An Interview With George Marshall: Engaging With Conservatives On Climate Change

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We must engage with conservatives to tackle climate change says Climate Outreach co-founder Georgeย Marshall.

Why is it so important? He explains that attitudes towards climate change are much more polarised than any other topic.ย ย 

But finding common ground is essential to moving forward on solutions for tackling this globalย challenge.

In his years working across the environmental spectrum โ€“ from community level protest groups to NGOs, governments and businesses โ€“ Marshallโ€™s found that โ€œchange happens when you have a wide range of different actors, with different ideologies, different tactics, pushing pretty well generally in the sameย directionโ€.

His experience led to him setting up Climate Outreach, a climate change communication charity which aims to bridge the gap between research and practice, and widen engagement across a broader spectrum ofย society.

The charityโ€™s latest research on the โ€˜language and framingโ€™ for the center-right on climate change analyses what does and doesnโ€™t work. The most effective narrative โ€“ that โ€œavoiding waste is common senseโ€โ€“ is among the findings that form the basis of a masterclass on the topic being held this week inย London.

In an interview with DeSmog UK, Marshall discusses the best ways to engage with those on the centre-right about climateย change.

Itโ€™s not about converting the Right to your values; itโ€™s about speaking toย theirs

Marshall argues that โ€œwhen climate campaigners talk about climate justice, about how we have to defend and protect the vulnerable in Bangladesh, theyโ€™re really not speaking to the values of thisย groupโ€.

He adds that this isnโ€™t because theyโ€™re โ€œnicer or nastier than any other groupโ€. Itโ€™s because theyโ€™re motivated by differentย messages.

Language that works includes โ€œavoiding wasteโ€, and can refer to property, the freedoms which are an essential part of government, their family and future opportunities for their children, and theย landscape.

Use a positiveย message

People on the Right are also much more likely to be motivated by a positiveย message.

โ€œHow we can move forward to something that is a nicer way of being, a better way of life. Something that is more like the kind of world they want to see,โ€ he described. โ€œA world that is more secure, safer, moreย stableโ€.

Speak in the firstย person

One of Marshallโ€™s key pieces of advice is to โ€œhold your views as yourย ownโ€.

Itโ€™s important to model the journey by which you came to your viewpoint, telling them who you are, how you have come to care about this and how you think aboutย it.

โ€œUse that first person singular. Itโ€™s one of the big things that we encourage people to do when we do communicationsย trainingsโ€.

Listen

โ€œEffective communication is speaking to the values you have in common with them, and not about trying to convert people to your values, and that requires a bit of listening,โ€ Marshall said. โ€œI think listening is the takeย home.โ€

Marshall described how he gets in โ€œlong, long conversations on train journeysโ€ to and from his mid-Walesย home.

โ€œEvery time I do that I treat it as a chance to learn something about someone. I ask them questions and I try to get a sense of who they are what they careย about.โ€

โ€œI want to understand what they think. So listening is so important, when you listen to people, then you start to respect and like them. In the end you can only have any chance of speaking to conservatives by understanding them and by liking them asย people.โ€

Buildย trust

Climate change is abstract and complex. โ€œPeople are not so much evaluating the evidence,โ€ Marshall explained, โ€œtheyโ€™re looking for a set of cues in the information about how they should feelโ€. One of those is โ€œdo they trust the person whoโ€™s tellingย them?โ€

โ€œOne key basis of trust is whether the person whoโ€™s telling you is someone who seems to share your values and worldย viewโ€

So while itโ€™s been confirmed that 97% of publishing climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming, if the facts are communicated by someone who hasnโ€™t built a sense of trust with the person theyโ€™re engaging with, the message may getย lost.

Beย open-minded

Building on the ideas of listening and building trust is the notion that you should also be open-minded in your conversations and how you approach the topic of climateย change.

Describing someone questioning the science on climate change, Marshall said: โ€œIf someone says to me well actually itโ€™s sunspots, I would say well yes, there was some consideration a few years ago as to whether it might be sunspots and my understanding now of the science, there is strong understanding of the people who have looked at this that sunspots are not a leadingย cause.โ€

His hope is that what theyโ€™re left with is that he is open to different points of view, heโ€™s not ideologically driven, and seems like a pretty reasonable, sensible person whoโ€™s reached his own views on it: ย โ€œThat, in the end, is what shiftsย stuff.โ€ย 

So does itย work?

Marshall shares some practical examples of campaigns, which have built bridges across classes and politicalย boundaries.

One example is in Scotland, โ€œwhere communities have come together in order to have wind farms as a way of generating income for the localย community.โ€

And the fracking is another which has been โ€œbased on building bridges between environmentalist and local conservatives, very often around the language of landscape โ€“ a very big conservativeย value.โ€

Marshall thinks campaigns that appeal to common values held by all are scarce, but points to the Climate Coalitionโ€™s โ€˜for the love ofโ€™ campaign which he thinks is โ€œa good intelligent attempt to build language around common shared values to take it out of the specific politicalย context.โ€

Photo: WWF European Policy Office viaย Flickr

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Originally from Manchester, Will moved to London to study a Masters in Environmental science, law & policy. For the last three years he has worked for an international development think tank, the Overseas Development Institute, in various communications positions. Will began contributing to DeSmog UK in Aprilย 2016.

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