What’s your 30-second elevator pitch?
This is a re-post from the blog of Scott Mandia, a meteorologist and Professor of Physical Sciences who helped launch the Climate Science Rapid Response Team.
Mandia asks at the end “Do you have a 30 second elevator ride distilled message?“ Love to hear your answers to that in the comments.
Alan Alda Brings Passion for Communicating Science to Brookhaven Lab
The science of climate change and even the scientists themselves are under attack from a well-orchestrated and well-oiled misinformation campaign. The best defense against this anti-science offensive is to make sure that the correct message reaches a wide audience. Chris Mooney & Sheril Kirshenbaum in their book Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future explain that scientists have failed to get their message across for a variety of reasons but mostly because we are not engaging the public on their turf. After reading that book, I became a climate change science education advocate with my Global Warming: Man or Myth? Website, this blog, and more recently a Facebook Fan Group called Global Warming Fact of the Day. I have two small children and I do not like the future that I see for them or for their children in a human-driven warmer world. As I travel the blogosphere and as I watch television, it is quite apparent that Moody & Kirshenbaum are on to something. Scientists have fallen quite short of being the expert communicators that they must be for no less a reason than our future is at stake. Obviously we have much to learn.
I was fortunate enough to recently attend the Communicating Science Workshop sponsored by Stony Brook University Center and Brookhaven National Laboratory where Alan Alda gave the keynote address. The agenda for the workshop can be viewed here. Participants were able to attend three breakout sessions. I attended the following: Distilling Your Message, Using Newer Media, and Interacting with the Media. I came away from this workshop with many valuable tips and tricks to be a better science communicator and I will use this blog post to share these gems with you.
Alan Alda
Well, we all know he is a famous actor. He won six Emmys for his role as Hawkeye on M.A.S.H. and he has starred in countless film and television movies. What I did not realize is how passionate he is about communicating science.
According to the Center for Communicating Science Web site:
Alda, the longtime host of PBS’ “Scientific American Frontiers” and a passionate advocate for solid popular science, has been leading an innovative effort to help scientists connect better with the public. Through the Center for Communicating Science, Mr. Alda has been teaching science graduate students to play improvisational theater games. The goal is not to turn them into actors, but to free them to talk about their work more spontaneously and directly, and to connect personally with their audience. Early reports from students say the workshops helped them in teaching, defending a thesis, and simply explaining their research to people outside their fields.
Alan spoke to a packed house and began his story by telling us that he used to sneak into his neighbor’s garage as a kid to build motors. When he went to high school, it was understood that one could either go into the sciences or into the arts. These areas were thought to be mutually exclusive ala C.P. Snow’s The Two Cultures. Because he chose art he was not exposed to the “language” of science even though he always had the curiosity for science. While in his 20′s he began to read Scientific American and started to learn this language. In his words he said “the magazine spoke to my curiosity.”
One day, he was asked if he would like to host Scientific American Frontiers, the television companion to the magazine. Alan told the producers that he did not want to just introduce the scientists but he wanted to instead have a real conversation with the guests. The show was a huge success because the audience saw Alan really trying to understand the science and Alan was not shy about saying “I don’t get it.” Because the show was essentially a conversation with an “ordinary person”, the scientists were more relaxed, spoke in a simpler language, and their true passion for the science was observed by all. Alan remarked that he did his best work on that show! Quite a surprise given the long track record of Alda’s accomplishments in acting.
Alan then segued into how to effectively communicate science today in three major areas:
1. Public at large: He stated that “The public is on a blind date with science.” Neither side really knows much about the other and both need to put their best side forward right away or the date is over. He lamented the fact that twice as many Americans believe in the devil than in the theory of evolution. Evolution needs to be presented as more compelling than the devil if we wish to keep “dating”.
2. Policy-makers: When requesting funds or summoned to explain the science that may drive policy, scientists often forget that their audience does not understand science jargon. Science cannot progress if these folks do not understand the value of the science and therefore nix the funding that drives it. Alan said metaphorically that it is typical for these scientists to “tell us who the killer is before we even know that there has been a murder! Talk about the murder, the blind alleys along the way and how the murderer was finally apprehended. Tell us the story and not just about the data!”
3. With other scientists: Scientists all have jargon specific to their discipline and often forget that when speaking to other scientists from outside their arena, they are likely losing their audience in the discussion. (Climate science is probably the best example of where we need to communicate better between the hundreds of disciplines that supply the missing pieces in the climate change puzzle.)
Alda then told the audience that his greatest dream is that communication skills, both verbal and written, become a core part of every science curriculum instead of an “extra” that gets little merit. He used a wonderful analogy to highlight the problem. When humans speak, we look at each other in the eye and ask “look at me, do you get it, do you get it?” When a mother chimp teachers her child how to get bugs out of a hole in a tree, she sticks in the tool, gets a bug, and then eats it. All the while the baby chimp watches what she is doing intently but never looks at the mother. Alan told the audience “be less like chimps and more like humans!”
Alan then wrapped up his talk by comparing science to “the three stages of love: lust, infatuation, and commitment”. Lust is what humans feel immediately when viewing somebody attractive. We send signals and pick up on body and voice tone. Nobody is ever in lust with a “lecture”. Alan wants scientists to get out of our lecture mode and begin showing their passion by telling our story. Next is infatuation. He told us that research shows that anything that evokes emotion will cause remembrance. Again, scientists need to reveal their passion in order to evoke emotion with their audience to get the science “sticky”. Finally there is commitment – recognizing the value of information. When this point is reached, listening to one other becomes second nature and we are able to figure out what the other person is thinking. For science, this is the long-term goal. Can the public and scientists become committed to one another? This can only happen after the first two stages are achieved.
Q&A: “Who Cares What the Public Thinks about Science?”
Following Alda’s talk was a panel discussion moderated by Howard Schneider, the founding dean of the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University and co-Chair of the steering committee of the Center for Communicating the Science. For more than 35 years Schneider was a reporter and editor at Newsday.
The panelists included:
David Conover, Dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook, fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Institute, which provides communications training for scientists. Conover is co-Chair of the steering committee of the Center for Communicating the Science.
Cornelia Dean, former science editor of The New York Times, author of the new book for scientists, Am I Making Myself Clear, seminar leader in science communication at Harvard University.
Joanna Fowler, Director of Radiotracer Chemistry, Instrumentation and Biological Imaging Program at Brookhaven Lab, and 2009 recipient of the National Medal of Science.
Earl Lane, senior communications officer for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and former science reporter for Newsday.
Christie Nicholson, contributing editor to Scientific American online, specialist in new media, faculty member of the Banff Centre Science Communications program.
Schneider began the Q&A session by telling the audience about the George Mason University study A National Survey Of Television Meteorologists About Climate Change: Preliminary Findings that found that most television weather forecasters and many meteorologists are skeptical about climate change and some even believe global warming is a hoax. (I blogged on this topic back on February 26, 2010 with my post You Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows so it was no surprise to me but the audience let out an audible gasp!)
The first question was “So who is at fault?”
The panel concluded that scientists need to engage the public more and they need to connect by using the correct language. There is no incentive for scientists to learn communications skills and these skills are not part of the curriculum, reinforcing Alan Alda’s unrealized dream. Many children and young adults have enthusiasm for science early in their education but these brightest of students often end up becoming lawyers, getting MBA’s, etc., essentially following the money instead of their early passion. Therefore the attitude about science must be changed so that it can compete. The panelists also noted that with a shortage of excellent science teachers there are fewer opportunities to “spark” interest in children. In some cases in more rural areas, science teachers are often plucked out of other disciplines due to a staffing shortage.
The second question was “Is the news media at fault?”
Cornelia Dean replied that the NY Times had some of the best science writers in the world and they often struggled with the science. If these folks do not get it, then how can the general public? Conover replied that although journalists are very good at distilling the message, scientists need to make clear, concise statements when speaking to the press. (See my last blog post and scroll down to Chapter 5 where author Foster laments how Dr. Phil Jones and Mojib Latif got into trouble because of choice of words.) Dean also commented that there is no reward for speaking to the press and often scientists can become “Saganized” by appearing too mainstream. (Astronomer Carl Sagan was snubbed by the scientific community after he became famous for his television appearances and his writing. This was a central theme in Unscientific America.) In a recent survey, only 3% of scientists routinely speak to the press and 75% state that they never speak to the press. Conover mentioned that when a few of his marine scientists began publicizing their work, they were somewhat ostracized by their science peers. Unfortunately, the Sagan Effect is still alive and well.
The third question was “So what can we do to get the correct message out?”
The panel concluded that scientists must respect the public more and that people are generally smarter than we think they are. Although smart, many have some pre-conceived prejudices that we must understand in order to effectively communicate. One of the best techniques is to have more town hall meetings and other types of face to face outreach. (Excellent examples include the S.C.C.C. Earth & Space Sciences Lecture Series provided freely to the public on a monthly basis during fall and spring and by Ammerman astronomy faculty collaboration with The Montauk Observatory.) The public needs to see that we are humans before we are scientists and that does not always come across on mass media, especially Web sites and blogs. Nicholson noted that with the Web, there is too much information for the average person to distill. She concluded that by telling an engaging story and using effective moderation perhaps the quality will rise to the top so the public will hear the correct message. (Are you getting the point yet that we need to be better storytellers?)
The last question was “If you had $50 million to spend how would you use it?”
Conover: Teach the teachers! This is the most effective way to reach the largest audience and where we can reach those that still have a wonder for the sciences.
Dean: Scientists must be required to assess the public impact of their research grants. She also would require communications training in curricula.
Lane: Organize an online site for science journalism similar to that of ProPublica to get the correct message out there at all times.
Fowler: Fund science education starting as early as kindergarten. Invest in science teachers and how to teach science courses so that their students and the general population will become a curious, innovative population.
Nicholson: Fund 3-4 day f2f sessions in the Bahamas using perhaps a lottery system. These sessions would bring ordinary citizens together with scientists similar to the TED talks. (This was my personal favorite and I volunteered to be one of the scientists!)
Workshop Synopsis
David Conover then presented a slideshow of bulleted items that will help scientists better communicate to the public. I tried my best to get all of his points here but I am sure I missed a few.
Distilling Your Message:
- Start with a take-home message. Let them know why they should care.
- Avoid the science jargon but do not “dumb it down”.
- Use drama and tell a story (d©j vu anyone?)
- Emphasize the discoveries and not the caveats.
- Connect it to people’s lives somehow.
- Do not be modest – be proud of your work and show it.
Beware the Curse of Knowledge:
- Once we know it, it becomes hard to imagine anybody else not knowing it.
- Experts use jargon without even realizing it because it is everyday language for them.
Beat the Curse:
- Know the audience.
- Wear their shoes.
- What is their world-view? (I tried this technique in my blog post How to Talk to a Conservative about Climate Change v.2)
- How do I connect?
- This is very hard and takes advance preparation.
How to Connect & Engage:
- Keep the message simple.
- Find a few core points/ideas and stick with them.
- Capture attention by emphasizing the unexpected.
- Display emotion.
- Use metaphors, analogy, stories, etc. (I use this technique often and I find it very effective. See A Conversation at a Poker Game and Consensus Isn’t Science? for a few of my examples.)
Conover then ended the slide show by showing a video where Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report tried in vain to derail physicist Brian Greene. Green remained on message because he was well-prepared, showed passion, had a few points to make, and was committed to making these points despite the constant deflections of Colbert.
Session #1: Distilling the Message
The first breakout session I attended was hosted by Rick Firstman, a veteran science journalist from Newsday and currently teaching at Stony Brook’s School of Journalism and at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Rick asked each person to describe what they do and why it is important. He then asked us to imagine that we were in an elevator with one other person. “Tell the person who you are, what you do, and why it is important and do it in 30 seconds or less.” Here is what I came up with:
My name is Scott Mandia. I am a meteorologist who has been teaching weather and climate courses at Suffolk County Community College for nineteen years. My current passion is educating the general public about the dangers of climate change. Humans are causing global warming, every credible international scientific body supports that view, and most experts believe that global warming is the greatest threat to humanity in this century and beyond. I am the father of two small children and I see a bleak future for them if I do not help to make people understand that all of us are in this together and we must all do our part to solve the problem. The beauty is that saving the planet is also going to save us money, so it is a win-win scenario!
Session #2: Using Newer Media
This session appealed to me because I realize that it isn’t enough to have a Website or a blog. Those avenues require that visitors come to you. I want to be able to “push” the information to them. What is easier? Going to the store to get milk or having it delivered to your door? Websites and blogs are like going to the store. I have already set up a Facebook group called Global Warming Fact of the Day to deliver the “milk” but I figured there were more avenues to explore.
The Conversation PrismChristie Nicholson hosted this session. She began by showing us The Conversation Prism, the Art of Listening, Learning, and Sharing.
I never realized how many ways there are out there to tell the story!
Here is what I took away from this exciting session:
- Google has tools such as Google Blogs to search blogs and Google Trends to show what is hot right now.
- When getting the message out, write “visually” – paint the picture. For example, describe rolling up the sleeve before taking the shot instead of just taking the shot.
- Audio, especially a pod cast, is a very effective tool for getting out the message and the science area is very thin right now. I will be looking into pod casting.
- Twitter is probably the best way to quickly get information to many people. Before this session I resisted Twitter because I thought it was just people telling other people about mundane aspects of their lives. Now I realize that this is another way to deliver the milk! I signed up to Twitter the next day and am now twittering my Global Warming Fact of the Day factoids and other bits of climate change information. Twitter me at http://twitter.com/AGW_Prof
- Interactive sites are desperate for data. They need scientists to provide that data. We have an opening if we take it.
The highlight of this session was that John Cook of Skeptical Science was hailed as somebody who was doing science messaging the right way! I have been a huge supporter of John’s work and it is nice to here a new media expert brag about him. Kudos to you, John!
Session #3: Interacting with the Media
This session was hosted by Leandra Reilly, adjunct professor of communications at Hofstra University and the first woman to have done play by play at an NBA game. Each participant was treated to a crash-course in “the television interview” followed by a five to six minute taped interview. We then watched the tape back and Leandra offered constructive criticism. I have to say that my group did very well which gives me great hope. After this session, I feel much better prepared to be interviewed on television.
Here are some of the many take-home points from this session.
- Expect discomfort at the ear piece, wiring, and other technical equipment and forget about it. Worry comes across on TV.
- Make sure that you look presentable before you get “strapped into the chair”. Check for “bad hair” because hair that is sticking up will be all that the viewers will be looking at.
- Solid colors for wardrobe to avoid the Moir© pattern.
- Relax, sit on jacket so shoulder pads do not rise up, point knees slightly toward the side, shoulders always forward. Ladies wear sturdy blouse so weight of the microphone doesn’t result in cleavage being revealed.
- Always have a pleasant, natural smile – do not force a smile.
- Opening mouth wider when speaking forces one to talk more slowly. (Try it!)
- Keep answers to 15 seconds!
- Always look at the interviewer regardless of camera position.
- Avoid silence fillers such as um, ok, well, etc. Editors can remove silence easier than fillers.
- Always ask these questions:
- What is the topic?
- Who else will be there?
- How long is the interview?
- When and where will this be airing? (Results from your research that are now unavailable may be available later)
- Who is doing the interview? (Do the research on this person so you may know what is coming regarding tactics and style of the interviewer.)
I need to work on keeping my eyebrows from rising every time I make a point. Leandra called that “eyebrow hiking”.
Wrap Up
The few die-hards that remained for the post-workshop wrap-up were told that Alan Alda thought that the people in the sessions he visited were already very involved in getting out the message and their excitement about learning to become better communicators was readily apparent. The next workshop will be hosted by SUNY at Stony Brook on May 14 with the next workshop on May 24 at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Howard Schneider left us with this pearl:
Remember that you are like sports writers whose readers don’t understand baseball.
I would love to hear your thoughts about how we can become better communicators.
Do you have a 30 second elevator ride distilled message? If not, make one now. If so, please feel free to post it in the comments below.
What innovative ways are you using to get your message out to the public in a language they understand?
- Scott Mandia is a Professor of Physical Sciences at Suffolk County Community College, Long Island, NY. Mandia holds an M.S. Meteorology from Penn State University and a B.S. Meteorology from University of Lowell (now called UMass – Lowell). Mandia has been teaching introductory meteorology and paleoclimatology courses for 23 years.
Related Post:
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
I’d check with Richard Alley.
Yes, Alley was awesome, during his Congressional testimony.
My best short pitch I got off of this blog. It’s Ken Caldiera’s claim that burning a ton of fossil fuel produces thousands of times more greenhouse heating than its heat of combustion.
So, the side effects fossil fuel use outweigh the benefits by thousands of times.
Most people can get this one, I think.
But a single source is not good enough for this calculation. This calculation should be done, hundreds of times by hundreds of independent sources. Certainly, this calculation of benefits versus side effects should be a part of the peer reviewed scientific literature.
This also explains how humans can be powerful enough to change the climate- the side effects are thousands of times greater than the benefits.
The best, most digestible resource for communicating climate change, in my opinion, is the guide published by Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions — The Psychology of Climate Change Communication: http://www.cred.columbia.edu/guide/
Leland’s post is exactly what I mean. The relationship is not linear with CO2 and the amount of radiation adsorbed. At the CO2 levels we are at now only the effect is reduced by nearly 50:1 due to saturation effects. The statement “thousands of times more” stated as a fact only weakens the argument for anthropological warming because is the blatantly false. If were true we would all be dead already. If we don’t understand the facts. We are only arguing politics.
[JR: You are quite wrong. Leland wrote of "Ken Caldiera’s claim that burning a ton of fossil fuel produces thousands of times more greenhouse heating than its heat of combustion." Actually, it is more than a claim. It is a published calculation: See new analysis explains “the burning of organic carbon warms the Earth about 100,000 times more from climate effects than it does through the release of chemical energy in combustion.” Please post your misinformation elsewhere.]
Me: “If I give you facts that counter to your world-view, are you going to have greater faith in my words as an expert in the field or those of your pastor?”
Other person: “My pastor, or course.”
Me: “Well, until you can learn to objectively weigh arguments that don’t fit nicely into your world-view, we’re done. I’d recommend you pray on the matter. Intellectual conflict is not something to run away from, and you will probably feel more confidant about your faith and better about yourself if you are able to have a more flexible world-view that relishes resolving such conflicts rather than dogmatically rejecting ideas that seem on the surface to be in opposition to your ideology.”
The unfortunate truth is that no matter how much we educate people in the sciences, once they leave academia their primary authoritative source is the pulpit. Heck, I’ve got acquaintances with advance degrees in the sciences that have an incredibly hard time overcoming their world-view filter.
Any good church leader will tell you that the secret to having a large flock is to hook the alpha sheep, such as the high-profile businessmen and doctors in town. Keeping these guys in the pews will make sure that come February, you can skimp on the heat because the church will be packed to the rafters. If you don’t fall in line with their ideology, which definitely tends towards the conservative, then you’ll either have a small church or get kicked out of the one you’re leading. Perhaps the only way to counter this is not to increase the scientific competencies of our graduates, as is often the refrain from scientists, but to work towards developing effective strategies for correlating how the science can fit in the world-view and if it does not, how a person can INDIVIDUALLY come to terms with opposing ideas. Sure, there are those who will not try to resolve the conflict. But for those that seek to resolve these conflicts, what resources are available to them that will help them? These are probably going to be younger folks, about a decade or less out of school. After that, well, good luck changing someones mind. A portion of the older crowd will change their mind, inasmuch as they are just following the crowd.
Tax carbon not income.
The most effective brief images of the effect of global warming that I’ve seen come in the BBC report on melting permafrost in Russia. Vast stretches of tundra that once were frozen year round are now ankle deep swamp lands. And they bubble with methane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKyRHDFKEXQ
In a comic turn worthy of Catskill Gaia, in one of the scene, a gas pipeline of Russian Gazprom has been bucked into the open by melting tundra.
In Russia, the government melts you.
Here is a discussion about this topic from Columbia University:
Communicating Climate Change Science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs_QYyyNvqU
Great resource.
Last night I had a conversation with my mom. She described some of her political beliefs as ‘physiological’ (maybe a Freudian slip). I was able to get very far with her on the science, if not the policy, because having read enough actual papers, I know that there are like *no* papers that disagree with AGW and those that deniers say do disagree actually *do*not*.
*She* knows that she needs science. She knows that if 98% of doctors say treat something or it will hurt more later, she should. She knows that our technology and way of life rely on science and scientists getting things right most of the time.
*I* know that we have spent billions of dollars over 30 years at the behest of deniers, delayers, and honest cautionary conservatives. I know that they were *paid* to try their best to disprove AGW, and they were unable to, being bound to follow their brains and the truth, just like most people are.
I know that if I were to continue to parley with my mom for an hour or 2 a day for a few weeks, she would fail and fail again to overturn the primary concepts that indicate danger from excessive (read “fossil fuel) CO2 emissions. I know that this is an important issue, because people are bothering to lie about it, and slander honest men and women for it. I know that it is *worth* us having a long-term discussion about it, and worth her seeing enough of the millions of billions of hours of evidence and reasoning that have built up over 30+ years to see that these 98% of climatologists have looked it from more angles than she can imagine.
I told my mom that if she was able to see something scientifically that the scientists were unable to, that she owed it to herself and God to get a PhD and join the scientific discussion. I told her that maybe if enough people are stirred by this to enter the profession, the cataclysm of a policy leading to energy efficiency and security can be avoided.
(This is probably exactly something that is happening, because of the all the interest and funding, but with results of course in the affirmative for AGW theory instead of negative.)
I will never win over my mom to an effective policy solution. But I know that whenever a denier claims that a scientist disagrees with the basic tenets of AGW, they are distorting their work. So, with enough in depth study with her (or whoever you’re trying to convince), I cannot lose that argument.
Be confident in arguing. Be genuinely disturbed and desperate that good men and women are being lied about, called lying conspirators themselves, deranged over-the-edge hippies, and psychotic communists.
As I said, the fundamentalists haters of government will never be turned to a policy solution. But you will still win the science argument. When faced with the danger, fundamentalist capitalists will still not want to do anything (unless someone on their side says it’s okay)–they’d actually rather have the pain and economic suffering. However, depending on how far toward that extreme they are, they will be able to talk with you about the problem and some crazy non-state solutions. As the public conversation accepts the clear danger, all the non-fundamentalists will part ways with the fundamentalists, and an environmental alliance will form as it has before.
Do not sell a policy solution to a market fundamentalist as anything but an income tax cut and pollution tax increase. Even that is next to impossible, so don’t try to hard. Just get them and everyone agreed on the science. Then hit everyone that doesn’t hate FDR down to their bone marrow with tax shift solution–tax pollution, not income. (Even though that particular solution may end up as a dividend check instead of a literal cut.)
Just a few ideas. Maybe I’ll post some more later.
When you want to transmit urgency or severity in an informal 1-on-1 conversation, don’t prepare a good phrase but rather lose yourself in finding it. The silence and the silence fillers will tell what no words can tell. (It’s absolutely, horrendously, terrifyingly, disastrously, apocalypticly, mind-bogglingly urgent… It’s [silence] – you know – how can I say? …just terrible! — which one is more convincing?)
Sometimes I say: “You couldn’t tell from looking at me but on the inside I’m a broken person. I’m utterly desperate.”
If you have 30 seconds, say “If things continue like this, both of us are likely going to die of hunger. Or from a nuclear attack or a pandemic. You’ll probably think I’m crazy. I know what I’m talking about, really. I’m not joking. Do you think I would want to take the risk of being considered a lunatic by all my friends and family if I weren’t 100% sure of this? I dare you to prove me wrong. – ding! – Do you want to bet your life on all of the world’s leading climate scientists being wrong? Think about it…”
or
“You know, some scientists by now are actually saying we’re past some of the tipping points and that there’s essentially no stopping to it but that doesn’t mean we have no power left to change the course of things. We’re now in the situation where, depending on what we do, we’re headed for either the worst catastrophe in the history of mankind – OR – the extinction of (nearly) all the species on the planet. So when you look at it from the perspective of the worst-case scenario, (which is that the earth would enter a state like Venus), things can only get better. – ding! – So, look on the bright side: we still have the power to prevent the definitve extermination of life on earth! So, let’s get at it! Say hello to your wife from me…”
But then… I usually take the stairs.
Global warming is real, and it is caused by humans. And that means humans can stop the warming if we act soon enough. If not, nature will take over, and will find another balance that or may may not include us.
A couple of months ago I unexpectedly found myself in exactly this situation. I went to my doctor, and the nurse who checked me in, took vitals, etc., noticed I was reading Heidi Cullen’s The Weather of the Future. (Everything about this woman screamed “insulated Republican who doesn’t care about anyone or anything but herself and her immediate family”.) It went like this:
Her: So, what’s the weather of the future going to be like?
Me: Thanks to global warming, hotter,
Her: Well, we could use a little more warmth around here. [Rochester, NY]
Me: Too bad it will get a lot hotter at the poles. Ice warms, it melts, and the water winds up flooding coastal cities and farmland around the world.
Her: It won’t get to us here, right?
Me: The water, no, but the impacts will. The people being evacuated from flooded cities and big chunks of some countries, like Bangladesh, can’t pay for it. That leaves it up to the rest of us to help them.
Her: [annoyed look]
Me: Global warming will impact food production from land and the oceans, disease vectors, our ability to generate electricity from hydropower, and lots of other stuff. If we don’t do something to fix it, SOON, the price will be off the scale.
Her: That’s not going to happen for a long time. [very assertively]
Me: It will start within your lifetime and mine, assuming Dr. [name] does his job, and it will be a nightmare for our kids and their kids.
Her: [looks really annoyed]
From there it kind of trailed off into talk about what my blood pressure was that day, etc.
This is the part of climate change communication I detest, trying to talk about it with one of the goldfish people, the ones who don’t know they’re in a tank or even in water — they just do their thing and think the little plastic castle is new every time they swim by it. (Hat tip to Ani DiFranco.) There’s no way to give them a ‘vator pitch without sounding like a lunatic; there are simply too many dots to locate in space and then connect. Too bad we don’t have the mental downloading tech from the Matrix. Find someone who wants to learn, download about 15 books into his or her brain in 10 seconds, and they’d instantly get it.
Someone at Apple famously said in the 1980′s that the problem of the future would be access to gigabits through punybaud. How right he was…
If I knew nothing about global warming and the threat it poses I would be a fool to believe a stray 30 second comment made by a stranger in an elevator. What if the stranger was Beck?
I was convinced of the magnitude and immediacy of the problem by the work done by climate scientists who actually do research in the field. But I had to read the reports and abstracts. They do not want to be called science popularizers; don’t want to be compared with Carl Sagan. But I became interested in science BECAUSE of the work of Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov and a little book written by Albert Einstein called Relativity.
Well science is very unpopular today with many important Americans. SCIENTISTS WIN!
Don’t ever say “carbon [dioxide]|CO2″ is pollution. Say “carbon [dioxide] from fossil energy”.
Just using the word carbon or carbon dioxide confuses people, and lets them think you want to tax their breathing. Which we don’t. Breathing, burning wood or biofuel, and livestock are all putting carbon that was in the air back into the air. Fossil carbon was in the air millions of years ago (that is, *never*, as far as certain numerous, completely unimaginative, Bible reading parts of your audience are concerned), when there was no ice, and deserts were in different places, and mice were the only mammals.
Secondarily, saying “fossil energy” emphasizes that fossil fuel energy is *old* technology, and technology must progress toward new things. Technology is what increases our standard of living from one generation to the next. The government offers incentives for new technology over old as a way to increase long-term economic well being.
We should never ever say “due to human activities.” What are we, anti-human!?!?!?!
Instead, say “due to fossil energy sources” or something similar, in the vein of what I said in the post directly above. We’ve got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.
Regarding “due to human activity” versus “due to fossil energy”, if you must be technically correct and include a catch-all to include every other minor GHG source, say “and other emissions” or something. But don’t say something that sounds damning to humans. Better yet, say “and other minor greenhouse emissions”. Am I right? Can I get an amen?
3 posts ago, replace “completely unimaginative, Bible reading” with “unimaginatively Bible-reading”. I don’t want to sound insulting, because I’m not insulting. I’m Southern. These are my people.
Here is Eli’s
We are conducting an uncontrolled experiment that is altering the land, the air and the oceans. Everything we know says it will end badly, the principal uncertainty is when. We are all in the test tube, but you can do something about it.
You can find a few others in the comments at Rabett Run
OK, it’s 40 seconds, but who’s counting? And it’s a bit geeky, but I find people can follow it…
Oil and coal are plants that died and got buried deep down in the ground over millions of years. When the plants were alive, they took in energy from the sun in a process that sucks in carbon dioxide and lets off oxygen. The energy from the sun and the carbon dioxide were buried for a long time. Now we are taking the oil and coal out and burning it for energy and letting out the carbon dioxide in a moment. Things like to be in balance in nature. We’ve taken something that took a long time to make, and we are burning it suddenly, and things are getting out of whack. It’s making our planet’s system unstable. That’s why the scientists are so worried about what we’re doing to the climate and what will happen to humans and the animals.
For the elevator, maybe 5 sec. to hand out a 2 by 3.5 inch card with this printed on it:
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Climate at Risk?
Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
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Say: People with more money and power than you can ever dream of are working very hard to confuse the issue, because they want to escape blame for their role in compounding the problem.
I remember as a kid when Apollo 8 sent back the first photos of the whole earth, the tiny blue marble hanging in the vast blackness of space. It was an image no one had actually seen before. As I recall it had quite an impact on a lot of people, to see the big picture and to realize how vulnerable our biosphere could really be.
It seems to me that visual analogies can be effective in conveying basic concepts that most folks may not normally consider. One I like to use is to say that if the earth was the size of a basketball then our atmosphere
(at least the breathable part) would only be the thickness of a sheet of writing paper. With this in mind it is easy to understand that we can have a considerable effect with our greenhouse gas emissions.
Communication in general. I like programs like Nova. Sometimes the stories are riveting. Sometimes I feel as though on the one hand, the narrators are withholding key information just to string the viewers along, and on the other hand they’re gratuitously jazzing up the character conflicts to just to sell the plot. I’m really, really tired of being manipulated by story tellers. The “story” should adhere to the science.
And if the story is fictional to begin with, however fanciful, it should at least respect the reality of global warming (for example the Stargate Atlantis “Brain Storm” episode with Bill Nye and Neil DeGrasse Tyson).
Look em in the eye, and say, We are in deep deep dudu.
98 doctors strongly urge you to treat your ill child with medicine, but now 2 people insist that it will be eventually ok if you do nothing at all, what do you do?
My pitch: Why do we keep digging this stuff up? We should leave the carbon in the ground where it belongs.
My elevator speech.
CO2 absorbs heat radiation. You can measure it in the lab.
Because of the greenhouse effect, caused by water vapor, CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and clouds, the average temperature on the Earth is about 58 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it would otherwise be. This is well established science.
The level of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 280 ppmv in 1830 to about 390 ppmv today, a nearly 40% increase. 2/3rds of the increase has occurred since 1960.
Human fossil energy use releases over twice as much CO2 as the amount added to the air each year.
More CO2 in the air traps more heat.
The rest is details.
No one wants to admit treason on an elevator, so tell them you side with the Pentagon on Climate Change. When they ask, suggest they search it online. Once the horse has been led to water, maybe they will discover this site, see that even a knucklehead like me already knows what’s going on and be embarrassed enough to get busy.
Or, quote Joel Pett: “What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?”
Or, tell them to get used to living in a world that feels a lot like that elevator.
One question comes to mind. Can a CD taping of the “course” be made available to us? Cost plus? The topic was communication, we want to learn also. Post to FaceBook? with public access? What else can you teach the public that will serve them well in changing times? (in a couple minutes?) FACTOIDS? Imbed in games? Science you can use?