March saw tens of thousands of people evacuated across NSW after record-breaking flooding. The “once in a lifetime” flooding event came only a year after many of the very same communities were hit hard by the Black Summer bushfires.
We are in a climate crisis.
Extreme weather events are worsening, and occurring more often. Floods, bushfires, heat waves, reef bleaching and drought. Climate damage is harming the people we love and it’s getting worse.
In the face of these events, the bigger picture is often missing from the story. Climate change has frequently been left out of the conversation about this year's floods, and it’s an issue deserving of much greater attention in the daily news cycle.
To replace complacency and denial with courage and vision, and to push for bold action by governments, we must connect the dots: climate change is here now – but so are the solutions.
Together, we can change the media story and shift the public conversation to keep climate change in the spotlight, and elevate the opportunities we all have to ensure a safe future for our beautiful planet.
Using the toolkit below, we can highlight the urgent need for climate action with stories and comments in local, national and social media.
These actions help to demonstrate the overwhelming public demand for action so our political leaders, from all levels of government, have no choice but to step up and lead.
Handy resources
- If you’re on Facebook, join our group 'Taking Action for Climate & Nature'. In the group, we share ideas, questions and advice, track media articles and learn from each other as we go.
- Watch this MediaWatch report on the mainstream media's poor coverage of the 2018 IPCC report
- Here are some handy facts for talking about climate damage
- Here's our detailed Narrative Handbook on how to tell compelling stories that move people to action
Have powerful conversations about climate change
Research shows Australians are overwhelmingly concerned about climate damage. But because they don’t hear about it much in their daily lives, they shy away from discussing it. This becomes a spiral of silence – no-one raises it, so no-one hears about it, and so on.
Let's break the spiral. Whether you're at a barbeque, the beach, the bus stop or a family dinner, let's talk about climate change. Check out these handy tips and conversation starters – also helpful for the other actions to end climate silence below!
#EndClimateSilence on Twitter
Twitter connects Australia’s journalists, opinion makers, politicians and activists, so it's a great platform to show the right people the huge community uprising for climate action.
New to twitter? Here's a quick twitter toolkit to get you started.
Check out this social media stories toolkit for tips on how tell compelling stories that move people to action on social media.
Hashtags
When you're on Twitter, tag your posts with one or several of these key hashtags:
Some other hashtags to check out for ideas and inspiration:
- #Reframegame – examples of 'fixed it' interventions
- #ClimateHope – climate solutions and good news
- #ClimateStories – People sharing their personal climate stories
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#auspol – Australian politics chat
Call talkback radio
Talkback radio is enormously popular in Australia so it's a great opportunity to reach millions of diverse listeners.
Political staffers also track talkback radio to see which issues are boiling over and how voters are responding – so let's use it to demonstrate this is a key election issue.
Check out our comprehensive talkback radio guide for handy advice and contact details for radio stations across the country.
Make sure you share back who you called and how it went using the simple form so we can track our collective impact! It would be great to hear about this in the Facebook group too – you might also inspire someone else to make a call.
Write a letter to the editor of your local paper
To make it as simple as possible, we've pulled together a letter to the editor tool. Just type in your state, pick a newspaper and write your letter. The tool will send it straight to the editor, from your own email address.
You could share your climate story or talk about climate impacts you've noticed in your community.
Keep an eye out for your letter in the paper and please, please share it with us if it's published. As soon as you see it, pop it up into the Facebook group or email us a screen shot or photo of the article with the publication details.
Email your Member of Parliament
Your federal Member of Parliament (MP) needs to know the urgent demand for climate action in your community. They are elected to represent you and it’s their duty to listen to and address community concerns.
This doesn’t have to be a long email! Tell your local MP who you are, and why you have been moved to write them an email. Ask them to take action now for a safe climate future.
You can use our easy tool to email your MP.
Contact local media
Running an event, stunt, or action about climate action? Sending a media release to local, state and national media is a great way to tell journalists about it and build some hype.
Check out this media release toolkit for tips and advice, and a sample media release template.
To help time-poor journos and increase the changes of getting your event or story published, use this media package toolkit to pull together a package of photos, local facts, a spokesperson bio, quotes and background info.
Got the media coming along to your event and need to know how to give a great interview? Have a look at our media interview toolkit for some top tips.
Daily actions to #EndClimateSilence
Jump on the comments to encourage and praise news articles with great coverage of climate change.
Leave comments on new outlets' websites and Facebook pages to remind readers of the opportunities in climate action (like powering our lives with 100% clean energy), and the urgent need for action with increasing extreme weather events fuelled by climate change. Share your own personal experiences of climate damage.
Tweet and SMS news radio hotlines to share your experiences and concerns.
All of these things and more help break the spiral of climate silence.
