For the second time, UF is hosting a free event to encourage dialogue about climate change.
UF’s College of Journalism and Communications is pairing with the Florida Climate Institute to host the second-annual climate-communications summit today from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in Emerson Alumni Hall. The event, called Higher Ground: Science, Storytelling and the Climb Toward Better Understanding of Climate Change, is free and open to the public.
The main purpose of the summit is to bring up climate change in a way that starts a conversation, said Cynthia Barnett, the environmental journalist in residence at the UF College of Journalism and Communications.
“It’s really important that we do a better job of telling this story, because it is one of the most important issues facing Florida, our country and our planet,” she said.
Anthony Leiserowitz, the director of the Yale University program on climate-change communication, and Neela Banerjee, a reporter on energy and the environment and a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, will talk about how storytelling impacts climate change, Barnett said.
Politics and different points of view are big obstacles for the topic, but events like the summit promote the issue, she said.
Danielle Chanzes, a UF sustainability studies and journalism junior who is helping put together the event, said she is excited to attend because of her interest in solving climate change.
The 23-year-old said she hopes the forum inspires others to take action against climate change.
“I’m really interested in hearing how storytelling can help us communicate this urgent, dire issue of climate change to people who maybe aren’t so on board with it,” Chanzes said.
