New report on climate change communication

Here’s a link to a report that was just issued after a study commissioned by the government in the UK. It tries to provide an answer to the question you’re looking at: The evidence on climate change is overwhelming, but half of the people won’t acknowledge that it’s real. The problem clearly is not with the science; it’s in the communication. So what’s to be done? Like the solution suggested in the Chris Mooney piece, the report sees the problem as one of “framing.” It divides people using different words than Kahan uses, but there’s a lot of overlap. It says that to get the right on board, we need to appeal to “intergenerational issues,” community well-being (and very local effects of climate change), energy security, opportunities for economic growth in green industries, and protecting “the good life.” So screw the polar bears; let's make some bucks.

http://talkingclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/COIN-A-new-conversation-with-the-centre-right-about-climate-change.pdf

bob

CALL FOR SUMMIT ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The Ecological Society of America has joined the Society for Conservation Biology, the American Meteorological Society and three other scientific societies in a letter to President Obama, requesting that the White House convene a national summit on climate change.

"A considerable number of organizations have now called for a climate change summit and the recent draft report of the National Climate Assessment underscores the need for high-level attention to this issue," the letter says.

Several media outlets reported on the communication, including The Hill, E&E Daily, and climatecentral.org which ended with a quote from ESA's president: "We're ready to help," said Scott Collins, president of the Ecological Society of America and a professor at the University of New Mexico. "Just let us know what [we] can do." 

The climatecentral.org story is here: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/science-groups-push-obama-for-national-summit-on-climate-change-15571

 The letter to Obama is available here: http://www.conbio.org/images/content_policy/2013-2-8_Presidential_Climate_Science-Policy_Summit_Letter.pdf

There also apparently was an effort last fall to ask Obama to convene a climate change summit, and there is information about that here:

http://www.climatesummit2013.org/home

This earlier petition effort has apparently closed, and I see no way in the online information to endorse the most recent call by the six scientific societies for a climate summit, so anyone wanting to tell the president, "I agree! Do it!" would have to write an individual email to the White House. The address is here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments

bob

How the world's religions can help

Since we're thinking this week about religion and environmental issues like climate change, I wanted to point folks at a you tube video I ran across several months ago in which Martin Palmer, secretary general of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, talks to the World Wildlife Fund and explains why he thinks it's really, really stupid for conservation organizations like the WWF to ignore the world's religions as they try to address the many difficult issues before us all. Palmer's a Brit and a really funny guy in an understated British way, and the 23-minute video is very amusing but also very informative.

bob