Why Facts Fail and Stories Save the Ocean, The Science of Changing Human Behavior

0:00Facts don't change behavior, stories do. You can show someone a graph of declining fish stocks. And they might not and be like, okay, that's great. But when you tell them a story of about a fisher who can no longer feed their family, it suddenly matters. And if you want people to protect the ocean, we need to stop informing people and start moving people. If you care about protecting the oceans and want to understand more about what actually works in protecting that ocean, follow how to protect the ocean podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and share the episode with someone who you think needs to hear it. This is the how to protect the ocean podcast where we turn ocean science into stories that actually drive action. For years, conservation messaging has focused on crisis, collapse, urgency. And those things are real. Like, let's be honest, they are real. We are seeing coral bleaching on global scales.

1:02We fisheries pushed to their limits. Plastic pollution in every ocean basin at every depth of the ocean. But here's the problem. When people are constantly exposed to negative overwhelming information, they don't act. Quick story. When I was first introduced to CrossFit, I joined a gym. And it was great. I met a lot of people. And you know, CrossFit is a bit of a cult in that you make friends and you go out and you eat somewhat healthy or somewhat unhealthy depending on the gym and depending on if you're going out to blow off some steam. But we went out to a dinner and I was with a bunch of people and I was doing YouTube videos at the time. This is early on in my science communication career. And my gym owner at the time was like, Hey, Andrew, I've been watching your videos. They're great, but I had to stop at watching them because they were depressing me because they just showed so much so much like doom and gloom in the messaging. And that really made me think about how I need to change the way I tell the stories to provide optimism in the stories.

2:02Now, that's not just the first story. When I went to the IMCC International Marine Conservation Congress in 2014 in Newfoundland, there were a lot of people that were talking about optimism and how ocean optimism actually matters when it comes to conservation. So people when they hear the doom and gloom, they disengage. People feel powerless. They feel guilty. They feel unsure where to start. So instead of acting, they just kind of scroll past. So what actually works? Let's take a look at some examples. The United Nations Development Program tried something different. They created a campaign with a talking dinosaur. The message, you have a choice. Don't choose extinction. It was funny, unexpected, and shareable. And it reached millions of people. Organizations like Sea Legacy took another approach. They don't just show data. They show a whale looking directly at the camera. A reef before and after bleaching. A shark as a vital part of the ecosystem.

3:03They create emotional connection to the ocean because people protect what they care about. And they care about what they feel. In Randy Olson's book, don't be such a scientist. It's one of the first books I read on science communication. And when I read it, you know, he talked about how scientists talk to the brain and we talk with numbers and we talk with graphs. And we say, hey, here's the logic behind what we're doing to the earth. If you, if I give you that logic, if I speak to your brain, that logic will tell you, hey, we need to change our behavior. But that's not always the case. We know that's not the case. He says to speak to their gut because that's where the emotions are. They sit in your gut, whether it's funny, whether it's sad, whether it's anger, that's where your emotion sit. So speak to the gut and you will actually be able to move people to change their behavior. So let's just make this real. Here are two ways to communicate the same issue. Version one, 90% of large predatory fish are gone. Version two, a fisherman now travels twice as far

4:06for half the catch his father once brought home. Same issue, very different impact. If your message doesn't connect, it won't spread. And if it doesn't spread, it won't matter. Here's the truth. People are not lacking information. They are lacking a connection. Storytelling is what turns. Science and understanding, understanding into emotion, emotion into action. If you are communicating to the ocean, know your audience, speak their language, and connect to their values. And most importantly, make the audience the hero of the story. Because people act when they see themselves in the solution. There are a lot of scientists and conservationists of all ages that are using social media as a way of communicating the work that they are doing, whether it's different jobs, whether it's traveling, and volunteering at different organizations as they travel,

5:06or whether they're showing what they're doing in their research in their graduate programs, or even the research they do at their jobs, which is wonderful. You get great visuals on TikTok, on Instagram, on even YouTube if they're going that far. And it's a great way to show what marine biologists do. The key now for many of those people who are actually telling those stories is to really understand how storytelling works. Make sure, like I said before, you put the audience as the hero. What is their thing that they need to do? You are the guide, they are the hero. How are you going to help them make that change in behavior? What do they need to do? What's their problem? How do they speak that problem? How do they communicate? How do they listen? And what they need to do to change their behavior? And what's going to help them change their behavior? What impact can they put on? And what benefit can they get when they put on that impact? That's what we've been talking about today. We're going to be talking about it again. And there's a big announcement that I have soon enough that if you're watching on my socials,

6:07you'll probably see it, but it's a lot of fun. I can't wait to share that with you. It's about storytelling. It's about science communication. It's going to be great. But until then, if you are interested in listening about the ocean, about the solutions, about the problems and what solutions can scale to help find those solutions, to help enact those solutions, why don't you just follow this podcast and don't miss the next episode? Because we're going to be talking to Peter Sinek from EarthX, he's a CEO of EarthX, he's going to be talking about a conference that they're putting on April 20th to the 22nd, 2026, where they are going to be having 20 conferences in one. So if you know anything about the ocean, or interested in any part of the ocean, or Earth and protection and conservation and business and solutions, you're going to want to attend this conference. I talk about the conference and the impact it's had on the past businesses. Some of them we talked about this week, but we're going to talk more about it tomorrow. So tune in and follow this podcast so that you can make sure you tune in. And if you have any questions or comments,

7:08let me know in the comments. If you are on Spotify, let me know in the comments. If you want to give me feedback, speakupforblue.com forward slash feedback. I'm going to be putting out a survey soon for all those of you who are learning from this new structure that I have. So I would love to hear from you on that. Keep an eye out for that soon in a couple of weeks. I'll probably have it ready. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lohan. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time. And happy conservation.