Beyond the Line Graph: How Story Can Do What Facts Cannot

Research shows that while facts and scientific data compel belief and behavior changes in some, it can cause steep reluctance in others. Approximately 28% of Americans don’t believe in human-induced climate change. Even more disturbing, among those who do believe that people have caused global warming and its many effects, there is low cognitive engagement or behavior change. Fact-based evidence has shown to only be minimally effective in change the behavior of people, especially as it relates to climate change.

Taking all of this, we need to try new approached to get through to people. That’s where storytelling enters the equation. Stories, particularly those in which we can see ourselves, those where we can feel and empathize with the experience, are far more potent harbingers of action and can even lower what is called counter-action – the active opposition or resistance to cognitive engagement or behavior changes.

Storytelling, in its many forms and iterations, has played a central role in the human experience for thousands of years. In fact, studies have shown that the human brain is literally wired to accept storytelling as a form of understanding. It is well documented that we engage more deeply with stories where we can suspend reality. We get lost in story when we have a deep connection to the characters, their plight, losses, failure, and their successes. This maps very well onto why so many people have a difficult time engaging with or believing climate data – the stories largely have not engaged the masses, we haven’t been able to see ourselves in them. The line graphs and degrees centigrade hardly mean anything for me or my day-to-day life. But when I see real people experience real effects of climate change – hotter summers, colder winters, harsher storms – or when a fictional story can transport me to a future that is rid of extinction events, oil spills, or the destruction of entire communities by greedy overlords extracting every lasts drop of oil from the land and sea, I can get lost in those stories. I can imagine those futures. And, suddenly, the notion of governmental and corporations-as-people destruction that is actually happening feels a little more real, a bit more believable. When those stories show signs of triumph or a solarpunk future, hope begins to spring and desire for a different and better world begins to blossom.

The study Stories vs facts: triggering emotion and action-taking on climate change argues that “it is always crucial to tailor messages to the needs of a specific audience, but this is especially true for a psychologically distant threat and a politically polarized issue.” This study also concludes that narratives framed as stories elicit more pro-environmental behavior than facts or evidence-based information.

The bottom line is this: not nearly enough people believe in climate change or believe that people have and continue to cause climate change. Not nearly enough people believe that we have any ability to make positive shifts. Much of this is due to the corporate propaganda that has been fed to us for generations; propaganda that has been backed and subsidized by our governments.

I encourage you to listen to any of Amy Westervelt‘s podcasts at https://drilled.media/podcasts for some good examples of how story can and should look.