I've had lots of conversations with folks about this. The climate communicator party line is, "you need to give people a sense of hope to keep them from become fatalistic." Personally I suspect you need to give them a sense of *agency*, which is not quite the same thing.
One question I've asked my students: "If you really believed that climate change was going to have some of the effects scientists said it will in your lifetimes — rising seas, food instability, droughts, extreme weather, political instability — what would you do differently now?"
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Some say "nothing different," others suggest they wouldn't be taking on debt for educations that might not contribute to that world. All willingly admit they aren't thinking that far ahead, and aren't taking these things as seriously as maybe they ought to.
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(I find these kinds of questions are way better icebreakers than "what's one weird fact about you?" Another favorite: "If you thought civilization had collapsed, how long do you think you'd wait until you murdered someone to take something you felt you needed to survive?")
End of conversation
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