The second role play in our course had four groups of stakeholders:
- Politicians (in fact the minister of environment was there 🙂 )
- Scientists (one of the IPCC lead authors)
- Representatives of an environmental NGO
- Businesspeople
The question they were discussing was whether uncertainty influenced public policies, roughly speaking. I followed the very good discussion for a while and noticed at some point that arguments went back and forth, but did not address each other correctly. Two different levels were mixed: on a coarse level – mainly mentioned by environmentalists and scientists – there is not much uncertainty about the reasons, the impacts and remedies of climate change. When looking at the details, however, each new discovery, model generation or scenario generates new uncertainty and may yield confusion in the non-scientific audience. This was critisized by the politician, who expected that scientific discovery would lead to decreasing uncertainty.
Here is one key to work towards a better communication strategy: Focus on those general aspects that are quite certain. In a more in-depth discussion – e.g. as an expert in political hearings or in round-tables elaborating on mitigation strategies – scientists should probably explain the uncertainty and not neglect them. In that case, a detailed view is necessary and there should be enough time to understand and consider the uncertainty in deriving measures and decisions. A close consultation between science and public is then necessary.
At the end of the discussion, however, I felt there was a huge invisible elephant in the discussion room. This elephant is called lobbyism! The politician claimed that it is in his earnest interest to adhere to scientific knowledge, but that uncertainty would make it hard to convince the public. The enterpreneurs claimed that there was a need for political guidance. The NGOs asked for more couragous action and even the scientists demanded politicians to act. To me this appeared like dancing around this invisible elephant, without mentioning it and – maybe even – without noticing it.
And this elephant has nothing to do with uncertainty!