Scientific Storytelling for the Current Climate

By Hunter Gehlbach, Qiyang Zhang, and Katherine Cornwall

The idea that stories might motivate people toward climate action better than fact-based arguments has garnered appeal for several years. As far back as 2015, the United Nations sponsored a contest for climate change storytelling. More recently, the Guardian called for new stories about climate, while Wired magazine declared that “Storytelling will save the earth.” 

Psychological research seems to agree—indicating that facts, for many people, seem to be in the eye of the beholder (Hornsey, 2020). Yet, despite the interest in and promise of climate stories, psychologists have been slower to provide guidance on how to tell these narratives. To address those who remain skeptical of climate change and to foster stronger pro-climate attitudes and behaviors, stories will need to incorporate next-level psychological strategies. To this end, Walsh and colleagues (2022) provided excellent guidance on how stories can shape learning, persuasion, and collective action in the public sphere. Perhaps their timely article signals that storytelling’s moment has arrived—just as the world’s climate “time bomb” ticks toward a climax nobody wants to see. 

Our personal journey of investigating the promise of stories to inspire better stewardship of our planet may not have begun once upon a time, in a land far, far away, on a dark and stormy night. Nevertheless, we are delighted to chronicle the ups and downs of our ongoing quest to discover effective narrative strategies. Hopefully, our story can guide others’ efforts to develop storytelling strategies that promote a wide range of pro-climate attitudes and behaviors, particularly among climate skeptics.