1. Climate Communication in Context
Stephan Lewandowsky
University of Bristol and University of Western Australia
@STWorg
Salzburg, 25 September 2017

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. Consensus on Consensus

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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)

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

11. Alternative Realities

12. Some People are Receptive to Contrarian Messages

16. “… 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…”
Christopher Booker, 22 October 2016

17. “fall of 0.7 degrees”
0.7C

18. January 2007 – January 2008

20. Sea Level Rise

21. 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).

22. Sample Trial

23. Combine items into correctness score

24. (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)

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

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

27. 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

28. Knowledge of Consensus is “Gateway Belief”

29. Communicating Consensus

30. 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

31. 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

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

33. Summary of Interventions

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

36. 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