"What We Know" Climate Report From Leading Science Organization Seeks to Persuade Citizens. #FAIL.

The “What We Know” report about climate change issued today by the august American Association for the Advancement of Science is intended to persuade ordinary people that our climate really is changing, we’re largely responsible, and we need to do something about it. Soon.

The report features clear, straight-forward language without overly complex and opaque scientific jargon.

And as the black non-image at the top of this ImaGeo post symbolizes, there is another thing that the report lacks as well: imagery.

In fact, there is not a single image in the report — not one visualization to help us understand what’s happening to our world, not a single photograph to dramatize the impact of climate change on people, not even one little graphic to show a trend in, oh, I don’t know, temperature maybe.

Okay, I exaggerate just a little. The title page does have one ambiguous photograph of someone using a surveying instrument on some ice sheet somewhere, for what reason God only knows.

And true, the “What We Know” web site includes, in addition to the report, a number of videos. One is actually mildly entertaining and effective. It features a mountain biker racing down a trail to symbolize the perilous path ahead and the need to slow down. (Our carbon emissions, of course.)

But the rest consist of talking heads (scientists telling us what they know) intercut with what broadcast journalists call “B-roll” — time lapse video of cars, smoke pouring out of stacks, a little snippet of water pouring into the New York City subway system during Hurricane Sandy —  you get the idea.

So here’s some unsolicited advice to the creators of “What We Know” from someone who thinks visual communication is actually an incredibly powerful way to communicate complex information and also connect with the heart as well as the mind: Cliché B-roll can’t change the fact that a talking head is still a talking head. Nor will people necessarily listen, let alone understand or care, simply because those talking heads happen to be scientists.

I’ve never written a post like this here at ImaGeo. I felt compelled to do it because I’m simply dumbfounded that one of the leading scientific organizations in the world decided to launch a public persuasion campaign that lacks one of the most important ways that humans beings can be persuaded: through visual communication.

Is the AAAS not aware that imagery can convey emotion far more powerfully than the written or spoken word, no matter how clear, concise, and free of jargon those words may be? Do they not know that visuals provide an incredible capacity to tell compelling, persuasive stories? Can it possibly be that they haven’t heard about the synergy made possible by the use of words and images together?

And did they not bother to read the literature on visual communication and persuasion?

To offer just one example: “Visual Persuasion,” which appeared in the journal Communication Research Trends in 1999. Here’s a relevant snippet:

…visual images in persuasive messages reduce the information processing burden, make a message more attention-getting, and reinforce message arguments. Also, it is believed that visual images have the superiority in memory over words.

If any of the people responsible for the “What We Know” report read this post, I have a suggestion for you: Try “Google.” It can be really helpful. With the search terms “visual communication and persuasion” you’ll find a lot of helpful tips there for your next campaign.

View the original article here

The March of Climate Determinism

In the late 2000s, a new climate change story line emerged in the media.

The seeds for this narrative were perhaps sown ten years ago, when a worst-case scenario report commissioned by the Pentagon triggered breathless headlines about a research field known as “abrupt climate change.” Perhaps you saw the 2004 movie.

The sensationalist portrayal of a sudden climate-induced doomsday was dismissed in scientific circles as implausible, but the film caught people’s attention.

What followed was a more sober analysis from Beltway think tanks assessing the linkages between climate change and geopolitical strife. Congress held hearings on the climate/national security nexus and the issue –while politically contentious–was taken seriously in the U.S. military and intelligence communities. Indeed, climate change was projected to be a major driver of future conflicts and instability around the world.

I wrote about this emerging issue on numerous occasions in the late 2000s, including in this space. (Here’s a more recent round-up of high profile studies.)

In the last several years, some scholars and influential pundits have argued that global warming played a major role in the Arab Spring. The notion that climate change sparked Syria’s hellish civil war has also gained currency in some circles.

When we get to this point–when famines and wars with deeply rooted socio-political causes–are attributed to climate change–we are approaching the same territory inhabited by those who routinely cast every severe weather event and catastrophe in the context of climate change. (This unfortunate tendency is rued by some in the climate community.)

Researchers who study the environment/security intersection–and who strive to remain unbiased–know that the climate change-security discourse has taken a problematic direction. (Indeed, some warned about it.) At the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security program, read this new post by Francois Gemenne, who writes:

Debate on the human security dimensions of climate change has often been cast from a deterministic perspective, where global warming will automatically translate into mass migrations, competition for resources and land, and ultimately conflict and devastation. There are two problems with this rhetoric.

To understand those problems, read the whole commentary. And when you’re done, check out this 2007 piece by Mike Hulme, who also warned about the seduction of climate determinism.

View the original article here

White House Launches Climate Change Communication Tool that Treats Citizens Like Adults

Screenshot of an interactive map accessible from data.gov/climate showing expected inundation of areas of New York City based on different projections of sea level. (Source: NOAA and data.gov/climate)

A day after a major scientific organization released an embarrassingly ineffective report aimed at communicating the realities of climate change, the White House has launched something entirely different — and better.

For now, it is a web portal that serves as a kind of clearinghouse for all manner of information on how sea level rise is remaking our coasts and posing risks to those who live and work along them.

The screenshot above shows one of the interactive tools available on the site, data.gov/climate. In stunning graphic detail, it shows areas in the New York metro area that would become inundated in the future based on different projections of sea level rise. It’s one of just dozens of such tools available right now on the site.

And according to the White House, it is just the start of a major effort at climate change communication. The effort is designed to enable citizens to see how climate change is affecting them where they live and work, and what they might expect in the future, through interactive, graphics-based digital tools.

Yesterday’s report by the American Association for the Advancement of Science was, at its heart, a “We’re scientists, so listen to what we say” effort. In contrast, the initiative launched by the White House today treats people like grownups and gives them powerful tools to learn for themselves what’s happening. And unlike the AAAS report, its ultimate goal is to take full advantage of the power of digital technology — and visual communication — to empower people to plan for a future of climate change.

I’ve only had time to scratch the surface of the new web site. But so far, I’m impressed. And I know that it will be helpful in my future reporting on climate change.

To offer just one example, the web site offers access to an online, interactive tool from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that allows users to select a county and get a quick snapshot of its demographics, infrastructure and environment within flood zones. The results include a floodplain map, and graphics showing the overall population in floodplains, as well as the population over 65 years of age and in poverty that live in these areas, along with a plethora of other useful statistics and information.

I’ll be poking around the new site in coming days, and I may come back with an update on what I find.

View the original article here

[News Focus] Climate Change: In the Hot Seat

Science 8 November 2013:
Vol. 342 no. 6159 pp. 688-689
DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6159.688 Climate Change Climate Change For climate scientists, extreme weather is risky territory. There is no question that global warming is real, but the science linking any one hurricane, drought, or flood to climate change is shaky. And yet laypeople, politicians, and activists inevitably seize on vivid, easy-to-grasp weather events to make points about abstract, long-term climate. But climate researchers aren't giving up. With more research and new methods for gauging the links between climate change and weather, they may be able to answer the "Is this climate change?" question on the spot—and turn extreme weather events into moments of teachable science.

View the original article here

U.N. scientists aim to pitch climate case to widest audience

1 of 2. Sweden's Environment Minister Lena Ek and Thomas Stocker, a member of an United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), attend an IPCC meeting in Stockholm September 23, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Bertil Enevag Ericson/Scanpix

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

STOCKHOLM | Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:03pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A U.N. panel of global climate scientists were set to work through Thursday night to ensure that their strongest case yet for man-made global warming would make sense to the widest possible audience.

Drafts show that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set to pronounce that most of the warming of the Earth's surface since the 1950s is "extremely likely" -- at least 95 percent probable -- to be man-made. At its last meeting in 2007, it put the probability at 90 percent, and in 2001 it was 66 percent.

The 30-page summary that the IPCC produces, the first of four about global warming in the coming year, is intended to be the main point of reference on the science of climate change for governments trying to develop their response to global warming.

Delegates said the tone was constructive, with countries urging better explanation of scientific findings, not challenging them as the basis for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of the discussions were about how best to describe a world set to suffer more heatwaves, downpours and floods as well as higher sea levels as temperatures rose, they said.

"The tone is surprisingly good," one delegate said, speaking on condition of anonymity since the meeting is behind closed doors. "It's all about: 'Can't we write this sentence more clearly?'."

The document, which will also seek to explain a slowdown in the pace of warming this century, is meant to be presented in Stockholm on Friday at 10 a.m. (0400 ET).

At one point on Thursday, originally meant to be the fourth and final day of the negotiations, a display at the meeting showed that 85 percent of the time had elapsed but only 55 percent of the work had been done, one delegate said.

WARMING SLOWING

Some countries also wanted to stress that it was also "virtually certain", or at least 99 percent probable, that natural variations in the climate were not the sole cause.

Still, skeptics have said a slowing of the pace of warming this century, after fast gains in the 1980s and 1990s, is a sign that global warming may not be as urgent a problem as previously believed. The IPCC report slightly cuts the likely warming impact of a build-up of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.

Scenarios in the drafts predict the hiatus will not last, however, and that temperatures will rise by between 0.3 C (0.5F) and 4.8 degrees Celsius (8.6 Fahrenheit) this century. The lower end of the range will only be possible with emissions cuts deeper than anything that major economies have said they are prepared to tolerate.

The report will face extra scrutiny after the IPCC made errors in its 2007 report, including an exaggeration of the melt rate of Himalayan glaciers. An outside review of the IPCC found that the mistake did not affect its main conclusions.

Almost 200 governments have agreed in principle to limit global warming to a maximum rise of 2 degrees C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and have promised to work out a U.N. deal to limit their emissions accordingly by the end of 2015.

Separately, an academic study said people reacted best to the challenge of climate change if it was not presented as doom and gloom.

"The best way to encourage environmentally friendly behavior is to emphasize the long life expectancy of a nation, not its imminent downfall," according to the study of 131 nations led by NYU Stern Professor Hal Hershfield.

Over the next year, the IPCC will issue three more reports, about the impacts of climate change around the world, the possible solutions, and finally a summary of all the findings.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle)

View the original article here

Reforms urged to make UN climate reports shorter, more focused

1 of 14. A truck engine is tested for pollution exiting its exhaust pipe as California Air Resources field representatives (unseen) work a checkpoint set up to inspect heavy-duty trucks traveling near the Mexican-U.S. border in Otay Mesa, California September 10, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Blake

By Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle

OSLO | Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:03am EDT

OSLO (Reuters) - Climate experts on a U.N. panel should focus more on shorter reports on specialist subjects such as extreme weather in a shift from sweeping overviews of the kind being prepared this week in Stockholm, many scientists and governments say.

The big studies about global warming, produced every six or seven years by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), are authoritative but are time-consuming and in some cases are quickly out of date.

"A blockbuster every six years is no longer really helpful," said professor Myles Allen of Oxford University and among the authors who contributed to an IPCC summary of the findings that is due for presentation in Stockholm on Friday.

Many experts instead favor more frequent and targeted reports, for instance about droughts, floods and heatwaves in the preceding year, to see if climate change is influencing their frequency or severity.

A focus for special reports could be food production in a changing climate, the prospects for geoengineering - for instance, projects to dim sunlight - or the risks of irreversible changes such as a runaway melt of West Antarctica.

The IPCC is working on three overview reports totaling about 3,000 pages, starting with a 31-page draft summary of the science of climate change due to be released in Stockholm on Friday after four days of editing by governments and scientists.

GEORGIA

A big strength of the IPCC is that its assessments of the climate are approved both by scientists and by governments - giving the findings broad acceptance in negotiations on a U.N. deal to fight climate change, due to be agreed by 2015. Possible reforms will be discussed at talks in Georgia in October.

"I support the global assessment cycle, but would strongly argue for the need to complement it with frequent updates," said Johan Rockstrom, director of the Stockholm Resilience Center.

Drafts of the Stockholm report show that the IPCC is set to raise the probability that most climate change since the 1950s is man-made to "extremely likely", or at least 95 percent, from "very likely" or 90 percent, in 2007.

Many nations including the United States, in submissions this year to the IPCC about reforms, also argue for more special reports. In recent years the IPCC has produced reports on extreme weather and on renewable energies.

Britain suggests using Web-based "wiki" type tools that could allow more frequent updates. Italy says that there is "no automatic need" for another blockbuster report about the science of climate change, like the one in Stockholm.

One problem is that IPCC assessments are quickly out of date. Scientists trying, for instance, to account for a "hiatus" in the pace of global warming this century are only allowed to consider peer-reviewed literature from before mid-March 2013.

Scientists who contribute to the IPCC work for free.

It means prestige - the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize - but also criticism, for instance after the IPCC exaggerated the pace of the thaw of Himalayan glaciers in 2007 by projecting they might all vanish by 2035.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle; editing by Ralph Boulton)

View the original article here

Faculty Discuss Pending Climate Change Regulations

In an attempt to address global changes in climate, the Obama administration plans to use the Clean Air Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The first set of proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations -- aimed at reducing power plants' carbon emissions -- is due by Sept. 20.

In a live webcast conversation at 1:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 16, three Duke scholars will preview the legal, political, environmental and economic implications of the proposed regulations.

Watch the "Office Hours" conversation live on Duke's YouTube channel. To pose a question to the participants, post it on Twitter with the hashtag #dukelive or email it to live@duke.edu.

Participating in the conversation will be Jonas Monast, director of the Climate and Energy Program at Duke's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions; Robert Brenner a senior fellow at the Nicholas Institute; and Jonathan Wiener, the William R. and Thomas L. Perkins Professor of Law at Duke Law School.

In announcing this summer his intention to use the Clean Air Act to limit greenhouse gas emissions, President Obama said, "For the sake of our children, and the health and safety of all Americans, I'm directing the Environmental Protection Agency to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants, and complete new pollution standards for both new and existing power plants."

The Duke researchers will comment on what to look for in the EPA's upcoming proposal, what the regulations could mean for long-term climate policy and what technological innovations might affect climate change.

"Office Hours" is a live webcast series for the university community and others to engage with Duke scholars and their research. Watch archived episodes on YouTube or iTunes.

Go to the gallery
View Videos, Slideshows & More

View the original article here

[Research Article] Annually Resolved Ice Core Records of Tropical Climate Variability Over the Past ~1800 Years

L. G. Thompson1,2,*, E. Mosley-Thompson1,3, M. E. Davis1, V. S. Zagorodnov1, I. M. Howat1,2, V. N. Mikhalenko4, P.-N. Lin1

1Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.

2School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.

3Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.

4Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia. ?*Corresponding author. E-mail: thompson.3{at}osu.eduIce cores from low latitudes can provide a wealth of unique information about past climate in the tropics, but they are difficult to recover and few exist. Here, we report annually resolved ice core records from the Quelccaya ice cap (5670 masl) in Peru which extend back ~1800 years and provide a high-resolution record of climate variability there. Oxygen isotopic ratios (d18O) are linked to sea-surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific, while concentrations of ammonium and nitrate document the dominant role played by the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in the region of the tropical Andes. Quelccaya continues to retreat and thin: Radiocarbon dates on wetland plants exposed along its retreating margins indicate it has not been smaller for at least six millennia.

Received for publication 18 December 2012. Accepted for publication 21 March 2013.

View the original article here

[Editorial] Climate Change Conversations

Science 5 April 2013:
Vol. 340 no. 6128 p. 9
DOI: 10.1126/science.1238241 Bassam Z. Shakhashiri1,*, Jerry A. Bell2,†

1Bassam Z. Shakhashiri holds the William T. Evjue Distinguished Chair for the Wisconsin Idea and is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. He was president of the American Chemical Society in 2012.

2Jerry A. Bell is an emeritus professor in the Department of Chemistry at Simmons College, Boston, MA, and chair of the American Chemical Society's presidential working group on climate science. ?*E-mail: bassam{at}chem.wisc.edu. ?†E-mail: j_bell{at}acs.org. CREDITS: (LEFT) BRYCE RICHTER/UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS, UW-MADISON; (RIGHT) SEAN PARSONS/AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY The thousands of presentations at next week's meeting of The American Chemical Society (ACS) in New Orleans exemplify one of the many ways scientists converse among themselves about the most recent advances in science. Science and technology continue to reshape the world we live in, and appreciating how these changes, both intended and unintended, come about is a necessity for all citizens in a democratic society. Scientists have a responsibility to help their fellow citizens understand what science and technology can and cannot do for them.

Communicating the science of climate change provides one example where the scientific community must do more. Climate change affects everyone, so everyone should understand why the climate is changing and what it means for them, their children, and generations to follow. Scientists are already members of groups that can facilitate this communication: neighborhoods, school boards, religious groups, service clubs, political organizations, and so on. These groups present opportunities to engage in respectful conversations on climate change and on the policies and actions that individuals, communities, and nations might take to mitigate and adapt to what is happening to our planet.

CREDIT: DAVID JONES/ISTOCKPHOTO We know that the concentrations of greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are higher and increasing faster than at any time in the past 1 million years.* The average temperature of Earth is increasing, ice is melting, oceans are acidifying, and extreme weather events are more frequent. Human activities, principally the combustion of fossil fuels, are a major source of greenhouse gases and a major driver of climate change. To share this knowledge with the public and be credible as a “scientist-citizen,” a scientist must acquire a good grasp of the science of climate change.

In recent years, U.S. scientific institutions and societies, including the National Academies, Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and American Institute of Physics have prepared Web-based materials on the science of climate change suitable for communicating with the public.† Last year, the ACS released a Climate Science Toolkit on greenhouse gases, atmospheric and planetary warming, and Earth's energy balance, among other topics.‡ The Toolkit provides a succinct intellectual foundation at an introductory level that can be a guide to more extensive resources. Some of the materials are in forms (such as slide shows) that scientists may use to present this subject to the public, and there is a series of brief narratives designed to help scientists initiate informal conversations with others. Implicit in this resource is the message that the world must make adaptations to changes that have already occurred and that reducing emissions is required to avoid a warmer planet. Scientist-citizens can stress how lifestyle decisions that reduce energy consumption are actually meaningful steps. Supporting elected officials who promote policies and practices aimed to decrease the effects of global warming is another step that individuals and citizens' groups should take.

F. Sherwood Rowland was a central figure in the late–20th-century controversy about the effect of chlorofluorocarbons on stratospheric ozone. For years, he engaged audiences ranging from students to members of the U.S. Congress. As an exemplary scientist-citizen, his focus eventually led to the worldwide ban on these compounds. Rowland spoke to all scientist-citizens when he asked: “Isn't it the responsibility of scientists, if you believe that you have found something that can affect the environment, isn't it your responsibility to do something about it, enough so that action actually takes place?…If not us, who? If not now, when?”§

We pose these same questions and ask you to join the conversations now.

View the original article here