We could meet that demand with wind and solar. These are now the cheapest and fastest and easiest ways to deploy new electricity generation.

But the fossil fuel infrastructure around the world is massive. It’s trillions of dollars of sunk costs. So it’s not surprising that the industry is always trying to divert us from clean energy solutions.

Svoboda: But to redirect ourselves, we have to acknowledge that climate change has become a political, social-psychological, and attention problem. When we deal with climate change, we have to overcome several obstacles: polarization, due to our politics; psychological paralysis, due to our anxiety and doomism; and stale messaging, due to the ways we’ve habitually talked about climate change.

Hackman: Right. We have to reach different audiences. And to do that, we have to speak in different ways. First, however, we have to bust some myths.

Movements are built on myths. Myths form collective senses of identities and values.

Some may have been appropriate at one time, perhaps for another environmental problem, but they’re not helpful now.  

The first myth is “The Myth of the Individual Carbon Footprint,” which was created by BP in the early 2000s when they hired a public relations firm to shift the blame away from them and onto their customers. And it’s worked brilliantly.

We have engaged in the blame-and-shame game of individual carbon footprints for the last 30 years. It hasn’t worked. It continues to divide people. It’s a distraction from the systems-based solutions that we need.

The second myth is “The Myth of Reversing Climate Change.” What does it look like to win the campaign of climate change? For me, it’s the Paris Agreement goal: 2 degrees Celsius by the year 2100. Hopefully, we don’t get to 2 degrees until 2100 — it’s 1.3 now — but that is a hotter world than the one we live in now.

Svoboda: In other words, we’re never returning to the climate we knew 20, 30, or 50 years ago. Even if we “solve” the problem of climate change, we will still be living in a warmer climate, a hotter world. What’s the last myth?

Hackman: The last myth is “The Myth of Saving the Planet.” The language of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, of the Paris Agreement, and of the EPA is human-centric. We have to remind ourselves of that. We’re not trying to save the planet; we’re trying to save ourselves. We’re trying to save our quality of life, our health in a warming world. If we fail to solve climate change, we will be in trouble, but Earth will be fine.

Svoboda: So what do we do to save ourselves?

Hackman: We have to get very specific about what will improve our lives and communities. Will this public policy solution benefit the community? How much will it cost? Will it be effective? For every problem, we have to ask about personal benefit, effectiveness, and cost.

But too often, we get stuck in this 30,000-foot conversation about believing in climate change.

We need to pull back down into localized conversations about what we want to do in this community; then we have to have effective conversations with these people about this specific thing that will impact them.

Svoboda: I want to come back to that. You stress several times in your book, and you just now implied, that maybe we shouldn’t use the words “climate change” in every conversation. Are you suggesting that we should be more sympathetic to the corporations that are still doing the work of sustainability, including climate measures, but talking about it in other terms?

Hackman: I’m a campaigner. Every successful campaign has to think not just about what it wants to say but also what its audience will hear. 

In their “Global Warming’s Six Americas” studies, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has identified patterns in American responses to climate change. We have the Alarmed and Concerned: 52% of Americans, people who already care about climate change. I am more concerned about the Cautious [17%], the Disengaged [6%], and even the Doubtful [13%], the people who, based on Yale’s research, are still open to climate conversations. But because the issue is so polarized, we have to talk to these less engaged communities in different ways. Editor’s note: The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication is the publisher of this site.

I have one question for every climate communicator out there: What are you doing to expand your audience? Or are you just repeating the same messages to the same people all day, every day and, thereby, contributing to the politics of outrage?

This is our reframing moment. We have to figure out how to reach new audiences. And that may mean not always using the words “climate change.” 

We can instead talk about resilience, about flood preparations, about disaster planning. We can talk about safety or health consequences. I was diagnosed with asthma recently — I never had it growing up. But I’ve breathed in a lot of wildfire smoke in Virginia, where I now live. I have lots of conversations with the conservatives and Trump supporters who live next door: They are concerned about air quality and water quality. We can take actions together even if we don’t say the same words.

Svoboda: And you argue those joint efforts could take place at many different levels: local, regional, state, and federal.

Hackman: Yes. When you’re presenting solutions, you have to make the connections clear: problem/solution, problem/solution. This is the campaign mindset.