The author Terry Pratchett famously suggested that the species name for humans, Homo sapiens ('wise man'), is quite wrong, with “wisdom being one of our least evident features”. Rather he suggested that we should be named “Pan narrans, the storytelling chimpanzee”. Certainly we tell ourselves stories to make sense of the world around us and these narratives form the context in which we interpret events as they unfold. Climate change is — perhaps because of its cross-cutting nature — particularly open to being interpreted within a multitude of different overarching narratives, or frames. Consequently, many disagreements about facts and figures seem to be, at bottom, due to disagreements about the fundamental story into which these details fit, rather than facets of the details themselves. These issues of framing are well known to psychologists and sociologists, among others, having already been applied to climate change and communication in particular (for example, M. C. Nisbet Environ. Sci. Policy Sust. Dev. 51, 12–23; 2009). Indeed, framing is becoming something of a buzz word in climate change circles. Nevertheless, the frequency with which climate change discussions are confounded by (often unstated) assumptions related to different personal, political or intellectual framings of the issues suggests that there remains great scope for these ideas to be spread and implemented to facilitate a clearer more nuanced dialogue between the various actors involved in climate change. Part of this will no doubt involve scholarly work to develop and apply these concepts. However, there also seems to be significant scope for individuals to investigate their own stories and those of their friends and colleagues as a way to help contextualize and explain their work and highlight their own ethical and political values. Like it or not, these values influence our personal framings and consequently the way that we all make sense of the facts and figures at our disposal. This effect seems particularly important when information is used not just to investigate the various aspects of the 'climate change problem' but also to inform or advocate policy solutions, which necessarily involve aspirational goals.

The stories we construct to contextualize climate change and formulate policy responses are not only important for their role in shaping our goals and objectives, but also have the capacity to inspire or demotivate. The next year promises to be an important time for progress on climate change, sustainable development and poverty alleviation. In this context, it seems important to develop stories that recognize the scale of these challenges and acknowledge the limited progress to date, but at the same time continue to inspire individuals to strive for progress.