Climate Communication in Context Stephan Lewandowsky University of Bristol and University of Western Australia stephan.lewandowsky@bristol.ac.uk @STWorg Salzburg, 25 September 2017

Communication of climate change requires knowledge of climate change knowledge of society Strength of scientific consensus Strength and techniques of opposition How to communicate climate change

Communication of climate change requires knowledge of climate change knowledge of society Strength of scientific consensus Strength and techniques of opposition How to communicate climate change

Would you Eat These Oysters? 97 out of 100 microbiologists, after independent tests, recommend against eating these oysters because they are contaminated 2 out of 100 are unsure 1 says they are safe

97.1% 97.5% Scientific Consensus The climate is changing. Humans are causing it. It’s a problem. 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% agreement among climate scientists Various sources eg Cook et al 2013

Consensus on Consensus

Notwithstanding the Consensus “With all the hysteria, all the fear, all the phony science, could it be that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people? I believe it is.” —U.S. Senator James Inhofe Congressional Record, 2003 Oklahoma State Capitol

Communication of climate change requires knowledge of climate change knowledge of society Strength of scientific consensus Strength and techniques of opposition How to communicate climate change

Asymmetric Attitudes to Science In laboratory experiments with synthetic scenarios: no clear cognitive differences between people with different worldviews or political leanings In surveys involving actual scientific issues: rejection seems centered on political right no evidence of symmetry no evidence of science rejection by political left Vaccinations (Hamilton, Lewandowsky) Genetically Modified Organisms (Lewandowsky, Hamilton) HIV-AIDS (Lewandowsky) Tobacco-lung cancer (Lewandowsky)

Worldview and Climate Science (e.g., Lewandowsky et al., 2013) C:\Users\Lewan\Documents\MATLAB\Teaching of MatLab\ESCOPSS2010\Demos SL\plotrwithinbounds.m

Alternative Realities

Some People are Receptive to Contrarian Messages

“… official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong … “… official climate models got their predictions so hopelessly wrong …. [in 2007] none of them predicted a temporary fall in global temperatures of 0.7 degrees, equal to their entire net rise in the 20th century…” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/22/what-happened-to-putting-childrens-welfare-first/ Christopher Booker, 22 October 2016

“fall of 0.7 degrees” 0.7C https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/oct/21/global-warming-continues-2016-will-be-the-hottest-year-ever-recorded#img-2

January 2007 – January 2008 https://tamino.wordpress.com/2016/10/23/desperate-denial/

Sea Level Rise

Blind Test With Economists and Statisticians 6 different scenarios involving various climate indicators contrarian statements sampled from media and online sources Google search reveals high prevalence on contrarian blogs Hence statements not cherry-picked mainstream scientific statements checked by climate experts Lewandowsky, Ballard, Oberauer, & Benestad (2016).

Sample Trial

Combine items into correctness score

(Ranney & Clark, 2016; McCright et al., 2016) Statisticians Misleading contrarian interpretations reduce people’s acceptance of climate science (Ranney & Clark, 2016; McCright et al., 2016)

False Media Balance (nearly 1,000 media articles; Brüggemann & Engesser, 2017)

Public Perception of Consensus U.S. Data “Balance as bias” media coverage

Communication of climate change requires knowledge of climate change knowledge of society Strength of scientific consensus Strength and techniques of opposition How to communicate climate change

Knowledge of Consensus is “Gateway Belief”

Communicating Consensus

Suspicion and Inoculation Research shows that correction is effective if people are: provided with an alternative skeptical of a source suspicious of motives underlying initial information Research shows that misinformation finds less traction if people are warned or inoculated

Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) 97.1% agreement in climate literature 97.5% agreement among climate scientists Information about the tobacco industry’s use of “fake experts” to generate appearance of a debate when there was none

Inoculation (Cook, Lewandowsky, & Ecker, 2017) Inoculation messages neutralized effects of ‘false balance’

Summary of Interventions

Thank You http://www.bristol.ac.uk/posttruthexperts/

Rhetorical Symmetry Does Not Imply Substantive Symmetry Not all opinions deserve to be balanced No, you are not entitled to your opinion…. …. unless it is supported by fact, evidence, or argument