In a world with climate deniers, scientists have been trying to uncover the most effective way to present the scientific evidence of anthropogenic climate change to audiences. “Climate stories” are personal accounts that have been used in recent years to engage more people in the global issue of climate change from an emotional perspective. There are multiple ways in which “climate stories” are presented. The present study explored the effects of audio, written, narrative, and informational climate change passages on the environmental decision-making levels of individuals. The current study hypothesizes that participants who receive the audio narrative will have the greatest environmental decision-making levels. Participants first completed the Climate Change Perceptions Scale (van Valkengoed, 2021) to obtain participants’ baseline views on climate change. Next, participants were randomly split into one of four groups, each presented with a different climate change passage: written narrative, audio narrative, written information, and audio information. After viewing the climate change passages, participants answered 5 scenario-based questions based on research reports to assess their environmental decision-making levels. The results of this study indicated that factual information is significantly more effective at influencing peoples’ environmental decision-making levels than climate stories, and the formatting of climate stories (audio or written) has no significant impact on environmental decision-making. These findings suggest that scientists should use an informational approach when sharing climate change evidence with others.

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• Ecology
• Psychology