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.
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,[1] specialising in the exposure of corruption and illegal logging in Papua New Guinea.[2] [3] Marshall subsequently worked as international campaigns director for the Rainforest Foundation[4] and the director of the forests campaign for Greenpeace USA.[5]
In 2004, he co-founded (with Richard Sexton) Climate Outreach, a UK charity that specialises in increasing public engagement in climate-change related issues.[4] He is currently the Director of Projects[6] at Climate Outreach and leads on a range of projects applying the latest research in climate communications.
In 2000, George Marshall took a year's sabbatical to renovate a terrace house for his family as a model low energy retrofit[7] that reduced energy and water use by two thirds.[8] His website on the project won a Millennium Award[9] and led The Ecologist to list Marshall as one of their Ten Green Visionaries in 2009.[10]
Marshall has spoken and written extensively on the need to engage new audiences on climate change, especially conservatives[11] [12] and people of religious faith.[13]
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.[14]
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.[15] The book has been widely praised[16] 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".[17]