When Tackling Climate Change, the Message Matters
Ed Maibach speaks at a conference about his work. (Photo provided by the Center for Climate Change Communication)
In 2007, Maibach came to Mason to help create the Center for Climate Change Communication, which studies public perceptions of climate change issues and identifies effective ways to engage the public and other stakeholders on those issues. One of the center’s first initiatives was Climate Matters, a program launched in 2010 that provided TV weathercasters across the country with information about climate change in their region, to then be communicated to their viewers. That initial pilot was so successful that the center continued to engage more weathercasters to take on the role of climate educators for their region. More than a decade later, nearly half of the nation’s weathercasters participate in the program.
“Climate change isn’t [just] about plants, penguins, and polar bears. It’s about people, too. It’s about our health. In a very real sense, we have skin in the game of climate change—our own skin.”
–Ed Maibach
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