Telling the climate science story

The 'narrative turn' in social science has demonstrated not only the power but the necessity of framing our reality in story. This is of utmost importance in framing climate science, as just presenting the facts is not good enough to move voters to support such legislation. To support climate science is this Science Direct article on the importance of story telling and how scientists are learning to frame their finding in ways that connect with the public. Some excerpts:

"The framing of the problem affects the types of solutions that researchers and policymakers propose. We suggest that a more storied framing of the ‘problem’ of energy and climate change research could contribute to a wider set of 'solutions.'"

"Stories provide different material than other traditional forms of data used in energy and climate change research. [...] They often have emotional, psychological, symbolic, and cultural content absent or sublimated in more purified ‘objective’ data. So, stories invite a different intellectual and emotional framework, beyond the (fictional) logical brain. [...] These stories are not always about how to do something or what can be done. They also reveal constraints, prejudices, misunderstandings, and untruths and, include the ‘known, but under-acknowledged’ that regularly escape more formal data collection."