Note to NSF: It isn’t the method of communication, it’s the message itself. See the latest Gallup Poll to see how global warming aka climate change has come in dead last for environmental concerns.
From the National Science Foundation
In wake of recent shifts in public opinion, researchers analyze climate change communication
Despite much research that demonstrates potential dangers from climate change, public concern has not been increasing.
One theory is that this is because the public is not intimately familiar with the nature of the climate uncertainties being discussed.
“A major challenge facing climate scientists is explaining to non-specialists the risks and uncertainties surrounding potential” climate change, says a new Perspectives piece published today in the science journal Nature Climate Change.
The article attempts to identify communications strategies needed to improve layman understanding of climate science.
“Few citizens or political leaders understand the underlying science well enough to evaluate climate-related proposals and controversies,” the authors write, at first appearing to support the idea of specialized knowledge–that only climate scientists can understand climate research.
But, author Baruch Fischhoff quickly dispels the notion. “The goal of science communication should be to help people understand the state of the science,” he says, “relevant to the decisions that they face in their private and public lives.”
Fischhoff, a social and decision scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Nick Pidgeon, an environmental psychologist at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom wrote the article together, titled, “The role of social and decision sciences in communicating uncertain climate risks.”
Fischhoff and Pidgeon argue that science communication should give the public tools that will allow them to understand the uncertainties and disagreements that often underlie scientific discussion. He says that understanding is more likely to happen when people know something about the process that produces the conflicts they hear about in the press.
“Communications about climate science, or any other science, should embrace the same scientific standards as the science that they are communicating,” says Fischhoff. He says this is crucial to maintaining people’s trust in scientific expertise.
“When people lack expertise, they turn to trusted sources to interpret the evidence for them,” Fischhoff says. “When those trusted sources are wrong, then people are misled.”
Fischhoff and Pidgeon propose a communications strategy that applies “the best available communications science to convey the best available climate science.” The strategy focuses on identifying, disclosing and when necessary reframing climate risks and uncertainties so the lay public can understand them easily.
“All of our climate-related options have uncertainties, regarding health, economics, ecosystems, and international stability, among other things,” says Fischhoff. “It’s important to know what gambles we’re taking if, for example, we ignore climate issues altogether or create strong incentives for making our lives less energy intensive.”
Key to effective communications is what the authors call “strategic organization” and “strategic listening.”
Strategic organization involves working in cross-disciplinary teams that include, at a minimum, climate scientists, decision scientists, social and communications specialists and other experts.
Strategic listening encourages climate scientists, who often have little direct contact with the public, to overcome flawed intuitions of how well they communicate. Strategic listening asks scientists to go beyond intuitive feeling and consider how well they communicate by using systematic feedback and empirical evaluation.
“I think that it is good for scientists to be in contact with the public, so that they can learn about its concerns and see how well, or poorly, they are communicating their knowledge,” says Fischhoff. “That way they can do a better job of producing and conveying the science that people need.”
Fischhoff’s research on science communication is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Decision Risk and Management Sciences program.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The fundamental problem for the CAGW movement is that their science is flawed. As regularly pointed out on WUWT it is heat that should be the metric not temperature. It takes a lot less heat to raise the temperature of dry air by 1 deg. than the same volume of wet air. Global surface temperature measurements per se are therefore worthless as a measure of global warming.
As a matter of routine, I hereby confess that I am an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate, with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
This looked like the sort of paper a couple of under employed academics would come up with to earn brownie points (yet another peer reviewed paper). So that was its purpose – we were not meant to read it.
However, I checked the internet for information on the welsh end of the duo that produced this masterpeice, and found that our Pidgeon is Professor, no less, and co-author of a selection of 25 papers dated 2008 or later. So a writer, no doubt. Currently, he reports that he no longer teaches following award of an ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Climate Leader Professorial Fellowship. The ESRC, I then found, disburses government funds. So, Prof Pidgeon is actually paid to peddle UK government policy on climate, and we are meant to read the paper. However, in the circumstances, we would not take it seriously, would we?
Incidentally, one of the Prof’s other papers was about the industry I used to work in. The opening line of the abstract of this paper (which was concealed behind a pay wall) reads ‘There is a growing effort to provide (my industry’s product) that has the trust of (the industry’s customers) …’. Not by the industry, there wasn’t, or by its customers, or by the public. Must have been by the Professor and his mates. Oh Dear!
“A major challenge facing climate scientists is explaining to non-specialists the risks and uncertainties surrounding potential” climate change, says a new Perspectives piece published today in the science journal Nature Climate Change.
When climate scientists can get around their own uncertainties by providing data, predictions based on that data and the reasons why the data led to those predictions, then saying that if the predictions fall flat, then we must have been wrong; only then will I believe in what they tell me.
Few citizens or political leaders understand the underlying science well enough to evaluate climate-related proposals and controversies
No.
We understand very well.
1. we’re talking about a few tenths of a degree
2. nobody likes being cold. warm is better.
3. any attempt to “fix” it will result in higher costs for energy, lower standards of living, and it’s “us” who will have to pay for it.
The problem isn’t that you’re not doing a swell sales job. We just ain’t buying what you’re trying to sell us.
SteveE says:
March 30, 2011 at 5:33 am
philincalifornia says:
March 29, 2011 at 9:07 pm
We now have many lines of evidence all pointing to a single, consistent answer – the main driver of global warming is rising carbon dioxide levels from our fossil fuel burning.
——————————————————
Nice try SteveE. Lots of theory there, but no final connection. For example, do you not notice the subtle difference between:
“Satellites measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat”
and:
“If less heat is escaping to space”
You forgot the disclaimer.
Rather than theory, why not look at the data:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/images/march2008/210308graph.jpg
My conclusion from the data is:
We now have a line of evidence pointing to a single, consistent answer – the MAIN driver of global warming is NOT rising carbon dioxide levels from our fossil fuel burning.
Actually, I’m not sure why you took on proof of global warming by CO2. Wouldn’t you be better served by taking on proof of climate change, or would you be ostracized from your tribe for talking about negative feedbacks ??
Mike says:
March 30, 2011 at 8:16 am
…Significant uncertainties remain. Most of the extra heat energy is in the oceans. Direct measurements have shown this, but there are uncertainties in how best to measure ocean heat content. When and where that energy will warm the atmosphere is not well understood. Natural ocean cycles can lead to temporary cooling. The response of clouds to warming is uncertain….
…There is evidence droughts have increased. It is not 100% clear this is due to AGW…. So, sea level [rise] will continue. How fast is not clear….
…We have rough evidence from climate models and palio-studies (sic) showing the increase in quite likely to be 2-6C by 2100. But warming won’t stop in 2100. We will very likely hit 4C at some point; the uncertainty is when not if.
…Have I proved CAGW? No. Of course not. You don’t have proof in empirical sciences like you do in math….
I just love ‘settled science’ in action.
“Communicating uncertain climate risks”
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/30/robust-science-more-than-30-contradictory-pairs-of-peer-reviewed-papers/
Worth a read
“What I want to know from ‘Warmists’ is what would falsify the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming?”
Mike says:
March 30, 2011 at 8:16 am
“Satellites have measurement shown that more energy is coming in from the sun than is leaving. Thus the Earth must be warming, as noted, it is.”
I would love to see a source for this. All i know is that Hansen and Schmidt have published a paper about this, combining satellite measurements with model runs. Is there measurement data that shows it without using the help of a GCM? In that case, the only point of failure would be instrument calibration. That would be more convincing than Hansen and Schmidt’s result.
“(I’m skipping H2O feedback.)”
That’s a pity, as the assumption that there is positive H2O feedback is the biggest achilles heel of AGW science. I hope you will show evidence for it real soon.
GixxerBoy says:
March 30, 2011 at 1:00 am
“Hey ShaneCMuir
[…] You might be right – maybe it is some kind of collective political master plan.”
Here in Germany, we pay climate scientists to develop master plans.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/29/another-german-will-soon-unveil-a-master-plan-for-a-transformation-of-society/
You know, so that we know how we must transform our society.
NSF is so-o-o-o into the 70’s. Wasn’t it Marshall McCluhan who coined the phrase: “the message is the massage?”[no]
SteveE said “Another distinctive pattern of greenhouse warming is cooling in the upper atmosphere, otherwise known as the stratosphere. This is exactly what’s happening.”
Your categorical statements (in a thread about uncertainty!) are exactly why nobody will take you seriously. There are many thing about which you (or whoever you cribbed from) have very limited knowledge. What about the natural variations that show up spatially and temporally and quite obviously disprove your cause and effect statement?
Communication
The sharing of information of two or more parties.
Not the complete submission, handover-all-our-money, at the end of a stick trying to beat our future great great grand kids to death.
So apparently, the scientific standards of the science they are communicating are:
CO2 is bad.
Government is good,
Man is bad, (especially if they don’t believe CO2 is bad)
Government jobs are great. (but they don’t pay enough)
I think its the same as a Doctor of Lysenkology.
Here’s one scientist who knows how to communicate and what luck, Professor Dr Vincent Courtillot is on our side.
He covers all bases and thinks it’s time to bring ‘observation’ back into the debate.
Eric (skeptic) says:
March 30, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Your categorical statements (in a thread about uncertainty!) are exactly why nobody will take you seriously. There are many thing about which you (or whoever you cribbed from) have very limited knowledge. What about the natural variations that show up spatially and temporally and quite obviously disprove your cause and effect statement?
————-
Can you point me in the direction of the data your using to say that it’s natural variation and the mechanism that is causing this variation please?
My information is from:
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~mnew/teaching/Online_Articles/jones_et_al_attribution_3d_GRL_2003.pdf
Figure 1c shows the observed temperature change of the stratosphere with the grey shaded area representing the uncertainty range.
philincalifornia says:
March 30, 2011 at 10:50 am
——–
So the graph you link to is the temperature of the Lower Troposphere which shows that it’s warming… which is what I said in my statements.
Have a look at figure 7, you’ll see the troposphere is warming and the stratosphere is cooling. This is all consistant with the cause of global warming being linked to increases in CO2.
http://www.remss.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_monthly_binary_data
This plot is more consistent:
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
Anthony;
Your own Gallup post that you point to still has the wrong 2nd chart, just a dupe of the first. Or maybe the first is a dupe of the second. Neither has a year label attached. So hunose?
fred berple:
Prezakticisely!
Oops, it’s too late! Guess we’ll just have to suffer through it. What we’re having to suffer through is all the louder and bigger repetitions of the suite of Big Lies, of course.
The sea is rising! (Uh, no it’s not, actually.)
The globe is frying! (Except south of the Arctic Circle.)
and onandonandon.