Research Comms Podcast: Sam Illingworth on how to communicate the science of climate change
“How can you talk about climate change without getting angry? Or without getting upset? It’s just not possible.” Scientist and science communicator, Dr Sam Illingworth, on scientists being allowed to have emotions.
In this week’s episode of Research Comms I welcome back old friend of the podcast, Sam Illingworth: scientist, science communicator and poet. Sam communicates all kinds of STEM topic but specialises in environmental science and he was recently involved with the research, writing and publication of a report exploring how climate specialists are communicating the issue of climate change and global warming to the UK public.
It is a fascinating read and I was keen to catch up with Sam as soon as he got back from COP24 in Poland to talk about the report’s findings and recommendations.
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The below is a short excerpt. For the full interview download the podcast.
With things like the IPC report that came out saying that we've only got 12 years really turned things around, these kinds of things seem to have made people more aware. Was that something that was reflected at COP24? What was the atmosphere like this year?
I'm always conscious of echo chambers, when I look on social media, I'm like, all people are really reacting to climate change, but then, then when you look for example, in the UK, at the Tabloid press and you see the reporting on record British heat waves, but not connecting that to global warming, that’s for me where there's this huge disconnect.
I think going to a conference where that's the main topic, obviously if you went there and people didn't care about it, it'd be quite strange. I'm always really conscious, from my own work and my own research working with traditionally underserved audiences, I just don't think there's necessarily an awareness, especially amongst vulnerable communities. And I also worry that there's approaching an apathy on the subject.
You know, there's a really amazing study done by the Yale climate lab from 2016, where they talked to representatives of every state in America. They interviewed the selective sample asking, what do you think about climate change? Do you think that climate change is happening and is global warming happening and 70% of Americans thought that global warming is happening. Interestingly only 53% thought it was anthropogenic. But then what's really interesting is that only 40% think it will harm them personally. So that's the disconnect, right? Because the same study found that then 33% of them discuss global warming, at least occasionally with friends and family. That study gets to the heart of the issue that if 70% think that global warming is happening, but only 33% discuss it. I mean, that's the problem.
Have you listened to these other episodes of the Research Comms podcast?
You contributed to the creation of a report about Communicating Climate Change. Can you share a key message from the report?
One of the key findings of the report, is that it's okay for scientists to have opinions. I think as scientists, we're taught at such an early age we have to present cold, hard facts, and we can't show any degree of pathos. And I just think that's such BS. I think that when you're, when you're conducting research you have to be objective. But when you communicate it, how can you talk about climate change and global warming without getting angry or without getting upset?
I think that what happens is that if you're a non-scientist and you see a scientist delivering cold, hard facts, there's a disconnect there. And what it does is it puts a greater distance between science and society. Whereas actually scientists are part of society. Just because I researched climate change and global warming, does it mean that I am not affected by climate change and global warming? I think that that disconnect and that lack of pathos, especially when we think about the extent to which the climate change deniers use pathos means that we're setting ourselves up for a fall.
It is okay to show emotion, that needs to be underpinned by the logic, the logical argument, and the objectivity that you have in your research, but when presenting it and talking about it, something that I think all scientists should and could do, is just talk from the heart. And that doesn't require training.
You mentioned that part of the report involved conducting workshops with under-served audiences - what insights did you gain by doing that?
One of the most interesting things to come out of that part of the research was that these audiences actually present as many opportunities as they do challenges. So to take maybe a non-obvious example - the faith communities. One might argue that faith communities aren't vulnerable, but they're certainly under-served when it comes to engaging with scientists on climate change and, and publication. And, you know, there's a variety of reasons for that. But in this study, we had discussions with various leaders of faith communities and there was incredible congruence between what the scientists were trying to achieve and what the faith leaders are trying to achieve, because there's this sense of shared stewardship.
There are an abundance of strategies for effective communication, but what emerged as particularly impactful?
Almost everybody we interviewed and talked to agreed that using creative methods, such as visual arts and storytelling, and poetry, are effective ways of engaging different audiences. I think the arts has such a huge role to play in this. There are already amazing organisations - like invisible dust, like arts catalyst - who do a lot of work around this.
For scientists to involve artists in that process is really important. This focus on dialogue and co-production was really important. There was a quote that came out from some qualitative research of: tell me, I’ll forget; show me, I'll remember; involve me, I’ll understand. And certainly, working with the traditional underserved audiences, it's not a box ticking exercise. We need diversity because if we don't have diversity, there's only going to be one way of looking at how I solve this problem. Making it genuinely two way is the only way we're going to come up with how to implement change and how to sustain change. By engaging in dialogue, by working with people, they have ownership.
Research Comms is presented by Peter Barker, director of Orinoco Communications, a digital communications and content creation agency that specialises in helping to communicate research. Find out how we’ve helped research organisations like yours by taking a look at past projects…
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