I've built Understories to address the gap between the abundance of climate science and the scarcity of evidence-based guidance on how to communicate it effectively. 

The Library is designed specifically for climate advocates. It combines academic rigor with real-world applicability.

Every two Thursdays, I’ll share short explainers, key findings, and standout data points from selected reports as they go live.

Caroline - 9 July 2026

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1 . The Library is open

Understories evaluates your message against 50+ peer-reviewed studies, academic papers, and guidelines. It is grounded in peer-reviewed research, governed by a fixed methodology.

Understories' Library is now live. It is organised into five categories:

• COMMUNICATIONS: What works and what doesn't when communicating climate change to the public

• MOBILISATION: What moves people from concern to collective action: online, in communities, and in movements

• NARRATIVE: How stories, frames, and metaphors shape what people believe is possible on climate

• PSYCHOLOGY: How people think, feel, and decide about climate change, and what that means for communicators

• PUBLIC OPINION: The landscape of global climate opinion: who believes what, who acts, and who hasn't been reached.

2. Five new reports in the Library, and what they found

• COMMUNICATIONS: Global warming vs. climate change, taxes vs. prices: Does word choice matter?, Ana Villar, Jon A. Krosnick (2011)

  • A finding: Republicans in the U.S. perceived "climate change" as more serious than "global warming". Democrats perceived "global warming" as more serious than "climate change". Read more.

  
  

• MOBILISATION: Tell Don't Ask: How to Use Social Media to Mobilise Local Collective Climate Action, Ganga Shreedhar, Joshua Hinton & Laura Thomas-Walters (2026)

  • A finding: Climate impact imagery outperforms protest imagery. Flood images drove significantly more clicks than the protest images XR typically uses in its communications, particularly when paired with exhortation messages. Access it here.

  
  

• NARRATIVE: The Narrative Construction of Reality, Jerome Bruner, (1991)

  • A finding: A sequence of events that simply follows a known script (e.g., ordinary restaurant behavior) is not a story. Narrative requires a breach of the canonical script to be worth telling at all. Read how Understories uses this research.

  
  

• PSYCHOLOGY: The Conspiracy Theory Handbook, Stephan Lewandowsky, John Cook (2020)

  • A finding: 64% of all comments in an analysis of over 2 million comments on the r/conspiracy subreddit came from just 5% of posters who exhibited conspiratorial thinking — with the single most active author producing 896,337 words (twice the length of The Lord of the Rings). Read the handbook.

  
  

• PUBLIC OPINION: The Public's Views on Climate Policies in Seven Large Global South Countries, Richard Carson et al. (2025)

  • A finding: Global South respondents answered about 20% fewer questions correctly than a comparable Global North benchmark, but outperformed on attributing climate change to human activity. The gap was largest on long-term physical consequences, not on causes. Read more.

  
  

3 . A link on AI & [climate] comms worth watching

From Cornell University. AI systems can out-persuade expert humans, according to a large set of pre-registered experiments with nearly 19,000 conversations.

Frontier models beat tournament winners and world-champion debaters, with a particularly strong edge in fundraising. "AI was nearly 3x more effective than professional canvassers from a UK fundraising firm at raising real-money donations to Save the Children". The authors suggest the advantage comes from AI’s ability to deploy information faster, raising important questions about political communication and influence.

4 . Closing with beauty

I came across this beautiful picture...

The caption: "I am fascinated by the clusters of Santolina lindavica flowers, flattened by the storm. Two years after it was planted, it has become well established". 

It appears on the Instagram account of landscape and garden designer Cécile Charpentier, based in Lyon, France. 

Her approach: “With a keen interest in permaculture, biodiversity, resilience to climate change, the water cycle and rainwater harvesting, I design gardens that are as ecological as they are ornamental – rain gardens inspired by regenerative hydrology.” 

To discover Cécile's work, full of poetry, attention to detail, and creativity, visit: www.cecile-charpentier.com

Disclaimer: Cécile is not a stranger; we've known each other since we were kids and are part of the same extended group of friends.

Would I have highlighted her work had I not known her: YES, because WAHOOO. Am I proud to know and appreciate both her work and her? Absolutely.

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Fortnightly, I’ll share short explainers, key findings, and data points from selected reports as they go live, plus exclusive content.