Download Module2_Ward_CC Communic

Bud Ward,Editor,
The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media
[email protected]
Improving Climate Literacy
In the North Atlantic
NOAA North Atlantic Regional Team
And Sea Grant Network
Narragansett, R.I.
April 12, 2009
Climate Change Communications
‘The Perfect Storm’
•Impose Costs Now…Benefits for Future
•Not only Spatial, but Temporal…Perception?
•The Causes are Us … ALL of Us Nose Breathers
•Issue Raises Moral and Religious Concerns
•Is It ‘Climate Change’? Or ‘Global Warming’?
•Are skeptics ‘skeptics’? Deniers? Denialists?
Contrarians? Professional Skeptics?
•Conflicts with Two Constant Visuals – Sun and
Weather (We’ll always have Weather!)
•Manifestations and Impacts Nonlinear … Cold
Augusts, warm winters, warm periods (decades)
•Vulnerable to cherry-picking, subject to soundbiting
Knowing the Science is a Good Thing
• Having it on ‘Your Side’ an Even Better Thing
• But Is It Enough? Will Public Support be Driven
by the [Even Strong?] Science?
• KNOW your audience(s)* – Its concerns, its
priorities, its preferences, its worries.
• Deciding Factors? “Values and belief systems”
• “I don’t believe in global warming.” What, in
particular, do you not believe in? Go from there.
Proportion of U.S. Adult Population
in the ‘Six Americas,’ 2008-2010
Lowest Belief in Global
Warming
Least Concerned,
Motivated
DISMISSIVE
DOUBTFUL
DISENGAGED
2010
CAUTIOUS
2008
CONCERNED
Highest Belief in Global
Warming, Most
Concerned, Motivated
ALARMED
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Mike Wallace, U. of Washington
‘Beyond Climate Change’
[Reframing: GCC as One Element]
Seattle Times, March 26, 2010
Tempting to blame media, but “we climate scientists are
partly to blame for the misplaced emphasis …fixating on
global warming.’
Over past 20 years, “stood by and watched” as gov’t
and NGOs “became more and more narrowly focused
on the long-term impacts of global warming.
Meanwhile, more imminent issues relating to the
sustainability of our planet’s life-support system…are
not getting the attention they deserve.”
Wallace (cont’d)
“...we have allowed the IPCC assessment reports
to become the dominant vehicle for representing
the views of the scientific community on a
widening range of environmental issues. In IPCC
terminology, symptoms of environmental
degradation, regardless of their cause, are
labeled impacts of climate change, and the
societal response to them is framed in terms of
mitigating or adapting to climate change.”
The Confounding Conundrums:
Uncertainty, Incrementalism, Relative Risk
•From A1 to A37
•Uncertainty is a +, a Strength
•Those speaking w/o error bars – political
(politicized?) science, not Earth Sciences
•Uncertainty Cuts Two Ways
•Low-Hanging Fruits? ‘Win-Win’ Approaches?
Treating Uncertainty as a Plus
Has Its Downsides
Three slides, Ten Minutes
Rick Anthes, President, UCAR
“If I had only three slides and ten minutes
to show a lay person with an open mind to
support the fact that Earth is warming and
that increasing greenhouse gases, notably
carbon dioxide, was causing this warming,
these three are the ones I would show.”
Global average sea level is rising from expansion
of water due to warming and melting glaciers
40
30
20
Trend line
Since 1992 sea
level has risen 55mm
(2.2 inches)
10
mm
0
-10
-20
-30
-40
Source: www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/news/ocean-indicators/mean-sea-level/
Climate models: Natural processes do not account for
observed 20th century warming after 1965
Models with natural effects (volcanoes and solar) only
Models with human and natural effects
A Knowledgeable Broadcast Meteorologist’s
Take on Responding
To Climate Change Skeptics
“Keep the focus on educating through science,
rather than attacking the skeptics. Inflammatory
language, and statements directed specifically at
skeptics and their practices only cause them to
dig their heels deeper and fight harder through
personal attacks upon us scientists.”
* See 7 suggestions in Word file.
For example:
1. Skeptics like to say that solar output changes are responsible for the
warming. While this may have had a small impact 100 years ago, it has NOT been
a factor during the unusual warming of the past several decades. This is agreedupon scientific fact.
2. Skeptics like to say that the warming has stopped (since 1998, obviously), and
the response to this point has already been discussed in some of our previous emails (plus, some recent global climate models actually predict 10-20 year flat
periods...but the warming always resumes robustly). This is agreed-upon scientific
fact.
3. Skeptics like to say that urbanization (urban sprawl) has increased the size of
the urban heat island effect, and artificially skewed temperatures upward. The
IPCC specifically researched this, and the
globally averaged impact from urbanization is only 0.006 degrees Celsius. Another
key point to remember is that ocean temperatures are rapidly increasing too...and
there's no urban heat island effect over the oceans. This is agreed-upon scientific
fact.
‘The Clouds of Unknowing’…
Jigsaw Puzzles and Houses of Cards
The Economist, March 18, 2010
‘Some see a jigsaw puzzle where other see a house of
cards. Jigsaw types have in mind an overall picture and
are open to bits being taken out, moved around or
abandoned should they not fit.
‘Those who see houses of cards think that if any piece
is removed, the whole lot falls down. When it comes to
climate, academic scientists are jigsaw types, dissenters
from their view house-of-card-ists.
“Defenders of the consensus tend to stress the general consiliency
of their efforts – the way that data, theory, and modeling back each
other up. Doubters see this as a thoroughgoing version of
‘confirmation bias,’ the tendency people have to select evidence
that agrees with their original outlook. …there is still genuine power
to the way different arguments and datasets in climate science tend
to reinforce each other.”
“…Doubters tend to focus on specific bits of empirical evidence, not
on the whole picture. This is worthwhile – facts do need to be well
grounded – but it can make the doubts seem more fundamental
than they are. People often assume that data are simple, graspable,
and trustworthy, whereas theory is complex, recondite, and
slippery, and so give the former priority. In the case of climate
change, as in much of science, the reverse is at least as fair a
picture. Data are vexatious; theory is quite straightforward.”
Economist Conclusion…
“If IPCC were underestimating things by a
factor of five or so, that would still leave
only a 50:50 chance of such a desirable
outcome. The fact that uncertainties allow
you to construct a relatively benign future
does not allow you to ignore futures in
which climate change is large, and in some
some of which it is very dangerous indeed.
The doubters are right that uncertainties are
rife in climate science. They are wrong when
they present that as a reason for inaction.”
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story
_id=1571928&source=hptextfeature
• Skeptical Science http://www.skepticalscience.com/
• Grist http://www.grist.org/article/series/skeptics/
• Common Misconceptions
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/category/fact_file/
• Six Americas Study
http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/SixAmericasJan2010.pdf
• The Economist Cover Story
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15719298
• Framing Science http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/
• ‘Most Terrifying Video’ (7.5 million views):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
• Scientists’ Instant Response Site: http://www.realclimate.org/
• Popular ‘Watchdog’ site: http://climatesciencewatch.org/
• Popular Advocacy Site: http://climateprogress.org/
• Popular Skeptical Site: http://wattsupwiththat.com/
• Popular Skeptical Site: http://climateaudit.org/