Energy transitions underway in the UK, and many other countries around the world, have been fuelled by the need to address climate change and the sustainability of energy systems while maintaining affordable energy services. This implies significant changes in terms of how energy is produced, consumed and governed. To better understand the technological and societal
Science & advocacy: should climate change scientists engage in policy advocacy?
Confronting the risks presented by climate change will involve input from scientists – but scientists are not decision-makers elected to make policy decisions. So how should the expertise and opinions of scientists be factored into political and societal choices about climate change? Most people want scientists to remain politically neutral and independent; climate-change scientists should
Visual communication: the role of effective imagery in public engagement with climate change
Does climate change have an ‘image problem’? Images are a key part of climate change communication but, while there is a wealth of research on language, images are overlooked and understudied. As a result, climate change has something of an ‘image problem’; it is characterised by a restricted set of visual associations in the public
Communicating the risk of ocean acidification
The oceans provide half of the oxygen in the atmosphere and have absorbed 30% of human-caused carbon emissions and 90% of the heat produced by global warming over the past few decades. They are changing as carbon emissions continue to increase, and concern about ocean acidification is growing. While public understanding of this change is
What determines whether we act in an environmentally-friendly way? A (mostly) psychological perspective
The carbon emissions of any one person are minute in the context of global climate change. And yet, in aggregate, in the developed world at least, our environmental footprints give rise to the host of problems faced today: we are all a small part of something bigger. The recognition of the importance of individual actions
Individual and structural level action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: beyond recycling
One of the key questions for anyone concerned about climate change mitigation is: “what must we do about it?” For climate change communication and engagement projects that translates to: “what recommendation should we be giving to people or policy makers in order to reduce emissions?” In climate change action one might distinguish between individual level
How psychological distance and personal experiences influence perceptions of and response to climate change
Many people think of climate change as an issue that is predominantly distant and abstract. This blog post elaborates on these perceptions and talks about if and how they may change because of communications or personal experiences of climate-related weather events. Climate change as a psychologically distant issue Surveys show that many people think of
Trust and its role in climate change communication
People who distrust scientists are less likely to agree with the scientific consensus on climate change, and more likely to support climate sceptic governments. For this reason, enhancing trust in climate science is often seen as a silver bullet to help increase public concern about climate change and grow support for climate policy. However, trust
The power of narrative approaches to communications
The use of narratives and storytelling in science can sometimes have negative connotations, based on the assumption that a story is something that is made up, while science produces objective and falsifiable knowledge. But stories and narratives are simply a form of communication. Just like statistics, although they can be false or manipulative, they can
The role of the arts: creative communications
In addition to being something that people can take pleasure in, the arts are often seen as a way in which values can be reinforced or opinions can be challenged. The arts are taken here to mean modes of expression that use skill or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that