Page 142 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

11 Climate Change as an Element of Sustainability Communication 125

change communicators’ – mainly physical scientists and environmentalists
without training in communication – did not communicate as effectively as they
could have if they had had professional training (Moser 2010). More importantly,
as has been stressed above, climate change is an enormously complex issue that is
difficult to comprehend and to convey to others (Nerlich et al. 2010; Ockwell et al.
2009). The uncertainties involved in global circulation models are still immense,
and while agreement even on the range of effects is difficult among scientists, it is
even more challenging to communicate these to laypersons, let alone the implica-
tions of appropriate mitigation and adaptation responses. Unlike many other envi-
ronmental problems, climate change can rarely be directly perceived through the
senses, its causes are distant as are many of its impacts – both geographically and
temporally. Therefore, “climate change – no matter how certain and urgent to
experts – for now, and maybe for some time, is fundamentally a mediated, ambigu-
ous problem for most audiences and easily trumped by more direct experiences”
(Moser 2010: 36).
Given this sobering analysis, ‘climate change communicators’ and, increasingly,
scholars of climate change communication have developed ‘strategies’ and ‘tactics’
on how to improve communication in order to better educate lay publics and initiate
behaviour change. “Perhaps the most obvious communication strategy is the provi-
sion of information about climate change and the threat it poses, along with infor-
mation about effective and practical responses. Another tactic is to stress the
contribution of proposed climate policies to the achievement of other social and
economic objectives such as energy security and employment. Messages aimed at
citizens need to be simple and clear, which implies focusing on just a few selected
indicators of climate change and its impacts, along with a small number of proposed
solutions, and making use of metaphors and analogies to make it easier for citizens
to understand complex ideas. Messages also need to be tailored to particular audi-
ences and repeated as often as possible” (Compston 2009: 741).
In addition, Moser (2010) uses established insights of communication theory to
make a strong case for a professionalisation of climate change communication. This
includes a clear reflection on the motives and goals of communication, how mes-
sages are constructed and framed, and how they are conveyed. An important ele-
ment is the type of language, the metaphors and images employed. For instance,
environmental NGOs in the UK launched a number of climate action campaigns
that tried “to prove that climate change is real through visual means”, pointing to the
dangers and vulnerabilities involved in the issue (Manzo 2010: 105). Well-known to
a large audience is former US vice president Al Gore’s documentary ‘An Inconvenient
Truth’, conveying the narrative of immediate danger. Dominant images are endan-
gered elements in non-human nature such as melting glaciers or endangered polar
bears (Manzo 2010).
Notwithstanding its popularity, scholars of climate change communication also
point to the limits of this ‘public understanding of science’ model, in which experts
educate lay people (Nerlich et al. 2010). In particular, the dominant quest for behav-
ioural change on the level of individuals, which has only had very limited success,
is being increasingly questioned. Instead, the social and societal nature of behaviour