5 lessons on how we use big data to communicate about climate change effectively
How has Ripple Research utilised our tools to approach climate change and phenomena like climate anxiety? Read the main takeaways from our conversation on the Communicating Climate Change podcast.
“How we communicate influences how we perceive the world around us, and our perceptions shape our reality. Communication can play a critical role in mitigating the worst of climate change by raising awareness, building public support, mobilising action and fostering collaboration.” - Ravi Sreenath, Managing Director, Ripple Research
Last month, our Managing Director Ravi Sreenath sat down with Dickon Bonvik-Stone, host of the Communicating Climate Change podcast, to discuss how Ripple Research uses big data to solve big problems and how we apply our large-scale social insights to understand social, cultural and political trends. The conversation focused on how we’ve utilised our tools to approach climate change and phenomena like climate anxiety with a unique bottom-up approach that is democratic and inclusive of voices across the world. Here’s what we learnt from the conversation.
The context:
Every day, millions of us around the world share our needs, wants, perceptions, frustrations and desires on hundreds of digital media platforms and social media networks. This rich and layered data source has the power to revolutionise how we elicit and decipher public opinion in meaningful ways. Ripple Research uses this unprompted data, free from external surveyor biases, to gain a unique perspective on complex issues, such as the nexus between climate change and mental health.
Why it matters:
As the climate emergency continues to unravel, citizens across the world are experiencing an overwhelming sense of existential fear. Meanwhile, the field of climate psychology remains relatively unexplored. The direct correlation between mental health disorders, negative emotions and extreme weather events requires further investigation and the use of large-scale social data to go beyond traditional research techniques.
At Ripple Research, we deployed our state-of-the-art analytical tools and sentiment analysis to reveal the dominant narratives surrounding the global conversation around climate anxiety and tangential topics.
Through our active listening methodology and perceptions analysis, we were able to discover real, unprompted conversations that the communities most vulnerable to the impact of climate change are having.
The numbers:
The world is experiencing a mental health epidemic, the WHO estimates that 1 in 8 live with a mental health condition.
Previous surveys conducted on tens of thousands of young people have found that 95% experience some degree of worry about the climate.
Ripple Research has analysed over 1 million posts from 567,000 with a total reach of over 1.8 billion to provide refreshed findings on climate anxiety.
5 key lessons:
Lesson 1. Identifying the gaps in research on climate anxiety
Research on climate anxiety has thus far focused on a top-down approach, viewing the problem from a macro perspective and climate anxiety as a monolith. Research has tended to come from the west, conducted by high level professionals who may not be experiencing climate anxiety first hand, producing rigid definitions that don’t incorporate other factors.
This contrasts to a bottom-up strategy which looks at the situation at a microlevel. It uncovers the specifics of certain demographics, incorporating how people at a local level are communicating their feelings towards climate. This helps to then form definitions and understand the problems at hand.
At Ripple Research we have leveraged our expertise and technology to pioneer a refreshed, bottom-up approach to provide nuance to the conversation. We’ve identified gaps and emerging areas that need to be given more attention. The key is intersectionality such as age and socio-demographics.
One thing that has been missing from research on climate anxiety is nuance to the discourse. Climate anxiety is not an umbrella term but instead comprises of many things and psychological states such as anger, grief, despair, sadness, hopelessness, and futility. In fact, there is a full spectrum of climate related emotions.
These all have different drivers and motivations and require tailored approaches to address them correctly.A second aspect that has been missing is addressing how climate anxiety is often viewed in isolation. It should be seen as one iteration of a larger mental health epidemic, whereby climate is a stressor.
We have reviewed other compounding factors contributing to this problem like the cost-of-living crisis, layoffs, polarisation of society and geopolitical turmoil to understand why ‘climate anxiety’ is not an isolated event but instead, one of many manifestations of the burgeoning mental health crisis.
Lesson 2. Why designing a climate change behaviour model was important
Using our tools to mine for large scale data sources across digital and social media and news, we can add value to online narratives and analyse how they’ve shifted, and better understand who is shaping them. We are able to dive into what’s causing an upswing or downtrend and review how people are reacting in real time. This helps us to identify the antidotes through listening and democratising the voice of the people.
These findings have helped inform our climate change behaviour model and help us to identify precisely what can be a motivator for action. It helps us answer questions like; how awareness can lead people to become more engaged on advocacy or, how it can lead to disengagement and apathy in someone’s ability to affect change.
Lesson 3. People of influence need to consider the unintended consequences of their actions
Whether you’re an activist, business leader, academic or citizen, every stakeholder has an important influence when it comes to shaping attitudes towards climate. Climate activists are the front lines of mobilising public opinion but in recent times, activism has led to public backlash followed by incidents like blocking roads and preventing people from going about their daily lives.
Similarly, academics have a critical role in shaping public discourse. However, they do so in a more indirect way through research analysis and public engagement to help inform policy decisions and public debate. Academics need support to frame the narrative for collective action and there is a layer of translation needed to transform their work into tangible tactics and action points.
Our research has shown that a spike in negative emotions can occur due to the influence of these activists. Take for example Greta Thunberg’s powerful speech in September 2019 at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. Contrary to popular assumptions about the impact of such speeches, our data highlighted that this short segment spiked global hopelessness and despair.
Many know that we need solutions but feel powerless and increasingly fearful. Events like this can have a counterproductive effect. So, someone with an influential voice and degree of power like President Joe Biden, Donald Trump or Bill Gates should understand the unintended consequences of externalities of their words and actions.
If you raise awareness about a problem without a solution or an antidote, does it actually have the intended impact that you’re trying to have? It’s something we, as communicators, need to keep in mind.
Lesson 4. The mistakes to avoid when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues
One of the biggest mistakes made when attempting to engage the public on climate change issues is framing the issue solely in terms of scientific or technical aspects. Sometimes, focusing on these details can feel abstract or distant. Take for instance the messaging behind 1.5 °C. Keeping the impacts of global warming below a 1.5 °C temperature rise of pre-industrial levels as agreed in 2015 by the Paris Agreement is important but seems remote and doesn’t really help us take better action in everyday life. We should change the conversation, to make these concepts more relatable and put the user at the centre of all of this.
Another mistake is the focus on negative messaging and the doom and gloom narrative. This is of course what the mainstream media and social media algorithms are designed to do because these emotions drive the highest engagement, but this is as well counterproductive to achieving large-scale climate action goals.
Focusing on the doom and gloom without providing solutions or escape routes contributes to climate anxiety.
A significant part of the negative messaging around climate is the phenomenon of othering. There seems to be too much of ‘in vs out’ and ‘us vs them’ narrative, further enhancing polarisation. Avoiding this would be beneficial to climate action.
Lesson 5. The drivers that evoke positive emotions and encourage climate action
Our findings show that perceptions and emotions aren’t all negative. In fact – there are positive emotions experienced too and we’ve uncovered hope and optimism, two things that need to be amplified more.
Despite the serious nature of the climate emergency, many people feel a sense of hope that we can create a better future. This has been inspired by progress already made to reduce emissions and develop clean technologies through innovation. There is a shared belief that we can make progress if we work together.A second driver for positivity is a sense of purpose. This compels those who are actively engaged in climate action to drive change and provides a sense of meaning in their lives that help accelerates their contribution.
There is a need to nurture this positivity, even if it is not found everywhere.
The focus for the future:
The most important aspect of communication that we should be paying attention to in our communication endeavours is the audience itself. We must deliver messages that resonate with our audience. But to communicate effectively, you need to understand your audience and the best way to do this is through listening. That’s why we use our tools to understand audience demographics, wants, fears, desires and ambitions of people around the world.
Another key focus for the future is to remember that collaboration is key to addressing runaway climate change and that communication creates a space for dialogue and information sharing that can stimulate collective action.
Listen to the full episode on Communicating Climate Change here and a huge thanks to Dickon for having us!
Interested in this topic? Check out our work on climate anxiety.
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