The Science Communication Cluetrain

David Roberts has an article out on climate communication. It seems to be generating some controversy and will surely generate some rebuttals. I too am frustrated by the academic specialists in "climate communication", and I have a few points to add. 

This is Harsh, But It's Right

David says:

What I take from the social science of climate-change communications is that no one knows much of anything about what kinds of messages and messengers have what kinds of long-term effects on behavior. At the very least, these remain deeply subjective judgments.

The key qualifier here is "long-term". And I think this is exactly right.


Social Science is Hard, But Working Hard Doesn't Guarantee Results.

Social science is hard, but I am not convinced that there are "climate communication experts" who adequately consider what psychologists call "longitudinal" effects. To an oceanographer this is cringeworthy jargon, but it means "over a long time and multiple exposures".

Climate communication doesn't actually occur in the small chunks that are easy to study; yet single-exposure experiments seem to dominate most of the studies I have seen. 

I'm not afraid to change my mind, so I'd welcome any updates or corrections to this observation, which aligns with David's.


It's All About Context

There is a truism in advertising. I am not sure whether there is any research to support it, but most advertising people worth their salt will tell you it's the case. People usually don't take action until they receive a message from three sources that they take to be independent.

It makes sense to me. The rule-of-thumb "three" is not the point. The point is that communication occurs within a communication context. People already have priors. This means that any study that involves how a specific message moves people, absent the long-term context in which the message is received, is rather pointless.  

The Context We're In Is Largely Designed by Evil Advertising Geniuses

It's time to recall the infamous Luntz Memo:

"The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science." What I take from the social science of climate-change communications is that no one knows much of anything about what kinds of messages and messengers have what kinds of long-term effects on behavior. At the very least, these remain deeply subjective judgments.

"Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.

"Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate."

Luntz's campaign was tragically successful. We're now in a condition where the first thing many non-experts in climate think of in any climate context is "uncertainty". Even the most certain things (the greenhouse effect, the basics of the carbon budget, etc.) are tarred with this "excessive certainty"/"arrogance" brush.

Consensus messaging is a part of the answer, but a direct response to the broken communication environment itself has to be part of the response, too. A very tall order for the sane members of the climate and energy policy communities.

As individual scientists conveying our own opinions, it's unfortunately unavoidable, but fortunately not our issue. What we need to convey is expertise and sincerity. By far the best way to do that is to know what you are talking about and be sincere about it.

The "Fear Question"

Does fear motivate? Of course it does. We wouldn't have evolved fear if it didn't motivate. Does a fear-bearing message motivate? Well, sure it does, if you believe it. But first you have to decide if you believe it.

People hearing the climate message are in a communication context where they have been encouraged to doubt the message.

That is, individual messages are not the issue. The context is the issue.

There is, I think, quite a lot to fear in this matter. So an entirely fearless message is either dishonest, crazy, or wrong.

The Scicomm Cluetrain

I wish somebody would write a scicomm version of this: http://cluetrain.com/

Markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, dir ect, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

Most corporations, on theWhat I take from the social science of climate-change communications is that no one knows much of anything about what kinds of messages and messengers have what kinds of long-term effects on behavior. At the very least, these remain deeply subjective judgments. other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humorless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal. Same old tone, same old lies. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers." They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf.

The most important thing is to speak with your own voice.

My advice is to know what you're talking about, and talk about it in a way that your audience can absorb.

If you have fears, say so, and don't pretend otherwise. Leave the "communication research" to the politicians. Politics is a necessary evil, but it's not sufficient to the task at hand. We need well-informed people to tell the truth in their own way, in their own voice, honestly.

Train image by "Extra Zebra" is in the Creative Commons under license Attribution 2.0 Generic(CC BY 2.0)

Quote Gallery II

See also Quote Gallery I

Contributions always welcome; use the comment section.

===


So far, we're not doing any better than the cyanobacteria.

- Ray Pierrehumbert
===

Trivializing democracy; being anti-government; claiming all politicians are evil; saying there are no differences between political parties; stoking conspiracy theories; insisting that the civic sphere is all a joke: These all serve the powerful.
 
Cynicism is obedience to power.

-Alex Steffen

===

We don’t have a right to ask whether we’re going to succeed or not – the only question we have a right to ask is: What’s the right thing to do? What does this Earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it?

- Wendell Berry

===

For a very long time, the intellectual consensus has been that we can no longer ask Great Questions. Increasingly, it's looking like we have no other choice.

-David Graeber in Debt, The First 5000 Years

===

In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late ... We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late".

- Martin Luther King Jr, 1967

===

The moon has no atmosphere so it is scorching hot (+100C) during the day and bitterly cold (-150C) at night. The Earth has an atmosphere made up of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases. Over 150 years ago scientists proved that CO2 traps heat from the sun.

We also know without any doubt that burning fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal emits CO2. Measurements, not computer models or theories, measurements show that there is now 46% more CO2 in the atmosphere than 150 years ago before massive use of fossil fuels. That extra CO2 is like putting another blanket on at night even though you are already nice and warm.

The Earth is now 1.0 C hotter on average according to the latest measurements. Heat is a form of energy and with so much more energy in our atmosphere our weather system is becoming supercharged resulting in stronger storms, worse heat waves, major changes in when and where rain falls and more.

- Stephen Leahy

===

It is not widely understood that carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for centuries, so our future will depend on the total amount we humans put into it over the next several decades. This is the paramount fact that separates climate change from all other environmental problems.

 – Clive Hamilton Utopias in the Anthropocene
===

In the end it’s not about finding policies that work, it’s about forging consensus and fighting cynicism. Can we do this?

- Barack Obama

===

A tolerably good human future is possible if we work together toward it. It’s not a question of predicting. It’s a question of deciding.

- mt

===

A journey of a thousand miles begins with deciding where you are going.

-mt

===

People always ask me one question all the time: ‘How do I know that I won’t be found out as a supporter of what you’re doing?’ We run all of this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There is total anonymity. People don’t know who supports us.

- Richard Berman describing how oil money gets transferred to what he calls ‘Win Ugly’ political action

===

When the going gets tough, the people losing the argument start whining about civility.

- Paul Krugman (h/t Eli)

===

If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

- George Orwell (1984) via David Brin

===

Qu’on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j’y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.

- Richelieu

===

well-funded companies would love to disprove climate change to the satisfaction of the scientific community at large. So if scientists could be bought, these motherf***ers would have already made it rain in nerd town, trust me.

- Jon Stewart

===

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. … We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. … The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

 - R. Buckminster Fuller 1970

===

Projections of climate change by the IPCC are deeply skeptical, and there is no attempt to hide the large uncertainty of climate forecasts. … Ironically, those labeled “skeptics” by the media are not in fact skeptical; they are, on the contrary, quite sure that there is no risk going forward. Meanwhile, those interested in treating the issue as an objective problem in risk assessment and management are labeled “alarmists”, a particularly infantile smear considering what is at stake.

- Kerry Emanuel

===

“Isn’t it sad that you can tell people that the ozone layer is being depleted, the forests are being cut down, the deserts are advancing steadily, that the greenhouse effect will raise the sea level 200 feet, that overpopulation is choking us, that pollution is killing us, that nuclear war may destroy us – and they yawn and settle back for a comfortable nap. But tell them that the Martians are landing, and they scream and run.”

- Isaac Asimov in The Secret of the Universe

===

Less semantic aggression might conduce to clarity all around. -

- Russel Seitz

===

We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-earth society.

 – Barack Obama, on climate change

===

It is good to know there are unknowns. It is better to know when you know enough.

- Florifulgurator

===

Men argue; nature acts.

- Voltaire

===

If you think a journalist is asking the wrong question, don’t answer it – tell them what the right question is.

- a Planet3.0 reader, paraphrasing Ed Yong, citing Tom Stafford

===

The community of scientists has responsibilities to improve overall understanding of climate change and its impacts. Improvements will come from pursuing the research needed to understand climate change, working with stakeholders to identify relevant information, and conveying understanding clearly and accurately, both to decision makers and to the general public.

 - American Geophysical Union statement “Human-induced climate change requires urgent action.” revised August 2013

===

I was… labelled as an advocate because… I measured something.

- ecologist Jeremy Jackson

===

Resolved, that none of us know, or care to know, anything about grasses, native or otherwise, outside the fact that for the present there are lots of them, the best on record, and we are after getting the most out of them while they last.

- Resolution of a Texas stockmen meeting ca. 1898. (With a hat tip to Martin Gisser).

===

There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.

- Marshall McLuhan

===

Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with unlimited starlight, humans kill for energy buried in sand.

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

===

If you’re talking to someone who isn’t following the climate change discussion very closely, they may not understand the difference between technical and political difficulty. It does them no favors to talk about inevitability and the fall of civilization. They’re either going to think you’re nuts or they’re going to join you in despondency. We need to always reinforce the point that we can make life a lot easier for ourselves (and especially our children and grandchildren) if we just choose to start doing something about it.

 - anonymous commenter at Planet3.0

===

Here is the IPCC message: We are as certain that humans are radically changing the planet’s climate as we are that tobacco causes cancer.

- Peter Gleick

===

We don’t need more dead clutter to entomb in landfills. We need more options.

 - Bruce Sterling

===

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask, why not?

- John F. Kennedy

===

Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.

- Rebecca Solnit

===

We hold the future still timidly, but perceive it for the first time, as a function of our own action. Having seen it, are we to turn away from something that offends the very nature of our earliest desires, or is the recognition of our new powers sufficient to change those desires into the service of the future which they will have to bring about?.

- J. D. Bernal (1929) via David Grinspoon

===

“Global warming, huh? By pure coincidence every scientist was right”

- Homer Simpson (the cartoon character)

===

We do not share the view of many of our economics colleagues that growth will solve the economic problem, that narrow self-interest is the only dependable human motive, that technology will always find a substitute for any depleted resource, that the market can efficiently allocate all types of goods, that free markets always lead to an equilibrium balancing supply and demand, or that the laws of thermodynamics are irrelevant to economics.

- Herman Daly and Joshua Farley via Tom Murphy

===

Maybe we’ll be smacked by an asteroid we’re not looking at and it will offset the CO2 we’re not looking at.

- Bruce Sterling

===

Many people improving the environment think only in terms of the air they breathe in their hometown and the water in the aquifer under their hometown. My guess is very few are thinking centuries ahead or thousand of years ahead, but that’s what we have to do.

- Pete Seeger

===

I’m just hanging on like grim death to the simple truth that giving up is just lazy. We have a commitment to life, because that’s all there is, and that’s all about it.

- Susan Anderson

===

We need at least ten times more editors than we need auditors.

-  Willard

===

These arguments are not those of serious people.

-  Judge John G Hayburn II

===

Cynicism is a choice. Hope is a better choice.

- B H Obama

===

Peo­ple often ask me if I’m an advo­cate for some kind of pol­icy. Do I want every­body to have a car­bon tax, do I want every­one to drive a Prius, do I want every­body to have a renew­able energy standard? I have opin­ions about all of those things, but that’s not what I am advo­cat­ing for. What I’d like to have peo­ple do is have an intel­li­gent con­ver­sa­tion about the prob­lem of cli­mate change. … But what actu­ally hap­pens is, that all of those things get sub­sumed. We have these fake argu­ments – we have these argu­ments about tree rings in the 15th cen­tury, as if any­body … was going to make a pol­icy about what a tree said in the 15th cen­tury. It’s absurd. -

Gavin Schmidt

===

Climate change is a collective problem demanding collective action the likes of which humanity has never actually accomplished. Yet it entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.

 - Naomi Klein

===

It’s not that the scientists are alarmists – it’s that the science is alarming.

- Bill McKibben

===

Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about.

- Federal Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, with a tip of the hat to Mr. Coke Dilworth, yellow dog Democrat of Austin TX

===

Good people are not those who lack flaws, the brave are not those who feel no fear, and the generous are not those who never feel selfish. Extraordinary people are not extraordinary because they are invulnerable to unconscious biases. They are extraordinary because they choose to do something about it.

- Shankar Vedantam via Maria Popova

===

Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to permanent war, none is so great as [the] deadening of our response.

 - Joanna Macy (h/t Martin Gisser and Dan Olner – follow that link!)

===

What do we most need to do to save our world? What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

===

Since the start of the industrial revolution, mankind has been burning fossil fuel (coal, oil, etc.) and adding its carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. In 50 years or so this process, says Director Roger Revelle of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, may have a violent effect on the earth’s climate Dr. Revelle has not reached the stage of warning against this catastrophe, but he and other geophysicists intend to keep watching and recording. During the International Geophysical Year (1957-58), teams of scientists will take inventory of the earth’s CO2 and observe how it shifts between air and sea. They will try to find out whether the CO2 blanket has been growing thicker, and what the effect has been. When all their data have been studied, they may be able to predict whether man’s factory chimneys and auto exhausts will eventually cause salt water to flow in the streets of New York and London.

- Time Magazine, 1956 (via Simon Donner)