How to Win a Climate Change Argument in a 15 Minute Tea Break

This workshop combines the psychological and communication research of COIN’s specialist courses around a theme that relates directly to people’s day to day experience.

Megan Hansen, teacher

Who is the course for?

This informative and engaging course deals with a common personal challenge: how to persuade family, friends and workmates that climate change is real and worth our attention.  It is designed to address the simple fact that people often form their views and beliefs from the attitudes of their peers and so short interactions between people who know each other can be an immensely powerful tool for creating change. 

 

The course is focused on finding ways to counter the main arguments that people use to justify inaction, from “climate change is a natural phenomenon” to “it’s too late to do anything” or “it’s because the Chinese keep building power stations.”
 

Participants draw on their own experiences to work out some ground rules for successful engagement, going on to develop tactics for targeting their arguments and using language that is appropriate to different audiences.