Storytelling to Accelerate Climate Solutions

"The climate is changing faster than our cultural practices are adapting to it."

This book presents a snapshot of where climate storytelling currently stands across multiple types of media. It highlights how storytelling can inspire concrete action toward addressing climate change, includes case studies and examples to show what works well and why, and offers recommendations for the way forward.

Storytelling is viewed in this publication as an umbrella term for any type, form, genre, and practice of narrative communication. The focus of the publication is on exploring how these narrative strategies, especially entertainment-education for social and behaviour change, can be used effectively to inspire and mobilise individuals and communities worldwide to engage in climate action and empowerment. As stated in the introduction to the book on the Springer website, "Entertainment-education has been proven over decades to be an effective tool for social and behavior change in the public health sphere and has not yet been applied at scale to the massive ongoing climate-related disasters that we need to solve now, fast. There is an urgent need to rapidly apply and adapt public engagement tools for climate communication to speed up our response times for climate change mitigation and adaptation."

In the first introductory chapter, the editors explain that the goal for putting together this book is three-fold:

1. To contribute to building a "Community of Practice for Climate Storytelling", with this book as a first step - inviting practitioners and scholars from different fields to share their knowledge, experiences, and insights about how stories can be purposefully designed and effectively told to engage, enable, and empower various populations in climate communication.
2. To showcase a wide range of climate storytelling strategies and exemplary applications in terms of professional practices (e.g., education, literature, journalism, and popular media), narrative genres (e.g., drama, comedy, and fiction), media platforms (e.g., television, radio, and mobile), and communication modalities (e.g., text, visual, audio, and multi-sensory).
3. To synthesise best practices, lessons learned, and what is needed now to advocate for increased funding, improved messaging, coordinated efforts, and necessary policy change focused on human agency, effective solutions, positive actions, and sustainable initiatives moving forward.

The chapters in the book are as follows:

• "Foreword: Storytelling to Realize Our Better Nature", by Arvind Singhal
• "Storytelling as a Catalyst for Climate Change Communication and Empowerment", by Hua Wang and Emily Coren
• "Entertainment-Education and Climate Change: Program Examples, Evidence, and Best Practices from around the World", by Suruchi Sood, Amy Henderson Riley, and Lyena Birkenstock
• "The Power of Locally Driven Narratives to Support and Sustain Climate Action", by Neemesha (Meesha) Brown
• "Positively Life-Changing Stories Today, Intergenerational Climate Benefits Tomorrow", by Joseph J. Bish
• "Kembali Ke Hutan (Return to the Forest): Using Storytelling for Youth Engagement and Climate Action in Indonesia", by Ankur Garg, Anna Godfrey, and Rosiana Eko
• "Let's Go! Let's Know! N*Gen as an EE Tool for Climate Education and Agency", by Paul Falzone, Joy Kiano, and Gosia Lukomska
• "Rhythm and Glue: An Entertainment-Education Prototype for Climate Communication", by Emily Coren
• "Rewrite the Future: Helping Hollywood Accelerate Climate Solutions through Storytelling", by Daniel Hinerfeld, Cheryl Slean, and Katy Jacobs
• "LOLs: Secret Weapon Against CFCs and CO2?", by Celia Gurney and Mamoudou N'Diaye
• "Climate Fiction to Inspire Green Actions: A Tale of Two Authors", by Denise Baden and Jeremy Brown
• "Visuals as a Catalyst for Climate Science Communication", by Kalliopi Monoyios, Kirsten Carlson, Taina Litwak, Tania Marien, and Fiona Martin
• "Music as a Vehicle for Climate Change Communication: The Climate Music Project", by Catherine Emma Dixon, Laurie S. Goldman, Stephan Crawford, and Phoebe Camille Lease
• "Telling the Story of Climate Change through Food", by Danielle L. Eiseman and Michael P. Hoffmann
• "Three Ways to Introduce More Stories of Climate Action into Climate Change News Reporting", by Joe Whitwell
• "Community-Based Resilience: The Influence of Collective Efficacy and Positive Deviance on Climate Change-Related Mental Health", by Maya Cosentino, Roni Gal-Oz, and Debra L. Safer
• "Mapping Out Our Future: Using Geospatial Tools and Visual Aids to Achieve Climate Empowerment in the United States", by Aviva Wolf-Jacobs, Nancy Glock-Grueneich, and Nathan Uchtmann
• "Exploring Climate Science in the Metaverse: Interactive Storytelling in Immersive Environments for Deep Learning and Public Engagement", by Stacey Spiegel and Hua Wang
• "Bird's Eye View: Engaging Youth in Storying a Survivability Future through Performance and Interspecies Friendship", by Beth Osnes, Chelsea Hackett, Molly T. McDermott, and Rebecca Jo Safran
• "Instructional Strategies for Climate Education in the Classroom: Storytelling about Our Place in the Earth System", by Jessica R. Bean
• "What We Need Now to Accelerate Climate Solutions through Storytelling", by Emily Coren and Hua Wang

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