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. 2024 Jun 3;29(sup1):77-88.
doi: 10.1080/10810730.2024.2361842. Epub 2024 Jun 6.

A Systems Map of the Challenges of Climate Communication

Jessie Heneghan  1   2   3 , Danielle C John  1   2   4 , Sarah M Bartsch  1   2   3 , Rachael Piltch-Loeb  5 , Christine Gilbert  6   7   8 , Dan Kass  9 , Kevin L Chin  1   2   3 , Alexis Dibbs  1   2   3 , Tej D Shah  1   2   3 , Kelly J O'Shea  1   2   3 , Sheryl A Scannell  1   2   3 , Marie F Martinez  1   2   3 , Bruce Y Lee  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

A Systems Map of the Challenges of Climate Communication

Jessie Heneghan et al. J Health Commun. .

Abstract

Over the past sixty years, scientists have been warning about climate change and its impacts on human health, but evidence suggests that many may not be heeding these concerns. This raises the question of whether new communication approaches are needed to overcome the unique challenges of communicating what people can do to slow or reverse climate change. To better elucidate the challenges of communicating about the links between human activity, climate change and its effects, and identify potential solutions, we developed a systems map of the factors and processes involved based on systems mapping sessions with climate change and communication experts. The systems map revealed 27 communication challenges such as "Limited information on how individual actions contribute to collective human activity," "Limited information on how present activity leads to long-term effects," and "Difficult to represent and communicate complex relationships." The systems map also revealed several themes among the identified challenges that exist in communicating about climate change, including a lack of available data and integrated databases, climate change disciplines working in silos, a need for a lexicon that is easily understood by the public, and the need for new communication strategies to describe processes that take time to manifest.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Systems map of the unique challenges to communicating climate-related information.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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