See Through Network’s guide to when, how and to whom to mention the small matter of addressing our species’ suicidal path
The See Through Network’s ‘Transparent Trojan Horse’ methodology creates engaging online content, while avoiding mentioning words like ‘climate’, ‘carbon’, ‘sustainability’ or ‘environment’ too soon or too often.
This is because See Through does not target the tiny minority of people already doing something about the climate emergency. Rather, it seeks to engage the vast majority of people who might be willing to become active, but are quick to close their ears when they hear such ‘culture war’ trigger words.
This article explains how See Through grades its calls to action, according to how it drops the ‘C-bomb’.
(Note: for the purposes of this article, ‘C-bombs’ are not just ‘climate’ or ‘carbon’, but any word that triggers a similar response, like ’sustainable’, ‘green’, ‘eco’, ‘environmental etc.)
The ‘C-bomb Dilemma’
The C-bomb Dilemma is familiar to any climate activist.
It’s particularly frustrating because, humans being imperfect humans, the C-bomb Dilemma admits no perfect solution.
This article seeks to add nuance to what’s too often presented as a binary climate activist vs climate denier ding-dong. Viewing the challenge of converting the inactive into taking effective climate action as a dial and not a switch, should render calls to action more effective.
There’s no Dilemma, for Climate activists talking among themselves – for example in this article. We constantly carpet-C-bomb each other.
Fellow-activists, however, are not the people whose minds, and behaviour, require changing; when engaging with non-climate-activists, C-bombs must be deployed with great care.
Specifically, the See Through Network taxonomy’s ‘Category 3’: Unwilling Inactivists, i.e. ‘those who accept the science and reality of human-induced climate change, but feel powerless to do anything about it’.
Unwilling Inactivists make up 80-89% of humans, making them the obvious target audience for any Cat. 1: Effective Activist.
But 7 billion individuals cover a wide range of responses. Humans being human, we all react to the C-Bomb differently.
This article is a practical guide to anyone seeking to address those nuances. For See Through, its Goal is ‘Speeding Up Carbon Drawdown by Helping the Inactive Become Active’.
What to avoid
The C-Bomb Dilemma can manifest even when you’re trying to avoid the climate issue.
Confessions of a Transport Surveyor – Don’t Mention The C-Word recounts how concert-goers, asked three simple factual questions about how they got there by people wearing hi-viz jackets and wielding clipboards, detect unspoken C-bombs, often spontaneously give one of two responses, each usually reserved for C-bombs.
Both responses reflect a central challenge for any climate-related activist. Most people have, one way or another, decided on our ‘climate position’. Our first response to any perceived mention of ‘climate’ is to regurgitate this fixed position, without listening to the actual context, falling into two (self-diagnosed) categories:
- Climate-saints: respond with status-affirming humblebragging about their climate action. (‘I’ve done the right thing as I have an EV/ travelled here by bus’)
- Climate-sinners: pre-emptively apologise for their climate inaction, or parade their climate indifference. (‘I’m terrible, we drove here in our diesel car’/’I love my Hummer and I don’t care who knows it’)
The goal of the effective climate activist is to avoid either of these responses, if at all possible.
What climate-saints and climate-sinners have in common is that the moment they open their mouths to deliver their humblebrags/self-criticisms, they close their ears.
The challenge, then, is to bypass these pre-programmed reflex responses, using sophisticated storytelling/behavioural psychological techniques to switch the narrative away from the ruts at just the right time for that individual.
See Through’s strategy is to:
- Target: identify a narrative that might engage a particular audience
- Engage: spin that audience a cracking story
- Nudge: gradually, incrementally smuggle in the climate content
The key moment in stage 3 is the moment the story makes an explicit connection between the engaging narrative, and taking climate action.
In other words, the moment you choose to drop the C-bomb.
Audience, Content &Timing for C-bombardment
Three key elements make a handy acronym for those who want to ACT on climate emergency:
- Audience: who’s listening/watching your story
- Content: the nature of your story
- Timing: when you drop the C-Bomb
The map used by effective C-bombers is this See Through Network Taxonomy.
Here’s how to use this taxonomy map to maximum climate activism effect.
Any bomber pilot knows there are three key elements determine your success or failure:
- Where (i.e. Audience)
- What (i.e. Content)
- When (i.e. Timing)
Audience
Where do you release your C-bomb?
Just as ordnance dropped on deserted farmland, or in the sea, wastes valuable resources, climate activists can waste energy by talking to the wrong audiences.
One of the defining characteristics of Cat. 2: Ineffective Activists is the fact that they direct so much of their activity in the wrong places, whether:
- fellow Cat. 2 activists, who already agree with them
- Cat. 4/Willing Inactivist climate deniers, who never will
Engaging with both these audiences may have benefits. Agreeing with fellow-travellers aids mental health, and abusing rival tribes reinforces tribal identity and confirmation bias.
The problem is, such ‘activism’ generates a lot of hot air, and reduces no carbon. This is what makes it Ineffective.
By contrast, anyone aspiring to Cat. 1: Effective Activist status targets Cat. 3: Unwilling Inactivists, i.e. ‘those who accept the science and reality of human-induced climate change, but who feel powerless to do anything about it’.
Such a broad audience demands a nuanced approach, the first stage of which is to assess the particular nature of the particular audience you’re addressing.
It’s reasonable to assume that audiences interested in certain topics – such as zero-carbon building, nature conservation, or indigenous culture and rights – might be more receptive to a climate-related call to action than, say, people sharing online humour, music, or recipes.
Which brings us to the nature of the material.
Content
What kind of C-bomb are you dropping?
Anything labelled as ‘climate’, ‘carbon’, ‘green’, ‘sustainable’ etc. immediately diminishes its potential audience, by closing their ears and averting their eyes.
Hence the need for transparent Trojan Horses to smuggle in the call to climate action (see below).
A more effective approach is to take familiar/popular social media topics or genres as a starting point, use them to engage your audience with a good story, and then use their attention and interest to nudge your inactivist audience towards effective climate action.
YouTube, for example, has an infinite fractal variety of sub-genres, but most fall into a few basic categories. Porn aside, popular widely-shared content genres include:
- Humour
- Music
- Craft
- Education
- Podcasts
- Nature
- Food
- Games
- Science
See Through Together, the See Through Network’s main YouTube channel, has a Playlist for each of the first 6 categories (labelled with more clickbaity titles like Thinking Outside The Bogs, Concert in the Key of C, Ben Law’s Woodland Year, The 3 R’s: wreading and riting, 25 Worlds That Rhyme With Orange, The Truth Lies in Bedtime Stories etc.), and separate programmes for the last two (See Through Games and See Through Carbon).
Each content item targets a distinctive audience, but because people can be interested in more than one thing, audiences can also be attracted via cross-pollination between different content genres.
Timing
When do you drop your C-bomb?
There’s no point in opening the bomb-bay doors just after take-off or just before landing; timing is critical for effective climate action.
- Drop the C-Bomb too soon, and you risk your Unwilling Inactivist audience will stop listening. You’ll trigger their preconceived response to the climate issue and kill your engagement in its tracks.
- Delay the C-Bomb too long, and you’ve missed your optimal opportunity for a call to action that will convert your target audience into Effective Activists. They’ll miss the point of the ‘Trojan Horse’ content you’ve created to attract their attention, and may never get it.
This requires a nuanced, bespoke, granular and graduated approach to deciding when and how to nudge discussion away from the starting point that attracted them (humour, music, craft etc.) and towards the destination we want them to arrive at (effective climate action).
All of which is a convoluted way of saying, telling the right people the right story in the right way.
‘Transparent Trojan Horse’ Storytelling
See Through’s storytelling strategy is based on the behavioural psychology insights well understood by advertisers, demagogues, PR people, cult leaders, and other influencers.
The strategy is pragmatic, focused on outcomes rather than motivations, and built on common-sense foundations such as:
- Everyone wants to be the hero of their own stories
- Most people have fixed views on most things, including the ‘climate issue’
- Most peoples’ responses are driven by emotion, not reason
- Most people don’t listen most of of the time
- We all like a good story
See Through Network’s ‘Transparent Trojan Horse’ Methodology outlines the principles behind all See Through Content in the form of a FAQ. To demonstrate its point, the FAQ is written using an unconventional, narrative storytelling format (based on the work of Irish humourist Brian O’Nolan (AKA Flann O’Brien), in particular his ‘Catechism of Cliché’.
For more examples, enter ‘storytelling’ in the search bar of www.seethroughnews.org to find dozens more related articles and examples.
The See Through C-Bomb Taxonomy
How does all this work in practice? There are too many variables to permit perfect answers, but here’s See Through’s current taxonomy, with examples of how it’s used in practice.
Level 0: Lost Causes (though there’s a scrap of hope)
This category exists to avoid wasting time and energy on no-hopers.
Around 20% of people fall into the See Through Network Taxonomy’s Cat. 4: ‘Willing Inactivists’, i.e. climate deniers/denialists for whom climate denial is a key element of their identity.
Clever storytelling, and diligent avoidance of the C-Bomb, can still aspire to ‘tricking’ Willing Inactivists into taking effective climate action.
The stretch goal of the Room From A View playlist, for example, is to hoodwink climate deniers into building a zero-carbon home because it saves them money. It’s fine to be right for the wrong reasons; focus on the outcomes, not the motivations.
This is the corollary of another defining characteristic of Cat, 2: Ineffective Activists, (‘raising awareness on its own reduces no carbon’).
Level 1: Impotent
- C-Bomb Frequency: Never
- Call To Action example: Click here to discover who came up with these jokes and why!
- Target Audience: Cat. 3/Unwilling Inactivists
- Canonical content: Thinking Outside The Bogs (cringeworthy Dad jokes)
Thinking Outside The Bogs is devoted to jokes – in bite-sized nuggets often only a few seconds long – with zero apparent climate relevance.
Further details on how to link this to climate activism in Bad Jokes To Do Good On Earth.
Level 2: Action-Curious
- C-Bomb Frequency: Barely
- Call To Action example: Click here to discover why the people who made this are so concerned about truth and lies!
- Target Audience: Cat. 3/Unwilling Inactivists
- Canonical content: The Truth Lies In Bedtime Stories (storytelling podcasts)
Further details on how to link this to climate activism in How To ‘Save The Planet’ With Two Podcasts.
Level 3: On The Way
- C-Bomb Frequency: Sometimes
- Call To Action example: Click here to discover who made this series, why we don’t draw attention to its sustainability, and what you can do to help (it doesn’t involve giving us money)!
- Target Audience: Cat. 3/Unwilling Inactivists & Cat. 2/Ineffective Activists
- Canonical content: Room From A View (DIY property show)
Room From A View‘s ‘hook’ is that it looks like a familiar property show/DIY/off-grid living content, only ever mentions saving money as a motivation, and deliberately avoids using any ‘green’ trigger words like ‘sustainable’, ‘climate’, ‘zero-carbon’ etc.
Further details on how to link this to climate activism in Convert Your DIY Video To Stealth Sustainability Universe.
Level 4: One Last Push
- C-Bomb Frequency: Often
- Call To Action example: Click here to discover how you can amplify Ben’s sustainability message.
- Target Audience: Cat. 3/Unwilling Inactivists & Cat. 2/Ineffective Activists
- Canonical content: Ben Law’s Woodland Year (woodland observational doc series)
Ben Law’s Woodland Year follows a year in the life of Britain’s ‘greatest living’ woodsman’, as he passes on his skills to two apprentices.
Further details on how to link this to climate activism in Ben Law’s Woodland Year – A Documentary Seed Matures.
Level 5: Us
- C-Bomb Frequency: Never
- Call To Action example: Click here to discover how you can help us nudge others to measurably reduce carbon!
- Target Audience: Cat. 1/Effective Activists, i.e. you reading this now.
- Canonical content: See Through News website (specialist climate activist blog)
The See Through News website has no subterfuge whatsoever. All its hundreds of articles overtly discussing effective climate activism and storytelling techniques to move in the climate inactive into effective action.
This article is an example.
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Enough yakking? Time for a Call to Action: here’s how you can take action via See Through Network’s programmes to nudge governments into changing the rules – and enforcing them – to measurably reduce carbon.
