The Ambience of Climate Values Messaging
A cultural drift tells the best story
The ways we might go about developing climate influence align with this truth. It’s about how we can warm the environment on which the seeds of influence will grow best.
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I don’t know about you, but I’ve been hearing more about sound baths - and partaking in a few of them. At first the idea sounded woo-woo to me, but I tend to be game to experience all things “woo-woo” just once, and… I have found that the effects are real.
This is true both in the immediate results (ahhhhhh) and in the accumulation of having more of those experiences over time (I have more ahhhhh in my life).
So, with that in mind, I took note of the use of the term “ambient” in Rob Flaherty’s April 28th New York Times piece on politics, messaging and how the Democrats could improve. Here’s a quote on why Republicans have actually been doing it better:
Politics, for them, tends to show up as cultural drift — bits of stories, values and secondhand outrage shared online by friends, influencers and nonpolitical creators. It’s ambient, not deliberate. It’s culture, not news.
Think AMBIENT, not Deliberate.
It’s about a drift of bits of stories and values…
Let that sit.
Those of us in climate communications could learn a few things.
Climate Values Messaging Needs Ambience
It could be said that we are great at the deliberate, but have been neglecting the ambient in climate messaging.
I hadn’t even realized - until I read Flaherty’s piece - that I’ve been talking about a sort of ambience all along with my climate influence term and work.
The leaders who resonate the most with climate values understand and embrace this ambience. They have been sharing their personal climate values - in a sort of cultural drift and in subtle ways - for years, whether from stages, in their professional conversations, or through their social media channels.
You see, you do not have to craft a talking point to be jazzed that your ebike ride to school with your kid was SO FUN, or to share things like that frequently over time.
You do not have to have a press conference to talk about shifting food policy in a plant-based direction if you’ve been dropping clues all along that your own diet has been shifting for a couple of years.
You do not have to find or pay influencers to sell points about a new transportation infrastructure or a city policy that is more progressively focused on renewables if you’ve been personally enthusing about things related to either of those all along.
“Ambiencing” Becomes Us
You’ve been “ambiencing” when you’ve been being an authentic, joy-guided, enthusiasm-spurred human being who happens to lead.
For a political or corporate leader, that foundation of “why I’m going to be all in on X or Y policy in a few months or years” has already been built. There is no disconnect for stakeholders when you reflect climate values in your professional decisions or policies. It just fits.
It’ll seem totally aligned because you’ve been building trust through your ambient messaging.
The AMBIENCE of who you are and why you care has long been very much there.
Your Cultural Drift Shifts Others
Realizing this, are you now more interested in becoming an intentional ambient drift of your climate values? If those around you were feeling/sensing those messages more regularly from you, how might social norms for ACTING on climate shift in greater ways?
What I get from this is more permission to be truly my climate acting self.
Lots of people in my life, from neighbors to readers and listeners, know that I ride a bike for most of my local transportation. Those same people all also know that I am vegan and LOVE my plant-based lifestyle.
I don’t wear a sign or yell about it. I live it. I make those values just an authentic part of my everyday life. I also share resources or great articles about the joy and health and climate value in those things.
My climate values have become ambient, drifting through the air around me. And, I know that the cumulative effect of that could be significant.
My hope is that you want IN on this. That you’d like to become the ambient messenger YOU could be.
My work is to keep on showing you that it can be done, who is doing it, who is LOVING doing it and how the world is shifting because of it.
Ready to become a story that adds to the ambience of climate values?