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
Tagclimate science
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
Public understanding of climate change: variability and influences
Public awareness of, and concern about climate change is an important ingredient for bringing about policy change. How best then can we characterise public understanding of this topic? Beliefs about climate change have been described as being as complex as the issue itself but it is possible to point to some key patterns and trends. Back
Do people need to know more to care more?
Are the public disengaged with scientific topics like climate change simply because they lack knowledge in the subject? It might be easy to assume this, but research has shown that the relationship between scientific literacy and concern about/engagement with climate change is not straightforward. That doesn’t mean we should dismiss knowledge as a factor that
Communicating uncertainty
Uncertainty is very ordinary. We all navigate uncertainties in our everyday life: the weather, when we might get sick, who’ll win an election, whether the bus will be on time or get stuck in traffic. We often see arguments for inaction on climate change based on uncertainty – if we don’t know for sure how
Workshop 2: The science is settled? Exploring expert views
If there’s one thing about public engagement with climate change you can be certain about, it is that climate change doesn’t communicate itself. There is now a wealth of climate communication research, plus decades of practitioner expertise on public engagement to draw on. But how much agreement is there among climate communication specialists on what
Video: Sharing perspectives on climate change
As part of our community workshops in Manchester, the Climate Communication Project and the Manchester Climate Change Agency encouraged members of community groups to share their perspectives on climate change. Here, you can listen to these views.
Climate poetry written by local communities
As part of the Climate Communication Project we carried out a series of workshops with three different community groups, based in Manchester, Stockport and Bristol. The workshops involved open discussions about what climate change meant to these communities and how they perceived it to be communicated.