politics and policy

Dear Friends,
 
Today we are releasing the second wave of results from our recent national survey. This report finds that, despite the recent drops in public beliefs and concern about global warming, a large majority of Americans—regardless of political affiliation—support the passage of federal climate and energy policies. These include support for:

Two Stonehouse members have recently contributed to new, evidence-based guides for communicating about global warming – two documents that have the capacity to make major advances in the integrity and efficacy of the conversation about climate change.

The first of these documents comes from the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) at Columbia University in New York. Entitled The Psychology of Climate Change Communications, it is framed as “a guide for scientists, journalists, educators, political aides and the interested public.” Stonehouse scholar Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale Project on Climate Change, was a leading contributor.

The second document, penned in part by Stonehouse scholar and former Earthjustice communications VP Cara Pike, is called Climate Crossroads: A Research-Based Framing Guide,offered “for global warming advocates; from global warming advocates.”

It’s clear that both papers have been extensively researched. The CRED paper, written by Debika Shome and Sabine Marx, arises more from an academic tradition, while the Climate Crossroadsdocument is a compilation of the learning of a host of environmental organizations. In fact, the contributors’ list is a who’s who of climate change activism, ranging from gold-standard traditional environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club to newer climate-focused groups like 1 Sky and 350.org. So, while the CRED paper is more theoretical in its approach, with some of its excellent advice originating in careful experiments and labs, the Climate Crossroads material is more likely to be experience-based – although a goodly amount has also been focus-group tested. In both papers, this is clearly information you can rely on.

A final rough distinction between the two papers is that CRED talks more about how to communicate about climate change, while Climate Crossroads spends more time offering arguments and suggestions for what to communicate, even at the (acknowledged) risk of offering advice that might time out if not acted on promptly.

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The role of Stonehouse in the current environmental crisis can be manifold - looking at solutions that are currently achievable, as well as strategizing about long-term solutions, and working towards a greater societal shift towards environmentalism.

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Dear Friends, I’m delighted to share with you the online video launch of our new “Visions of a Sustainable World” lecture series.

Dedicated to inspiring visions of a sustainable world and practical strategies to achieve it, the lecture series was inaugurated this Spring by Dr. Paul Raskin, the President of the Tellus Institute and a Director of the Great Transition Initiative. Dr. Raskin presented a provocative “history from the future” – a look back at how global sustainability was achieved, from the vantage point of the year 2084.

Our second speaker was Alex Steffen, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Worldchanging and Editor of Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century. He spoke about "Building a Bright Green Future That Works," on the emerging tools available to create sustainable, prosperous communities.

Both lectures are available via Yale's YouTube channel: