BBC Wales climate change communication criticism

Thoughts and discussion about a fear mongering

The idea that ‘Wales is lagging significantly behind the rest of the UK’ in climate change is nonsense. And the headline ‘Wales has a “duty” (to address climate change) due to coal mining history’ is only as true as the fact that all highly polluting nations have a duty to address climate change. I only know about these headlines because I’m briefly visiting my family home in Wales and was disappointed by the the news.

I’m not going to rant about either of those headlines, it’s clickbait rubbish that does actually talks about interesting stuff. But I take issue with the way important information is being communicated. I believe we need to change how we think and talk about climate change. And I believe the root cause of most human problems, including this one, is communication.  Attaching climate change to negative connotations or laying blame does no one any favours. We need to change the narrative.

Fighting climate change starts with making fundamental changes to how we think. Which means changing the language that we use. If we say, ‘Well it’s their fault, they’ll fix it.’ We lose. If we think ‘Well they’re the worst at it so I must be doing fine.’ we lose.

The headlines should be ‘Carbon Link’s Ru Hartwell plants Welsh trees in Kenya.’ And ‘Welsh government looks into what more they can do to fight climate change.’ Which, frankly, are more descriptive and clickable headlines.

The Welsh government, Welsh businesses, and Welsh people are doing a lot of things to combat climate change. @BBC Wales, stop wasting our time and hurting the cause with lazy journalism. Talk about what we can do, what we are doing, and celebrate it. If you need a hand with your headlines BBC Wales, let me know.