Climate Change, Communicating

Climate change is an urgent problem. Climatologists describe climate change as the biggest challenge [Page 142]humans have ever faced and warn that we must respond immediately to the threat if we are to avert its worst consequences. Effective communication is necessary to generate such a response, but there are significant barriers to overcome, given both the complexity of the science and the volatile current message environment, with its high levels of partisanship, purposeful disinformation, and public misunderstanding. These obstacles can and must be successfully addressed if communicators are to educate and engage the public in the policy solutions and the personal behavior changes that will help to avert the threat.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that without dramatic reductions in our carbon emissions, human civilization faces a future of greatly increased flooding, droughts, crop failures, extreme weather events, mass extinctions, and the displacement of millions of people. (The IPCC is an international body of scientists convened in 1988 by the United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization to review and summarize the relevant literature on climate change.) Climate change is inevitable—and indeed, is already occurring—but the worst effects can still be mitigated with appropriate public policies and widespread adoption of personal and commercial actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Informing the public about the urgency of the issue and educating them about the policy options and personal and commercial means for responding is a challenging task for communicators given the following barriers:

• Public understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change is not high, nor is awareness of the methods that can mitigate its effects.
• Action has been hampered by political partisanship and industry disinformation campaigns.
• Principles of fairness in news coverage have given a far greater voice to the handful of skeptics than is merited by either their numbers or their evidence, and publication of their views has fostered a widespread perception in the public of scientific controversy where none actually exists.
• The issue remains a low policy priority for most Americans and is likely to remain so until the perception of controversy is overcome and people clearly understand both the dangers we face and the actions we must take to avert the dangers.

Global bodies, most prominently the IPCC, have been calling for immediate and dramatic cuts in carbon emissions. Although the United States delayed action for much of the last decade, both the Obama administration and Congress have begun taking major steps to reduce U.S. emissions through legislation, regulation, and stimulus spending.

The public response to these initiatives has been generally positive, given that recognition of the danger is growing. In the fall of 2008, a majority of Americans believed that every level of government should be doing more to address climate change. Over two thirds believed that climate change is occurring, and about a third saw it as a threat to them and their families—even while they believed climate scientists are still divided. Half expressed the belief that humans could reduce global warming but that it is unclear at this point whether we will do what is needed. Of those who believed both positive and negative outcomes will follow from national action to reduce global warming, over 90% believed that the nation should take action, in spite of their concerns.

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