ED31D-01 08:00h
Communicating the Results and Activities of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program
The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) has a responsibility for credible and effective communications on issues related to climate variability and climate change science. As an essential part of its mission and responsibilities, the CCSP aims to enhance the quality of public discussion by stressing openness and transparency in its scientific research processes and results, and ensuring the widespread availability of credible, science-based information. The CCSP and individual federal agencies generate substantial amounts of authoritative scientific information on climate variability and change. Research findings are generally well reported in the scientific literature, but relevant aspects of these findings need to be reported in formats suitable for use by diverse audiences whose understanding and familiarity with climate change science issues vary. To further its commitment to the effective communication of climate change science information, the CCSP has established the Communications Interagency Working Group, which has produced an implementation plan for Climate Change communication, aimed at achieving the following goals: * Disseminate the results of CCSP activities credibly and effectively * Make CCSP science findings and products easily available to a diverse set of audiences. In addition to CCSP efforts, the individual federal agencies that comprise CCSP disseminate science-based climate information through their agency networks. The agencies of the CCSP are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Interior, State, and Transportation and the U.S. EPA, NASA, NSF, Smithsonian Institute, and USAID.
http://www.climatescience.gov
ED31D-02 INVITED 08:15h
Weather it's Climate Change?
For almost two decades both national polls and in-depth studies of global warming perceptions have shown that people commonly conflate weather and global climate change. Not only are current weather events such as anecdotal heat waves, droughts or cold spells treated as evidence for or against global warming, but weather changes such as warmer weather and increased storm intensity and frequency are the consequences most likely to come to mind. Distinguishing weather from climate remains a challenge for many. This weather 'framing' of global warming may inhibit behavioral and policy change in several ways. Weather is understood as natural, on an immense scale that makes controlling it difficult to conceive. Further, these attributes contribute to perceptions that global warming, like weather, is uncontrollable. This talk presents an analysis of data from public opinion polls, focus groups, and cognitive studies regarding people's mental models of and 'frames' for global warming and climate change, and the role weather plays in these. This research suggests that priming people with a model of global warming as being caused by a "thickening blanket of carbon dioxide" that "traps heat" in the atmosphere solves some of these communications problems and makes it more likely that people will support policies to address global warming.
ED31D-03 08:30h
Finding A Common Language: How To Communicate Climate Change Science To Non-Scientists
Successful communication about complex subjects, especially of a scientific nature, brings with it a significant set of challenges. If, in addition to being a scientifically complex concept, the topic also carries with it certain political or ideological implications, the challenges grow significantly. Climate change is a poster child for the difficulties in communicating valuable science beyond the confines of the scientific community, or even of a smaller and more specialized subgroup within that community. However, strategies exist for maximizing the reach of this important information, and for effectively disseminating the science behind climate change. Communication requires that the contingent attempting to communicate and the intended recipients of the information share a common language. The first step in finding that common language is to identify the intended audience, and then designing ways to effectively meet the needs of that specific audience.
ED31D-04 08:45h
Communicating the Urgency of Climate Change to Local Government Policy Makers
What are the challenges and obstacles in conveying scientific research and uncertainties about climate change to local government policy makers? What information do scientists need from local government practitioners to guide research efforts into producing more relevant information for the local government audience? What works and what doesn't in terms of communicating climate change science to non-technical audiences? Based on over a decade of experience working with local governments around the world on greenhouse gas mitigation, ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability has developed a unique perspective and valuable insight into effective communication on climate science that motivates policy action. In the United States practical actions necessary to mitigate global climate change occur largely at the local level. As the level of government closest to individual energy consumers, local governments play a large role in determining the energy intensity of communities. How can local governments be persuaded to make greenhouse gas mitigation a policy priority over the long-term? Access to relevant information is critical to achieving that commitment. Information that will persuade local officials to pursue climate protection commitments includes specific impacts of global warming to communities, the costs of adaptation versus mitigation, and the potential benefits of implementing greenhouse gas-reducing initiatives. The manner in which information is conveyed is also critically important. The scientific community is loath to advocate for specific policies, or to make determinate statements on topics for which research is ongoing. These communication hurdles can be overcome if the needs of local policy practitioners can be understood by the scientific community, and research goals can be cooperatively defined.
http://www.iclei.org/us
ED31D-05 09:00h
Communicating Climate Change Science to Stakeholders for Assessments of Impact and Adaptation: Experiences at the Municipal Level in Canada
The assessment of climate change impacts and the identification of adaptation strategies require understandable communication of climate change science and its uncertainties to a diverse group of stakeholders. This paper will report on the experience being gained from a set of municipal case studies conducted in Canada, where climate change impacts such as water resource depletion, permafrost melting and coastal sea level rise are being addressed. Two aspects will be discussed: the local process of stakeholder interaction and the effort to bring the local experiences to a national level through development of municipal best practice guides. Ideally, stakeholders are engaged at the local level through a structured process. This is to avoid the common problem that pre-existing tensions between stakeholders tend to dominate unstructured discussions and distract attention from the target issue. One-on-one interviews with the stakeholders and research into the socio-economic history of the communities provide background on the issues that may arise before group workshops are attempted. When workshops involving stakeholders are held, they are professionally facilitated and the science delivery is carefully rationed into digestible portions that enable informed discussion of specific climate change scenarios. Municipalities can be engaged at political, practitioner and public levels not only as major stakeholders, but also as key partners in the communication process. We have used presentations to council, direct involvement of city planning departments and public events such as Science and Technology Week to nurture two-way communication. We have also put considerable thought into the effort to communicate these experiences to the over one thousand communities across the country that will not benefit from a case study. Our initial approach was to develop best practice guides on climate change topics based on the successes and lessons learned in the case studies. While the idea has been generally welcomed by organizations representing Canadian municipalities and professional planners, the large matrix of user groups and climate change issues makes the development of generic climate change best practice guides extremely challenging. An alternate approach would be to contribute climate change sections to existing and future best practice guides developed by the professional organizations concerned with municipal infrastructure, environment and land use. We are presently organizing a national workshop to canvas user groups on the best form for the guides.
ED31D-06 09:15h
Viewing Challenge as Opportunity: A Climate Diagnostics Center Perspective on Meeting the Needs of Audiences Outside of the Research Community
Although the day-to-day activities at the NOAA-CIRES Climate Diagnostics Center (CDC) focus on the efforts of the scientific research community, our mission includes the charge to "develop new climate products that better serve the needs of the public and decision-makers." Meeting this goal involves not only developing these products, but also making the public and policy-makers aware of the resources and guiding them in the use of the climate products. Among the challenges involved in this "knowledge transfer" are the fact that we need to reach audiences which may not be accustomed to interpreting, evaluating, and using information at the same level as a member of the scientific research community. Additionally, these audiences may not have access to the information in any sort of built-in way, whereas the scientific research community by definition includes the interchange of ideas via journals, seminars, and regularly scheduled conferences. This presentation will focus on recent efforts at CDC to communicate with the public and policy-makers. In the first case, we focus on the results of taking the opportunity to discuss our work at an event open to the general public, in particular grade-school and middle-school aged children. At this event, our goal was to clearly illustrate the differences between "climate," "weather," "climate variability" and "climate change" in a very basic way. In the second case, we review the methods and status of a user study affiliated with the Western Water Assessment project. This study focuses on identifying the needs of users (in this case, the water provider/water management community). This example illustrates the importance of identifying the user needs and their current knowledge level, so that the appropriate climate products can then be supplied to the user community. Finally, we review the CDC web site content which has evolved specifically in response to feedback from non-research users, and discuss the challenges of, and strategies for, meeting those needs with limited staffing resources.
ED31D-07 INVITED 09:30h
Communicating the Urgency and Challenge of Global Climate Change: Lessons Learned and New Strategies
Climate change can sometimes be characterized as a "creeping environmental problem"--it is complex and long-term, involves long system lags, lacks the immediacy of everyday experience and thus is hard to perceive, and feels overwhelming to most individuals. Climate change thus does not typically attain the status of an urgent concern, taking priority over other matters for individuals, organizations or in the policy arena. We review the major reasons behind this lack of urgency, and document the observed consequences of previous communication strategies, including lack of public understanding, indifference, confusion, fear and uncertainty. We find that certain emotional motivators such as fear and guilt, while oft-employed, do not actually result in improved recognition of the urgency of the issue, nor do they typically result in action. Rather, positive and engaging approaches may be more likely to achieve this goal. We propose seven strategies to improve the communication of climate change and its urgency: 1) Abide by basic communication rules and heed the warnings of communication experts; 2) Address the emotional and the temporal components of "urgency"; 3) Increase the persuasiveness of the message; 4) Use trusted messengers-broaden the circle; 5) Use opportunities well; 6) Tap into individual and cultural strengths and values; and 7) Unite and Conquer. The multi-faceted nature of the proposed strategies reflects the unique challenges of the climate change issue as well as the need to engage all levels and sectors of societies in the solution, from individuals, to businesses, to governments. These strategies and results emerged from a multi-disciplinary, academic/practitioner workshop on the topic held at NCAR in summer 2004.
http://www.esig.ucar.edu/changeworkshop/index.html