全球变化知识资源中心(globalchange): Breaking the climate change communication deadlock

Over more than two decades, a substantial body of social science research has generated a range of well-supported findings with clear, practical implications for public engagement on climate change¹. It is now well understood that effective climate change communication involves more than simply presenting the facts of climate science in a clearer or more concise way. The idea that members of the public suffer from a 'deficit' of knowledge (which science outreach campaigns can address) is insufficient to explain the gap between the social and the scientific consensus on climate change that appears to have emerged over the past 10 years — particularly in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, despite extensive programmes of outreach and engagement in these countries². Although the reasons for public scepticism about climate change are complex and multi-faceted³, a consistent finding is that deeply held values and views about the organization of society and political ideology⁴ are primary determinants. Strikingly, improved scientific literacy in an audience can actually amplify polarization between ideologically opposed groups⁵, rather than lead to consensus between them.

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Debates about the appropriate role for scientists when interacting with policymakers, endorsing the aims of civil society campaign groups or engaging in 'issue advocacy' have been rehearsed many times and we do not seek to resolve them here^{10, 11}. But in general, the norms of scientific practice tend towards a disinterested, neutral or even objective role for scientific experts. Scientists are part of a professional community in which normative authority — the ability to make statements that other scientists will take as good reasons to change their beliefs about the world — is relatively straightforward¹². A claim that conforms to the prescriptions of the scientific method must be taken seriously: it is tentatively accepted until further evidence is forthcoming. But the instant that science leaves the laboratory (as it must, if it is to have any bearing on the world beyond) a different set of norms kicks in.

For the vast majority of people who are not climate scientists, almost every aspect of climate change is mediated in some way — through scientific institutions, media outlets, or individuals with whom they may or may not identify. Their mediated judgements are based on very different factors from those that govern scientific conduct — such as the cultural congruence between the communicator of a message and their own views, or the extent to which the apparent policy implications of climate science threaten or challenge their values^{4, 5}. Implicitly, social identities, ideological frameworks and personal values are answers to the philosophical question 'how shall we live?' Reasons that convince people to change their beliefs about how to live are ones that make sense within this space, namely social, ethical or political ones. What scientists would accept as a reason for changing their beliefs about the world they investigate does not, therefore, necessarily count as a good reason for changing one's beliefs about how to live, or for actually living differently¹³.

At the same time, climate change research (like research on public health¹⁴), concerns fundamental features of the world we live in. Because of this, the theologian Michael S. Northcott describes climate change research as inherently political: its description of the world contains an implicit judgement on the question of how we should live¹⁵. Consequently, climate change cannot be communicated more effectively and simultaneously insulated from the norms of debate that govern the public sphere. If, as research funders increasingly insist, scientists ought to engage the public, they face a conundrum: embrace the norms that govern the social domain (where values, ideology and social identity shape the debating space) and effectively engage their audience, or stay within the boundaries that define professional scientific practice and commit to a strategy that is very likely to fail.

Similar normative tensions arise in other fields (for example, promoting health behaviours), where researchers seek to not only describe the risks of smoking and over-eating, but also convince the public to refrain from engaging in these unhealthy behaviours¹⁴. Because these normative aims are no longer widely contentious, they barely seem normative at all. A process of self-reflection by the diverse representatives (research funders, social scientists, natural scientists and actors at the science/policy and science/public interface) that comprise the climate change communication community is therefore a crucial first step, as highlighted by Rapley and De Meyer in their Commentary in this issue¹⁶. Why is it that engaging the public based on strongly and overtly normative goals is acceptable in the health domain, but not for climate change?

The practical implications of changing this situation might include the following: tell human stories about the impacts of climate change that connect with the values of diverse audiences¹⁷; construct narratives that situate individual-level behaviour change as part of a coordinated global strategy for reducing fossil-fuel consumption¹⁸; promote representatives from disparate social and political backgrounds to act as culturally congruent conduits for communicating climate change¹⁹. But are these activities that scientists could reasonably, usefully pursue? Are they even aims that collaborative efforts between natural and social scientists could take up¹?

Our contention is that such efforts are undermined because the appropriate societal institutions do not yet exist to accommodate and ease the normative tensions within climate change communication. Scientists certainly have a role to play, but they cannot overcome the tensions on their own. Efforts should be concentrated on creating and supporting new institutions and societal infrastructure that provide a buffer between the science of climate change and the complex challenge of engaging the public. These institutions should be explicitly tasked with carving out new space between the normative tenets of scientific research and public engagement. Fischhoff²⁰ recommends that in these types of collaboration, scientists stick to strictly non-persuasive communication. But in the same way that climate science is inherently political, communicating about climate change is unavoidably persuasive — not of a particular policy or goal, or in favour of a particular party or outcome, but of the basic assertion that anthropogenic climate change is real, is a serious problem and requires a serious societal response.

The purpose of these new, hybrid institutions would be to catalyse new conversations about climate change. These events would not be designed to make an economic case, communicate scientific facts or win an argument, but to allow people to express and discuss their concerns, fears, dreams and hopes for the future, providing answers to that troubling question 'how shall we live?' They would involve explicitly political voices and views, but not themselves pursue politicized ends. Isolated examples of these kinds of initiative have taken place before (for example, World Wide Views (www.wwviews.org), an exercise involving hundreds of people from around the world just prior to the United Nations climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009). When they have occurred, a striking pattern has been observed: people move from a lack of interest to a position of engaged concern²¹.

This is an argument for more — not less — politics in climate change communication. To be clear: this does not mean aligning the goals of climate science with the advocacy strategies of a campaign group. But through a diversity of partnerships with actors from across the social and political spectrum, concerns about partisan influence can in effect be neutralized. The acceptance that everyone approaches climate change with their own ethical and political values — and that engaging with these is an appropriate aim for climate change communication — would be a major step towards easing the normative tensions at the heart of the field.


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