Creating ‘Climate Moments’

Work meetings, while useful, can be a bit dry and dull. However, during my first year working at Penn, I found that one meeting stood out to me. This wasn’t because of the meeting’s primary content, although as a curriculum committee meeting it was highly relevant to my interest in finding opportunities to help students learn how to become better researchers. Rather, it was because I noticed that each meeting ended with a “climate moment.” This was the first time that I had seen a committee chair take precious time away from a packed meeting to talk specifically about our planet and their concern for it.  

Sometimes the group would be presented with a resource where attendees could go to learn more about the climate crisis, such as the Columbia Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education. Other times, the “climate moment” might focus on emerging news, such as the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s fall 2023 report that stated that six of nine planetary environmental boundaries had been crossed, boundaries which “mark a critical threshold for increasing risks to people and the ecosystem,” from climate change. We also discussed climate resources that might directly impact instruction, such as the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare’s focus on incorporating environmental sustainability into quality improvement projects. 

By the end of the academic year, I found that I wanted to know more about this “climate moment” idea, as this could be a practice that would translate well to other meetings. I did a little bit of research, but aside from a brief article about the relevance of climate moments to business meetings, I did not find much about the idea. So I sat down to talk with the chair of the committee. Sara Kagan is the outgoing chair of the Entry to Practice Curriculum Committee in the School of Nursing. Her biography page on the school’s website starts out by calling attention to her commitment to placing her practice, teaching, and research in the context of the climate crisis and the threat it poses to health and wellbeing. Kagan told me that in 2021 she made it a point to redouble her commitment to bring her personal focus on the climate and sustainability into the workplace. As part of that process she decided that, along with a statement of welcome/land acknowledgement that she started every class and meeting with, she would end her meetings with a brief “climate moment.” These moments would be tailored to the purpose of the meeting and to the audience she was speaking with as much as possible, be it students or faculty and staff. She saw this moment as an important “exclamation point” that was added onto the end of an event, a reminder of the critical importance of climate change in the midst of other important topics of discussion. 

Experts agree that talking about climate change is a key part of fighting it. “The most important thing you can do to fight climate change,” says climate change scientist Katharine Hayhoe, is to “talk about it.” Hayhoe notes that public polling data shows that two-thirds of people polled say that they never talk about climate change. Hayhoe argues that it is important to break this cycle by raising the issue often; however, she stresses that the way in which climate change is talked about is just as important as the act of talking about it. In her talk, Hayhoe emphasizes that she calls attention to climate change by discussing not facts and figures, but “shared values,” and how those values are impacted by climate change. Inspiring a fear in others about climate change is not a good motivator; it just makes people more likely to run away from a problem, she argues. Instead, conversations with others about climate change should start with hope, possible solutions, and a shared vision for a better future. Going further, Neuroscientist Kris De Meyer emphasizes that talking about “action” is a key way to influence and change the beliefs of others. He notes that there is a gap between what people are “willing to do” and what they actually do. Offering people a sense of agency by showing them how to solve a problem is more likely to inspire them to act. Once someone takes even a small action, they become more likely to continue to act as their confidence in their ability to create change grows.  

These two talks are illustrative of a body of academic literature which discusses the importance of talking about climate change, including many can access using Penn Libraries Article + search in the catalog). The literature has explored a variety of tactics and topics, from how personal stories can shift the beliefs of others, to the power that narratives have to help listeners connect emotionally to the issue. There is even a three-volume handbook dedicated to the topic of climate change communication available as an ebook in Penn’s library catalog. Given all of this evidence, perhaps it is worth discussing if more of our workday meetings should start or end with a “climate moment.”