Highlights from Re.Climate’s First-Ever “Ask Us Anything” Webinar

You asked, we answered. In our first webinar of 2025, Re.Climate let you set the agenda—answering your biggest questions about climate communication in a chaotic world. From elections to social media, check out key takeaways, expert insights, and resources you won’t want to miss.

a conifer forest with the title "ask us anything" and speech bubbles around it.

In January 2025, Re.Climate decided to kick off the new year with a new kind of webinar. Instead of Re.Climate experts presenting research, attendees set the agenda by sending questions that our experts then answered in the webinar.

Amber Bennett, Cara Pike, Dr. Chris Russill, Jessie Sitnick, and Dr. Louise Comeau offered some great advice and important reminders for communicating about climate change in a very topsy-turvy world.

Below is a summary of their answers to seven big questions—from connecting climate action and elections to whether or not it’s time to ditch social media—and some answers to a few questions we couldn’t get to. There will also be a list of resources related to each question that were shared by attendees during the webinar. Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

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Seven Burning Questions from Re.Climate’s “Ask Us Anything” Webinar

Question 1: How can we communicate a sense of urgency and a long-term vision on climate change without sounding alarmist or triggering a ‘freeze’ response, where people could shut down or just disengage?

Dr. Louise Comeau: If we’re encountering people who are concerned, then we need to validate their feelings, but we also need to validate the truth of climate change. It is overwhelming. Like Katharine Hayhoe says, it’s real; it’s us; it’s serious. So in that context, I’ve framed some of my responses in this context of radical or realistic hope. We need to be doing this to create a sense of community—which is kind of what we’re doing here today—but also within our own operations, communities, and organizations. And I know this might seem too optimistic, but psychological research shows that doing something actually helps, even if that something is talking about the issue. 

But of course, we’re also dealing with people who are currently less motivated to deal with climate change. As communicators, we need to aim at strengthening people’s sense of agency. That is the belief that we actually can do something and that what we think we can do is going to work. So it really is time to keep headlining people taking actions that generate benefits to people in their daily lives and where they live. 

Resources:

Question 2: This next question is from “Protect Our Winters Canada”, an organization made of athletes and industry members aiming to protect Canada’s winters from the impact of climate change. Their audience is mainly 25-34 year-olds and they want to know, how can they communicate the stakes of the upcoming federal election without sounding partisan? Is leaning into economic narratives about how climate action saves us money an effective approach? 

Jessie Sitnick: I think it’s relevant and important to look at the economic story. It may not resonate most with the audience of 25-34 year-olds who are recreationalists because that economic story is going to hit home for people who sit on tourism boards, small business owners who are running the ski shops or the rinks or the programs that are getting affected by shorter winter seasons, and you know, municipalities and provinces who depend on the revenue from those sorts of outdoor pursuits.

This organization really has a tremendous opportunity to tap into what their younger, engaged, outdoor audience really loves and cares about.

So, on avoiding partisanship, we’re not talking to people about who they should vote for. We’re inviting people to talk about what they value and care about to anyone who wants to take leadership in Canada. 

For example, whoever comes knocking on your door from any party, it’s an opportunity for your audience members to say: “You know what I’m worried about? It’s that outdoor hockey right down the street, where I learned how to play hockey, and now they’re closing because there aren’t enough ice days, and that bothers me because I want to take my nephew there, and now I can’t.” 

Those are the real stories that they can tell to whoever comes to their door. Hopefully that will go up the chain and can help influence political platforms. 

Amber Bennett: I would just add that you can talk about the importance of climate change and not be partisan. There is an organization called New Majority that works on getting out the vote, and their advice is pretty basic.

First-time voters need to know where their polling station is, and what they need to have with them to vote. Provide them with information they need to remove barriers around anxiety around first-time voting. 

Resources: 

Question 3: This question is from Citizens Climate Lobby Canada. What are the most effective social media communications strategies in today’s challenging media landscape? Are platforms like X and Meta still worth their time? How can volunteers maximize their time and efforts in our current landscape?

Dr. Chris Russill: I find it helpful to remember that the information environment is a hybrid one. It’s a mix of old and new and different parts of the media ecosystem being used by different people. 

For example—and I’m being simplistic here—young people are on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat. Legacy media is not really part of their day. So if that audience is important to you, you’ll need to consider that.

However, the other thing that’s important to think about is how communication is happening on these platforms. Narratives are developing in participatory ways on different platforms. The right wing, in particular, has definitely understood and leveraged the idea that the aesthetic of engaging with someone as a peer—to build relatability, authenticity, engagement, and invite people into a world and build narratives with them—is pretty effective and that is worth paying attention to. 

So I’m not saying to become an angry populist, but there’s something to understand there. 

If I can address the question more directly: I admire the willingness to be reflective about the choice to stay on a social media platform because of the CEO’s values or reprehensible policy changes.

But I do think that if all the informed and engaged climate people leave Facebook or Instagram, I don’t think that’s something I’d recommend or be excited about. There’s a larger politics here about how we try to regulate or deal with Big Tech, which goes beyond moving from platform to platform.  

Resources:

Question 4: This is a question about internal alignment within organizations. How can you apply communications lessons to engage colleagues across roles—from engineers and project managers to frontline and construction staff—to build support for implementing climate actions and policies?

AB: I’ve worked in local government before, and one of my mentors said at the time that the essence of internal communications is no surprises. The idea is you are doing the work so that no one is surprised when something comes across their desk. 

But this is really about culture as much as it is about messaging or briefing notes. One of the tools that I find really useful is called the BUC(k)ET model, which identifies people’s core social goals. 

Basically, the idea here is that people want to know what’s expected of them, and they want to do what’s expected of them. You need to create a norm that provides a sense of belonging, that people understand, that gives them a sense of control, that demonstrates that they are worthy and capable of doing this hard thing that is really important. You need to build trust into those relationships. 

This might involve creating spaces where people can understand and have conversations. This is doubly important when you are working with a mix of professions. This could be everything from town halls to strategy sessions to staff meetings. Those are all places where people can talk through, make meaning, and try to understand how they will do this work together.

Resources: 

Question 5: Adaptation is often an unfamiliar area for many staff members in organizations. What is the best way to train staff on climate adaptation? 

Cara Pike: The first thing we need to start with is connecting the dots for people that extreme weather, climate change, and adaptation actions or policies are all connected. Canadians are worried about extreme weather but aren’t necessarily connecting it to climate change nor getting to the stage of “what are we going to do about it?” 

A note about language too, I’d generally recommend avoiding the term “adaptation.” It sounds technical and gradual, almost like it’s going to happen on its own. Preparation is a good word to use; resilience can also work with some audiences. 

I think it’s really important when we’re talking about adaptation that we’re not just focused on large-scale, technical solutions. If you are a local government and you want to get people on board with adaptation, offer them tools that put the issue in the present and make it relevant to their lives. 

The last thing I’ll add is that you need to co-explore risks and co-create your solutions. People respond better to risk when there’s an opportunity to process it and come to terms with what it will mean for themselves. 

People also have very important knowledge from the community level who should weigh in. People are experts in their communities and their lives. They are the ones who can tell you how climate change is affecting them. There’s a real imperative that we consider engagement with those most impacted by climate change but the least capacity to respond to that risk. 

Resources: 

Question 6: This next question touches on the topic of misinformation. There’s significant misinformation about heat pumps and EVs, their affordability, availability and reliability. How can we address these misconceptions and build confidence in these solutions? 

LC: What our research tells us is that accepting solutions like EVs and heat pumps is about more than just dollars and cents. Half of Canadians believe they have no choice but to use their existing vehicle or furnace, which speaks to a lack of agency. A third of Canadians are actually angry because they feel pressured to buy this tech, which was a shocking result for me! 

Twenty per cent feel judged by elites who they feel “flaunt” this tech, and the same percentage say the tech is unreliable. So the misinformation campaigns are having an impact. 

But there are bigger issues at play here than just misinformation. There is actual skepticism. People are not buying this stuff because, right now, they are worried about their current dollars, not their future ones. 

But all these concerns bundle up into this theme: people perceive these technologies as inaccessible and, therefore, unfair. 

The good news is that people who have experience with the tech are your ambassadors. They have high confidence, they think incentives work, and agree this tech has made life more affordable. We’ve got to do much more to highlight their stories. 

At the same time, we’ve really got to defend the principle of fairness to validate how people are perceiving these issues. 

Resources: 

Question 7: This last question is a two-parter related to framing and misinformation. 1) How do you push back against false narratives that present fossil fuels as good or demonize policies? 2) How can you build support in municipalities that actually shift that narrative and make people comfortable with these changes?

JS: I want to use the term “Just Transition” as an example here, “15-minute Cities” is another good one though. In both these cases, we’ve taken a buzzword, or insider language that we’ve used in our own climate bubble, and shared it with the public. But the problem is, it hasn’t been very well defined. Maybe it means something to us, but it doesn’t mean anything to our audiences. 

The problem is that when we haven’t filled a term or concept with meaning that actually connects to people, it’s very easy for other people to fill that idea with their own meaning that serves their own agenda. 

We need to talk about the ideas behind these concepts in a new language that connects with our audience. Just Transition is about fairness. So drop that language, and let’s talk about what’s fair, instead of a just transition. 

CP: I think it’s also important to recognize that there’s very organized, well-funded misinformation coming from the fossil fuel industry right now.  

We are operating in a landscape filled with intentional lies that we have to recognize. So I agree with Jessie, people want to know “How will this affect my life?” “What does this actually mean for me?” 

This is not a time to back down. When it comes to misinformation and those driving it, it’s time to be very pointed and  reveal how they’re misleading us. 

CR: This has been said a million times, but Maya Angelou has a great quote, and it goes something like, people will forget what you say, and they’ll forget what you do, but they’ll never forget how you made them feel. 

Knowing that these narratives and conspiracies are designed to deceive people and mess with their sense of reality is so frustrating. We want to fact check, call them out, and that’s all pretty important. 

But the reality is that these larger narratives are speaking to a certain feeling—whether its vulnerability, precarity, insecurity—and that’s what is spurring the engagement with this stuff. 

We need to speak to these feelings and figure out how to position programs and solutions as responses to people’s desires for protection and security. 

Resources: 

…And Two Bonus Questions We Couldn’t Get To In The Webinar!

Question  8: A lot of Canadians believe that Canada is under threat from the U.S., our traditional friend and ally. Should our communications in 2025 use the sovereignty and nationalism cards to mobilize?
Question 9: What is the role of AI in responding to climate change? Or the major concerns about it? 

We followed up with our experts afterwards and asked them to share resources to help address these questions. Here’s what they recommended: 

We had a lot of fun with this webinar and enjoyed answering these great questions. If you’re looking for more of Re.Climate’s work, check out our latest report on Climate Change and Solutions in Canada’s National Media and our playbook on Building a Social Mandate for Climate Action.

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