Season 3 concluded with an all-star panel, featuring bestselling author and award-winning public relations professional, James Hoggan.
A tireless advocate for ethics in public discourse and Chair of the David Suzuki Institute, Hoggan founded the influential online news site DeSmog, named one of Time Magazine’s best blogs in 2011.
Hoggan became so disenchanted with disinformation on climate change in both the mainstream and social media that he began to reveal how much corporations mislead the public on climate issues. He discovered that strategies that mislead people are more developed and robust than those used to educate people with the facts.
Hoggan is now championing new ways to speak, learn, listen and connect to overcome disinformation and polarization. His latest book, I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up, examines why people tend to shout at each other rather than listen to what science is trying to tell us about the climate emergency.
Hoggan believes that honest differences of opinion lie at the heart of democracy. He supports that people hold strongly divergent goals and should challenge issues but they should be encouraged to take part in passionate discussion. “We need more warm-heartedness and more compassion,” says Hoggan. Without this shift, we will never successfully complete the journey to carbon neutrality by mid-century.
Hoggan’s other books include: Do the Right Thing: PR Tips for a Skeptical Public and Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming.
This webinar also includes short interviews with a variety of community voices, represented by Ella Kim, Naomi Leung and Charlene George, followed by a special in-depth Q+A session and discussion.
Ella Kim is a UBC Honours graduate in Sociology, Environment and Society. She will be starting her Masters degree in the Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology (REES) program at the University of Alberta in the fall. Her passions align with environmentalism and social justice, and her recent research interests have been focused on just transitions for workers and communities that will be impacted by green industry shifts.
Kim is also currently a volunteer policy analyst for the BC Council for International Cooperation’s youth-led climate change branch. Through her time as a volunteer, she has worked on a survey regarding the climate change related concerns and opinions of BC youth, and a green jobs database for Canadian youth. Ella will share how youth are trying to move the climate change dialogue forward and why it matters.
Naomi Leung or 梁珮恩 is a 17 year old climate and racial justice activist. She is a second generation immigrant with parents from Malaysia and Hong Kong and she is a settler on un-surrendered Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nations territories in Richmond, BC. Naomi is a member of Sustainabiliteens, a movement of youth climate strikers across Metro Vancouver driven by climate justice, who advocated for the passing of Vancouver’s Climate Emergency Action Plan in 2020. She also coordinates Climate Education Reform BC, a youth-led organization determined to see an educational system that prepares students for the Climate Crisis.
Charlene George is a member of the t’Sou-ke peoples on the west coast of Vancouver Island and a cultural guide. She believes we must strive to better balance our relationship with each other, Western and Indigenous knowledge systems, and ways of knowing.
Links & Resources
Climate Education Reform BC (CERBC)
CERBC Open Letter Campaign
CERBC Action Toolkits
Canada, Climate Change and Education: Opportunities for Public and Formal Education
Charlene George slides
A Pathway Together – Sierra Club BC
Giki Zero
Additional Q&A
Q. James, can you tell me that Rabbi’s name again, please. Thanks.
A. James Hogan: Rabbi Hillel, Argument for the sake of Heaven.
Q. Jim: If “the medium is the message”, how do you get some of these new messages out when the medium remains divided and polarized by design. (My question about “the medium is the message” was not the same as the bot question. If it is possible I would like to hear a response from James. Thank you.)
A. James Hoggan: This is a tough issue. Without a common narrative, how can society function? As long as social media sites like Facebook make money by appealing to negative emotions, like fear, hate and dragging people into rabbit holes of extremism, we are going to have bad actors taking advantage and a large group of people living in a polarized fantasy world.
Facebook and Google are in the surveillance/manipulation business. The algorithms of these social media sites amplify negativity inadvertently as they work to attract eyeballs for advertisers. They have become full service propaganda machines for mischief makers. Ideally, we need to find a way to get rid of these algorithms. At the very least Facebook etc should be held responsible for disinformation on their platforms. Not just hate speech but propaganda about climate change and species extinction.
Jaron Lanier believes Facebook, Twitter and Google need to change their business models so they are not free. They could be like a public library or a paid service like Netflix. This removes the need for algorithm surveillance and manipulation.
More than that, I think we should personally refuse to participate in this hate/anger based polarization. Reality is polarizing enough on its own. If we care about the future we need to work on our communication skills so the stories we tell are more pluralistic, empathetic and rooted in deep listening. Stories of us rather than stories of us vs them.
Q. For James Hoggan: Yes, Compassion is essential (in the face of anti-social/anti-ecological behaviour), but it needs to be balanced with the expectation for accountability (behaviour change). Otherwise, compassion functions as collusion. What examples can you offer of advocacy done skillfully with this balance?
A. James Hoggan: The Narwhal, The David Suzuki Foundation, Smart Politics, there are many.
Compassion and accountability are not naturally exclusive. Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama are happy warriors but their voices are strong and can be tough. It is difficult to “speak the truth but not to punish” when someone is dead wrong, angry and insists they are right, It is difficult, but it isn’t impossible or even that uncommon.
I believe that propaganda is designed to create a hyper-polarized narrative that removes forward momentum from public conversations. The idea is to change the subject. To fool you into a fake partisan debate. The conversation moves from climate change to a Chinese hoax. Or from tankers and pipelines to sovereignty. The way to deal with this misdirection is to avoid taking the bait. Have a powerful story, stick to it and repeat it. Never underestimate the power of repetition. Google Smart Politics and Solutions Journalism
Q. Totalitarian and illiberal governments have instrumentalized propaganda and disinformation for ages. Do you observe that governments in democratic systems of government, such as we have in Canada, are increasingly drifting towards the use of denial of information and/or disinformation to preclude or limit meaningful public interest debates? How do we prevent our governments from being instrumentalized by special interests?
A. Jon O’Riordan: Elected governments always have problems admitting their mistakes. So they tend to rationalize their misdeeds, or worse, state mis -truths to cover up these mistakes Similarly, democratically elected governments are financed to some extent by special interests so they tend to support their ideas.
We need a cultural shift whereby governments act more like humans in admitting their mistakes and are more transparent about their relationships for special interests. This might seem utopian, but remember during the first few months of the pandemic, governments did follow science and speak to truth when there was a universal concern about public health. As the risks of a changing climate and loss of biodiversity mount, governments will have to adapt to a more transparent modus operandi.
Q. Can Ella say what the conclusions are from her thesis?
A. Ella Kim Marriot: Yes, I can share a bit about my findings and conclusions, although I have not submitted my work for publication yet so I will not go into too much detail. As I mentioned in the webinar, my most startling finding was that only 1 of 8 of the fossil fuel workers I interviewed had heard of a just transition, which I think points to the need for further dialogue between environmentalists and anyone planning just transitions, and the workers that will be impacted by the shift. In my conclusion I recommended that green transition programs and classes be implemented into schools in Fort Mac as currently students in Fort Mac get lots of technical training relevant to the oil and gas industry very early on, so there needs to be replacements for that or some kind of guidance for students as to how they can use those skills for clean energy. I only interviewed a small sample of skilled workers, and so another one of the main recommendations I made in my conclusion was for the government and researchers to continue consulting with workers from different backgrounds, different worker statuses (migrant/contract/permanent), and different roles within the industry, as I am sure these factors would influence how workers feel about a transition and what protections they want to have in place. That being said, I also highlighted how important it is to engage with creative (builders, planners) and skilled workers as they could play a key role in transforming the energy industry.
Q. For Ella or Naomi, how can we best engage youth in Drawdown Getting Into Action classes?
A. Ella Kim Marriot: Hi! I took a look at your website and it looks like you have some great resources! I would highly recommend trying to make these resources more accessible and digestible for youth by utilizing social media platforms – instagram, snapchat, or tik tok would probably be best. If possible try to condense some of your material into short informational videos that can be posted to these platforms or infographics that can be easily shared. I would also suggest seeing if there are any youth that are part of your community already and tapping into their networks and getting suggestions from them pertaining to what about your resources they find the most useful or what they think can be improved.
Q. Can we ever be tolerant of those whose ethos is based on greed, power, or control, when their false ideology is not science or truth-based?
A. Jon O’Riordan: James Hoggan quoted Thich Nhat Hanh ‘speak the truth but not to punish’. Science based information provides the truth as best we know it at any time, so we must use this knowledge to make policy decisions. But we have to be respectful to different viewpoints so should not dismiss other science based information as this is how we learn.
Q. I am thinking of Robert MacNamara, the US Defense Secretary, who was an old man writing his memoirs before he realized the problems he had contributed to by lying and cheating to promote the US/Vietnam war. He later had sorrow for actions he had justified by saying they were ‘patriotic’ and thus more important than truth or justice. How can we help other powerful and rich people to value their impact on others?
A. Jon O’Riordan: Each of us has a responsibility to speak the truth. We also have a responsibility to challenge respectfully those even in positions of power where they are misleading the facts.
Q. How do we break away from the silos that are happening with non-profit organizations not working together but multiplying, or is this a good thing?
A. Jon O’Riordan: Non profit organizations are the heart and soul of community engagement. They need to thrive. But they also need to cooperate so they do not dissipate community energy and focus. Creatively United provides such a service by pairing up community groups with similar values.
Q. Green jobs can still be in agriculture if there is enough support for regenerative farming on smaller non-industrial parcels. Will this be part of the conversation?
A. Ella Kim Marriot: I completely agree that agricultural jobs can, should, and need to be part of the green economy! I encourage you to look into work from a number of UVic professors such as Dr. Martha McMshon that study just food systems and sustainable agriculture. There absolutely needs to be just transition plans and funding in place for agriculture workers as well as fossil fuel workers, because green shifts impact farmers in many ways. For example, we have already seen major stress being put on dairy and meat farmers because of a shift towards plant-based diets, so they need to feel protected and supported in transforming not just how they farm, but what they grow. Thank you for bringing this up!
A. Jon O’Riordan: Definitely. Regenerative agriculture at the family farm level is the future of sustainable agriculture. We need national policies that support small scale farming and environmentally friendly practices.