Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy has announced the launch of The 51 Percent Project, which is meant to facilitate communication between climate scholars and citizens who want to find solutions to the changing climate.
The name of the project comes from a study by The Yale Program on Climate Communications and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication which identified that only 51 percent of Americans are worried about climate change.
One of the main goals for Sarah Robinson, the founding director of the 51 Percent Project, is to increase the awareness of and engagement in sustainability.
“What we are doing is identifying the best practices of climate communication from the established peer-reviewed literature on this subject and making these available to major media and other communicators in order to accelerate public engagement on solutions to climate change,” Robinson said.
Robinson said many media outlets are being underutilized for climate change communication.
“Effectively communicating about this is really important,” Robinson said. “The major media that we all consume each and every day on our phones, on our laptops, some people are reading the newspaper, listening on podcasts, et cetera … all of this is excellent communication channels that can improve public engagement on the issue of climate change and accelerate the solutions that we need.”
Robinson said the way to properly address climate change is to act quickly. Through Robinson’s project, the ISE hopes to create innovative ways to distribute information on sustainability as well as inspire more people to help the environment around them.
“It’s urgent that we address this properly to avoid the worst impacts of climate change that our scientists have predicted with increasing precision over the most recent decades,” Robinson said.
Steven Le, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he thinks the project is a great idea.
“Climate change has become a big issue in the Boston area,” Le said. “It is why people in Massachusetts are experiencing extremely hot summer and cold winter here. I think climate change is already affecting our daily life and this is a great project. It is good to hear that 51 percent of people are aware of climate change’s importance, but I think the project should convince 49 percent as well.”
Anushka Singh, a junior in the College of Communication, agrees that a problem with climate change is that there is not enough awareness.
“The problem is that not a lot of people know a lot about climate change,” Singh said. “So I feel like this should be targeted at every student.”
Madeline Pearce, a freshman in the College of Communication, said she believes that more organizations should help create solutions to climate change.
“The fact that institutions like ISE exist is great since the U.S. government is doing nothing about environmental issues,” Pearce said, “it has become an individual’s responsibility to deal with the climate crisis, and ISE could become a great chance for us to join the activity.”
A previous version of this article referred to the Institute for Sustainable Energy as the “Institution for Sustainable Energy”
