Radio. Books. Social media. Lee Constable has used almost every storytelling medium out there to talk about climate change. But there’s one thing that works every time: humour.
Twenty years ago, 12-year-old Lee Constable got a crash course on climate change. While growing up on a sheep farm in Galong, just north of Canberra, Constable and her sister spent their summer holidays droving cattle to new pastures to ensure they were well fed.
At the time, southeast Australia was experiencing its longest drought on record. The parched land beneath Constable’s feet was thirsty for rain, while the sky above was black with smoke billowing from the bushfires raging around Canberra. This was climate change in motion.
Through the blinding smoke and dust, Constable could see her mission more clearly than ever. “I had it in my mind that I was going to be a scientist who would solve climate change,” she says.
After high school, Constable studied Earth and environmental science and plant science as part of her science degree at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. Keen to embrace all kinds of opportunities, she also juggled majors in sociology and drama for her arts degree. As she glided in and out of the sciences and the arts, Constable uncovered an overlooked strand in the tangled web of climate change and all the problems that go with it.
“The problems when it came to climate change were not really scientific,” she recalls. “They were cultural, political and communications problems.” That realisation turned out to be the beginning of Constable’s remarkable career as a science communicator.
Storytelling on a two-way street
Over the years, Constable has tried and tested almost every storytelling medium to get the climate-change message out to her audiences. While she was doing her masters in science communication outreach in 2015 at ANU, Constable donned a superhero cape and ran away with the Questacon Science Circus to teach kids in regional communities about everything from flight physics to fire science.
When she wasn’t on stage, Constable started a social justice and sustainability radio show called SoapBox and founded Co-Lab: Science Meets Street Art, a collaboration where early-career researchers team up with street artists to create public murals. And for four years, Constable hosted Network 10’s science show for kids, Scope. Now, Constable writes, presents, and produces science TikTok and Instagram videos for The Conversation. “I just get passionate about storytelling in whatever way reaches the audience,” she says. “I think that’s why I’ve dabbled in everything!”
Locked up at home during the pandemic, Constable tried her hand at Twitch, a live-streaming platform that’s popular among video gamers. A big plus of the platform – which has amassed over 30 million users – is that it allows content creators to share their screens and chat with viewers in real-time. Among the gamers, musicians and donut makers on the platform, Constable walks her viewers through the nitty-gritty of climate change and other science-related topics on her channel, Constababble. Unlike TV and radio, Constable says the beauty of Twitch is its interactivity. “It’s two-way communication, which I think is when comms is at its best. I think it’s one of the best things I’ve done.”
Twitch is particularly handy for guiding viewers through scientific papers and reports, which can often be a weedy labyrinth of jargon and data for those without a science background. The chat function also allows viewers to ask Constable questions as she streams, which can shape the discussion as it happens. In 2021, for instance, Constable broke down the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report for more than 100 viewers and unravelled details such as the summaries, graphs and footnotes.
It’s not just about helping her roughly 1,400 followers learn what to look for in reports and papers. “I can say the thing that you don’t often get to say on other platforms, which is ‘I don’t know, let’s find out together’,” says Constable. “It really enables this co-learning.”
Recently, Constable created her longest Twitch stream, which lasted for more than 8 hours. Dubbed Antarctica the Twitch-u-mentary, the stream included reams of footage Constable captured when she visited the icy continent in 2018 with Homeward Bound, an Australian organisation that runs leadership programmes for women in STEM. Constable took her viewers on an immersive virtual tour on the ship she travelled on, the penguin-dotted islands she visited, and threw in the odd quiz on all things Antarctica. “It’s educational, but also we have a lot of just random fun,” she says.
Finding the light in the dark
Discussions about climate change and environmental problems aren’t exactly a barrel of laughs, and for good reason. The latest IPCC report warned that the window for securing a “liveable and sustainable future for all” is quickly shrinking. But for Constable, learning about climate change and what the world needs to do to tackle it doesn’t have to be all about dire statistics and grim future scenarios. “We can have light and dark,” she says. “That doesn’t take away from the seriousness of a topic.”
Finding the humour in the gloom can be particularly helpful when talking to kids about climate change and environmental change, as it helps to dispel fear and anxiety. While ‘eco-anxiety’ is on the rise everywhere, research has shown that young people, particularly tweens, are more vulnerable than ever. A 2021 global survey of around 10,000 children and young people found that 59 % were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ worried about climate change, with 84% being at least moderately worried. Constable isn’t surprised.
“Kids are so aware of these problems, but they’re also often very aware of their lack of power in the face of these problems,” says Constable. “Feeling that they can’t make a difference can lead to eco-anxiety.”
Choosing fun over fear was Constable’s guiding light while she was writing How to Save the Whole Stinkin’ Planet: A Garbological Adventure, a 2019 book aimed at kids aged 7-12 on waste and how to combat it. From the beginning, Constable didn’t want the book to be like a lecture on all the reasons why the environment needs saving. Instead, the pages are filled with fart jokes, superheroes and imaginative journeys, such as dressing up as a maggot and shrinking down to learn about the compost-decomposition process. “We were going to learn about the problems, but I wanted it to be not just fun, but empowering,” says Constable.
Talking openly with young people about big, scary issues such as climate change may seem daunting to parents, but it’s important to remember that keeping them in the conversation helps kids – and adults – learn.
Constable has experienced this firsthand. Since publishing her book, parents have told her that they’ve also learnt something new, such as what goes in which rubbish bin. “Kids have so much power to influence the adults in their lives,” says Constable. “It really is an intergenerational discussion that comes out of these things.”
When weighing up whether to have the big climate change talk with kids, it’s also important to remember who will bear the biggest brunt down the road, says Constable. “We know that kids care, we know that they are the future and will live with the worst of the climate impacts that are already being put into motion,” she says. “If we don’t talk to them about these problems, then I think we’re doing them a massive disservice.”
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Story by Gemma Conroy