Americans have it harder when communicating climate science to the public. While in Europe we have to cope with a certain level of scientific illiteracy, Americans are also confronted with media phalanx which has no or very limited interest in covering scientific issues, and, secondly, they are confronted with an aggressive campaign of climate change sceptics (and, for that matter, also “evolution sceptics”) with a political agenda which are extremely well trained in communication. Most scientists lack this training.
This is the bottom line of a workshop on “Communicating Climate Science” at the AGU Fall meeting in San Francisco. What does that have to do with BACC? The BACC book was written by scientists for scientists, but also by scientists for stakeholders and decision makers, with the “science or knowledge broker” claim. But did the message really come across for the latter target group? We do not know, but it can be questioned. HELCOM re-wrote part of the BACC material for their own publication, but it is unclear whether this version was better understandable by policy makers, let alone the general public. Maybe we have to get better at that in BACC II. Here is an interesting eye-opener for climate scientists who just cannot understand that anybody in the world does not know what, e.g. “aerosols” really are…
3 comments:
The EOS-article is indeed a good analysis combined with practical recommendations. Unfortunately the analysis limits itself to the linguistic level (the dual or multiple meaning-terminology), and fails to address that the scientific communication is facing alternative knowledge systems, which can not be easily overcome by using a better suited language. When, for instance, people know that science supports policies leading to more "socialistic" type of government, then the best metaphors will not help to overcome the distrust of science. It would be required to also address the alternative knowledge claim.
All these issues are important areas, a successful Climate service has to deal with.
So, if we see BACC as a climate service project, what can we do in concreto? Would it be sufficient to have something like a “summary for policy makers” written in an “understandable” language? It is evident that in most countries in the Baltic Sea basin, local decision makers (or most of the public) generally cannot read English, let alone understand the scientific content. So if we really want to reach this audience, we need to do more than in BACC I, maybe a standalone little booklet or nicely styled brochure in different languages, as far as possible addressing the different knowledge claims. But maybe this would be a completely new project…
I think that (professionally prepared summary for stakeholders; little brochures in different languages) would be good. Would cost a bit, and we would ave to ask some funders to join in. Maybe the EU?
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