Dr. Michael Shank is an advisor to local governments leading on sustainability and climate action, consulting the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, Colorado Communities for Climate Action and more. Michael’s professional career includes leading policy and/or press shops at Beyond Plastics, Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Climate Nexus (clients included the United Nations, Vatican City, The White House, and Fortune 500 Companies), U.S. Congress, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Institute for Economics and Peace, Biodiversity Northwest, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and more.
Michael’s academic career includes a Ph.D. from George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and is focused on climate conflict. Michael is adjunct faculty at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs, where he teaches graduate courses on Sustainable Development, Power and Politics and Climate and Security.
Michael also serves as adjunct faculty and advisory board member at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, where he teaches graduate courses on Writing for Policy and Practice and Communicating Conflict, and is a Visiting Scholar at the Carter School’s Program on Urban Peacebuilding.
Michael is a former opinion columnist for the Washington Post and US News & World Report and a contributor to USA Today, CNN, FOX News, The Guardian, TIME, Fast Company, Newsweek and more. Michael is currently co-authoring a book for Island Press on environmental justice leadership in America.
SESSIONS
Resilient Communications and Engagement Strategies for Climate Change Preparedness Work
Dr. Michael Shank discusses best-practices for storytelling the work of climate change preparedness in ways that can survive political storms and partisan fires and funding droughts. The presentation offers communications skills that can navigate today's political waters as well as engagement strategies for multi-partisan constituencies. New approaches are needed, now is the time to build them.Please bring a communications problem to be solved, a campaign under consideration, or an engagement strategy that needs tuning. We'll workshop it!
Learning Objectives
- Learn new ways to communicate across political aisles and partisan lines
- Learn new ways to engage communities with creative campaign strategies
- Learn new ways to create participatory processes that involve the entire community
Participant Outcomes
- Participants will leave with new skills to communicate climate change preparedness in ways that reach wider audiences
- Participants will leave with new skills to engage communities creatively in climate change preparedness work
- Participants will leave with new skills to create participatory processes that involve the entire community in this work