Tell the story without taking someone's voice

Begin with a question, not a conclusion

A climate story can begin with a changed work routine, a water queue or a debate about a familiar tree. Starting close to everyday life helps readers understand what is at stake. But a compelling detail is not permission to impose a ready-made explanation. Ask what happened, what the person thinks matters, and what they would rather keep private.

United Nations communication guidance recommends reliable scientific sources, relatable stories and attention to solutions and justice. It also warns against depicting underserved communities only as victims. Apply that advice by showing knowledge, decisions and disagreement, not only hardship. No individual can stand in for the entire Global South, a country or a community.

Keep three kinds of claim separate

Distinguish an observation, a person's interpretation and a scientific finding. A resident can describe water entering a home. A local record may establish how unusual the rainfall was. Explaining the role of climate change in one specific event requires relevant evidence, not a dramatic image. These statements can belong in the same story without pretending they are interchangeable.

The IPCC establishes that human-caused climate change affects many extremes worldwide. That broad finding does not independently verify every local claim. Keep a source note for factual assertions, preserve the context of statistics, and say what remains unknown. If you cannot check a claim, remove it or clearly describe its limits.

Treat consent as an ongoing conversation

Before recording, explain the purpose, intended audience, publication channels and possible risks. Offer meaningful choices about names, faces, location and attribution. Make refusal easy. Do not make support conditional on participation. Explain that material shared publicly may be copied beyond your control, and agree how concerns or correction requests will be handled.

Let contributors check quotations and sensitive identifying details before publication. Use appropriate safeguarding for children and anyone at heightened risk. Translation should preserve meaning rather than make a speaker sound more dramatic. Keep original recordings private and access limited. These are recommended editorial practices, not a claim that this demo contains consented interviews.

Be explicit about imagination and action

AI can help explore structure or generate an openly fictional scene. It cannot supply a missing witness, consent record or fact. Label imagined dialogue and generated visuals where readers encounter them. Do not place a synthetic quote beside a real person's identity, and do not upload private testimony to a service without informed permission.

Close with an action that fits the evidence: read a local plan, discuss an access barrier or request a specific service. Name who has the power to change the situation. A trustworthy story does not need a perfect ending. It needs an honest boundary between what happened, what is known and what might happen next.