Flipping doomsday panic into positive climate action
Melting glaciers, mass extinctions, increasingly frequent extreme weather events… For decades, environmental campaigns have relied on catastrophic images and stark warnings to raise public awareness of climate change. However, experience has shown that overemphasising “doomsday scenarios” often leaves people feeling powerless, numb or even resentful, ultimately backfiring. Therefore, to inspire proactive response to climate change, we urgently need to reframe our narrative of environmental action.
Overemphasising Climate Catastrophe Adds to a Sense of Powerlessness
According to an academic study, up to 98% of environmental news stories carry a negative connotation, reflecting a widespread belief that fear is necessary for promoting behavioural change. While doomsday narratives may instantly grab the audience’s attention, they are ineffective in creating momentum for sustainable action. A study on human cognition suggests that when we feel hopeless about a situation, we associate that hopelessness with inaction, thus reducing goal-directed behaviour.
This echoes the classic theory of learned helplessness in behavioural science. This theory, derived from experiments involving dogs subjected to repeated electric shocks, confirms that when individuals consistently experience negative situations over which they believe they have no control, they gradually lose their sense of agency, becoming passive and unresisting. In climate change contexts, catastrophic narratives can easily induce powerlessness, leading people to believe that individual actions are futile, resulting in inaction and further worsening of the situation.
Reshaping Climate Narratives to Encourage Action
Recent climate narratives have begun to shift away from disaster descriptions. Instead, they are focusing on associating environmental initiatives with public interests and integrating eco-friendly practices into daily life. Chester Cheng (IBBA 2019), a CUHK Business School alumnus and co-founder of Carbon Wallet, a social innovation backed by MTR Lab, has combined carbon reduction efforts with reward mechanisms to promote a new green lifestyle.
Chester Cheng believes carbon reduction efforts should be portrayed as enjoyable and easy, instead of making people sick with images of melting glaciers or starving polar bears
Chester explains that, to transform climate initiatives from abstract concepts into concrete behaviour, one should start with positive feedback and rewards, which will boost people’s sense of accomplishment. At the same time, carbon reduction efforts should be portrayed as enjoyable, relaxing daily routines, with positive incentives to encourage lasting behavioural change. “It’s all about using the right, positive narrative, or gamifying environmental practices, to inspire climate actions, not to make people feel sick to inaction via images of melting glaciers or starving polar bears.” Chester believes that positive feedback can motivate people to sustain their environmental commitments.
While conventional wisdom holds that beliefs drive actions, a study in psychology and neuroscience suggests the opposite – that our deeds can shape our convictions through self-persuasion. In other words, practical steps lead to meaningful change. Chester further believes that individual and collective efforts reinforce each other. For example, setting time-bound, realistic group environmental targets, encouraging personal contributions and sharing group outcomes can boost participation. He emphasises the importance of taking the first step: “We have to accept that behavioural change doesn’t happen overnight. Our approach is to make the green lifestyle fun and easy, focusing on achievable daily habits. I believe that actions inspire actions.”
By blending various academic perspectives, Chester reframes the negative narrative about the climate crisis in a positive light
Spearheading Climate Revolution with New Scientific Thinking
In advancing the climate revolution, Chester leverages his marketing expertise and incorporates insights from behavioural science and psychology. By blending various academic perspectives, he weaves climate action into everyday life and reframes the mainstream negative narrative about the climate crisis in a positive light. This approach not only more effectively motivates people to participate in green initiatives, but also steers environmental efforts towards a more scientific direction.