Climate Communications
Drawing on empathy, creativity, and the latest in climate communications research, I help clients demystify climate solutions and invite their audiences to join them in building a more equitable, sustainable future. As a trained workshop facilitator and climate interpreter, I help build capacity within your organization to communicate with non-expert audiences in a research-informed way.
Processing climate grief
How can our personal connections with the natural world aid our climate and conservation work? In the winter of 2021, I collaborated with StoryCenter to bring together an extraordinary group of women working in climate resilience to bridge science, story, and environmental & racial justice. The Earth Stories Project curriculum wove together land acknowledgements, poetry, story sharing, and media production, to support the creation of short videos that point to intimate connections to, and disconnections from, the natural world. On September 24, 2021, we shared these stories in a virtual premiere, featuring short interviews with the storytellers.
Read about the project here and here. Listen to our podcast interview with Tania Marien (pictured left).
Watch the Earth Stories here.
Read more about my workshop facilitation work here.
Demystifying climate solutions through marketing
At Frog Hollow Farm, I led consumer education to demystify the science behind their regenerative organic farming practices. My mission as I saw it was to invite public audiences to get excited about climate solutions, while creating a solid foundation for mission-driven storytelling across the organization. My projects from this time include:
Writing a weekly newsletter for 46k online customers and CSA members reporting on farming practices (like soil health, water conservation, pest management, cultivating biodiversity, the perils of grafting, and much more) and explaining the health benefits of sustainable agriculture for consumers and workers
Shooting interviews and editing social media videos explaining topics like food waste, grafting, composting, water rights, beekeeping, cover crops, brixing, pest control, farmworker health clinics, and organic kitchen production. Total views: 80,500+
Defining Regenerative Organic Farming Principles to structure all communications, marketing, and sales pitches around—focusing on four fundamental principles: soil, water, biodiversity, and human prosperity
Organizing an educational letter writing campaign against water curtailment in California, which would have disproportionately affected small, family-owned farms—resulting in 194 letters to legislators
Social media video about how Frog Hollow Farm manages food waste
Expanding the audience for community science
Chronolog-facilitated time lapses are powerful tools for measuring ecological restoration and change over time in natural spaces. Illustrating these time lapses on social media is part of my latest part-time work as a climate communications consultant. I have developed a process for automating/auto-aligning the creation of time lapses from hundreds of photos (using Adobe Photoshop) and am working with the web developer to integrate this feature more into their site in the future.
Check out my time lapse featured on Yahoo News here and in GoodGoodGood here.
Explore the map of these community science time lapse projects here.
Integrating climate solutions into Wikipedia
Averaging 18 billion page views per month, Wikipedia is the 5th most visited website in the world. Integrating scientific information about climate solutions into the site is a powerful way to bolster the public’s understanding of climate science. I work in the Wikipedia world supporting climate-related content initiatives on the back-end of the site.
My work engaging experts in Wikipedia editing has led to media coverage in Canary Media, financial backing from the Climate Finance Fund, and partnerships with academic associations including the American Physical Society. Read about the initiative in depth in my blog post, Editing Wikipedia as Climate Action.
Read more about how Wikipedia editing aligns with UN COP goals here. And see how this science communication has played out specifically with students in higher education here and with physicists here.
Consulting for climate tech
As a technical writer, facilitator, and marketer trained in climate communications best practices, I assist tech start-ups working on climate solutions with their communications strategy, copywriting, and social media management. Activities have included:
Articulating a founder’s story
Writing practical guides on sustainable living, like gift-giving and clothes buying
Translating technical concepts for customers, like how they might apply the principles of ‘carbon accounting’ to their own life
Organizing a “good climate news” newsletter for a circulation of 20k+
Telling stories of climate progress
I wrote and researched an ongoing series of impact stories for ClimateWorks Foundation spotlighting the growing community of changemakers around the world who are driving transformative climate action. This series offers blueprints for philanthropy to up the ambition.
Explore the stories here.
Wikipedia biographies
Wikipedia biographies are small puzzle pieces in the effort to raise awareness of climate and conservation solutions and the experts doing the work. So many pages for women are missing on Wikipedia (82% of biographies on the site are about men). So I write them.
Expanding our science communication toolkit
When traditional science communication methods don’t inspire non-specialist audiences to act on climate change fast enough, effectively, or at all… then what? Studies show that scientists who get personal are finding a way through.
Read my piece on the power of scientists getting personal for Lifeology here. And check out my blog: 10 Best Practices in Climate Communications summarizing the latest social science research around climate interpretation for public audiences.