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Yoda and Susan Joy Hassol have two things in common. As Susan points out, both are short and both have experience and insights that others can benefit from.
During her talk at the Tri-Agency Climate Education meeting (which I’ve been blogging at here and here) Susan, who has a consulting firm in Boulder called Climate Communication, encouraged everyone interested in effective climate-related communications to pay close attention to what and how we communicate. Only 18% of people in the U.S. know a scientist, yet scientists are well respected, with an 80% approval.
In her efforts to help train a cadre of Jedi Knights to more effectively convey the basics of climate, she stresses emphasizing what people care about and help them understand how climate change will affect them.
For many scientists, effective communication to non-technical audiences (pretty much anyone who isn’t a peer in their particular line of research) goes against the grain of everything they’ve been trained to do.
Some basic principles: when asked whether a particular weather event is related to climate change, rather than give the traditional “we can’t attribute any single event to climate change,” it’s much more effective to reframe or rephrase the question and say: “Here’s what we know: there’s 4% more water vapor in the atmosphere than there was in 1970, and heavy precipitation events are increasing– 20% overall in the U.S., but 58% in the Northeast.” (Susan was involved with the US Global Change Research Program’s National Assessment, which are often overlooked treasure-troves of solid science that is fairly accessible. On a related note, here’s a report on precipitation in the NE.)
Other tips: people can’t do math in their heads, so do it for them. Use analogies and find creative ways to help people visualize the order of magnitude. Don’t lead with what you don’t know (a traditional scientific tactic to put “uncertainties” up front.) It confuses people and can come across as not knowing what you are talking about.
Most importantly, avoid using jargon and acronyms, or words that many have a different meaning to those who fluent in climate-speak. I’ll include a summary of some of these tricky words in Part II.
