How to Save the World | The Psychology & Science of Environmental Behavior

We can get better at telling the story of sustainability, climate, and greener futures. I wrote down these 24 evocative words, backed by science to motivate people, and riffed on ideas of how you use each of them to tell better stories to get people to join your environmental project. We need to be able to inspire epic feelings in people. Here are some examples of how you can do it.  * * *   How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com  Join my masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet  Get a copy of the book, How to Save the World on Amazon  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action.  Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick  Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn  Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

Have you ever seen a "sustainability street" program you thought was a great idea? In this month's Gamify the Planet Masterclass, we're creating one! In this episode, I share a simple tutorial on how you can design a gamified sustainability street program to promote decarbonization, electrification, and roof-top solar - and we'll learn the theory behind behavioral techniques work to tap into the human motivational core. Images and info to follow along + register for the class: https://katiepatrick.com/sustainabilitystreet See the Climate Action Yard Signs: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkysFgJv2Cp/ Humans are group animals. By harnessing the power of groups (like a street, block, or community) we can layer on gamification features like badges, goals, comparison, and progress-tracking to create a program that has the main ingredients the decarbonization movement needs to reach the tipping point of change. Gamify the Planet: Climate Action Masterclass Sustainability Street: Gamifying Neighborhood Decarbonization Tuesday 15th November 9am PST, 12pm EST, 5pm BST. Learn more at katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Sign up for $25/month at Patreon.com/katiepatrick

In this episode, we speak with Thijs Bouman, assistant professor and researcher from the Environmental Psychology group at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He’s done some fascinating research into the relationship between group and individual environmental values. We often think of our value systems and beliefs as if they were created by our own independent thoughts, but we as humans, are highly influenced by the groups we interact with. Seeing environmental change through the lens of group behavior could provide a very different lens through which to design environmental campaigns and programs. Thijs' research explores how, as individuals, we tend to underestimate the pro-environmental values of others, and because of this, we shortchange our own impact. Yet, when our fellow group members strongly endorse pro-environmental values, discovering this boosts our own environmental engagement.  Thijs Bouman's research: From values to climate action https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X21000579 Environmental values and identities at the personal and group level https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352154621000449 Contact: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thijsbouman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/T_Bouman DOORS OPEN  Gamify the Planet: Climate Action Masterclass Sustainability Street: Gamifying Neighborhood Decarbonization Tuesday 15th November 9am PST, 12pm EST, 5pm BST. Learn more at katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet Sign up for $25/month at Patreon.com/katiepatrick How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com

We need to avoid the trap of getting caught up in a single idea. Ideas are plentiful. When it comes to climate or social change, an idea is just a hypothesis. Will your idea actually create the change you think it will? You'll only know by testing it.  In this episode, I talk about how you need to have lots of ideas and rapidly iterate them. You need to test them and discover the causal mechanism of what works on people. The faster you can test and iterate, the faster you can get to the mechanisms of what people love and why they change. Work on your vision of the future world and less on your "idea."  Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon Join my masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet * * *  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

Learn about behavior mapping for climate action, the powerful technique to influence human behavior. Discover the 96 psychological techniques to drive real impact. Join the Climate Action Design Masterclass and explore strategies for sustainable behavior change through small commitments, group norms, and novel experiences.

How do we persuade homeowners to make climate upgrades to their homes such as electrifying, installing solar, or improving energy efficiency? Do we persuade them using environmental facts and energy data, or is a social mechanism more effective, like sparking a conversation with a neighbor or friend?  Our guest today is Brian Southwell. Brian is the Adjunct Professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine, the director of the Science in the Public Sphere Program at a large non-profit research institute called RTI, and he also is and hosts The Measure of Everyday Life radio show. His research paper we are diving into today is titled “Weatherization behavior and social context: The influences of factual knowledge and social interaction” and it tests which works better to get people to take action on their homes - facts or conversations?"  When big climate, decarbonization, and electrification programs are rolled out by utilities, local governments, and NGOs across thousands or millions of homes, when these organizations often spend millions of dollars trying to get traction in communities, the nuance of what works to drive action really matters.  * * * Sign up for my new monthly Masterclass, Gamify the Planet, on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/katiepatrick What we'll be learning: http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet * * *  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based techniques you can use to get more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com  Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon  This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action.  Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn  Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

You need to tell the world why your idea or mission matters – and not just in any way. You need to tell a story that deeply resonates so that people will fund you, work with you, and take action to support you. In this episode, I talk through the power of using The Hero's Journey template to tell your non-fiction story – and how discovering this twelve-step structure dramatically changed the course of not just my environmental work,  but my life, and how it might change yours, too. See the article and free downloadable story template How to Tell a Story that Changes the World Get the book, Resonate, by Nancy Duarte https://amzn.to/3qGuwkm  Get The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell https://amzn.to/3dCOmrz * * *  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon Join my masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

This podcast discusses the importance of prioritizing real-life action in making a tangible impact on the environment. It emphasizes the need to gather people who share the same vision and work towards a common goal. The challenges of marketing a rooftop heat map project for energy conservation are also explored. Additionally, the podcast promotes the Imagine project and a climate action design masterclass for supporters.

Do you ever hear animals you never see? Secretive and rare animals, such as Eastern bristlebirds, can be most easily found by the sounds that they make. We can only do this, however, if we learn how to decipher their calls!  In her PhD research, Jessie is exploring how to design future technologies that support people in becoming familiar with identifying bird calls from audio recordings. Birders and members of the public explored Jessie’s research prototypes, such as the Bristle Whistle Challenge. Conservationists and members of the public are likely to benefit from having enticing tools that include creative playful and task-oriented gameful interactions with bird calls. Such tools may support many people, whether learning calls for fun, or to support citizen science, ecology, or wildlife conservation efforts. Jessie mentions these apps: Fold IT - Protein folding game https://fold.it/ Zooniverse - https://www.zooniverse.org/ Rorshak ink blot test - http://rorschachinkblottest.com/ e-Bird app - https://ebird.org/about/ebird-mobile/ Frog ID - https://www.frogid.net.au/ I-Naturalist - https://www.inaturalist.org/ Otter-AI - https://otter.ai/ Cornel Lab of bird sounds - https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/ Xeno Canto bird sounds - https://xeno-canto.org/ Cat Tracker - https://cattracker.org/cat-tracker/ Eco-Acoustics Researcher, Bernie Krause https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernie-Krause Learn more about Jessie’s PhD and broader research here https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3464-0247 and email or connect via Twitter https://twitter.com/JessieLOliver for paper access. * * *  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon Join my masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm

Does your website, pitch deck, and marketing material ACTUALLY explain what you do, clearly? Or is it a confusing word salad of environmental world-saving generalities? Remember this phrase: "If you confuse, you lose." In my experience, most climate and environmental projects struggle to simply explain what they do. In this episode, I explain how to write a "power sentence" in three easy steps so anyone can immediately "get it." You need to follow the steps to write this power sentence because clarity is what creates the emotional connection with your audience. It's what will get people to fall in love with your project and want to sign up, donate, join, purchase, and share - because they instantly understand what it is.  We'll also learn how to use the basic framework of The Hero's Journey to write a single paragraph that will hook people in to your story and tip and tricks on how to write better.  Clear succinct copywriting is the secret to growing your movement.  How to Save the World is a Podcast About the Psychology of What Gets People To Take On Sustainable Behavior and Climate Action: Environmental engineer, designer, and author, Katie Patrick, hunts down the latest behavioral science literature from top universities such as Harvard, MIT, and Stanford to unearth the evidence-based teachings you can use to get magnitudes more people to adopt your environmental campaign, program, or product. Sign up for Katie's free behavior and gamification design course at http://katiepatrick.com Get a copy of How to Save the World on Amazon Join my masterclass training in climate action design for $25 / month http://katiepatrick.com/gamifytheplanet This podcast is supported by our friends at Earth Hacks who run environmental hackathons, Conservation X Labs who promote community-driven open tech development for conservation, and Climate Designers - a network of designers who use their creative skills for climate action. Contribute a monthly donation to the How to Save the World podcast at patreon.com/katiepatrick Follow on Twitter @katiepatrick, Instagram @katiepatrickhello, and LinkedIn Book a 90-minute Idea Storming Call with Katie: https://calendly.com/katiepatrick/idea-storm