might better tackle the negative effects of climatechange. As one of the participants noted,

It is about overcoming prejudices.

This comment was made in relation to how different faithcommunities could more effectively work together, but it isalso relevant with regards to the need to go beyond the “usualsuspects” when determining the audiences and the associatedmessages for the effective communication of climate change.

From the post-workshop questionnaire, the response of theparticipants was similar to that of the Stockport group, asthey mainly wanted to know more information about “how toinspire more behaviour change and faith-based action”, withboth groups explicitly wanting to know how they could “ac-tivate hope”. The participants enjoyed the creative elementsof the workshop and liked the “focus on participation” andthe “fun and accepting” nature that accompanied the “seriousdiscussion”. As with the Stockport group, they would haveliked some practical examples of what they could do to enactchange, both within their faith communities and beyond.

This workshop succeeded in bringing together a groupof faith leaders from across Manchester, to present a rangeof different faith perspectives in relation to climate change.These are strong and interconnected communities that wantwhat is best for all of their members, but not at the expenseof other more vulnerable members of society that might notbelong to their community. The participants in this work-shop represented a well-informed and powerful agent withregards to the effective dissemination and communication ofclimate change and working with these faith leaders to de-velop dialogue within and across their communities is some-thing that should be better considered by climate communi-cation strategies.

4 Discussion

In reading these case studies, and by analysing the discus-sions and the poetry that were generated in the workshops, itis evident that each of the three communities has a clear anddistinctive voice. These distinct voices mean that there aredistinct challenges in effectively developing dialogue aroundclimate change, but as can be seen from Sect. 3, there are alsodiverse opportunities in working with each of these commu-nities to better develop this dialogue.

In all three of the communities there was a sense of col-lective guilt, centred on a recognition of personal responsi-bility: that we as individuals were at least partly to blamefor the negative effects of climate change that were observedat both an individual and community level. However, howeach of those communities reacted to notions of personal andcommunity responsibility was distinct and serves to highlightwhy a “one-size-fits-all” approach to communicating cli-mate change, or even developing dialogue around the subject,would not work. The participants in the Avonmouth work-shop initially largely felt overwhelmed and de-motivated bytheir guilt. So much had already gone wrong that how couldthey as individuals now help to set things right; it seemedlike potentially an overwhelming task, and they felt “Con-fused, conflicted, guilty, sad, helpless”. But through discus-sions amongst themselves and a sharing of that guilt theycame to the realization that they “have a/responsibility to ed-ucate myself, live simply and do whatever/I can to affect pos-itive change”. In order for a community like the AvonmouthCommunity Centre to enact positive change, they need to befreed from any individual guilt, which itself has maybe beendeepened by previous (one-way) climate change communi-cation efforts.

In contrast to the Avonmouth group, whilst the Stockportgroup also acknowledged their guilt, they recognized thatthey were not solely responsible for the current negative ef-fects of climate change. Furthermore, they recognized thatthrough their actions they could make a positive difference:“I feel like if I give as hard as I could/My friends will live in aworld that’s good.” Contrast this to the “we can educate peo-ple/to the real statistics of what is happening in our world” ofthe Avonmouth poem. There is a greater degree of certainty(still not absolute) that they can enact positive change, bothas individuals and as a collective. In working with a com-munity like Disability Stockport, effective communicationswould likely highlight ways in which others (e.g. govern-ments and policymakers) could be held to account for theircollective failings.

The community of faith leaders had a similar outlook tothe Stockport group, recognizing that “We must reduce theharm we cause/Both personal and corporate ware/A bettercarbon footprint/Before our world we tear.”, and that “Tomake the world more fair./We need to change behaviour”.As with the Avonmouth group, they also realized the need foreducation, and given their own positions within their commu-



nities they recognized that any initial activity likely neededto be driven by them. This was arguably a different typeof individual responsibility than was evidenced in the othertwo workshops, as the faith leaders recognized that in someinstances without their guidance and support for a particu-lar topic action might not be instigated or even possible. Inworking with this community, it could be argued that effec-tive climate change communications would provide reliableresources and frameworks for engagement that could thenbe shared by the individuals amongst their own communi-ties and organizations. As was indicated by the participantsthemselves during this discussion, their sense of communityis intertwined with their own religious world views, and assuch several of these attitudes (e.g. “overcoming prejudices”and “addressing consumption”) might be driven by religiouspractices rather than environmental concerns. It would alsobe interesting to further investigate what would happen ifrecommendations for successful climate change mitigationstrategies at the local community level clashed with the re-ligious ideologies or discourses of a particular group. AsMaxwell (2003, p. 257) observed, “reductionist perceptionsof reality are proving inadequate for addressing the complex,interconnected problems of the current age”, and in additionto the benefits of working with such groups in tackling cli-mate change, it would be worthwhile for future workshops toinvestigate the extent to which religious world views poten-tially clashed with climate change communications, and howdifferent faith leaders reacted as a result.

The manner in which guilt about climate change was at-tributed, and the extent to which it oppressed individual andcollective action, form just one example of the different waysin which these communities responded to climate changeand how it is communicated. People’s individual roles withinthese communities also need to be considered. For exam-ple, are they resident or employee, volunteer or patron, faithleader or community member? These roles may change de-pending on circumstance, and many of us belong to severalcommunities, in which we might have different roles and re-act accordingly. Given these different communities and theroles within them, how do we go about categorizing themin terms of developing effective climate communications?Helm et al. (2018) have suggested using an approach thatsplits people’s values into egotistic, altruistic, and biospheric,but is even this approach too broad? As noted by one of theparticipants in the Manchester workshop,

Different people respond to different stimuli. Ex-press themselves very differently, so how to engagewill vary according to the audience/psychologicalmakeup of hopes and fears.

By making generalizations about how to effectively com-municate climate change we are missing these reactions,and in doing so we are arguably contributing to a perceivedmalaise on the subject. Furthermore, but not working at thecommunity level we are missing out on all of the opportu-

nities that these communities (and their individuals) presentin terms of developing effective dialogue around the nega-tive effects of climate change and mobilizing collective ac-tion against them. Whatever the theoretical perspectives onhow people’s opinions and values can be categorized, theyare typically unable to recognize the very particular circum-stances that are present in individual communities. Never-theless, each of the three communities in this study representeffective allies towards the mitigation of climate change. TheAvonmouth Community Centre was willing to engage theirown member base and wanted to depoliticize climate changeso that they could educate their community on how best tocombat its negative effects. Disability Stockport understoodthe social injustice of climate change and were willing tobring to task local government in order to protect the vul-nerable. The Manchester faith leaders were eager to use theirpositions within their own communities to educate, support,and enact change. These are all positive experiences and op-portunities, which serve to highlight the question of why weare not working with these communities instead of tellingthem what they should be doing and how they should be feel-ing.

The approach that was adopted in this study has helpedto give voice to a small selection of different communities,and in doing so has helped us to better understand whythere is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to communicating cli-mate change. It also highlighted why two-way dialogues areneeded to help capture and understand these approaches, asopposed to one-way communications which can instead in-stil negative feelings and attitudes. By creating a safe spacein which dialogue could take place, these workshops helpedto empower the community members, and in using poetryas part of the process the participants were presented witha creative approach to solidify their thoughts and commu-nicate and discuss them with others. The poetry also actedas a powerful tool in helping participants to explore the life-worlds of their associates and enabled them to reflect on whathad been discussed and what they might decide to do in thefuture. Whilst poetry can at times be perceived as elitist and“difficult”, these workshops demonstrated that given the cor-rect environment and facilitation, writing poetry can insteadbe accessible and empowering. None of the workshop par-ticipants had any issues in composing their poems, and in-deed almost all of them took great joy in creating and sharingthem.

The creative nature of these workshops was enjoyed by allof the participants and demonstrates how poetry can play apowerful role in helping to develop effective dialogue aroundclimate change. During the workshops, several of the partici-pants noted that this kind of activity should be run elsewhereand that it was needed to help ensure that all voices couldbe heard. Based on these experiences the following recom-mendations are offered to people wanting to adopt a similarapproach.



1. These workshops need to happen in the communitiesthemselves. It is not desirable (in terms of both logisticsand the creation of a safe space) for these workshops tohappen at a university or even a neutral venue.

2. Any workshop questions or planned exercises shouldbe passed to a community representative or gatekeeperin advance of the workshop, so that provisions can bemade to be fully inclusive.

3. In order for everyone to be equally involved in the dis-cussions, an upper limit of 10 people, or 10 people perfacilitator, would be advisable.

4. The role of the facilitator is not to be overlooked.This needs to be someone who can respond to ques-tions, support group discussions, assist in poetry writ-ing, and quickly synthesize information. Several facili-tators, each with a slightly different specialism (e.g. po-etry writing and group discussions), might be advisable.

5. Having regular breaks and creating an informal atmo-sphere help to breed creativity and also reinforce thenotion of a safe space for all.

As discussed in Sect. 1, we hoped that by involving climatecommunications experts in the workshop, we could demon-strate first-hand to them the diverse nature of the audiencesand publics that they were communicating with. In conver-sations with the experts following these workshops this wasclearly the case; in all instances it was useful to have some-one who could not only provide statistics and in-depth infor-mation if required to do so, but who could also offer an alter-native opinion and voice in terms of their own communities.In future workshops it might also be worthwhile to include aclimate communications expert who identified as also beingpart of the community group that is being worked with, so asalso to provide local information and an additional represen-tative voice.

This study is limited in its findings, in that we only re-port on the outcomes of three workshops run in three dif-ferent community groups. The findings would likely be verydifferent were these workshops to be run again but with dif-ferent communities. However, this further serves to under-line the thesis of this study, i.e. that qualitative research atthe community level is an essential accompaniment to larger-scale research projects that look at the way in which climatechange is communicated. One-off workshops were used inthis study, as we believe that it represents a model that couldbe most easily adopted by other researchers and for othercommunities. Additionally, this study was not designed tomonitor the long-term impacts of these workshops; however,given the responses of the participants (and in particular thecomments made by the Avonmouth group – see Sect. 3.1),such a study would likely yield interesting results. In addi-tion to working with different communities and monitoring

any long-term impacts, future studies could also adopt a simi-lar approach to running workshops with several communitiesat a time. Furthermore, future workshops could also involvean element of reading and discussing poetry that had alreadybeen written (either by well-known poets, or by other com-munities in similar workshops) about issues that the commu-nity identified as being important, as doing so would allowparticipants to explore and discuss different perspectives andlifeworlds. As demonstrated in this study, the collaborativepoetry writing worked well in allowing participants to ex-plore each other’s lived experiences in a creative and non-confrontational manner. Such an approach would also likelybe successful in helping to bring together different (and per-haps opposed) communities by enabling them to discuss theirlifeworlds in this way, as was exemplified by the workshopinvolving the Manchester faith leaders (see Sect. 3.3).

5 Conclusions

This study has presented a framework for engaging com-munities in an effective dialogue around the effects of cli-mate change. In presenting the results of these discussionsvia three case studies, we have also highlighted the need forsuch initiatives, in terms of both better understanding theneeds of these communities and also the opportunities thatthey present in mobilizing effective action against the neg-ative effects of climate change. In addition to the specificneeds and opportunities for each of these communities, thisstudy has also demonstrated how poetry can help communitymembers to explore their own and each other’s lifeworlds in acreative environment, and in doing so has shown how work-shops such as these are an effective way of creating a safespace for discussion around climate change.

This approach has also provided evidence for how a dia-logue model can help to break down some of the barriers thatare created via one-way communication exercises. By creat-ing a safe space in which dialogue could be established andindividual voices could be heard and listened to, the percep-tions of “experts” changed from untrustworthy to valued andreliable sources of information. In developing this dialogue,it is vital to also realize the different roles that individualsplay within different communities, and when working withcarers and other gatekeepers consideration needs to be givento how they too can be supported in developing their owneffective dialogues.

The three communities in this study represent only a smallfraction of the different audiences and publics that need tobe engaged with, in order to effectively develop a dialoguearound communicating climate change and bringing aboutthe changes that are needed for mitigation against its nega-tive effects. The small-scale, creative, and personal qualita-tive research that is presented here is essential to help con-textualize and develop larger impersonal quantitative work,demonstrating that whilst we are multitudes we are also in-



dividuals, and that all voices should be listened to and takeninto account. Such engagement should not simply be done asa box-ticking exercise, but should be encouraged because di-versity and inclusion act as a powerful tool for empoweringcitizens and enacting change (see e.g. Stevens et al., 2008).By telling individuals what they can and cannot do, and howthey can and cannot feel in relation to climate change, weare arguably contributing to a feeling of collective guilt thatcan entrench feelings of defensiveness and despair. By lis-tening and giving voice to each of these communities we cannot only help to break down these barriers, but in doing socan also benefit from their unique skill sets and experiencesas future allies in our battle against anthropogenic climatechange.

Data availability. All of the data that were used during thisstudy can be found in the form of anonymized responses tothe questionnaire (Appendix A) that was used to facilitate dia-logue amongst the different participants. These data can be ac-cessed freely from the Natural Environment Research Council’sResearch Data Repository for Atmospheric Science and EarthObservation using the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.5285/F156350CFC3245DFA9F6C7252DA5CD08 (Illingworth, 2018).


https://doi.org/10.5285/F156350CFC3245DFA9F6C7252DA5CD08



Appendix A

There is no demographic information on this questionnairefor two reasons. Firstly, it ensures that the responses are fullyanonymized. Secondly, we are interested in communicatingwith people as people, and as such generalizations relating togender, race, age, and any other socio-demographic factorsshould be discouraged.

Pre-workshop questions

Write down three random words. This question isneeded to help analyse the responses.

What are the three most important issues that need ad-dressing in your community?

Does climate change affect your community?

Does climate change affect you?

What is climate change?

How do you think climate change is currently commu-nicated?

What do you want to know more about with respect toclimate change?

How would you find out this information?

Workshop questions

Write a list poem about the things in your community.

Write down one sentence that captures how you feelabout your community.

Combine this sentence with a neighbour.

Combine this pair of sentences with another pair.

Write a list poem about climate change.

Write down one sentence that captures how you feelabout climate change.

Combine this sentence with a neighbour.

Combine this pair of sentences with another pair.

Write down one question that you have about climatechange.

Post-workshop questions

What did you like about this workshop?

What could we have done differently?

What is climate change?

What do you want to know more about with respect toclimate change?

How would you find out this information?



Author contributions. SI designed and delivered the workshops,analysed the responses, and co-wrote the paper. AB, SC, AC, PF,RL, MLL, CM, HR, and ES helped design the workshops, analysethe responses, and co-wrote the paper.

Competing interests. The authors declare that there are no com-peting financial interests. It should be noted that the lead author forthis paper is the chief executive editor of Geoscience Communica-tion. However, the editorial process was handled entirely by othereditors and reviewers, just as would be the case for any other re-searcher.

Acknowledgements. The authors would like to thank and ac-knowledge all the participants in this study, including the staff atAvonmouth Community Centre, Disability Stockport, and Manch-ester Cathedral for their help in making this project possible.

This work was supported by the Natural Environment ResearchCouncil (NE/R011974/1).

Edited by: Ed HawkinsReviewed by: Evonne Miller and one anonymous referee

References

Bickerstaff, K.: Risk perception research: socio-cultural perspec-tives on the public experience of air pollution, Environ. Int., 30,827–840, 2004.

Bristol City Council: Deprivation in Bristol 2015: The mapping ofdeprivation within Bristol local authority area, 2015.

Büchs, M. and Schnepf, S. V.: Who emits most? Associations be-tween socio-economic factors and UK households’ home energy,transport, indirect and total CO2 emissions, Ecol. Econ., 90, 114–123, 2013.

Burgess, J., Harrison, C. M., and Filius, P.: Environmental commu-nication and the cultural politics of environmental citizenship,Environ. Plann. A, 30, 1445–1460, 1998.

Burns, A. C. and Gentry, J. W.: Motivating students to engage inexperiential learning: A tension-to-learn theory, Simulation andGaming, 29, 133–151, 1998.

Carley, M. and Spapens, P.: Sharing the world: sustainable livingand global equity in the 21st century, Routledge, 2017.

Cook, J., Oreskes, N., Doran, P. T., Anderegg, W. R., Verheggen,B., Maibach, E. W., Carlton, J. S., Lewandowsky, S., Skuce,A. G., and Green, S. A.: Consensus on consensus: a synthe-sis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming,Environ. Res. Lett., 11, 048002, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002, 2016.

Copus, C., Roberts, M., and Wall, R.: Devolution Today: Revolu-tion or Submission?, in: Local Government in England, Springer,113–137, 2017.

Cross, M.: Demonised, impoverished and now forced into isolation:the fate of disabled people under austerity, Disabil. Soc., 28, 719–723, 2013.

Crush, A. and Cameron, A.: Community Enegry Greater Manch-ester Summary Document Greater Manchester Centre for Volun-tary Organisation, 2015.

Dakin, T.: Chimurenga: The War of the Trees, J. Relig. Afr., 34,181–185, 2004.

de Franca Doria, M., Boyd, E., Tompkins, E. L., and Adger, W. N.:Using expert elicitation to define successful adaptation to climatechange, Environ. Sci. Policy, 12, 810–819, 2009.

The Environment Agency: Avonmouth: dust monitoring, The Envi-ronment Agency 2015.

Finley, M.: Fugue of the street rat: Writing research poetry, Interna-tional Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16, 603–604,2003.

Francisco, P.: Laudato si, Sobre el cuidado de las Casa Común (En-ciclica), 2015.

Frumkin, H., Hess, J., Luber, G., Malilay, J., and McGeehin,M.: Climate change: the public health response, Am. J. PublicHealth, 98, 435–445, 2008.

Furman, R., Riddoch, R., and Collins, K.: Poetry, Writing, andCommunity Practice, Human Service Education, 24, 19–32,2004.

Goodwin, J. and Dahlstrom, M. F.: Communication strategies forearning trust in climate change debates, Wires Clim. Change, 5,151–160, 2014.

Greenstone, M.: Did the Clean Air Act cause the remarkable declinein sulfur dioxide concentrations?, J. Environ. Econ. Manag., 47,585–611, 2004.

Helm, S. V., Pollitt, A., Barnett, M. A., Curran, M. A., and Craig, Z.R.: Differentiating environmental concern in the context of psy-chological adaption to climate change, Global Environ. Chang.,48, 158–167, 2018.

Heltberg, R., Siegel, P. B., and Jorgensen, S. L.: Addressing humanvulnerability to climate change: toward a “no-regrets” approach,Global Environ. Chang., 19, 89–99, 2009.

Illingworth, S.: Climate Communication Project: Repre-senting the Majority questionnaire asking participantsabout their attitudes towards climate change, Centre forEnvironmental Data Analysis, https://doi.org/10.5285/F156350CFC3245DFA9F6C7252DA5CD08, 9 October 2018.

Illingworth, S. and Jack, K.: Rhyme and reason-using po-etry to talk to underserved audiences about environ-mental change, Climate Risk Management, 19, 120–129,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2018.01.001, 2018.

Kahan, D.: Why we are poles apart on climate change: the problemisn’t the public’s reasoning capacity; it’s the polluted science-communication environment that drives people apart, Nature,488, 255–256, 2012.

Kelly, D. L. and Kolstad, C. D.: Malthus and climate change: bettingon a stable population, J. Environ. Econ. Manag., 41, 135–161,2001.

Kitzinger, J.: Qualitative research. Introducing focus groups, BMJBrit. Med. J., 311, 299–302, 1995.

Lorenzoni, I., Nicholson-Cole, S., and Whitmarsh, L.: Barriers per-ceived to engaging with climate change among the UK publicand their policy implications, Global Environ. Chang., 17, 445–459, 2007.

Maibach, E. W., Nisbet, M., Baldwin, P., Akerlof, K., and Diao,G.: Reframing climate change as a public health issue: an ex-ploratory study of public reactions, BMC Public Health, 10, 299,https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-299, 2010.


https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002



https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crm.2018.01.001

https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-10-299


Maxwell, T. P.: Integral spirituality, deep science, and ecologicalawareness, Zygon, 38, 257–276, 2003.

The Methodist Church: Hope in God’s Future: Christian Disciple-ship in the Context of Climate Change, Methodist Publishing,2012.

Miller, S.: Public understanding of science at the crossroads, PublicUnderst. Sci., 10, 115–120, 2001.

Moser, S. C.: Communicating climate change: history, challenges,process and future directions, Wires. Clim. Change, 1, 31–53,2010.

Norton, A. and Leaman, J.: The day after tomorrow: Public opin-ion on climate change, MORI Social Research Institute, London,2004.

Poindexter, C. C.: Research as poetry: A couple experiences HIV,Qual. Inq., 8, 707–714, 2002.

Poortinga, W., Spence, A., Whitmarsh, L., Capstick, S., and Pid-geon, N. F.: Uncertain climate: An investigation into publicscepticism about anthropogenic climate change, Global Environ.Chang., 21, 1015–1024, 2011.

Priest, S.: Communicating Climate Change: The Path Forward,Springer, 2016.

Ramírez, D. M., Ramírez-Andreotta, M. D., Vea, L., Estrella-Sánchez, R., Wolf, A. M. A., Kilungo, A., Spitz, A. H., andBetterton, E. A.: Pollution prevention through peer education: acommunity health worker and small and home-based businessinitiative on the Arizona-Sonora Border, Int. J. Environ. Res.Pub. He., 12, 11209–11226, 2015.

Shove, E. and Walker, G.: Governing transitions in the sustainabilityof everyday life, Res. Policy, 39, 471–476, 2010.

Stevens, F. G., Plaut, V. C., and Sanchez-Burks, J.: Unlocking thebenefits of diversity: All-inclusive multiculturalism and positiveorganizational change, J. Appl. Behav. Sci., 44, 116–133, 2008.

Swim, J., Clayton, S., Doherty, T., Gifford, R., Howard, G., Reser,J., Stern, P., and Weber, E.: Psychology and global climatechange: Addressing a multi-faceted phenomenon and set of chal-lenges. A report by the American Psychological Association’stask force on the interface between psychology and global cli-mate change, American Psychological Association, Washington,2009.

Vygotsky, L. S.: Mind in society: The development of higher psy-chological processes, Harvard university press, 1980.


representing the majority and not the minority: the ... · maria loroño leturiondo1, catherine...

Documents