{"id":2125,"date":"2021-06-23T10:35:55","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T10:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/?p=2125"},"modified":"2021-08-09T08:16:17","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T08:16:17","slug":"how-failures-to-communicate-scientific-uncertainty-effectively-can-lead-to-climate-inaction-explained-through-the-5-stages-of-climate-grief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/?p=2125","title":{"rendered":"How failures to communicate scientific uncertainty effectively can lead to climate inaction: Explained through the 5 stages of Climate Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scientists have been sounding the alarm bell about anthropogenic climate change for years. However, their cries have been falling upon deaf ears. Atmospheric CO2<\/sub> concentrations and global mean temperatures continue to rise, \u00a0and the disastrous effects of climate change are being felt more acutely than ever. So, why on earth aren\u2019t we doing more about it?\u00a0\u00a0 In a 2007 article, climate scientist Prof Steve Running proposed the 5 stages of climate grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance [1]. Running suggests that only once people have reached stage 5 will they start acting seriously on climate change. I will hereby argue why failures to communicate scientific uncertainty in a clear, concise, and consistent way can cause people to get stuck in the early stages of climate grief and can ultimately lead to climate inaction.<\/p>\n

Running defines the first stage of climate grief as \u2018denial\u2019, encompassing both the outright denial that the earth is warming or denial of human causation. Often scientific uncertainty is misquoted in justification of this position. This is in part due to the historically destructive agenda of big oil companies. Concerned about the potential damage of climate literacy to profit, oil companies like Chevron, Exxon and BP set out on a path to create confusion and promote climate change ignorance among the public. For example, a 1988 Exxon Memo on the greenhouse effect laid out Exxon\u2019s strategy to “emphasise the uncertainty in scientific conclusions regarding the potential enhanced greenhouse effect\u201d [2]. While studies have found multiple factors that contribute to individuals becoming stuck at the stage of climate change denial [3], targeted misinformation including miscommunication of uncertainty is recognised to be a significant contributor.<\/p>\n

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The second stage of climate grief is \u2018anger\u2019, and primarily refers to those who see climate action as a direct attack on their lifestyles. This stage is closely related to the previous stage and is likely to also be influenced by the shadow of doubt cast by corporate strategists. Overemphasising the uncertainty around the effects of climate change and the influence of humans also undoubtedly leads people to question the justification of demands that we enact large-scale systemic change to achieve carbon neutrality.<\/p>\n

The third stage of climate grief is \u2018bargaining\u2019. This stage of climate grief favours the idealists and gives rise to statements such as, \u201ca longer growing season won\u2019t be such a bad thing\u201d or \u201cI wouldn\u2019t mind having a milder summer.\u201d During this stage, people cherry-pick the potentially positive impacts of climate change and ignore the less favourable effects. Increases in summer temperatures and length of the growing season concern averages and as such are easily contextualised in a conversation about climate change. The uncertainties associated with these predictions are significantly lower than any uncertainty surrounding predictions of specific extreme weather events such as the occurrence of a particular hurricane. However, this is purely due to the complexity of predicting specific extreme weather events. What can be predicted with less uncertainty is that the frequency<\/em> of extreme weather events will increase. Uncertainty around increases in summer temperatures and the length of the growing season should be placed in the same context as uncertainty surrounding the increased frequency of extreme weather events. Failure to do so allows the perpetuation of the false narrative that the positive effects of climate change carry less uncertainty than the negative effects. Otherwise, it\u2019s perfectly natural for people to latch onto idealised outcomes of climate change and be prevented from obtaining a realistic perspective on the issue.<\/p>\n

The penultimate stage of climate grief is depression, the stage at which individuals feel overwhelmed by the scale of the problem and unconvinced by the plausibility of the solutions. I concede that there are many factors contributing to people getting stuck at this stage. Even when uncertainty is properly communicated, the scale of the issue of climate change is inherently overwhelming and Running states that even those who are optimally informed can retreat from the \u2018acceptance\u2019 to \u2018depression\u2019 stage from time to time. Despite this, I would argue that failure to correctly communicate the uncertainty surrounding \u2013 for example \u2013 the upper limits of the climate sensitivity parameter can lead to an underestimation of uncertainty and thus promote an overly pessimistic attitude towards future projections.<\/p>\n

Communication of uncertainty evidently requires a clear, concise, and consistent approach that minimises ambiguity and optimises comprehensibility. However, I would be wary of the implications of Running\u2019s theory; that action on climate change is dependent on individual behaviour. \u00a0Rather, I believe that it is large-scale systemic change that is fundamental for mitigating the effects of climate change. However, I recognise that businesses and politicians are motivated by public values. As such, failures to effectively communicate uncertainty could reduce the demand for climate action and thus inhibit the realisation of systemic change.<\/p>\n

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References:<\/p>\n

[1] Running, Steven W., “The 5 Stages of Climate Grief” (2007).\u00a0Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group Publications. 173.\u00a0https:\/\/scholarworks.umt.edu\/ntsg_pubs\/173<\/p>\n

[2]- 1988 Exxon Memo on the Greenhouse Effect http:\/\/www.chttp:\/\/www.climatefiles.com\/exxonmobil\/566\/<\/p>\n

[3]- Treen KMd, Williams HTP, O’Neill SJ. Online misinformation about climate change. WIREs Clim Change. 2020;11:e665. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/wcc.665<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have been sounding the alarm bell about anthropogenic climate change for years. However, their cries have been falling upon deaf ears. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global mean temperatures continue to rise, \u00a0and the disastrous effects of climate change are being felt more acutely than ever. So, why on earth aren\u2019t we doing more aboutContinue reading “How failures to communicate scientific uncertainty effectively can lead to climate inaction: Explained through the 5 stages of Climate Grief”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":82,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students-blogs-2021"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/82"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2130,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions\/2130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uncertain2degrees.blogs.uni-hamburg.de\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}