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How do you effectively communicate the urgency of a global issue that’s so big, it’s virtually imperceptible to the average person?
This is one of the issues facing Irish-born journalist and Communications Director, Owen Gaffney, and his team at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Sweden. With the release of his latest " target="_blank">video on climate change, we were keen to find out more about ‘the science of science communication’.
But first, a few facts to warm you up:
- Arctic sea-ice may disappear in summer in the next two decades
- Ocean acidification is expected to rise 170% by the end of the century (from pre-industrial levels)
- We have changed the global nitrogen cycle as much as we have changed the carbon cycle
- Most change has happened since the 1950s, in a single human lifetime
Above: Climate Change: The State of the Science. Produced and directed by Owen Gaffney and Félix Pharand-Deschênes. Animation by Félix Pharand-Deschênes
Q&A:
Tell us a bit about your background and your work.
I was born in Limerick and raised in Antrim. My earliest interests were space science, planet Earth and anthropology. This led to a degree in astronautic and aeronautic engineering. Somehow I got sidetracked for a decade working in media and filmmaking, among other things, then writing.
I now work for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. This was the first major international research programme to try to understand global change and develop Earth system science. We're attempting to figure out how planet Earth works as a complex system. We're based at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm (where they do the Nobel Prizes).
What do you hope to achieve through your work in the next year?
Most people are oblivious to the scale of change we are inflicting on Earth's life support system… [and] are only fleetingly aware that their individual actions, when combined with seven billion other people, add up to a phenomenal global impact. I am trying to find new ways to communicate the vast scale of the transformations we are seeing on Earth.
Right now, Earth's life support system is undergoing a radical change in terms of biodiversity, ocean biogeochemistry, atmospheric composition and the carbon, nitrogen and water cycles. Humans are conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the planet.
How far away are you from your communications goals?
There is a fascinating new academic field—the science of science communication—that’s unravelling why people respond to new science in the way they do. That is, some science is dismissed or ignored, even though its implications can be quite profound for individual health and for us as societies. It turns out we are more willing to accept and assimilate new information—and alter our behaviour—if the information accords with our core values and beliefs. If new information challenges our core values and beliefs we tend to reject it. This is at the centre of the communications challenge.
Image: Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil. Photo: HckySo / Flickr
Here's an example. Last year, scientists discovered the Higgs boson. There was no public dismissal or argument about the discovery. People accepted it was an exciting new discovery.
Importantly, the Higgs Boson is so far removed from everyday lives and our core values and beliefs that people accept it readily. Compare that discovery with the discovery of evolution by natural selection in 1859. Even after 150 years this is still deeply contested publicly, though there is absolutely no controversy scientifically. Why? Because it goes right to the heart of many core values and beliefs. It challenges the existence of God.
Anybody with a vested interest in keeping the status quo—religious groups or political parties, for example—will invest large resources and go to extreme lengths to try to convince others to dismiss new evidence challenging it.
But here's the thing. Most people don't need external help, they are quite willing to find ways to deceive themselves. If new information challenges a person's values and beliefs that person finds ways to reject it. So, in the case of evolution, a religious person may simply ignore the inconvenient truth, or assimilate it into their beliefs and argue that evolution is part of God's master plan.
Image: Power plant Anders Adermark / Flickr
Enter climate change and more broadly the work I am involved with, Earth system change. Everything mentioned above applies to climate communication. Two decades after scientists first warned about greenhouse gases, emissions are still rising. Climate change challenges people's core values and beliefs for sure.
It demands we reassess our lifestyles and it demands we find a new way to power the rich developed nations, in the last few generations. There are big vested interests—the oil companies and energy suppliers. There are big costs, there is some uncertainty and there are large risks.
David versus Goliath
The industries, the lobby groups and political parties have huge financial resources and access to mass media. They are diverting these resources to attempt to play down the evidence and dismiss the science. Scientists have very limited budgets for communications. They get their funding from research funding agencies who, rightly, want the money to go on research. So we have these institutional challenges. It becomes a David versus Goliath battle.
Communications is an upward struggle but there is room for hope. Many surveys confirm that scientists are one of the most trusted professional groups in society and environmental scientists are trusted even more than others. The media seems to understand climate is a societally important issue and continues to cover it extensively. Internationally, many politicians seem united in the desire to address the challenge. Change can often take much longer than you'd think.
Your latest video for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is pretty hard-hitting. Talk to us a bit more about the biggest risks posed to the planet over the next 40-50 years.
If we allow emissions to continue on the current trajectory we risk radically transforming our planet. There is a very high risk we face a temperature rise of 4 degrees above the level at the start of the Industrial Revolution. This will be catastrophic to be honest. See this recent World Bank report for an idea of what we could expect.
Even two degrees, which politicians have agreed on, poses severe risks and many scientists argue this is too high. Sea level will keep rising and it is expected sea-level rise will accelerate—cities and low-lying regions will have to adapt and invest heavily in sea defences. But sea levels will keep rising higher and higher.
Some coastal areas will need to be abandoned. We will see more extreme high temperatures and more heat waves in many parts of the globe. We can expect a decline in crop production and a change in the spread of diseases.Warm waters and more humid air conditions may drive stronger tropical cyclones.
Image: The Anthropocene -Economist.com
What is The Anthropocene?
This is the unofficial term for the current geological epoch. There is now overwhelming evidence that humans have driven Earth out of the Holocene, the more recent geological period, and into a whole new epoch, the Anthropocene. The name came from our former vice chair, the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen.
How is the Internet and digital technology affecting the planet?
It is important to remember that many of the major changes we've seen since the 1950s have been overwhelmingly positive, from the digital revolution to the decline in infant mortality and the reduction in extreme poverty. We now have more access to information that at any time in the past. This is empowering. We are beginning to see exactly how powerful through movements like the Arab Spring. It seems social networks are a particularly powerful development.
What the single biggest challenge or obstacle we currently face surrounding climate change?
The biggest challenge really relates to political inertia and the two degree target. We created the data visualisation to communicate the grave need for emissions to peak and begin falling or we can say goodbye to the target. On the current emissions trajectory we really only have 25 years. We need to find a new way of dealing with global problems. The system we have—the United Nations—is wonderful in many ways, but it needs to be fit for purpose for the 21st century in a networked world.
What are the key milestones for your organisation in 2014?
2014 will be exciting. A major new international initiative has just kicked off, Future Earth: research for global sustainability. It will attempt to find some solutions to the biggest questions in sustainable development. IGBP is closely involved and it’s wonderful to see how this programme is progressing.
Owen Gaffney is Director of Communications at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, Sweden.
For more information visit www.igbp.net or www.anthropocene.info
