Tools to Talk Climate:
An Online Workshop Series
Across British Columbia and Canada, people are feeling the impacts of climate change firsthand. Concern is widespread. But understanding of the problem, and what meaningful action looks like, remains fragmented, contested, and often polarized.
Too often, dominant climate narratives miss the mark. They fail to reflect lived realities, while misinformation and exclusionary processes erode trust. In that gap, “climate delay” narratives take hold that shift the focus away from climate, stall decisions, and quietly shape policies that fall short of what this moment demands.
The result is a puzzling disconnect: people care deeply about climate impacts, yet that concern doesn’t consistently translate into collective, effective action.
Based on research and three years of on-the-ground work, we see the core challenge differently: this is a sensemaking problem. It’s rooted in how people process climate change socially, emotionally, and psychologically—and how those processes shape what feels possible, urgent, and worth acting on.
If more information, technical solutions or even a robust policy change aren’t enough, we need leaders, policymakers and climate practitioners who understand HOW to engage these human dimensions of climate.
What we know:
People carry strong emotions about climate change, yet feelings of fear, anxiety, grief, disempowerment, and loss are rarely acknowledged or supported.
Climate change, as well as climate action, disrupts identities, values, and belonging.
The scale and complexity of climate change make it difficult to comprehend.
Defence mechanisms to avoid feeling the trauma to self and cultural identity can provoke people to take refuge in misinformation about climate change.
Knowing this is not enough. We need tool up as leaders, organizers and practitioners on the frontlines of climate work to engage the social and psychological dimensions in applied and tangible ways.
Tools to Talk Climate exists to do just that.
About
Through a series of online webinars, Tools to Talk Climate supports leaders and climate practitioners to build these capacities in real time and apply them directly within live policy, engagement, and communication contexts—shifting how decisions are made, how communities are engaged, and how conflict is navigated.
Each webinar includes skill development, applied practice, coaching and feedback, and integration. Topics include building trust across affective polarization, navigating information, misinformation and disinformation, developing narrative and discourse literacy, and growing emotional capacity and regulation.
Tools to Talk Climate consists of a series of three-part workshops to vivify the skills of navigating the human and social dimensions of climate change, including two 2-hour interactive webinars.
Each Tools to Talk Climate workshop consists of three-parts, including two 2-hour interactive webinars:
Part 1: Learning & Framework - Introduce the topic, practice the skill (delivered through a 2-hour interactive webinar)
Part 2: Application - Apply the skills in tangible and practical ways, receive coaching and feedback (applied individually within the context participants are working in, with coaching from the trainers)
Part 3: Reflection & Integration - Sharing and report back; integration of learning (delivered through a 2-hour interactive webinar).
