When the media cover the climate crisis, it is often with politicians, researchers or business leaders as sources.

That this type of source takes up the most space is not particularly surprising and does not differ much from other genres in journalism. Those with money and power are naturally called more, as they often have more influence and are the center of stories that are important to more people.

But the problem with letting the people in power dominate the narrative of the climate crisis is that those who read, listen or watch are left in a powerless state without belief that they can do anything about the problems themselves.

Although it is imperative that politicians create the structural changes that are needed, we as a society face a task that requires everyone to see themselves as part of that task and believe that it can possible.

As Line Weldingh, PhD student at Roskilde University, has just concluded in her mapping of Danish media's climate journalism, there is a need to include a larger selection of sources in the coverage, so that there is room for more "ordinary people" .

More diversity in voices means greater likelihood of identification and engagement.

Identification has always been important to journalism. Ask any first semester journalism student and they will quickly be able to list the news criteria, identification being one of them.

Every intern will know the format with a news item and a case story, where you get to put your feelings on a problem.

When we talk about climate change, we often talk about big numbers and abstract concepts such as temperature increases, CO₂-discharge and sea level rise.

While this data is crucial to understanding the scale of the problem, it can also seem distant and irrelevant to ordinary people.

The problem for many newsrooms is that it can be difficult to spot the obvious case stories in the climate coverage.

The times when it may seem most obvious to find relevant cases for climate stories are often when disaster strikes, as in Norway, where the media brought interviews with witnesses in the middle of the sad events.

Or when Danes e.g. who this summer were caught close to an area of ​​forest fires during their holiday in Greece.

Many people can relate to that situation, and of course it is also important to tell when we Danes are actually suddenly standing and can feel the climate crisis up close.

But if these kinds of human stories stand alone without also telling about options for action and positive future scenarios, then we risk leaving people paralyzed and hopeless.

What we miss in the media image is therefore not people who are victims of the climate disasters, but the personal stories of people who find their own paths towards climate action. The stories that can inspire, remove the feeling of powerlessness and describe situations and considerations they can see themselves in - and not least give a sense of community.

Around the country there are lots of people who are trying to change their local communities themselves.

We can see this, for example, in connection with the project Yes in my backyard (YIMBY), where we interview people who take a joint initiative to set up wind turbines, establish jointly owned solar cell systems or try to get an energy community going so that they can get rid of their oil or gas boiler.

Others set up an entire housing community, where people live in low-energy houses, live on their own organic vegetables and get green energy from solar cells and their own wind turbine.

Some do it for the climate, others for the community, the economy or the survival of the village.

These stories break with the otherwise fairly widespread narrative of the Not in my backyard trend.

We hear a lot about how local citizens are very concerned and angry when new wind turbine or solar cell projects are presented at public meetings.

But we don't hear much about the people who themselves initiate local green transformation, and who show that we can all contribute to the solutions in our local community, workplace, study, etc. based on our own prerequisites and opportunities without having a doctorate in climate science, but by joining forces with others.

We highlight and focus on the mentioned stories because we have received fund support for the project.

But they would get far greater reach and attention if the major media platforms carried them.

And there is not only a need for these kinds of stories - there is also a demand.

In several surveys, the Danes answer that they are worried, but at the same time do not know what to do to act on the climate crisis. And although it is obvious to think that they just need more articles like "Seven good tips for living sustainably", that is not the solution.

In climate communication research, the theory that the transfer of information leads to action has long since been buried. That's not how people work.

We have a lot of psychological defense mechanisms that stand between the climate messages and our actions. Like categorizing a message as untrue if it creates cognitive dissonance in us, or overlooking stories in our feed that don't quite fit our worldview or are unmanageable.

But this knowledge is unfortunately not part of the curriculum in the country's journalism education, and for many journalists it is unaccustomed to having to think about how one's journalism affects the recipient.

We need to change that, as an EU report on climate journalism also emphasized earlier this year.

People need hope and inspiration – and the media must also help support this.

Of course, the personal stories must not be made at the expense of critical journalism, scientific accuracy and in-depth analysis. But they must supplement the coverage with a human dimension that motivates and engages.

By giving those voices more space in the news coverage, the media can help provide inspiration for how to get involved – and make active climate action the norm.

And in addition to the positive effects it will have for society, if more people start thinking in new ways, it will most likely also have positive effects on the media's readership.

Especially for young media users, who turn their backs on traditional media to a greater extent than the rest of the population.

Young people want media that takes responsibility for the climate crisis, and more than a third want media that calls for climate action according to Danes' use of news media 2022.

In a world where we often measure progress in terms of technological achievements and economic gains, it is worth remembering that our greatest achievements are often found in our ability to understand and support each other.

By including more human stories in climate coverage, we can remind ourselves of our shared destiny, our ability to act, and our capacity to take responsibility for the planet we share.

"We hear a lot about how local citizens are very concerned and angry when new wind turbines or solar cell projects are presented at public meetings. But we don't hear much about the people who initiate local green transitions themselves."

This chronicle was published in Jyllands-Posten on 16 October 2023, and was written by journalist Sofie Hviid, together with Helene Cherét, editor at RGO, journalist and partner in climate journalists, Søren Bjørn-Hansen, and Simon Elsborg Nygaard, Ph.D. in sustainability psychology.