Candid Conversations

Friday March 4, 2011, at 9:30 a.m. (PST)

Panelists: Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz, Director, Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, and Jim Covel, Senior Manager of Guest Experience, Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Moderated by Tom Bowman

Please Register for the Event by Clicking Here.

Effective communicators know their audience(s). Understanding where others are coming from is an important part of helping them connect to ideas in a new or different way. For climate communicators the process of identifying different audience segments matters that much more. Mentioning climate change or global warming can set off a plethora of audience responses, sometimes emotional, politically charged, and overwhelming to both the person experiencing them AND whoever is trying to interpret the issue for them. So how do we know what to say, and more importantly, who we are talking to?

In 2009, the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication published Global Warming’s Six Americas: An Audience Segmentation Analysis, its first report on how Americans perceive the topic of climate change. This analysis identified six distinct audience segments – the Alarmed, the Concerned, the Cautious, the Disengaged, the Doubtful and the Dismissive. Using these different persona types has helped prepare a growing number of climate change interpreters to improve their ability to confidently communicate climate change and better engage their audiences. You can read the report and the latest research coming from the study by clicking on the images, or by visiting the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication's website, where you can watch a video interview with Dr. Leiserowitz.

This next installment of the Candid Conversations series will feature both theory and practice. It will discuss research from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication with the program's director, Dr. Anthony Leiserowitz. It will also offer examples of how informal educators are using this research in everyday interactions communicating climate change with visitors, a perspective provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Jim Covel, who has helped guide the Monterey Bay Aquarium's climate change interpretation efforts on the floor.

Registration is not capped, but only the first 100 online attendees will be able to log into the event, so please plan to share a screen with your colleagues to make space for as many people as possible.