JR: I’m a big fan of narratives and their rhetorical cousins, extended metaphors, as I discuss in my forthcoming book. This video is a must-see for those who want to be better communicators.

by Tom Smerling, via ClimateBites

After watching this TEDx clip, you may never want to stand before an audience again without pausing, at least once, to utter these seven magic words:

“Let me tell you a little story.”

But most advice about the importance of narrative comes from psychologists and communication consultants, not storytellers.   So here is a master storyteller, Bill Harley, talking about his life’s work, and sharing what he’s learned about why storytelling is so central to human understanding.

A small sample:

It has a power nothing else has. . .

I’m not talking just about literature and English.   I’m talking about history and astrophysics and biochemistry and law and mathematics.

All of those things are best explained through story. Because “story” is how we are reminded, and how we remember.   If we want it to be memorable, it must be a story. . .

We are not built to memorize lists, or unrelated facts. We are built to remember narrative.So try this the next time you are giving a lecture or a talk or standing in front of a bunch of people:    Stop in the middle of your offering of facts or your closely-reasoned argument, and say “Let me tell you a little story.”

And watch what happens. You see the faces relax, you see people reseat themselves in their chairs, and get ready. . . to hear . . . a story.

Harley’s points apply not only to public speeches, but to all climate communication, from written articles to interviews, blogs, and even dinner-table conversation.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy Bill Harley’s anecdotes.

If you want to look further into the art of climate storytelling, below are some suggestions for where to start:

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by Michael Conathan

Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual “Status of Stocks” report to Congress outlining the overall health of our nation’s fisheries. To the relatively small cadre of fish geeks (myself included), the release of this document is a major event. It lacks the panache of the Oscar nominations, but for us it is perhaps comparable to the way the 1 percent gets all giddy for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual letter to shareholders.

NOAA’s report for 2011, similar to that of Warren Buffett’s financial powerhouse, continued its recent trend of positive returns. The topline numbers showed modest yet continued growth in the overall health of America’s fish populations. At the end of 2011, just 14 percent of fish stocks were subject to overfishing, and 21 percent were in an overfished state—down from 16 percent and 22 percent in 2010, respectively. (Recall this description of the difference between a stock that is “subject to overfishing” and one that is “overfished.”)

Yet the most impressive news to emerge from this year’s report was that six stocks have been declared fully rebuilt—more than in any other year—bringing the overall total of stocks rebuilt since 2000 to 27.

Despite these positive trends and all the feel-good stories the report has spawned (in more than 100 newspapers nationwide), correspondence in my personal inbox this week was dominated by references to a Washington Post Wonk Room blog post proclaiming boldly that it had found “The end of fish, in one chart.”

The chart in question comes from a wide-ranging World Wildlife Fund study on global biodiversity, and it displays the dramatic increase in global fishing pressure from 1950 to 2006. The blog piece goes on to reference an overpublicized doomsday scenario article published by lead author Dr. Boris Worm in 2006 in the journal Science. Worm’s study predicts the demise of global commercial fisheries by 2048. Ah, how the mass media truly loves a ticking clock.

The rest of that story, as I explained in an earlier column, is that Worm later collaborated with several other colleagues, including Dr. Ray Hilborn, on a follow-up article that Science ran in 2009 showing a far rosier outlook on the future of the world’s fisheries—specifically that “conservation objectives can be achieved by merging diverse management actions, including catch restrictions, gear modification, and closed areas.” Sound management practices mean fishery rebuilding is possible.

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NOTE: How about crowd-sourcing some real pennies for cartoonist, Stephanie McMillan, who has given me permission to reprint her cartoons. Here’s the link to Paypal: CLICK HERE (then click where it says DONATE).