Lead with values, not facts

If you want to convince someone about climate change, don’t lead with data, writes Katharine Hayhoe in The Times. Dr. Hayhoe is a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, and she’s also an evangelical Christian, two identities she realized after moving from Canada were “supposed to be entirely incompatible” in the United States. Understanding why that’s the case is crucial when attempting to convert climate change skeptics, she writes, explaining:

It turns out, it’s not where we go to church (or don’t) that determines our opinion on climate. It’s not even our religious affiliation. Hispanic Catholics are significantly more likely than other Catholics to say the earth is getting warmer, according to a 2015 survey, and they have the same pope. It’s because of the alliance between conservative theology and conservative politics that has been deliberately engineered and fostered over decades of increasingly divisive politics on issues of race, abortion and now climate change, to the point where the best predictor of whether we agree with the science is simply where we fall on the political spectrum.

In her experience, Dr. Hayhoe has found that the best way to neutralize the partisan charge on climate change is not by appealing to science — which some prominent Republicans, such as Senator Ted Cruz, have cast as a competitor to religion — but by emphasizing shared values. “For some, this could be the well-being of our community,” she writes. “For others, our children; and for fellow Christians, it’s often our faith.”

In such conversations, it may be important to remember how your interlocutor’s values differ from your own. In Vice, Maggie Puniewska points to the moral foundations theory, according to which liberals and conservatives prioritize different ethics: the former compassion, fairness and liberty, the latter purity, loyalty and obedience to authority. Ms. Puniewska writes:

If you’re trying to convince someone who leans left, you can stick with the polar bear and keep tugging at their heart strings with talk of how unfair it will be to our children if the world is poisoned, but if you’re with a conservative, it’s wise to change up your approach — science has found that personalized climate-related messages work better.

For example, research has found that conservatives are more likely to support a pro-environmental agenda when presented with messages containing themes of patriotism and defending the purity of nature.

Emphasize the potential benefits

For many skeptics, Neha Thirani Bagri has written in Quartz, delineating the myriad potential harms of unmitigated climate change is not an effective strategy. Instead, it can be more productive to illustrate the potential benefits that mitigation may carry. She writes:

A comprehensive study published in 2015 in Nature surveyed 6,000 people across 24 countries and found that emphasizing the shared benefits of climate change was an effective way of motivating people to take action — even if they initially identified as deniers. For example, people were more likely to take steps to mitigate climate change if they believe that it will produce economic and scientific development. Most importantly, these results were true across political ideology, age, and gender.

The messenger matters

People are more likely to listen to a message when it comes from someone they trust, Alexander Maki has argued in The Washington Post, and messages about climate change are no different. “For example,” he writes, “experimental research discovered that when free-market enthusiasts who are concerned about government regulation hear from experts who emphasize how companies are developing climate responses, they are more likely to accept climate science.”