George Marshall (environmentalist)

George Marshall (born 1964) is a British environmental campaigner, communications specialist and writer. He is the founder of Climate Outreach and is a specialist in climate communication. He is the author of Carbon Detox (2007) and Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change (2014). He lives in mid-Wales.

Environmental campaigning
From 1988 to 2000, Marshall worked on campaigns for tropical forest conservation and defence of indigenous land rights with the Australian-based Rainforest Information Centre and The Ecologist magazine, specialising in the exposure of corruption and illegal logging in Papua New Guinea. Marshall subsequently worked as international campaigns director for the Rainforest Foundation and the director of the forests campaign for Greenpeace USA.

In 2004, he co-founded (with Richard Sexton) Climate Outreach, a UK charity that specialises in increasing public engagement in climate-change related issues. He is currently the Director of Projects at Climate Outreach and leads on a range of projects applying the latest research in climate communications.

Eco-renovation
In 2000, George Marshall took a year's sabbatical to renovate a terrace house for his family as a model low energy retrofit that reduced energy and water use by two thirds. His website on the project won a Millennium Award and led The Ecologist to list Marshall as one of their Ten Green Visionaries in 2009.

Research
Marshall has spoken and written extensively on the need to engage new audiences on climate change, especially conservatives and people of religious faith.

Published works
Marshall is the author of Carbon Detox (Hamlyn Gaia, 2007) on personal action to reduce emissions. This subsequently became the basis of a stand-up one man show.

His second book, Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change (Bloomsbury 2014), explores the underlying social and psychological obstacles to accepting climate change. The book has been widely praised and was described by the journalist George Monbiot in The Guardian as "the most important book published on climate change in the past few years".

Recent published work

 * Narratives for Sustainable Development in Wales (2012)
 * After the floods: communicating climate change around extreme weather (2014)
 * Starting a New Conversation on Climate Change with the European Centre-Right (2015)
 * A campaigner’s guide to talking with centre-right politicians and MEPs (2015)

Selected presentations and articles

 * How to talk to a Climate Change denier - YouTube video synthesising research for the general public
 * Why we still don't believe in climate change - Opinion piece for New Scientist, July 2010
 * Why we find it so hard to act on climate change - Yes Magazine,
 * Why do We Ignore Climate Change in conversation with Robert Manne