marklynas.orgSix Degrees but no PhD 18 June 08
Not being a scientist is a help rather than a hindrance when it comes to communicating - with the necessary passion - the findings of scientific research
This article was first published by the Guardian on 18 June 2008. Read the original here.
“So, are you a scientist then?” It’s a very frequent question whenever someone finds out that I write about global warming. No, I reply, though the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change once referred to me – entirely incorrectly – as Dr Lynas. But that’s as close as I’m ever going to get. I’m a journalist – or worse – a campaigner. So how can I be trusted to convey meaningful information about a subject as complex and controversial as climate change?
Rather than being a setback, however, I would claim that my lack of academic qualifications as a scientist is actually precisely what does qualify me to try and communicate effectively to the general public about this issue. After all, I’m one of the latter rather than the former.
As a layperson, I have a pretty good idea of just how incomprehensible much of modern science is to ordinary people – because I’ve spent a lot of time struggling to understand it myself. It’s not just the jargon, though that is part of the problem, but the sheer complexity of the methodology. To understand a journal paper on paleoclimate, for instance, you might need to know what benthic foraminifera are, what Bayesian analysis means, or what a mass spectrometer does. There’s a yawning gulf between what goes in the scientific literature and what most people are able to understand.
That is where science communicators come in. My aim as a popular science writer is to try and synthesise a meaningful bigger picture out of this morass of information. And that is precisely what scientists themselves (with some very notable exceptions, like the biologist Steve Jones) are generally rather bad at doing. Scientists are, quite understandably, obsessed with precision. They constantly emphasise caveats and uncertainties, which seem to undermine what they’re saying. They studiously avoid allowing any emotion to creep into their analysis, even when discussing subjects as terrifying as mass extinctions or Amazon forest dieback. As the climate modeller Peter Cox says during the National Geographic film adaptation of my book Six Degrees: “Sometimes you need someone from outside to come in and say, “You do know what this means, don’t you? It’s the death of the Amazon’”.
There are very good reasons why “proper” scientists avoid this kind of territory. The scientific method depends crucially on an objective approach to data and analysis – and anything which undermines this will undermine an expert’s credibility amongst his or her peer group very quickly. NASA’s James Hansen has been sailing very close to this particular wind recently by firing off campaigning letters to world leaders asking them not to allow any more coal-fired power stations. His high reputation and strong track-record give him more leeway than most of his peers, but even so, there are whispers about whether he is sacrificing a claim to objectivity.
This is where communicators play an essential role. Although as a science writer I need to be absolutely clear that I am accurately representing what I read in the scientific literature, rather than cherry-picking results that support a pre-conceived position or make a good story. Bu there is nothing to stop me putting emotional depth into my analysis; indeed, this is the essence of my job. If I’ve read a paper about coral bleaching or precipitation trends in the Sahel, I need to be able to describe what this means in the real world – grey weed creeping over once-vibrant coral reefs, and Sudanese herders struggling to feed their children as their livestock starves around them and a dust-storm looms on the horizon.
Another big issue is scientific reductionism. Whilst the IPCC is an unprecedented and very welcome attempt to bring together a synthesis view of the entire literature on climate change, few laypeople will wade through the entire thing, which runs to thousands of pages. And most individual scientists spend their academic careers becoming greater and greater experts about smaller and smaller areas. My job as a communicator, therefore, is to try and know more about oceans than most glaciologists, and more about glaciers than most oceanographers. I need to try and keep the holistic perspective that becoming a true expert on a particular subject forces most scientists to sacrifice.
Having said all that, I am acutely aware that I am not a qualified expert in my own right, and that I need to tread very carefully when making judgements about work carried out by people who are, after all, the real experts. That is why I have so little time for climate sceptics, who claim to know better than those who have spent their entire professional lives investigating the physics of the atmosphere. That vast majority of those who dismiss the reality of global warming are simply ignorant – and arrogant, to boot. Now that’s a statement that no scientist would probably make. But it’s true nonetheless, and it’s my job to tell you that.
Comments
Peter Winters BHI
June 20th, 2008 at 01:17 PM
Mark,
If you have a chance, you might like to take a look at “Made to Stick” by Chip & Dan Heath. After a recommendation, I am reading it at the moment and it talks about how to communicate.
One of the emenies of good communication is what they call “The Curse of Knowledge”. For example, as a scientist you may be very very familiar with the background of a subject, and are just trying to add the bit extra which you think people will find interesting. However, your audience may well find trouble understanding that bit.
Best,
Peter
Douglas Coker
June 24th, 2008 at 02:14 PM
This a very interesting piece Mark. While we need specialists we also need to be able to stand back and see the big picture. A multidisciplinary approach really helps.
Translating the science for the general reader is a valuable skill and we also need to go beyond the facts and deal with feelings. Maybe fear has to be part of the equation when facing up to the consequences of global warming.
You should take credit for having learned how to learn – one of the most important skills anyone can have. And needless to say far more useful than learning how to consume.
I’m in favour of the likes of Hansen going public and getting political. Yes, he needs to consider carefully how best to do this but, in addition to being a scientist he is also a citizen.
And we all, as citizens, need to stand back, take a deep breath and reconsider the way we live on this planet. We have to change trajectory, develop a new carbon consciousness and move from mindless consumption to active citizenship.
And I bet we will be happier and feel better as a result!
Douglas Coker Enfield Green Party
St Ouennais
August 4th, 2008 at 05:31 PM
Why do people insist that you can have only one occupation. Mr Lynas may be a journalist and a campaigner and a lot more besides. What ever happened to the portmanteau career? And what of all those MPs and Lords who continue to be directors and write articles for money and still do their ‘proper’ job. Or not.
Thomas Alton
August 16th, 2008 at 03:30 PM
There is so much about this article that is so correct. Scientists in general are experts and they write for other experts in their own field. The curse of too much knowledge is very real. I teach students from college freshman nonmajors who are intensely disinterested to M.S. students who are very interested. My own interests in climate change began several years ago when I was attending a meeting for a new director of my school’s Institute for Environmental Studies, and after talk after talk about large animals and plants and river management I finally ask “what about the microorganisms” and was met with blank stares and fumbling bumbling answers.
I am a molecular biologist who studies Archaea, which include the methanogens, which produce all the biogenic methane and are responsible for the huge stores of methane in the wetlands formerly known as the Siberian permafrost, and the enormous stores of methane hydrates under continental shelves. Only months later did I learn of Mark Lynas. I have found that as I learn more about climate change the more I adopt the language, and more difficult it is to communicate with lay people. Fortunately I have not completely lost that ability yet.
Rod Adams
October 11th, 2008 at 12:53 AM
@Mark – Thanks for stopping by Atomic Insights and inviting me back to your blog for more information about your background.
Your thoughts about being a communicator rather than a specialist are thought provoking. I have often been frustrated by both types of individuals. Specialists can get lost in the details and fail to help others understand, but communicators can gloss over details that are important to understanding. They also can focus more on telling a good story than on telling the truth since the truth is often complicated, potentially boring and often not very profitable.
When it comes to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, I am no denier – I understand the science and recognize the scale of the emissions caused by human activity. Massive oxidation of millions of years worth of stored hydrocarbons is causing some real and measurable effects on the atmosphere and on the overall climate.
That said, I have to claim that I am also skeptical of some of the catastrophic claims made by some who want to steer changes in industrial society. There are actions we can encourage to reduce the cause of the problem and there are things we can do to mitigate the effects. There are many places in the world where the effects may cause beneficial results – it is simply wrong to claim that warming will be bad for everyone.
My understanding of the data also leads me to believe that there is time for an adjustment and that any effects will be slowed by some natural feedback mechanisms. For example, the total store of hydrocarbons that can be oxidized – burned – is limited. The rate that they are consumed cannot continue to increase. We will reach a point – possibly soon – where access challenges will cause the annual consumption to level off and then slow down.
It is a logical fallacy to claim that everyone who is skeptical about catastrophe is funded or inspired by some kind of evil cabal of “conservative” think tanks. I personally happen to be a left-leaning atomic energy advocate whose funding comes from my employment in the US military.
My planned post-retirement career would benefit greatly if everyone was deathly afraid of the potential effects of carbon emissions. I just cannot bring myself, however, to tell the story that way.
We need to take action, but we do not need to take a vow of poverty, give all of our money to wind turbine manufacturers or solar panel installers, or set up another financial trading scheme to shuffle carbon credits.
There are plenty of professional communicators (marketers and evangelists) who are engaged in trying to force the story in that direction. There is a lot of money to be made by pressing for fast action, even if it is wrong. I have been to the marketing classes that teach people how to “go for the close”, search for a “forcing function”, and pitch their message at the decision makers.
Taxing CO2 emissions directly would be a much simpler and more effective way to send a signal to the market that there is a societal cost to excessive emissions of CO2. With that pricing signal, a whole range of low emission technologies could compete on a reasonably level playing field. The political challenge with a simple scheme for taxing carbon is that some participants will never hit their desired pay day. Some “popular” solutions pressed by talented communicators are not competitive and, in some cases, not even effective.
I firmly believe that emission free nuclear power will win huge chunks of the energy market. We will not have to worry too much about the remaining use of hydrocarbons – the earth has several effective natural storage and disposal methods that can handle a certain level of human produced emissions.
Background:
Like you, I am not a scientist. I hold a Master of Science in Systems Technology along with a BS in English. My professional experience as an engineer officer on nuclear submarines helped me understand how to evaluate technical documents and how feedback mechanisms work in complex systems. My nearly 30 years in government service (the last 7 in Washington, DC) has given me a rather jaundiced understanding of the political process. My six years in private enterprise has given me a similar understanding of how messaging can be used to encourage sales of unnecessary products.