Page 43 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

26 M.E. MANN AND B. BREVINI

becomes filled by the forces of disinformation and denial. And so it’s really
incumbent upon us to do that. But with that being said, not all scientists
should communicate to the media or engage in outreach in general to the
public—because a lot of scientists are sort of at their best when they’re
communicating with their colleagues and they know that if you start using
scientific jargon and shorthand in your communications to the public, that
is not very effective. And so I think those scientists who do communicate
need to learn and understand and train in the rules of effective commu-
nication, not dumbing the science down but communicating it clearly, in
non-technical terms, without giving abbreviations and jargon.

BB: What can the scientist community do to communicate more
effectively? Could you comment on your own experience of operating
your blog?

MM: I think social media is a very valuable tool for outreach and com-
munication, but there’s no one tool in my mind that serves all roles.
Twitter only has 140 characters. You can link to an article or something
else that provides more context but it’s a very fast-paced, on-the-cuff,
real-time means of communicating in short soundbites. There is a need for
more context. There is a need for pieces that provide far more background,
for more content, far more nuance—and you can do that with a blog or by
writing commentaries for various online media outlets. I do a fair amount
of that—I just had something in the Guardian the other day. And there are
so many other ways we can communicate: giving public lectures, writing
books—as we both have done—trying to explain the issues to the public.
And all of these means of communication are complementary. To me
they’re a part of a larger portfolio. A portfolio of communication. You need
a variety of tools in that portfolio to be able to serve all the various roles.
I don’t think science journals in general are accessible to most people.
Even the generals that try to do that, like Nature and Science, where at least
the first paragraph is supposed to be understandable to a lay audience—or
the IPCC reports, the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change. The problem is when scientists think they’re being accessible,
they’re not. They’re just being a little less technical than they would
normally be. What a scientist views as non-technical and jargonless com-
munication is very different from what we mean in the world of actual
communication, when we say non-technical.
But it’s important to publish peer-reviewed articles and peer-reviewed
science is ultimately what supports much of one’s communication efforts—