Inside the Resilient People + Climate Change Conference

How do we tell the collective story around climate change? How might a better-designed collective story help individuals and organizations do their work more effectively, while encouraging greater psychological and social resilience in the face of growing climatic and economic instability?

Mike Littrell, a cultural mythologist and former international director of Earth Day International from Victoria, BC, had this to say this morning at a conference at the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre in answer to these questions: “I do know what makes a story a good story. [Climate change] is such an important issue and yet the ‘boy in the balloon’ in the United States probably received more attention in one day than we did in six months.

“We can't just blame it on media. There's a disconnect with people who deal with the immediacy of their own issues. Maybe they're worried about their mortgage or their credit cards, how can we tie that in to a larger issue?

“I want to talk about how to reframe the way you tell your stories. The belief that any of us have sits at the centre of any of these debates. The narrative is a request for permission to tell a larger story. When we tell the public story… then what happens is we create an invitation to action.

“Part of resilience is building networks. Building a web. It’s the web that creates resilience.”

Sanjay Khanna, whose essay on conveying the campaign message around climate change is featured this week (Oct. 22, 2009) in the prestigious journal Nature, co-founded the Resilient People + Climate Change Conference with Littrell. He said this: "One of the reasons I wanted to work with Mike and collaborate on this event is concern about the despair that's starting to happen in organizations. They're doing a lot of work but feeling still they aren't breaking through the policy log jam. They aren't seeing the kind of action that climate science indicates needs to happen. In other words, action around climate change is not proportional to the threat.

“The despair that exists in people who feel that the Copenhagen negotiations are the last chance to break through is concerning, given what we know about negotiations. We should expect that there will be a great deal of upset post-Copenhagen. We need a platform to discuss what kind of language we're going to use after Copenhagen is over.

“There’s a language that helps people cope with the despair. We hope that as people start sharing the challenges, we can build psychological and social resilience so that citizens become more aware and tuned into all of the developments happening on the periphery of their daily lives.

“Polls show climate change is twentieth on the priority list of Americans. Mike [Littrell] would like to see that move to number one."

There was a break for coffee and a panel was to follow. More soon.