To solve global warming, fund climate science with climate communication

Climate science is receiving once-in-a-generation funding to solve the problem of our planet heating up and poisoning itself.

But the resulting innovation will face major headwinds once it's ready for market: That’s because the government isn’t investing enough in the communication of climate science.

Earlier this year, the American Petroleum Institute launched an eight-figure campaign promoting U.S. natural gas and oil as integral to supplying the world with “cleaner, more reliable energy.” That’s just one example in a legion of astroturf and greenwash campaigns fighting climate-change solutions.

The federal government, unfortunately, has not yet mounted a creative communications counteroffensive.

The time has come to rethink how the federal government allocates the $14.9 billion the GAO says was spent on ads over the past 10 years, and what those investments need to accomplish.

The largest portion of this money is spent on military recruitment, a priority unlikely to change. But after that, the government and its scientists and professionals need to steal the megaphone from lobbyists and demagogues on climate and other scientific advances.

Here are three suggestions for how to do that:

1. Bake marketing into these climate tech investments: Federal grant applications should require budgets for marketing and communications. Without a plan to communicate findings to the general public, the data and results will get mangled in culture wars.

2. Be creative: Government agencies need to spend more money and more effort to communicate boldly and creatively. Think about how Nike markets shoes, or the best anti-tobacco ads ever. The government needs to bring its “A” game” to climate by, for example, partnering with the Ad Council.

3. Be nimble: Agencies must be ready to change tactics and messages in response to the opposition and to stay on the cutting edge.

Here’s a foreboding example. Direct air capture will likely play a pivotal role in the fight against climate change. This emerging technology uses giant fans to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere — sucking air like a giant Dyson vacuum and using chemical processes to separate the CO₂.

The greenhouse gas can then either be “sequestered” in underground storage, or used in products such as synthetic fuels or building materials.

We can already imagine what less-informed people are going to say about this if marketers don’t start working in tandem with scientists: “You’re stealing our air!”

The government must start marketing direct air capture and similar game-changing technologies like Apple markets its new phones. Because this is a helluva lot more important to our survival than a neat app.

We call for this revolution to clarify and simplify information about climate science and technology, and to recognize the persuasive power of marketing. 

Powerful tactics are needed to communicate information to non-experts and to combat waves of mis- and disinformation.

Government and scientists can lean into their strengths: credibility, conviction and innovation.

The stories of the future — the stories that will save us — need to be told more convincingly, in a more engaging way. Right now, that’s not the comfort zone or the skill set of the innovators. But they can build the best team to own the narrative.

The world depends on it. 

David Nitkin is a Maryland-based policy and communications consultant, and was chief of staff to former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and for a Johns Hopkins community hospital. Melissa Harris is the CEO of M. Harris & Co., a marketing agency, and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. Both are former journalists at the Baltimore Sun.