Jes Thompson: 2021 Great Plains conference

Jes Thompson, Northern Michigan University Title: Let's Change the Conversation about Climate Change The impacts of a rapidly changing climate are everywhere, yet we haven’t figured out how to talk about climate change with our friends and neighbors. Since the 1980s public conversations about climate change have been dominated by the language of science and politics. Our own fears of scientific inaccuracy and uncertainty – or political disagreement – have censored us from talking about how to live on a changing planet. This talk presents a new frame for conversations about climate change and the places that matter. We can change the conversation about climate change by connecting the issues to the places we love, while talking with the people we love. Thompson’s research involves improving climate change communication through social science. She led a National Science Foundation project on building place-based climate change education tools for the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Thompson is an expert on the social and cultural foundations for effective promotion of environmental policy with an interdisciplinary approach involving history, culture, government, and media. She is a Professor at Northern Michigan University and the founder of the Northern Climate Network. She also spent five years in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources department at Colorado State University.