Matthew C. Nisbet, Ph.D, is a professor in the School of Communication at American University where his research focuses on the intersections between science, media, and politics. E-MAIL: nisbetmc@gmail.com
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Richard Kerr's recent news feature at Science magazine offers a compelling look at the many communication challenges on climate change, especially at a time of apparent "climate fatigue." As Roger Pielke comments in the Science article, by sounding the alarm on climate change too loudly, campaigners may be causing important segments of the audience to tune out their message.
In a separate article at Yale Environment 360, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Schellenberger offer a similar argument to those I have made in the past, most recently in a paper at the journal Environment. Here's how Nordhaus and Schellenberger sum up one of the main drivers of public indifference to climate change:
The lesson of recent years would appear to be that apocalyptic threats -- when their impacts are relatively far off in the future, difficult to imagine or visualize, and emanate from everyday activities, not an external and hostile source -- are not easily acknowledged and are unlikely to become priority concerns for most people. In fact, the louder and more alarmed climate advocates become in these efforts, the more they polarize the issue, driving away a conservative or moderate for every liberal they recruit to the cause.
So what might be an alternative engagement strategy? I am quoted at the end of the Science news feature arguing that we need to conceive of the communication challenge not in terms of short term campaigns but long term civic education: What does it mean to be a citizen in an era of disruptive climate change and scarce energy? Part of this challenge requires rebuilding the media infrastructure at the local and regional level so that communities can collectively plan, connect, and adapt to various impacts.
I elaborated on these ideas in a recent blog post on climate change education and review the research in this area in a recent co-authored paper at the American Journal of Botany (PDF).
Many of the issues emphasized in the Science and Yale Environment 360 articles will be addressed in a special workshop session next month at the meetings of the American Geophysical Union. Go here for more information.
For DC readers, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco will be speaking at American University tonight. Details are below
In 1998, Lubchenco as president of AAAS argued for a new social contract for science that requires scientists and their organizations to "communicate their knowledge and understanding widely in order to inform decisions of individuals and institutions." Her commitment to "civic science" led her to found the Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellows program, which over the past decade has trained up to 20 mid-career scientists per year in public affairs and communication. For background on the role of "civic scientists" in public communication and policy, see the articles in this past special issue of the journal Science Communication.
Department of Environmental Science - Distinguished Speaker Series
Presents
Dr. Jane Lubchenco
Talk Title: "NOAA Climate Science and Services".
Dr. Lubchenco is the ninth administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA is the nation's top science agency for the climate, oceans, and the atmosphere. Dr. Lubchenco is the first woman, and the first marine ecologist, to lead NOAA.
November 19th, 2009, 7 PM
Abramson Family Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center
American University
4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20016
Directions: http://www.american.edu/maps/
The event is free and open to the public
Free parking available in Nebraska & Katzen Lots (after 5 PM)
Free shuttle from Tenleytown-AU Metro Station (bus stop at Albermarle & 40th St NW)
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Kiho Kim, 202.885.2181,environmental@american.edu
www.american.edu/environmental
Earlier this year, in an article at Nature Biotechnology, I joined with several colleagues in warning that the biggest risk to public trust in science is not the usual culprits of religious fundamentalism or "politicization" but rather the increasing tendency towards the stretching of scientific claims and predictions by scientists, university press offices, scientific journals, industry, and journalists. As I detail with Dietram Scheufele in a separate article at the America Journal of Botany,(PDF) each time a scientific prediction or claim goes beyond the available evidence and proves to be false, it serves as a vivid negative heuristic for the public.
This past week, two important articles describing the perils of prediction in the life sciences and climate sciences appeared at The Scientist magazine and Nature Reports Climate Change respectively. In a cover article for the The Scientist, Stuart Blackman identifies several factors driving the tendency towards hype. As Blackman notes, scientists are under increasing pressure to publish at ever more competitive flagship journals, meaning that the conclusions of a paper have to be that much more provocative. Granting agencies are also putting stronger emphasis on the public impacts portion of funding proposals, again creating an incentive to sometimes promise too much. A third and major factor is the increasing privatization of university-based science with strong incentives and rewards for commercialization, a route that usually involves a heavy dose of promotion. In his article, Blackman draws on the insights of some of the top social scientists studying these trends including Brian Wynne, Christine Hauskeller, and Daniel Sarewitz. A useful sidebar summarizes advice on how researchers can avoid hype in communicating with the public, policymakers, and/or the media.
In a commentary at Nature Reports Climate Change, Mike Hulme, Roger Pielke, Jr and Suraje Dessai warn against promising that climate science can "supply on-demand climate predictions to governments, businesses and individuals," estimating impacts on certain regions and sectors.
"Scientists and decision-makers alike should treat climate models not as truth machines to be relied upon for making adaptation decisions, but instead as one of a range of tools to explore future possibilities," they write. And as they aptly observe, it's not just a matter of technical certainty. Even in cases where forecasts might be accurate in a formal statistical sense, effectively communicating the complexity of these findings to the public and decision-makers will prove a difficult task. Here's the key take away from their commentary:
For scientists, the lesson here is clear. Caution is warranted when promising decision-makers a clarified view of the future. Guaranteeing precision and accuracy over and above what science can credibly deliver risks contributing to flawed decisions. We are not suggesting that scientists abandon efforts to model the behaviour of the climate system. Far from it. Models as exploratory tools can help identify physically implausible outcomes and illuminate the boundaries where uncertain knowledge meets fundamental ignorance. But using models in this way will require a significant rethink on the role of predictive climate science in decision-making. In some cases the prudent course of action will be to let policymakers know the very real limitations of predictive science. For decision-makers, the lesson is to plan for a range of possible alternatives. Instead of seeking certainty, decision-makers need to ask questions of scientists such as 'What physically could not happen?' or 'What is the worst that could happen?'
The authors' warning is important to the U.S. context. Perhaps the most effective way to convey the significance of climate change is to communicate to Americans how it is impacting the region or area in which they live. Yet as effective as this strategy might be, these communication efforts need to proceed cautiously, otherwise they risk opening the door to counter-claims that scientists and government agencies are going beyond available scientific evidence.
Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions has released a primer on the "Psychology of Climate Change Communication," synthesizing much of the research of the Center over the past several years. Written by Debika Shome and Sabine Marx, the primer is available both in HTML (by chapter) and in PDF format.
Readers will find of special interest the second chapter on the relevance of framing to communication. As I have noted, there is no such thing as "unframed" information. Whether you are a scientist, a public information officer, or a journalist, the choice is not whether to frame or not to frame, but rather how to frame a complex and uncertain issue for the public and with what goals in mind.
Here's how the Columbia University researchers define the relevance of framing:
Framing is the setting of an issue within an appropriate context to achieve a desired interpretation or perspective. The intention is not to deceive or manipulate people, but to make credible climate science more accessible to the public. Indeed, since it is impossible not to frame an issue, climate change communicators need to ensure they consciously select a frame that will resonate with their audience.
On this topic, a recent book chapter I wrote outlining four key ethical guidelines when applying framing to science communication is now in print as part of an excellent edited volume titled "Communicating Biological Sciences: Ethical and Metaphorical Dimensions." I will have more on this chapter and volume later this week.
For their upcoming annual meetings in San Francisco, the American Geophysical Union is sponsoring a pre-conference workshop introducing scientists, public information officers, journalists, and other attendees to several areas of social science research that examine dimensions of climate change communication and public engagement.
Below the fold are the details and the conference page is here. You can sign up for the workshop by visiting this page. It promises to be a great event and I am looking forward to the ideas, connections, and discussion that it generates.
Over at Dot Earth, the NY Times Andrew Revkin has a good round up and preview on Gore's new book Our Choice. His post also includes an embedded 30 minute interview between Katie Couric and Gore on his new book. Of interest, Couric asks Gore if he thinks the climate debate has been too technical and if there is a need to simplify and appeal to emotions. She also asks Gore about the recent Pew climate survey, which Gore describes as an outlier, asserting that public will and support for action are actually on the rise rather than in decline, as the Pew poll indicates.
I will be picking up my copy of Gore's book tomorrow night at his talk at Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus.
The faculty here at American University's School of Communication include several of the country's leading environmental filmmakers with their work coordinated through the Center for Environmental Filmmaking. One of our faculty Larry Engel worked on the recent PBS NOW film "Waterworld" which documents how climate change is impacting Bangladesh. The film describes the human health effects that climate change is already causing in this developing country of more than 200 rivers and frequent storm surges. You can read a transcript and/or watch the film at the embed above.
You will also want to read about Engel's recent course "Practicing Environmentalism: Galapagos Islands," team taught with members of the faculty from the AU programs in environmental science and international relations.
Repower America's lastest advertising campaign to promote their new online feature "The Wall" is brilliant. The ads and the social media initiative vividly portray the diversity of support for serious climate action while also framing the relevance of the issue in ways that transcend the traditional ideological divide. As I wrote in a paper this spring at the journal Environment, the Repower campaign is a stark contrast to the dominant message of Inconvenient Truth which may have unintentionally reinforced the partisan divide on climate change.
Gore, however, also faces a major communication dilemma, one that I refer to as his Back Stage - Front Stage problem. From behind the curtain, directing the Repower America campaign, Gore's strategic message and initiative holds the promise of transcending the ideological divide. But each time he steps front stage--such as this week on the cover of Newsweek--given his status as a former presidential candidate, Gore makes it easy for Americans to reinterpret climate change via a partisan lens while providing more rhetorical fodder for conservative media.
Over at the Knight Science Tracker, Charlie Petit has a round-up on news coverage of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine's first significant research grants for stem cell research. Though much of the focus in California and nationally has obviously been on the promise of embryonic stem cell research, only four of the 14 funded projects involve these type of stem cells. The emphasis is on projects that could lead to the most immediate clinical results, a strong if not "tacit acknowledgment that the promise of human embryonic stem cells is still far in the future" writes Andrew Pollack at the NY Times.
On Monday, in a keynote presentation at the meetings of the Canadian Stem Cell Network in Montreal, I will be reviewing how far we have come over the past decade in the framing of the stem cell debate and in terms of public perceptions. I will post a synopsis here next week and I will have several studies to report on this winter and spring.
In the meantime, readers will want to check out the Network's newly launched online Stem Cell Charter. The site opens to a powerful video. It's a testimonial by scientists explaining their belief in the promise of stem cell research. Yet it doesn't engage in some of the trademark hype that brands much of the past political debate. At the Web site, you can sign the stem cell charter, offering your support for research and endorsing a specific reason. I chose "the responsible advancement of stem cell research."
