APS meets the Australian Climate Commission

The APS Conference forum on the psychological impacts of climate change (see article on previous page) helped shape a meeting at the APS National Office in Melbourne’s CBD a few days later with Chief Climate Commissioner Professor Tim Flannery and the Climate Commission’s senior communications advisor Amanda McKenzie. The Climate Commission was established in 2011 to provide Australians with an independent and reliable source of information about the science of climate change, carbon policies and international action. Commissioners meet with people all around Australia, as well as writing reports. The APS requested a meeting with the Commission to discuss the psychology of climate change and communication.

The meeting was a mutual sharing of insights, knowledge and strategies. Tim and Amanda have developed a very respectful consultative format that involves the following strategies.

• Listen first, be respectful of everyone.
• Be careful with ‘blame’ of ‘power holders’ as this brings defensiveness.
• Encourage people to ‘do something’ by talking with others about problems and solutions.
• Talk in the positive realm; no one disagrees with renewable energy and hope is important.
• Group action is stronger than encouraging individuals – build collective identity as people working together to make a big difference.

The APS provided the following additional psychological principles for the Climate Commissioners to add to their repertoire.

• Empower people by communicating the sense that ‘we know what to do’, ‘millions are already doing it’ and ‘it is possible’.
• Assist people to overcome a human tendency to minimise risks that are distant in time and space (temporal and spatial discounting) by noticing the changes that are present and real, such as encouraging people to identify and document changes in their own environment.

At the meeting’s end, Tim leant forward in his chair, gazed out the 13th floor window and asked “Did you know you had a peregrine falcon nest above your office?” What a fitting way to end our exchange, being reminded of the wild and wonderful world, even in the heart of a major metropolitan city, that we have a responsibility to protect by restoring a safe climate.