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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/