Climate Communications Product Analysis: Building Clean Energy in the Hudson Valley
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About This Sample
The accredited Scenic Hudson created this webpage, which highlights some best practices in climate communications. Here's how this product showcases these recommendations for communicating about climate change.
This product was created by Bridget Macdonald and the Mass ECAN Climate Communications Expert Work Group, with input from Meaghan Guckian and Environmental decision-making lab at UMass for The Land Trust Alliance.
© 2018 Land Trust Alliance, Inc. All rights reserved.
The accredited Scenic Hudson created this webpage, which serves as the cover page for a suite of materials developed to help stakeholders make informed decisions about renewable energy, and positions Scenic Hudson as an honest broker of information about mitigating climate change with community interests in mind.
The annotated example below highlights some best practices in climate communications. Here's how this product showcases these recommendations for communicating about climate change:
1. Leading with politically neutral messages about conserving resources people already care about.
The authors open with a direct invitation to readers to be a part of something consequential. Rather than say, “Scenic Hudson is fighting climate change…” they say, “We can fight climate change..”, and in doing so, distinguish the Hudson Valley as a model for other regions and a source of “new jobs, affordable energy and healthier, stronger communities.” These are values anyone can get behind, and are thus likely to motivate different kinds of people to act.
The next paragraph contextualizes the renewable energy initiative within the land trust’s core mission by emphasizing the importance of responsible siting to preserve the Hudson’s “priceless natural resources, scenic views and historic sites.” It is a message that communicates a dedication to shared resources, and a desire to balance different needs.
2. Finding trusted spokespeople to deliver your messages.
There are no individuals quoted on the page, but the authors reference the goal set by New York State agencies to source 50 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2030 as a shared standard. The message is that residents of New York all have a stake in this goal and can play a role in achieving it.
At the end of the page, readers are provided with list of resources on renewable energy siting that have resulted from two recent forums. The Solar Smart Hudson Valley Symposium hosted by Scenic Hudson in 2018, and the Renewables on the Ground Roundtable in 2017, led by the Alliance for Clean Energy New York and The Nature Conservancy, which we learn brought together a range of different stakeholders including land use planners, environmental organizations, conservationists, renewable energy developers, agricultural interests, utilities, regulators, and government officials. Presumably, readers would be able to identify with one of these stakeholder groups, and feel that their interests were represented at these forums, and in the resulting materials.
3. Focusing on local climate change impacts and responses, rather than on the causes.
The authors neatly connect the dots between the assets of the Hudson Valley (“a great place to live and work”), the threat from climate change (“changing temperatures, shifting weather patterns, sea-level rise along the Hudson’s shoreline”), and how renewable energy will help mitigate impacts and bolster community assets. We learn that transitioning the energy supply away from large fossil-fuel power plants that rely on long-distance transmission, to a central energy grid fed by locally generated power, will not only mitigate climate change, but create jobs and local control over energy prices. The authors also provide supplementary fact sheets for those interested in specific climate impacts and siting considerations.
4. Avoiding technical jargon, instead using language that can be understood by anyone.
Throughout the web page, the authors present information on renewable energy that avoids jargon and hyperbole, and focuses on a theme of protecting natural and economic resources from climate change. While there is undoubtedly a depth of research behind this content — just see the accompanying downloadable guide — the authors distill the technical guidance into accessible language. For example, they have a set of principles for renewable siting that is worded to address potential concerns about these projects: “prioritize development on previously disturbed areas,” “protect natural beauty” and “avoid and minimize new transmission and distribution lines.”
5. Selecting photos that bring your messages to life.
Actions: There is just one image at the top on the web page, but it perfectly captures the principles of responsible renewable energy siting that Scenic Hudson is trying to promote. The photo shows a set of solar panels in the foreground, positioned next to a vast field of flowers, and in the distance, the roof of a home peeks out beyond the field. This image shows that renewable energy doesn’t have to be an imposition on private property, and that it can be compatible with other efforts to support natural resources, like providing habitat for pollinators.
What could be improved?
The web page could use some of the images and visual accents featured in the accompanying downloadable guide to break up the text. It would also be nice to hear from a local official, community leader, or resident who can speak to the tangible benefits of renewable energy and help strengthen the case for this initiative.
Communications case study in context
Audrey Friedrichsen, land use and environmental advocacy attorney for Scenic Hudson
Context for the product
Scenic Hudson stepped into the renewable energy space because New York state has adopted a renewable energy target of 50 percent by 2030. That standard is driving a lot of projects, and we are seeing them proposed in our mission area of the Hudson Valley. t is receiving various levels of acceptance from residents in terms of how to respond –whether they want it, oppose it, think it’s okay, or aren’t quite sure.
That’s why we put together the guide and have added this renewable energy campaign to our mission statement, which is about moving beyond climate change adaptation to mitigation by supporting the renewables goal and maximizing potential. But it has to be done in accordance with our mission without impacting all of the things in the Hudson Valley we have worked so hard to preserve.
Understanding the audience
This has been a difficult area to step into because lots of people in our region are against these projects. You can talk about the climate change impacts that are coming, and how renewables are one way of mitigating them, but you really have to focus on the local benefits in order to get people on board with having renewable energy in their communities, viewsheds, or backyards.
Right now, people are more focused on the perceived negative impacts from renewable energy installations than from climate change. But as a science-based organization, we feel we need more evidence. Can we develop a conservation plan that satisfies the renewable standards in an existing grasslands habitat management plan? Or can we only set aside agricultural lands and ensure that those remain in active production or are eased in some way to keep them preserved?
As we prepare for an outreach campaign focusing on renewable energy, we want to find people in these communities who are more objective and are willing to consider evidence about impacts before making a decision about whether or not to allow renewables in their communities.
Framing the issue
If you look at the back of our renewables guide, there is a list of all the things we are already seeing happening in the Hudson Valley in terms of climate change impacts, but the real focus is not necessarily on climate change and its impacts, but on embracing renewable energy as something we can develop here in the Hudson Valley as a model for responding to climate change in other regions.
As a land trust, we are in a unique position, and we have an opportunity to communicate that role: we are a conservation organization with a mission to protect land, and these lands are now being impacted by climate change. It goes back to think global, act local, and land trusts are the very leading edge of that.
Climate-communication takeaways
A lot of land trusts may still be at a point where they are deciding whether or not they want to include climate change in their mission area, in terms of adaptation, mitigation, or both. But I can’t imagine that there are any land trusts that aren’t experiencing impacts. Whether you are in the Northeast and are seeing more frequent and larger rain events, or if you are out west and being impacted by those horrible fires. The advice is: You can’t avoid it, so the most important thing is to start the conversation and not be afraid that people don’t want to hear it.
Other land trusts should think about the fact that they already serve as a kind of mitigating entity by protecting land from development. Responding to climate change is a natural evolution of this role, and needs to be taken on to protect the lands we have worked hard to preserve.
