First of all, there are those who 1. believe the climate crisis is real, but fear social, familial, and professional ostracism if they even say the words “climate change” or “human-caused climate change.” 2. They are usually surrounded by people who have been misled into believing it’s all a hoax by their peers, religious leaders, news sources, fossil fuel industry lies, and Congressional representatives. 3. Next come people whose financial and/or professional prospects depend in the near future on the fossil fuel industry doing well financially—industry executives, institutional investors and so on. 4. Add politicians dependent on the fossil fuel industry for political contributions and jobs in their districts. 5. Then there are whole countries whose economies are heavily dependent on fossil fuel sales—Saudi Arabia, Russia, the U.S., among others. (Don’t spend any time wondering why Putin has lassoed Trump and the GOP—Russia needs oil and gas sales, and the GOP serves the global fossil fuel industry!) Russia and all the other fossil fuel dependent states need to do what they can to keep fostering the global energy economy we have now, the one that still runs heavily on fossil fuels.

A depressingly long list, isn’t it? And you probably knew about them all. But we can’t begin to think clearly and strategically about effective framing aimed at the #ClimateHoldouts unless we see the whole picture at once. It’s good to think about how to appeal to each of these different audiences, but until we have a pretty broad across the board consensus, we are still heading straight into the final fire on this planet.

What could create powerful top-down leverage to complement the grass roots push up that is growing everyday, all over the world? In general “bottom up” strategies are moving ahead right now, because at the local level people are starting to see and feel economically devastating #ClimateDamage. But while piecemeal regional, state and local action is vital and necessary, by itself it’s too slow for the late hour we’re in now. We all know it. We must have the kind of national and international leverage that can move us all very fast toward the changed energy economy we need for life to survive on this planet. We need business CEOs, whole industry sectors, and international institutions like the IMF, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum on board, all rowing in the same direction. These are the powers that can move national political parties and ultimately national governments to do the right thing. They are also the ones who can swiftly change the idea of what is and what is not acceptable, even for ordinary non-tycoon #ClimateHoldouts.

How do you bring something like that to pass? Sometimes it takes a determined whistle-blower, a battle of business titans to do it, and a new opportunity to make money, plus a catchy frame to raise broad public awareness. Two examples come to mind: the way we got Detroit to include seat belts in cars, and the way we got an international accord to phase out chlorofluorocarbons. In the seat belt case, Ralph Nader was the whistleblower with his 1965 book, Unsafe at any Speed, and insurance companies lobbied for seat belt laws, prevailing over reluctant auto manufacturers. The catchy frame was, of course, “unsafe at any speed.” The American public always wants safety. As for the chlorofluorocarbons, the whistle-blowers were two scientists, Sherry Rowland and Mario Moline, who published a 1974 article about the damage they caused, and by 1978 the EPA banned commercial manufacturing and use of CFCs and aerosol propellants in the U.S. However, DuPont lobbied against the ban and any further regulation until 1986 when they got a patent for a substitute. Then they too began lobbying for a total ban on chlorofluorocarbons, aided by the famous “hole in the ozone” that was discovered in 1987. There you have the new profit incentive and the catchy frame. That “hole in the ozone” frame was actually a metaphor for the serious damage taking place, not a literal scientific description. But the idea of a “hole” in our atmosphere was deeply alarming to people.

We will need something as powerful as that to catalyze turning the #ClimateCrisis around. And it will have to be “nonpartisan.” Even Greta was recently quoted as saying this. Right now of course everything in the U.S. seems partisan, so it’s hard to imagine such a phrase. We also need something everyone can understand.  Right now the most universal idea in the U.S. and the world is the importance of making a profit or increasing sales or the fear of failing to do it. So here are some trial frames: “In the ‘20’s #ClimateSafeProfits will grow; #ClimateDamageCosts will explode.”   Another way to frame it could be this: “In the ‘20’s let’s grow ClimateSafeProfits and cut #ClimateDamageCosts.” American audiences fear costs and still love safety.  If we can make these frames or even better ones like them go viral, our language can increase public pressure on all the #ClimateHoldouts, whoever they are.  As for the whistle-blowers, we’ve had plenty of those already. The only other thing we need now is the battle of business titans.

If you think that the titans of global finance will just laugh these phrases off at first, that’s probably true. But deep down in their guts they will know it’s true. They also know that the rest of the world won’t drag its feet to start making even more #ClimateSafeProfits, especially China. And they know that some of their own financial leaders already see fossil fuel investments as “stranded assets,” that is worthless  very soon. BlackRock, a leading manager of investment funds, has announced new environmental sustainability criteria for investments and started a fund that focuses on long term business value. A few days later Chris Hohn, CEO of the $30 billion hedge fund, TCI Fund Management, announced he is pressuring the boards of companies the fund invests in to fire CEOs who don’t make “credible” emission reduction plans. If they don’t, Hohn says, TCI will sell its shares. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has granted permission for a new “long term” stock exchange to counter the frenetic, short-term, and destructive effects of today’s form of capitalism. Individual companies like Microsoft are taking action to become more sustainable, and business leaders like  Marc Benioff, chief executive of SalesForce just described capitalism as we know it today as dead in his Davos 2020 call for a new “stakeholder capitalism.” Moreover, the EIB, the European Investment Bank, has already announced they will be making no more fossil fuel investments after the end of 2021. I know—it’s easy to be cynical about all this and to feel that it is too little too late or just green wash, but calls for new regulations and taxes also sound unrealistic in the face of the government we have. At least some of these business entities are talking the correct talk and even taking some actions. That trend is likely to snowball faster than turning all of DC blue overnight. In fact, the financial industry has the power to bring the fossil fuel industry to its knees and move politicians too; our job is to egg the financial industry on. And talking about #ClimateSafeProfits and #ClimateDamageCosts is a good way to get more of the public pushing the finance titans. So let’s all get at it!
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Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, http://www.metaphorproject.org, and author of our book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong, on The Metaphor Project on Facebook, and check out her TEDx talk too.

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Before we look at some new language though, let’s review our situation. By the end of Obama’s last term, public action had stopped the Keystone pipeline. An unprecedented coming together of activists from almost every sector supported the DAPL action. That included veterans who said they came to defend our American “water protectors.”  This level of successful public resistance scared Big Fossil Fuel so badly they decided they needed to be the government, not just lobby and buy it. The Fossil Fuel Gang’s counterattack shows they are now at the maximum fright stage. (Their deceptive, immoral, and destructive behavior over the last few decades fully qualifies them to be called a gang: “the FF Gang.”)(1.)  And Russia was delighted to help them, because Russia depends on fossil fuel sales. In Donald Trump they thought they’d found their perfect Trojan horse, because it’s clear he’s in debt to them in some way.

Of course, ever since January, 2017 Trump and the GOP have been very busy destroying all U.S. rules, programs, and agreements to slow the pace of climate change. But the FF Gang’s forbidding government officials to say or write the words “climate change” is going to be the Achilles heel of their Trojan horse. Given that the rest of the world is moving toward a clean energy economy, this silly piece of government censorship clearly shows how much the FF Gang are head-in-the-sand fools. (2) However, the irony of it is this: we need to stop saying “climate change” too. It sounds mild, it sounds bland, maybe even nice. And it doesn’t begin to convey the level of nature’s fury happening now. It also fails to suggest anything about why that change is happening.

Now I know that some recommend talking about “climate disruption.” But that is still a far too polite and academic way of talking. It fails to resonate widely because it is multisyllabic Latinate language that flies right past ordinary Americans. Even “climate crisis” is too mild. What we are seeing now is “climate chaos. Huge, unprecedented hurricanes batter our eastern and southern coasts. They are laying waste to vast fossil fuel industry facilities that spread deadly pollution as they go down. Enormous tornadoes and droughts churn and bake wide swaths of our mid-western agricultural “bread basket.” Massive air-polluting fires rage all along our west coast. Rising seas are starting to sink many of our biggest and most important coastal cities. Climate chaos is also creating huge levels of damage to our economy and our federal budget. We can’t sustain the costs of constantly rising disaster relief and infrastructure repair. The American people literally cannot afford to tiptoe around this issue anymore. Our FF Gang government must start changing course right now.

But to push them harder in the right direction, we need to up our framing game even more. Taking Step 1, which is talking about “climate chaos,” isn’t enough by itself. We have to talk about it in a way that makes very clear why it’s happening. So I’m suggesting Step 2: saying “fossil-fueled climate chaos.” Yes, I know that whole sectors of our society still don’t believe that’s the reason the storms, fires, droughts and floods are getting worse. But after years of writing about how to talk to the doubters in a way that might open their minds, I’ve decided to take another tack in this post.(3) It’s time we called a spade a spade, and let go of worrying about what the doubters think. The biggest problem we have on this issue is silence about it.

But even naming the problem “fossil-fueled climate chaos” is not enough by itself.  We need a Step 3: giving people the idea that we can still protect ourselves from even worse to come, if we do the right thing. So how about saying some of the following:
                   “Get fossil-fueled climate chaos in check!” “Bring back the Clean Power Plan/
Or:/ Bring back the rules that keep our air  clean/
Or/Pass HR 3671, The Off Fossil Fuels for a Better Future Act (The OFF Act,)
                                                               introduced by Rep.Tulsi Gabbard(D-HI)/
Or/Pass the Sanders-Merkley bill, The “100 by 50” Act ( 2050).”

Take your pick of the solutions out there for your Step 3 “solutions” frame. But whatever you choose, hit all three steps, and say it loud and clear, again and again, everywhere you can. The time for worrying about what some people mistakenly believe is gone.
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Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, http://www.metaphorproject.org, and author of our book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong, on The Metaphor Project on Facebook, and check out her TEDx talk too.
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(1.) As we know, abundant evidence exists that the FF Gang knew full well what climate disaster their policies would create. They also failed to report this information to their investors, thereby committing actionable negligence. They formed industry groups to mount huge PR campaigns to discredit the findings of mainstream climate science. They recruited a few rogue scientists willing to charge reputable colleagues with fraud, even in the face of unprecedented levels of scientific agreement (97%).These are just some of the worst actions they have taken over the previous few decades.  But in those same decades we got the equally vicious Big Tobacco gang in check. With luck we can stop the FF Gang too, before they kill every single creature on our planet, us included, by making the earth uninhabitable.

(2.) Yes, we all know the oil companies are really just trying to protect their investment in drilling sites, refineries, and the rest of the oil infrastructure, as well as their current business model.  In fact, we will still need them for a while, as we transition to the 100% clean energy economy. But they could be openly and honestly preparing for a transition to other kinds of business, the way the automobile business is. They could be working on shifting their structure to become B-corporations, getting the common good into their bottom line. And they could be changing course on what kind of American government they are running,  starting right now.
(3) However, here is one thing you can try if you like for persuading the deniers: Even if some people resist believing that our weather chaos is caused by fossil-fueled climate change, there is a question those folks should answer. What if it is true? Do you want to take a chance on it? Wouldn’t it be better if we had a “climate chaos” insurance policy” in the form of better government policy?  Especially if that would mean cleaner air, soil, food, water, energy, and new safer jobs close to home? After all, actual insurance companies are getting out of the business of climate damage coverage. What does that say?

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Right now we’re on the home stretch for Election 2016. Donald Trump has recently announced that if elected he would select a climate denier as EPA head. (If Pence replaces him at the top of the ticket, we can be sure he’d do the same.) We’re also on the home stretch for doing anything effective about the climate chaos ahead. The climate stakes in this election couldn’t be higher. So we need to be very   strategic about how we talk about it (not just how we vote).  The question we must all take very seriously now is what framing will work to move us all in the right direction. It’s not enough to reach “the choir” on this point or to focus on the deniers. The challenge is to get a majority of Americans on board for doing what’s needed. That’s what helps a president the most.

Now many of my readers will have read Bill McKibben’s article from the August 2016 New Republic, entitled “A World at War.”   In it he argues that we need a rapid “war” style mobilization of all our resources to make our society emission-free. The rest of his piece is directed at a President Hillary Clinton, spelling out how she could do what’s required by executive order, just as FDR did in the 30’s. Of course, he admits that FDR had a Congress he could work with and a war that everybody could see was indeed a war, and no mere metaphor.

Of course McKibben is right that the crisis is real and radical steps are needed. The question is: what story and what framing of this issue will help Madam President get it done, in a situation very different from the one FDR faced? No president can move forward very far or fast without deep popular support. Much as I deeply respect and admire Bill McKibben, his expertise lies in areas other than framing for the merely persuadable. By this time the public has a fully justified suspicion of any more “war on x” metaphors, given what we know now about Nixon’s “war on drugs,”   and Bush’s deceptive “war on terror. Moreover, most Americans don’t like proposals based on the idea of “control.” And in an ill-fated attempt to make the climate crisis more graphic, McKibben describes the enemy in his “war” scenario as the disembodied “laws of physics.”(1) More despair and disempowerment potential there—how can we puny humans possibly “defeat the laws of physics?” (A folk story would work better here:  how about the Sorcerer’s Apprentice?) Even more to the point, the deepest source of elite climate denial comes from knowing that fighting climate change would require exactly the kind of federal takeover and regulatory regime McKibben suggests. That is the one thing they are all most firmly against. Handing them a weapon like the “war ”metaphor is fatal.

What to do about framing this issue for the general public? A great deal of excellent research has been done over the last decade about what framing actually works for this issue. Again and again, the most powerful frames are positive: “protecting our families and children, preventing damage,” and “economic recovery through new, clean energy jobs.”  Clean energy is something all Americans want. (Please see online links for my sources in note (2) below.) We can also speak of climate action as a form of insurance and financial responsibility, which will increase our energy security too. (See note 3 below for a remarkable success story using the insurance metaphor.)

Powerful visual stories of how we could switch to a clean energy economy and reap huge benefits also exist. Charles Ferguson’s 2015 film, Time to Choose and Leonardo Di Caprio’s forthcoming one, Before the Flood, in theaters 10.21. and on the National Geographic channel on 10.30 come to mind.  They say, and you need to say, “This is our biggest innovation challenge, an American ‘can do’ test, and we can ‘meet it if we really try.’”  With the Paris Accords now in force, the rest of the world is racing ahead on these goals. It’s past time we really “got in the game” too.

All the frames I’ve mentioned above allow us to start talking about the problem in much more accessible ways.  And talking about the problem more is what’s needed, according to the Yale Program on Climate Communication.   Their study shows that the most fundamental reason people continue to think the problem is no real problem is that “no one is talking about it.” And we will never get enough buy in to make the kinds of changes McKibben rightly says we need without a much more broadly activated American public, ready to apply the pressure all presidents need to actually move their agendas.

So let’s make it easier for Madam President to go in the direction we must. Let’s use the words that will increase support.  Protecting, preventing, creating clean energy and local jobs, and being financially responsible can be “urgent” too. Meeting this big innovation challenge is an American ‘can do’ test   we can ‘meet it if we really try.  It really is time we “got in the game” And it’s a proven fact that Americans tune out if we just scare them. We have to give them something positive to aim for instead.
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Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, http://www.metaphorproject.org, and author of our book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong and check out her TEDx talk too.
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(1) McKibben’s actual phrase was: “The question is not, are we in a world war? The question is, will we fight back? And if we do, can we actually defeat an enemy as powerful and inexorable as the laws of physics?” [Emphasis mine].

(2) The best climate action framing  guides can be found at:
https://grist.org/climate-energy/heres-everything-we-know-about-how-to-talk-about-climate-change/
http://ecoamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/eA-lets-talk-climate.pdf
http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-spiral-silence-america/

(3) The “insurance” tactic can be especially useful in talking to on-the-fence or somewhat resistant conservatives you already know. Living Room Conversations co-founder Joan Blades discovered that a long-time conservative colleague of hers was actually persuaded by her saying that she was herself a conservative in the traditional sense of the word, and that she “didn’t want to take chances with the future—even a 10% chance that we are undermining the capacity of our planet to support future generations is a risk I find unconscionable.” Her colleague said he was persuaded by this approach because it allowed his own feelings of doubt to coexist with thinking about the issue in a more open manner. This tactic exemplifies one of the most important framing rules: consider where your audience is and start there!

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For example, the most important new metaphors for explaining climate change come from the Frameworks Institute’s Fall 2015 report.  The Institute advocates following up on their metaphors by moving promptly to the solutions level, and they ground these metaphors in the values of “responsible management,” “protection,” and “innovation. ”  These values also form some of the background for the most effective climate action framing, which is described by Per Espen Stoknes in his invaluable new book, What We Think About When We Try Not to Think About Global Warming. (1)   Stoknes definitely has the key to talking about climate action in a way that works.  But that can be easier said than done when every type of climate activist is at the table. That’s why I think we also need a simple, non-judgmental way to frame the wild variety of climate protection solutions out there.  That could help improve and speed up our strategic thinking as a climate action movement.

Let’s start by looking at Framework’s recommended metaphors for talking to the public about climate change.   The Institute has found that the American public doesn’t easily get the difference between ordinary carbon dioxide and what we’ve been calling “carbon pollution.” The answer they say is to talk about “regular carbon dioxide” vs. “rampant carbon dioxide,” (excess? runaway? “Rampant” is an elite word, alas, but we can translate.) That excess carbon dioxide creates a “heat –trapping blanket” that damages the earth’s atmosphere (the air we breathe? “Atmosphere” is a bit too abstract and distant for most. Again we can translate.).  They also recommend bringing up ocean acidification as a form of damage to the climate by calling the ocean the “climate’s heart.”  This helps people understand how oceans regulate (“control”?) the climate system. Calling ocean acidification “a change in chemistry” helps to clarify that problem, and describing the impact of this change on sea creatures as “osteoporosis of the sea” is truly a stroke of genius in my view. (That’s one multi-syllabic, latinate word that just about everybody knows and fears!) I especially like some of these metaphors, because they express  intimate bodily analogies more people are likely to understand, a point that Stoknes also stresses.

Frameworks goes on to warn us that we should avoid the “crisis” trap when addressing the public (vs. the “responsible, protective, innovative path”), the “cute critters” trap (remote polar bears and penguins), the focus on quickly forgotten specific weather incidents and accidents, or the guilty individual action trap (solutions have to be joint, community or region based).  Stoknes warns us to avoid distant, abstract, long term, scary, expensive and sacrificial sounding solution stories. (He also points out that we should talk about “resistance,” not “denial,” because denial is too complex a psychological and social phenomenon. “Resistance,” however, can be overcome.)  Frameworks suggests “highlighting existing, feasible, systems level approaches that can make things better.“  Stoknes, a psychologist, economist, entrepreneur, and scenario planner, gets into exciting detail about these approaches. He counsels us to tell positive stories about how we ourselves, our families, and friends can have better, happier, and healthier lives with green energy solutions, plus more  jobs and money saved too.

Of course, bringing solutions into being is the climate action movement’s job.  As we move toward the Paris U.N. Conference on Climate Change, climate activists are readying many different proposals, strategies and tactics. Although this variety is wonderful and very encouraging, it could also make coordinated strategic thinking difficult, even lead to conflict.  But as everyone knows, we need to get it together and fast. Having a simple set of frames to categorize the different types of climate protection solutions could strengthen our movement.

Re our own organizing strategies, there are basically three types: pricing carbon, exacting social and political costs, and green leapfrogging.  “Pricing carbon” has to do with strictly economic methods of stopping carbon, enabled by legislation.  The “pricing” strategy includes tactics like passing laws that would create carbon pollution “fees” (the best language when you want to speak of “price”) or taxes, with rebates or dividends to the public, emissions caps, trading pollution permits, offsets, and so on. (See http://priceoncarbon.org/general/forum-enthusiasm-and-frustration/  for more detail about all of these.)

The second major strategy is about exacting  costs” (social, political and ultimately economic) from the fossil fuel cabal and all who support them. That strategy includes a multitude of tactics: our increasingly successful divestment campaigns, climate justice organizing, nonviolent demonstrations, local blockades (tagged “blockadia”), boycotts, law suits and investigations like the one New York state is doing right now of Exxon’s lies to investors.  In addition, there is the tactic of direct government regulation, happening in some states and at the federal level, as long as Obama is in office.

The third strategy could be called the “green leapfrog” strategy. That strategy includes tactics likecreating  alternative green energy capacity at local, regional and state levels.  Stoknes describes a wide range of other possible green leapfrog tactics, including setting up positive “nudges” to make it easier and more rewarding for people to go green. He advocates using social networks and norms in the form of local peer encouragement to carry the message about green “opportunities,” “green growth,” cutting waste, creating climate “insurance, ”being “prepared,” and being “ethical.” All three of these strategies, pricing carbon, exacting (social and political) costs, and green leapfrogging are needed, and done right, they could complement each other. We simply don’t have time to fight about what works best. Everyone must do the thing that calls them.

No matter what happens in Paris, all of these framing suggestions could help us move climate change action ahead in the coming year. Telling the climate disruption story using powerful, tested, metaphors works best. Telling climate solutions stories using positive frames and tactics will get us further faster.  And having a few simple names for the three prongs of our “solution” strategies could help us move forward together.
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1. Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT., 2015, 290 pp.

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Of course it’s necessary to try a lot of different things when facing a complex systems problem on the scale of global climate change.  Today I’m just going to focus on better framing for the simplest, most easily understood “climate shock” answer: the so-called “carbon fee and dividend” measure.  It would make fossil fuel providers pay a fee for selling the public dirty, dangerous stuff to dump into our common human birthright—the air we all breathe. Because the fossil fuel industry will raise its prices to cover the fee, it will get passed on to the public as higher fuel prices. That’s where the “dividend” part comes in. Funds collected from the fossil fuel industry fee would be set aside in a special trust fund. All of the money would then be returned in equal shares directly to the public (not by less visible tax credits etc.), the same amount for each citizen, to make up for their having to be the ones actually taking the price hit for fighting climate change. (For more details about the “fee & dividend” proposal, please consult The Citizens’ Climate Lobby website).

But calling the money returned to American citizens a “dividend” creates an unnecessary obstacle to easy public comprehension of the proposal.(1) Why? The average American doesn’t get any kind of dividends. That’s a 1% word, unfortunately. But everyone understands “rebates” if you are paying too high a price for something. So why are CCL and others using the word “dividend?” To the best of my knowledge, the reason is that there is a very worthy, but still conceptually abstract effort underway to help the public understand that the air we breathe is our common human property, that we have rights to it by virtue of our very birth on this planet. In fact, say those promoting “dividend” language, we the people of Earth could be said to own the air, and so we should get paid “dividends” for its use or abuse. A model for this type of trust fund with dividends does exist: it’s the Alaska Permanent Fund, based on the oil reserves found in the state of Alaska. And every qualified Alaska state resident does get a dividend each year from oil sales. But there is a big leap from oil reserves everyone knows about, and grasping that we the citizens of Earth own the atmosphere.

Principal among those promoting this dividend idea is Peter Barnes, who is, as far as I know, the inventor of this way of describing financial benefits derived from making corporations pay to use our air as a toxic dump. Peter is both a friend of mine and a thinker I greatly respect. His latest book, entitled Liberty and Dividends for All  is an important and ambitious work, laying out a proposal that would address the jobless economy of our present and future, the dangerous decline of our middle class, the threat of climate shock, and the need to preserve liberty by using market-based solutions to our problems. As he himself says, it is a visionary proposal, but he believes there may come a time when it’s a vision we will understand we really need, the only solution that can save us. It’s very good to have it on the shelf, waiting for its time to come.

But trying to educate the public into understanding that we own the air we breathe by using a word like “dividend,” which requires a lot of conceptual background to grasp in that context, is not the way to get to safety fast. Nor can it do the hard work of gradually bringing the public into that conceptual loop by itself.   Better to start the work of educating the public about their common ownership by getting their attention first with an idea they already understand, “rebate.” We can use that word to bring up the idea of our common “ownership” just as I did above by explaining that “we should get a rebate because the fossil fuel industries ought to be the ones who pay for polluting our common human birthright—the air we all breathe. After all, they block the shift we need to clean energy in every way they can, and sop up taxpayer dollars in public subsidies they don’t need too.”  Rights are also more easily grasped by Americans than ownership of something as abstract and unfamiliar as the air. (Case in point: the growing power of the community rights movement.) Once the idea that the air is our common birthright is well understood, it might be time to move on to using Mr. Barnes’ trust and “dividend” language and other proposals. (Full disclosure: Mr. Barnes favors a “cap and dividend” model, in which the cap would involve permits to pollute being sold, not given away free as they are today.)

So for right now, please say “fee and rebate,” not “fee and dividend.” You can’t make a framing word work for the public, including our legislators, unless the ideas and realities it is supposed to evoke are already well embedded in people’s minds. That’s just Cognitive Science 101. We need to get to climate safety fast now, and to do that, we need to use framing language that works fast too.
Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, http://www.metaphorproject.org,  and author of our new book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong.

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l. Getting from Birthright to Dividends Via Rebate

If finding a market based solution to our climate shock threat is what we need, and if paying dividends on a birthright resource trust created by polluter fees is the ultimate solution, how do we get really there?  Looking at the Alaska Permanent Fund example, it is easy to see how it seemed logical to the people of Alaska that the oil under the land under their feet actually belonged to them. It was an extension of their land rights, and they could see with their own eyes how the oil companies were extracting vast oil wealth and taking it all away for themselves.

However, with a resource never before commoditized such as the air we breathe, the idea of a birthright resource is a good first step. Ultimately, markets are about something you have a right to sell or rent or collect damages on because you own it. If it’s your birthright, you own it. (The word has nice biblical resonances too: Esau sold Jacob his, even though Jacob had to use deceit with his father Isaac to get the blessing that went with it.) If someone damages your birthright resource, they owe you. So damage money could go into a “birthright resource trust,” which then pays equal dividends to everyone.

Why not just go ahead and call the damage money a dividend? Why stick in the “rebate” idea now? As I already said in the piece above, the concept of air as a birthright resource we all own is so new and strange for most people that we have to start by introducing it via an already  well-known thing, the “rebate.”

1. There are currently three relatively recent articles of mine on the topic of framing climate change for the public on our site here at http://www.metaphorproject.org. Folks can find them and also check my older posts on the topic of climate change framing by doing a site search or going to  the Blog Archive, looking under the heading of Environment & Sustainability.
2. I also just generated a list of actual slogans, and they are pasted in below. They are just samples that show how to tinker and modify until you get what you want. The most important rule of thumb is this: say it out loud before you write it down on a sign. If it sounds clunky, tweak it until it has rhythm and sounds “cool.” The inner ear can hear the clunk, even if the slogan is just written down!

Climate Safety Now!
Climate Safety First!
Climate Safety Fast!
Our Earth needs a fast move—to climate safety!
Our Earth needs a fast move—to green energy!
Earth needs a fast move—to green energy!
Let’s make a fast move—to green energy!
Let’s move fast to green energy!
Green energy now! Before it’s too late! (this tag could be added to any of them).
Make cool rules the Earth can live by!
Make cool climate rules!
Make cool-the-earth rules!
Stop carbon pollution!
Stop the carbon pollution!
Stop carbon pollution all over this earth!
Meet the climate challenge now!
Stop the methane monster now! Before it’s too late!

3.Here is the link to the VIP “necessity defense” article:  http://readersupportednews.org/…. It’s already on my Twitter page (@SusanCStrong), but we need to make it go viral, because this is the most important new climate change frame in a long time. Every climate change activist should know this frame and the example of its first use.
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This article was published on the Daily Kos, September 11, 2014.

If these companies are sincere in their concern about the climate crisis, they won’t fight government efforts to pass the new green energy laws we need now. The IPCC has called for an economic shift of massive scale. Only national governments can do this kind of thing at the speed required. If the U.S.   moves vigorously, it will help other nations follow suit. What our cities, counties, and even states are doing is good and needed. What President Obama is doing with administrative measures he can control is also good and needed. But it’s all going to be too slow, if these companies won’t stop obstructing the change we need.  Congress must act fast to foster a new U.S. energy economy. We can always do it when there’s a war, so we can do it to get to climate safety too.

Divestment as a morally responsible long term move is a good tool for influencing major investors. It also helps discredit the carbon lobby’s deadly behavior. In addition, there’s a new approach focused on the fossil fuel dividends current investors are losing. (See Christopher Hayes in The Nation 4.22.14.) That money is pouring into the search for new places to drill and mine instead.  This is happening in spite of the fact that we can only safely burn one fifth of the fossil fuel reserves we already have.  So the fossil fuel companies should also “divest”—stop the search for suicidal new carbon sources, stop taking taxpayer subsidies away from green energy investments,  stop funding climate change denial PR, and stop lobbying against the new energy programs we need.  Our legislators need to “divest” too: —stop taking fossil fuel campaign contributions for resisting green energy measures.  It’s time we applied moral blame to them too.  If Congress won’t act, then we must find out how much they got paid to sell out human survival on this planet and tell everyone. It’s time for the litmus test. No excuses, no delays, no more playing with fire and getting paid for it. “Let’s get to climate safety fast.” That means we need to reinvest everything we’ve got in a new, green energy economy, starting right now.

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Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, www.metaphorproject.org,  and author of our new book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong.

The bill also specifies that a lot of the money raised by fees will be returned to the public, as energy prices inevitably rise. What to call those returned funds? On this point there has been another very unfortunate, persistent framing error in some sectors of the climate action movement and the media. That mistake has been calling the funds to be returned a ‘dividend.’ That’s a 1% word, friends, and the choice of it is based on a faulty analogy with the situation in Alaska. There, the name for money returned to state residents from selling Alaskan oil is called a ‘dividend.’ This makes sense in Alaska, because the oil is a state resource, and thus the common property of all Alaska residents.

But a federal carbon fee is very different from the sale of oil! The payback to citizens is also very different. It’s about making amends to individual American citizens for the price they will pay for carbon-based energy after the fee is in place.  The frame used to describe those ‘amends’ must be something everyone can understand. We can be sure that the climate change deniers will use every hook we unwittingly offer them to sabotage the Climate Protection Act. So what frame do I suggest?  I think ‘rebate‘ is a far better choice, because that is a term familiar to the mainstream public. It suggests getting a break on the price of something. That is exactly what the bill means to offer to the public.

So I beg of you, all of you: listen to my warnings and suggestions about framing this bill! Our climate crisis is worsening every day. We must do everything we can to protect our planetary ecosystem, our own species and the other forms of life here. That also means talking about remedies in a way that works for all. Even our hope for peaceful resolution of climate change conflict depends on good framing. Say it wrong, and things will definitely go wrong! Say it the best way, and we might just “save our planet.”

Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, www.metaphorproject.org,  and author of our new book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear.  The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong.

Let’s start with educating the convinced about possible fixes. Years of research have shown that trying to motivate people on this issue by scaring them fails. Up-to-date framing research proves that people respond better to a “prevent damage” message than to an “avoid risk” one.(2) So, the real focus of our framing on this issue should be action to prevent more damage to our economy: who can do what, who is doing what, what is working now.(3) Americans are pragmatic, action-oriented optimists. We need to pose the climate change problem as a challenge we can all meet.

Along these lines, some language picks I’d make from the Metaphor Project’s “American Story” lists include these: being prosperous, saving money, being clean, safe, and healthy, being free, and doing it ourselves. Big political change in this country always starts with the grassroots. That bottom-up path calls on our most prized national traits –doing things in our own communities, being part of a grassroots groundswell, being innovative, pragmatic, showing can-do, rolling-up-our sleeves, helping to reinvent a new, healthier economy from the ground up.

So much for educating the convinced about solutions. What about convincing more of our fellow citizens that the problem is real? First, we need to bear in mind the fact that most Americans are primarily extroverted sensing types—they require proof about the reality of a problem from their five senses. Climate change is a bit like cancer—it’s silent, and it’s been happening somewhere else. The warning signs are easy to miss for the average American. So be understanding of anyone who honestly seems to be unaware or incredulous. Start by talking about how much we all want a prosperous new economy. Then describe climate change as the “growing climate crisis that threatens our economy and our way of life,” because for some it may not seem like a full-fledged “crisis” yet. When we get to the moment for going into detail, we need to use stories about what’s already been happening to other Americans lately: increasing drought, mega-storms, floods, fire storms beyond anything we’ve seen before, rising sea levels, bad changes in local weather patterns and their costs. Once you get people’s ear this way, you can quickly move on to talking about suggestions for positive action. (If you encounter a Fox News denial fan, just laugh, and say, “Oh, you’ve been watching Fox News!” and then walk away laughing. Don’t stay to argue. Especially don’t argue about what the majority of scientists say. Don’t waste your energy on hardcore deniers.)

If you need to give a cause for the climate change problem, describe it as the result of too much carbon getting into our air. (To learn more about natural ways to get carbon back where it belongs in plants and in the soil, see Note 4.) Pollution is something everyone knows is dirty and bad for your health And please avoid talking about “greenhouse gases.” To the general public, greenhouses are good things that help you grow more food! (It would be nice if even the experts stopped saying “greenhouse gases” to each other too. That unfortunate metaphor inevitably slips out in public and harms the cause of reform. I like “hothouse gases” better, because it sounds more like the real thing and nasty too. Also please avoid using any evidence that relies on pictures of or references to the fate of the “environment,” or of other species of all kinds such as polar bears, penguins, etc. Avoid talking about polar and glacier melts, using charts or graphs, and talking about CO2!” Everyone who can be convinced by the means I’m criticizing here is already on board.

Now it’s time to consider our third task, which is actually quite separate from the two previous ones above. As Bill McKibben and others have pointed out, we do have to hold the carbon crooks and climate crisis deniers up for public shaming. But even when your project is shaming the fossil fuel gang, it’s vital to start and conclude with a positive vision of the clean energy world and prosperous economy we could have instead. In between these two positive notes there are a number of classic American negatives you can sound: the deniers are “telling lies and betraying the public trust.” They are on the take, they are stealing subsidy money from the taxpayers, they are sabotaging our clean energy future, they are blocking progress, they are holding our country and our economy back or hostage, and they are profiting from damaging our health, our economy, and our country. Their CEOs are blocking the dawn of a new energy age, they are criminal cons, they have gone too far, they are corrupt, and as for their ‘wait and see” strategy—do you wait until your house burns down to buy insurance? They are costing us too much. You can also warn people that everyone will soon be selling their fossil fuel stocks and moving their money into alternative energy investments, because “the carbon bubble is going to burst.” (For more about this “divestment” strategy, see what’s new about it on http://www.350.org/.) 

So much for going negative. Always, whatever our messages or audiences might be, we must start and end by returning to the positive: “We can do it, it will be good for us, it will prevent new damage, it will save/make money/jobs, save our health, our economy, our communities. We can improve our economy by meeting the climate change challenge!

Let’s put powerful new American Story energy into all of our campaigns now and get the massive liftoff we so desperately need!

Susan C. Strong, Ph.D., is the Founder and Executive Director of The Metaphor Project, www.metaphorproject.org, and author of our new book, Move Our Message: How to Get America’s Ear. The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. Follow Susan on Twitter @SusanCStrong.

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Notes

1.This fact has recently been noted in “U.S. Energy Policy: A Bridge to Nowhere,” by Bob Burnett, on Huffington Post.

2. The following links provide details about the new research on framing climate change action:

climateshiftproject.org/winning-the-conversation-framing-and-moral-messaging-in-environmental-campaigns/

talkingclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Language-Words-and-Phrases.pdf

valuesandframes.org/blue-valuing-green/

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/

3. Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth, by Judith D. Schwartz, (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013.)

Here’s what I suggested recently in a talk given to a group of climate change communicators:

l. Say “climate change,” not global warming. Yes, I know the planet is warming, but for the general American public, a few degrees of warming doesn’t sound very scary. Also, if it has been snowing or freezing unseasonably where they live, some Americans find that unconvincing. People are a lot better at knowing if their “climate” is changing.

2. Talk about “carbon,” not CO2 or Greenhouse gases. This should be obvious, but here it is, spelled out: Americans like to be clean, safe, and healthy. Too much carbon is dirty, unsafe, and bad for your health. Moreover, you can see too much “carbon” in the air. Seeing, touching, smelling, and hearing are very important channels of persuasion for many Americans. Co2 just sounds like something normal or geekish, and “greenhouses” are good, right?

3. Stop using charts and graphs to convey the message. Take the information they contain and make it into serious, elegant cartoon videos like The Story of Stuff, , and get them on YouTube. Be sure to also include some video or photo coverage of real local people doing local “climate protection” projects together. A wonderful example of a local project here in California is the Climate Protection Campaign in Sonoma County, CA. Look for more like this one wherever you are.

4. Stop showing pictures of polar bears, or penguins, or even melting glaciers. Show pictures of children and people who are being or will be harmed by local climate change instead. Talk about local impacts! I mean very local, like disastrous floods, storms, weird weather, and drought in the place your audience lives. Follow this immediately with some examples of positive local action.

5. Use kids as your spokespeople; it’s their future we are wrecking. Talk about “buying insurance” for their future by taking the steps we need to now, before it is too late. Make it clear that you don’t mean insurance from some company; apparently, insurance companies have palmed off climate change damage costs to local or regional governments, another scandal that should be exposed, though not in a general public education campaign on climate change.  Just mention in passing that actual climate change insurance is woefully inadequate, and that it is up to us to take preventive action ourselves—that’s the best insurance policy for our kids.

6. Talk about economic opportunities for American jobs in alternative energy development, jobs that cannot be off-shored and ones that will protect us from depending on foreign nations for our energy.

7. Point out that one reason fossil fuel prices seem lower than green energy alternatives is that the profits-rich fossil fuel industry receives 4 billion dollars of taxpayer funded subsidies.(3) That makes the cost of alternative energy seem artificially high. If doing a cartoon video for YouTube, you might try out “1% fossil fuel vampires,” (not the cute romantic ones), or “1% fossil fuel crooks.”

8. Talk about “carbon fees” and “carbon rebates,” not a “carbon tax.”“Tax” is dead on arrival. A promising new legislative approach along these lines has been pioneered by the Citizens Climate Lobby. It calls for collecting the fees from fossil fuel companies and giving the rebates to our citizens.(4)

Remember that Americans like to be the “can do” people, who can fix things, invent new stuff, find a way out, do the new thing, and act in an optimistic way. What we need now is to get mainstream Americans doing more local actions to prevent worse climate damage. If we can get enough buy-in at the local level, it will build momentum for the national programs we must have. So let’s get cracking, people, there is no time to waste. Reframing climate change is the most important thing we can do about it right now.

Susan C. Strong is the founder and executive director of The Metaphor Project, , and author of our new book, Move Our Message: How To Get America’s Ear(The Metaphor Project, 2012, 172 pp, trade paperback, $10, available on our home page). The Metaphor Project has been helping progressives mainstream their messages since 1997. 

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1.www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/science/earth/in-heartland-institute-leak-a-plan-to-discredit-climate-teaching.html?pagewanted=2&emc=eta1 and
“Lapse damages reputation of climate scholar,” by Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle, 2.22.12, pp.1 & 4.

2. http://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/why-im-suing-the-federal-government

3. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/us/politics/obama-calls-for-an-end-to-subsidies-for-oil-and-gas-companies.html?emc=eta1

4. Check the site citizensclimatelobby.org for the PDF about the Carbon Fee and Dividend Act.