Climate Resilience and Innovation in a Polarized Society:

Strategies to Inform Communication and Collaborative Action

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Final Lecture in Spring

2014 course on

“Communication,

Culture and the

Environment”

Matthew C. NisbetAssociate ProfessorSchool of CommunicationAmerican University Washington D.C.

Risk Perceptions and Personal Experience

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Present protection will need to be upgraded to avoid average global flood losses from socio-economic change, climate change, and subsidence that total US$1 trillion or more per year. This estimate optimistically assumes 10 cm SLR in 2030, 20 cm in 2050, and 30 cm in 2070 with equal global distribution.

Nature Climate Change 3, 802–806 (2013)

Boston Society of Architects (2013) ; Mass Gov (2011). City of Boston.gov Climate Action Web Site

Climate Ready Boston (2013)

Climate Change as Public Health Threat

Extreme Heat and Infectious Disease

@MCNisbetClimate Ready Boston (2013); Centers for Disease Control (2013).

Public Engagement and Communication?

@MCNisbetCity of Boston Climate Action Plan (2011); Boston Harbor Association (2013); Marty Walsh for Mayor (2012)

Holding community meetings in each neighborhood, particularly those closest to

the waterfront, will enable us to hear each other‟s concerns and brainstorm best

approaches to specific local problems where a one-size-fits-all measure might not

be the best solution. Finally, I will seek to expand and foster current city

relationships with leading climate researchers at our exceptional colleges and

universities….

Framing Science?

Context and Identity Shape Perceptions of Complex Debates

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Framing Science?

Context and Identity Shape Perceptions of Complex Debates

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Audience Segmentation and Public Perceptions

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Preparing and Planning Ahead for Climate Impacts

A Public Health Prevention Approach

@MCNisbetMaibach EW, Roser-Renouf C, Leiserowitz A (2008). Communication and Marketing as Climate Change Intervention

Assets: A Public Health Perspective. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 35(5), 488-500.

In Depth Interviews w/ 70 subjects by Segment

@MCNisbetMaibach, E., Nisbet, M.C. et al. (2010). BMC Public Health 10: 299.

Segment 4-6:

Sentence Specific Reaction to Essay

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O1 O2 O3 O4 O5 T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 T7 B1 B2 B3 B4 C1 C2

DISENGAGED DOUBTFUL

DISMISSIVE POPULATION

Maibach, E., Nisbet, M.C. et al. (2010). BMC Public Health 10: 299.

Provoking Anger Across Audience Segments:

Identifying Boomerang Effects

@MCNisbetMyers, T., Nisbet, M.C., Maibach, E.W., & Leiserowitz, A. (2012). Climatic Change.

Morality Binds, Divides and Blinds Us to Threats

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“A basic principle of moral psychology is that „morality

binds and blinds.‟ In many pre-agricultural

societies, groups achieved trust and unity by circling

around sacred objects. In modern societies, much larger

groups bind themselves together by treating certain

books, flags, leaders or ideals as sacred and by

symbolically circling around them. But if your team

circles too fast, you lose the ability to see clearly or think

for yourself. You go blind to evidence that contradicts

your group‟s moral consensus, and you become

enraged at teammates who suggest that the other side is

not entirely bad.” – New York Times, Nov. 7, 2012

Energy Resilience and Climate Disruption

Warmer, Wetter Future with More Extremes

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Engaging A Broader Public Via Energy Resilience?

@MCNisbetMASSPIRG 2013. Moving Off the Road.

Engaging A Broader Public Via Energy Resilience

@MCNisbetMASSPIRG (2013). Moving Off the Road; MA Gov (2010) Clean Energy & Climate Plan 2020

Will Oil Prices Triple in Next Five Years?

@MCNisbetNisbet, Maibach, & Leiserowitz (2011). American Journal of Public Health.

Oil Price Spikes and Risk to Economy?

@MCNisbetNisbet, Maibach, & Leiserowitz (2011). American Journal of Public Health.

Oil Price Spikes and Risk to Public Health?

@MCNisbetNisbet, Maibach, & Leiserowitz (2011). American Journal of Public Health.

Voices from Coastal Communities

Fatalism and Low Efficacy

@MCNisbetMoser, S. C. (in press). In: Successful Adaptation to Climate Change: Linking Science and Practice in a Rapidly Changing

World, ed. S.C. Moser and M.T. Boykoff, Routledge, London.

Community Dialogue After Hurricane Isabel

Anne Arundel County, Maryland

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Community Dialogue and Polarization

GMU, USNA, Dewberry

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Timeline of Actions

2003 Hurricane Isabel floods Annapolis, coastal communities

2007 Gov. O‟Malley creates MD Commission on Climate Change

Science Working Group uses 2007 IPCC models to estimate sea-level rise projections for state from 2.7 ft to 3.4 ft by 2100.

Recommend planners anticipate 1ft rise by 2050 and 2ft rise by 2100.

Anne Arundel County and Annapolis begin their own evaluation process.

Project Focus

• County mail survey, N = 300

• Deliberative forums, 2 moderators at each table, N = 40

• Risk projection web site

CASI Final Project Report (2013).

Cultural Identity Explains Substantial Proportion

of Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences

@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).

“Local policy discourses on sea-level rise are not emerging into a neutral arena, but one in which cultural meanings have already begun to form. In this environment, traditional communication strategies of providing „objective‟ assessments are unlikely to staunch further issue polarization, as has been case in Virginia and North Carolina.”

Brokering Shared Identity and Outlook

Localized Dialogue Softens Cultural Cognition

@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).

Cultural Identity Explains Substantial Proportion

of Risk Perceptions and Policy Preferences

@MCNisbetCASI Final Project Report (2013).

http://www.futurecoast.info/

Experts and Coastal Property Owners

From Trusted Sources of Information to Brokers of Dialogue

@MCNisbetCone, J et al 2013. Reframing Engagement Methods for Climate Change Adaptation. Coastal Management, 41: 345-360.

Experts and Coastal Property Owners

From Trusted Sources of Information to Brokers of Dialogue

@MCNisbetCone, J et al 2013. Reframing Engagement Methods for Climate Change Adaptation. Coastal Management, 41: 345-360.

Research Informs Design of Communication

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Creating Shared Understanding & Consolidating Views

Recommendations

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Recommendations

Feature adaptive strategies – effective and failed – in engagement efforts.

Property owners prefer to hear about experiences of neighbors more so than advice from scientific experts.

Host local meetings with property owners, experts, and officials to discuss changes, impacts, and risks that they are experiencing.

Participants believed that simply coming together was productive in its own right.

Identify and highlight “early adopters,” local property owners who have already started to engage in adaptive behaviors.

“What is required is creating conditions for helping communities make meaning out of the science and its findings for themselves and their local conditions in ways that support their including that science into their regular decision-making…Good models that put scientists, communicators, and publics into dialogue about what they know, what it means, and how to put it to work suggest using group processes and visible thinking routines for creating and sustaining dialogues about climate change.”

Preparing and Planning Ahead for Climate Change

Building a Civic Science Infrastructure and Network

@MCNisbetNisbet, M.C., Hixon, M., Moore, K.D., & Nelson, M. (2010). The Four Cultures: New Synergies for Engaging Society on

Climate Change. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 8, 329-331.

www.ClimateShiftProject.org/Courses

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