The importance of clear communication

I was fortunate to spend a few days of fall break in New York City with my first-year college student. As we often do, we visited the American Museum of Natural History, which has an extensive exhibit about climate change.

The display had the usual information about global warming in bold lettering: 1.5°C or 2.7°F. The kid started ranting. "This means nothing," he fumed. "Regular people see this and think oh, well, that just means that if a summer day is normally 90°F, now it's going to be 93°F. That's not that different. They don't understand that it's about destabilization of weather systems, or what it has to do with the hurricanes of the last month."

And while that's obviously an important distinction from a climate perspective, it's also important to remember for all communication. The headline, while scientifically factual, doesn't actually communicate meaning or the urgency contained within. Knowing the consequences of these numbers requires an understanding of science and nuance.

I asked him how he would do it differently. "I would scrap this whole numbers game and explain it in terms of impacts. That the 'weird weather' that people are noticing — the warm autumn days, the surprise flooding, the intense hurricanes, the wildfires everywhere — everything that seems different from what you remember as a kid is climate driven. It's going to affect your house, your food, your job. And it's only going to get weirder and more intense if we don't do something about it."

It reminded me of the philosophy that no one cares about your product's feature list. They care about the benefits. Everything we do requires context for effective communication.

"Communicating complexity — any kind of complexity — requires thoughtful and clear communication to ensure understanding and ultimately drive action."

Alisa Bonsignore, from the forthcoming book
Sustainable Content: How to Measure and Mitigate the Carbon Footprint of Digital Data
(November 2024)

What I've been reading

Have you ever walked through a park and thought, "I wonder what kind of tree that is?" If you're in New York City, NYC Parks has you covered. They have meticulously mapped trees in all five boroughs to help even the most horticulturally challenged individual identify an oak from an elm. There's also the Central Park Entire app (only available on iOS), which allows you to click on specific trees as you sit on a park bench. It's really nothing short of amazing to me, and helps people to connect with nature in a new and fascinating way.

"Responsible AI" policies aren't enough to manage the risks and impacts of this rapidly expanding technology. So says sustainable business consultancy BSR. They cite both social and environmental impacts as core risks to AI adoption.

BP is backing away from its climate commitments in an effort to "regain investor confidence." I'm not surprised, but I'm definitely disappointed.

Phoenix, Arizona, flat-out smashed the heat records this year, with 113 days over 100°F (38°C). As if that wasn't enough fun, a second wave of hot days began in September, leading to 21 consecutive days of record-breaking heat. Temperatures have now dropped to the mid- to upper-90s, which is still well above normal and brutally unpleasant. But at least it's a dry heat.

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