521542 research-article2014
PUS0010.1177/0963662514521542Public Understanding of SciencePost
P U S
Article
Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists
Public Understanding of Science 1–10 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0963662514521542 pus.sagepub.com
Senja Post
University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Abstract In public controversies on scientific issues, scientists likely consider the effects of their findings on journalists and on the public debate. A representative survey of 123 German climate scientists (42%) finds that although most climate scientists think that uncertainties about climate change should be made clearer in public they do not actively communicate this to journalists. Moreover, the climate scientists fear that their results could be misinterpreted in public or exploited by interest groups. Asking scientists about their readiness to publish one of two versions of a fictitious research finding shows that their concerns weigh heavier when a result implies that climate change will proceed slowly than when it implies that climate change will proceed fast.
Keywords Climate change, media and science, media representations, public controversy, science communication, scientists’ attitudes
1. Introduction Media reports on scientific issues often deviate from scientific knowledge claims. Discrepancies have been found regarding science and technology in general (Dunwoody and Ryan, 1987; Peters, 1995), scientific constructs such as risks (Singer and Endreny, 1993) or uncertainty (Stocking and Holstein, 1993), and specific scientific issues such as nuclear energy (Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, 1986: 166–221), human intelligence (Snyderman and Rothman, 1988), or climate change (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). Some authors have explained the differences by looking at journalists and their scientific illiteracy (Singer and Endreny, 1993), their self-images and political motivations (Rothman and Lichter, 1987) or their professional focus on news factors such as negativity, simplicity, controversy etc. (Farnsworth and Lichter, 2012: 437–440). Others have looked at scientists and their political motivations (Rothman and Lichter, 1987) or their intention to disclose the scientific process in public (Stilgoe, Irwin and Jones, 2006). Recently, many have concentrated on Corresponding author: Senja Post, Department of Communication Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Fortstraße 7, D-76829 Landau, Germany. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
the dynamics between the media and the scientific system and have explained the bias in science news by some scientists’ ability to meet journalists’ preferences better than other scientists (Weingart, 2001). Scientific issues are covered most intensively when they touch upon controversial public issues (Schäfer, 2009). Few studies have considered scientists’ public communication within the context of a political controversy. Rothman and Lichter (1987) have attributed the discrepancies between the public and the scientific debate on nuclear energy to scientists’ differing degrees of political involvement. But they, too, neglected the effects of a public controversy on scientists’ communication. This study is intended to bridge this gap. It will investigate German climate scientists’ ideals and practices in communicating aspects of their research in public. In the following, a literature review regarding scientists’ strategic considerations when communicating their research in public and the dynamics of the German public debate on climate change will be given. Based on this, the research questions and hypotheses of this study will be derived.
2. Journalists’ preferences and the public debate Scientists are likely interested in having their research reported by journalists. They expect, or have experienced, beneficial consequences on their public reputation (Dunwoody, Brossard and Dudo, 2009; Post, 2008: 138–147) or research funding (Dunwoody and Ryan, 1985; Post, 2008: 148–158; Tsfati, Cohen and Gunther, 2011). Scientists generally want to address uncertainties when they communicate their findings in public (Young and Matthews, 2007). This may be a strategy to enhance their public authority (Mellor, 2010: 30) or funding (Mellor, 2010: 29; Zehr, 2000), but it might fail to arouse journalists’ interest (Stocking and Holstein, 1993). Journalists can act as participants or moderators, supporting a particular argument or contrasting the arguments of the contending parties (Janowitz, 1975). In both roles, journalists are likely interested in definitive and unambiguous arguments either to emphasise one or to counterbalance both of the contending parties’ claims (Hivon et al., 2010). Scientists may learn about journalists’ news criteria (Peters et al., 2008) especially when their areas of research are covered regularly in the media (Rödder and Schäfer, 2010). When intending to attract news coverage, scientists from highly covered disciplines therefore presumably avoid ambiguities and play down uncertainties to match journalists’ interest. Scientists also have to consider the dynamics of the public debate (Tøsse, 2013: 41). In controversies involving scientific issues, protagonists can play up expert knowledge supporting their own position and suppress knowledge supporting adversarial interests (Kepplinger, Brosius and Staab, 1991). Similarly, uncertainty can be used to support or question particular policy goals (Oreskes and Conway, 2010; Stocking and Holstein, 1993: 196). In public controversies, scientists might not, therefore, be entirely open about their scientific findings. For political reasons, they might use them to support their own and weaken contending goals (Rothman and Lichter, 1987). As neutral experts they might withhold findings questioning morally laden assumptions for fear of social disapproval (Post, 2008: 35–36; Snyderman and Rothman, 1988: 132–133). Scientists might also fear public misinterpretation of their results (Young and Matthews, 2007: 138, 141) and decide to withhold particular findings (Holliman, 2011: 839), considering social actors’ interests carefully (Tøsse, 2013).
3. Climate change in the German media In all the regions of the world, the media have paid considerable attention to climate change with differences in tone, focus or the degree of controversy (Antilla, 2010; Schäfer, Ivanova and
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Post
Schmidt, 2012: 121–131). In Germany, climate change has been a public issue since climate scientists raised it in the 1970s, increasingly arousing attention from the media and politicians (Mormont and Dasnoy, 1995; Weingart, Engels and Pansegrau, 2000). From the start, climate change has persistently been characterised as man-made, dangerous, unique in history, calculable and avoidable by reducing CO2 emissions (Peters and Heinrichs, 2005; Weingart et al., 2000). The German debate differed immensely from the US debate where the media, politicians and other social protagonists cast a considerable amount of doubt on anthropogenic climate change (Antilla, 2005; Zehr, 2000). Striving for balance in reporting, US journalists have given equal prominence to voices confirming or denying the human influence on the climate, thus putting disproportionate emphasis on doubt about anthropogenic climate change (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Oreskes, 2004). While the US media have presented the risk of climate change as dramatic and frightening (Sonnett, 2010; Wilson, 2000), it has widely been perceived as a natural phenomenon requiring adaptation strategies (Antilla, 2005; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Sonnett, 2010; Zehr, 2000). In Germany, by contrast, doubts about anthropogenic climate change have not been significant, at least until the 2000s (Peters and Heinrichs, 2005).
4. Hypotheses As scientists generally favour exposing scientific uncertainty in public one can expect that in general, climate scientists favour addressing scientific uncertainty in public. As uncertainty and ambiguity have little value for journalists and as the climate scientists are probably aware of this, one can further expect that the more climate scientists generally want to address uncertainty in public the less they are active in the media. Owing to journalists’ preference for unambiguous messages and against the backdrop of the German debate on climate change, one can also expect that the more clearly climate scientists confirm the public image of climate change, i.e. the assumptions that it is man-made, dangerous, calculable and historically unique, the more active they are in the media. Presumably, climate scientists consider the reactions of journalists as well as those of other people, e.g. their colleagues, interest groups or the general public. This study asks what objections climate scientists have to publishing research results in the media. Against the backdrop of the German public debate one can assume that climate scientists’ objections to publishing research results in the media are weaker when they confirm rather than contradict the publicly held assumptions about climate change.
5. Method A representative survey of the German climate scientists was conducted. Climate science is a highly fragmented subject and its practitioners include natural scientists from various disciplines, all organised in different professional bodies. Some are members of the German Meteorological Society (DMG), others of the German Physical Society (DPG). Still others do not belong to any professional association. This reflects the complex nature of the climate system. It includes the atmosphere and the oceans, precipitation and evaporation, physical, chemical and biological processes, past and future changes. As in a previous survey (Post, 2008), the population of climate scientists was defined to include all natural scientists a) investigating aspects of the climate system and b) whose studies are recognised by other climate scientists. Accordingly, a physicist studying the effects of cosmic particles on atmospheric processes is a climate scientist – provided that other climate scientists acknowledge his research. An economist examining the economic effects of climate change, by contrast, is not.
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
Figure 1. Climate scientists’ subject areas.
N = 123 German climate scientists, Mail survey, 2010.
Previously, the websites of the DMG and the German section of Past Global Changes (PAGES) were identified as the two most relevant organisations in German climate science (Post, 2008). Both websites offered extensive lists of German research institutions related to climate science. They mostly overlapped. The website of the Deutsche Meteorologische Gesellschaft (DMG) added a few meteorological institutes and the website of the German section of Past Global Changes (PAGES) added a few geological institutes. Combined, 85 German university and non-university research institutes relevant for climate science were identified. From these, all full professors were selected who, according to their publications or CVs, had conducted natural scientific research on the climate. 300 climate scientists were identified and asked to participate in a mail survey in late 2010. Eight scientists were ineligible: five were abroad for at least one year; three did not consider themselves climate scientists. Of the remaining 292 climate scientists, 123 (42%) completed the questionnaire. 117 respondents confirmed their participation on a separate postcard that had been sent to them with the questionnaire. Figure 1 shows the diversity of respondents’ subject areas. Respondents were asked about various aspects of climate change, their attitudes toward publicly communicating scientific uncertainty, and their media relations. To test whether climate scientists have fewer objections to publishing a result confirming rather than challenging the public image of climate change, a survey-experiment was conducted by giving respondents randomly one of two versions of a fictitious research result. One indicated that climate change is progressing faster, the other that it is progressing more slowly than expected. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of several objections to publishing the respective result in a newspaper. Apart from the fictitious result the two versions were equal. Thus, following the logic of a social scientific experiment, differences between the two groups’ aggregate ratings can be attributed to the variation of the fictitious result. The exact wording of the question is given below.
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
5
Post
6. Findings The climate scientists assessed the causes of climate change, its past and present volatility, future consequences and calculability in ten items. For the present purpose, it suffices to say that the climate scientists have little doubt about the human impact on the climate but are more or less split on its extent and danger as well as on the reliability of future climate projections. Based on their judgements, their degree of conviction of the publicly held assumptions that climate change is man-made, dangerous, unique in history and calculable was determined. Each judgement confirming one of these assumptions was assigned a positive, each opposing judgement a negative, and each neutral position a zero score. In sum, values between [-10; 10] could be obtained with -10 indicating the highest degree of doubt, 10 indicating the highest degree of conviction. Cronbach’s α = .763 confirms that the items tend to vary together and measure one singular object. The climate scientists’ judgements are distributed in a nearly perfect normal curve with a slight asymmetry toward conviction caused by five scientists with values between 9 and 10. On the contrary, there are only two largely doubtful climate scientists with values between -8 and -7. The mean degree of conviction is x = .77, the standard deviation 3.49. On a five-point scale, most climate scientists (72%) more or less agreed that “climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved”. Few (9%) more or less disagreed and about a fifth (21%) were indifferent. Asked about their media relations, the climate scientists reported an average of 8.42 contacts with journalists and 4.53 articles in the media – with considerable variation: some talked very frequently, others very rarely with journalists (SD = 10.94); and some published very many articles in the media, others very few (SD = 5.05). Correlations confirm that the more the German climate scientists talked with journalists and published articles in the media the less they approved of discussing unresolved questions in public. They were also the more engaged with the media the more they were convinced of the publicly accepted frame of climate change, i.e. that it is man-made, dangerous, historically unique and calculable (Table 1). There may be at least two reasons for these relationships. On the one hand, journalists may prefer scientists definitely and unambiguously confirming rather than questioning the public frame of climate change. On the other hand, being aware of journalists’ preferences, the climate scientists may be the more encouraged talking to journalists the more certain and convinced they are of the publicly held assumptions about climate change. Another explanation may be that climate scientists who consider climate change a dangerous threat are motivated to act politically and speak up in public. Plausibly, all three factors apply and interact. How far this is the case should be determined by future research. When deciding to give their results to the media, climate scientists likely consider the dynamics of the public debate – e.g. the potential effects of their findings on social or political actors or the general public. The climate scientists rated several objections to publishing a fictitious research result in the media. Two versions of the fictitious finding were created. One confirms the established assumptions about climate change, implying that climate change is proceeding faster than expected and the situation thus at least as dramatic as assumed. The other version contradicts the established views, implying that climate change is proceeding more slowly and the situation not as dramatic as assumed. The two versions were distributed randomly among the respondents. A knowledge gap in climate science was exploited to construct the fictitious finding. When the survey was conducted in 2010, there were theoretical considerations and estimates but no empirical data on the amount of CO2 the earth’s soil can store (Dawson and Spannagle, 2009: 64, 91). Based on this, two versions of the finding were formulated:
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
Table 1. Relationships between climate scientists’ activism in the mass media, their degree of conviction in the commonly accepted image of climate change and their general intent to point at uncertainties.
Number of articles published in media Number of contacts with journalists
Degree of conviction in the publicly held assumptions about climate change (INDEX). r
“Climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved”, r
.227**
–.246***
.370***
–.176*
Questions: “Climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved.” Agreement with this statement was measured on a five-point scale from 1 (“do not agree at all”) to 5 (“absolutely agree”). “Have you talked to a journalist about a problem of climate science in the past two years?” – Followed up by: “And how often was that?” “Have you published an article about the development of the climate in the mass media in the past two years?” – Followed up by: “And how many?” Notes: Product-moment correlations (Pearson’s r). N = 123 German climate scientists; mail survey, 2010. ***p < .01 (two-tailed); **p < .05 (two-tailed); *p < .1 (two-tailed).
Suppose a geologist conducted measurements to explore how the soil in the Northern hemisphere influences the climate. His measurement data show that the soil’s capacity to store CO2 has been considerably a) overestimated b) underestimated. The geologist concludes that climate change could proceed a) faster b) more slowly than expected.
Both versions were improved with the help of a full professor of geology to ensure their plausibility. None of them yielded any critical comments or remarkable response refusals, indicating that respondents considered them realistic. To explore the climate scientists’ objections to publishing the respective result in the media they were asked: Suppose the geologist’s finding was published in a scientific journal. Now he wants to publish it in a newspaper, concluding that climate change will proceed a) faster b) more slowly than expected. One can have several objections to his decision. How relevant or irrelevant do you consider each of the following?
The objections referred to possible undesirable effects on the public interpretation of the result, the credibility of climate science or the fictitious scientist’s career. On a scale from 1 (“relevant”) to 5
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
7
Post Table 2. Climate scientists’ objections to publishing research results in the mass media indicating that climate change is proceeding faster or more slowly than expected.
“His results could be instrumentalised by interest groups.” “His results could be misinterpreted in public.” “He provokes unnecessary criticism from his colleagues.” “His results would bring too much uncertainty to the public debate.” “He could put the credibility of climate science at risk.” Index (Cronbach’s α = .707)
Climate change proceeds faster (n = 57)
Climate change proceeds more slowly (n = 61)
Difference of means
Level of significance (two-tailed t-test)
– ×
×–
Δ
p
PUS0010.1177/0963662514521542Public Understanding of SciencePost
P U S
Article
Communicating science in public controversies: Strategic considerations of the German climate scientists
Public Understanding of Science 1–10 © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0963662514521542 pus.sagepub.com
Senja Post
University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany
Abstract In public controversies on scientific issues, scientists likely consider the effects of their findings on journalists and on the public debate. A representative survey of 123 German climate scientists (42%) finds that although most climate scientists think that uncertainties about climate change should be made clearer in public they do not actively communicate this to journalists. Moreover, the climate scientists fear that their results could be misinterpreted in public or exploited by interest groups. Asking scientists about their readiness to publish one of two versions of a fictitious research finding shows that their concerns weigh heavier when a result implies that climate change will proceed slowly than when it implies that climate change will proceed fast.
Keywords Climate change, media and science, media representations, public controversy, science communication, scientists’ attitudes
1. Introduction Media reports on scientific issues often deviate from scientific knowledge claims. Discrepancies have been found regarding science and technology in general (Dunwoody and Ryan, 1987; Peters, 1995), scientific constructs such as risks (Singer and Endreny, 1993) or uncertainty (Stocking and Holstein, 1993), and specific scientific issues such as nuclear energy (Lichter, Rothman and Lichter, 1986: 166–221), human intelligence (Snyderman and Rothman, 1988), or climate change (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). Some authors have explained the differences by looking at journalists and their scientific illiteracy (Singer and Endreny, 1993), their self-images and political motivations (Rothman and Lichter, 1987) or their professional focus on news factors such as negativity, simplicity, controversy etc. (Farnsworth and Lichter, 2012: 437–440). Others have looked at scientists and their political motivations (Rothman and Lichter, 1987) or their intention to disclose the scientific process in public (Stilgoe, Irwin and Jones, 2006). Recently, many have concentrated on Corresponding author: Senja Post, Department of Communication Psychology, University of Koblenz-Landau, Fortstraße 7, D-76829 Landau, Germany. Email: [email protected]
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
the dynamics between the media and the scientific system and have explained the bias in science news by some scientists’ ability to meet journalists’ preferences better than other scientists (Weingart, 2001). Scientific issues are covered most intensively when they touch upon controversial public issues (Schäfer, 2009). Few studies have considered scientists’ public communication within the context of a political controversy. Rothman and Lichter (1987) have attributed the discrepancies between the public and the scientific debate on nuclear energy to scientists’ differing degrees of political involvement. But they, too, neglected the effects of a public controversy on scientists’ communication. This study is intended to bridge this gap. It will investigate German climate scientists’ ideals and practices in communicating aspects of their research in public. In the following, a literature review regarding scientists’ strategic considerations when communicating their research in public and the dynamics of the German public debate on climate change will be given. Based on this, the research questions and hypotheses of this study will be derived.
2. Journalists’ preferences and the public debate Scientists are likely interested in having their research reported by journalists. They expect, or have experienced, beneficial consequences on their public reputation (Dunwoody, Brossard and Dudo, 2009; Post, 2008: 138–147) or research funding (Dunwoody and Ryan, 1985; Post, 2008: 148–158; Tsfati, Cohen and Gunther, 2011). Scientists generally want to address uncertainties when they communicate their findings in public (Young and Matthews, 2007). This may be a strategy to enhance their public authority (Mellor, 2010: 30) or funding (Mellor, 2010: 29; Zehr, 2000), but it might fail to arouse journalists’ interest (Stocking and Holstein, 1993). Journalists can act as participants or moderators, supporting a particular argument or contrasting the arguments of the contending parties (Janowitz, 1975). In both roles, journalists are likely interested in definitive and unambiguous arguments either to emphasise one or to counterbalance both of the contending parties’ claims (Hivon et al., 2010). Scientists may learn about journalists’ news criteria (Peters et al., 2008) especially when their areas of research are covered regularly in the media (Rödder and Schäfer, 2010). When intending to attract news coverage, scientists from highly covered disciplines therefore presumably avoid ambiguities and play down uncertainties to match journalists’ interest. Scientists also have to consider the dynamics of the public debate (Tøsse, 2013: 41). In controversies involving scientific issues, protagonists can play up expert knowledge supporting their own position and suppress knowledge supporting adversarial interests (Kepplinger, Brosius and Staab, 1991). Similarly, uncertainty can be used to support or question particular policy goals (Oreskes and Conway, 2010; Stocking and Holstein, 1993: 196). In public controversies, scientists might not, therefore, be entirely open about their scientific findings. For political reasons, they might use them to support their own and weaken contending goals (Rothman and Lichter, 1987). As neutral experts they might withhold findings questioning morally laden assumptions for fear of social disapproval (Post, 2008: 35–36; Snyderman and Rothman, 1988: 132–133). Scientists might also fear public misinterpretation of their results (Young and Matthews, 2007: 138, 141) and decide to withhold particular findings (Holliman, 2011: 839), considering social actors’ interests carefully (Tøsse, 2013).
3. Climate change in the German media In all the regions of the world, the media have paid considerable attention to climate change with differences in tone, focus or the degree of controversy (Antilla, 2010; Schäfer, Ivanova and
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
3
Post
Schmidt, 2012: 121–131). In Germany, climate change has been a public issue since climate scientists raised it in the 1970s, increasingly arousing attention from the media and politicians (Mormont and Dasnoy, 1995; Weingart, Engels and Pansegrau, 2000). From the start, climate change has persistently been characterised as man-made, dangerous, unique in history, calculable and avoidable by reducing CO2 emissions (Peters and Heinrichs, 2005; Weingart et al., 2000). The German debate differed immensely from the US debate where the media, politicians and other social protagonists cast a considerable amount of doubt on anthropogenic climate change (Antilla, 2005; Zehr, 2000). Striving for balance in reporting, US journalists have given equal prominence to voices confirming or denying the human influence on the climate, thus putting disproportionate emphasis on doubt about anthropogenic climate change (Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Oreskes, 2004). While the US media have presented the risk of climate change as dramatic and frightening (Sonnett, 2010; Wilson, 2000), it has widely been perceived as a natural phenomenon requiring adaptation strategies (Antilla, 2005; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004; Sonnett, 2010; Zehr, 2000). In Germany, by contrast, doubts about anthropogenic climate change have not been significant, at least until the 2000s (Peters and Heinrichs, 2005).
4. Hypotheses As scientists generally favour exposing scientific uncertainty in public one can expect that in general, climate scientists favour addressing scientific uncertainty in public. As uncertainty and ambiguity have little value for journalists and as the climate scientists are probably aware of this, one can further expect that the more climate scientists generally want to address uncertainty in public the less they are active in the media. Owing to journalists’ preference for unambiguous messages and against the backdrop of the German debate on climate change, one can also expect that the more clearly climate scientists confirm the public image of climate change, i.e. the assumptions that it is man-made, dangerous, calculable and historically unique, the more active they are in the media. Presumably, climate scientists consider the reactions of journalists as well as those of other people, e.g. their colleagues, interest groups or the general public. This study asks what objections climate scientists have to publishing research results in the media. Against the backdrop of the German public debate one can assume that climate scientists’ objections to publishing research results in the media are weaker when they confirm rather than contradict the publicly held assumptions about climate change.
5. Method A representative survey of the German climate scientists was conducted. Climate science is a highly fragmented subject and its practitioners include natural scientists from various disciplines, all organised in different professional bodies. Some are members of the German Meteorological Society (DMG), others of the German Physical Society (DPG). Still others do not belong to any professional association. This reflects the complex nature of the climate system. It includes the atmosphere and the oceans, precipitation and evaporation, physical, chemical and biological processes, past and future changes. As in a previous survey (Post, 2008), the population of climate scientists was defined to include all natural scientists a) investigating aspects of the climate system and b) whose studies are recognised by other climate scientists. Accordingly, a physicist studying the effects of cosmic particles on atmospheric processes is a climate scientist – provided that other climate scientists acknowledge his research. An economist examining the economic effects of climate change, by contrast, is not.
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
Figure 1. Climate scientists’ subject areas.
N = 123 German climate scientists, Mail survey, 2010.
Previously, the websites of the DMG and the German section of Past Global Changes (PAGES) were identified as the two most relevant organisations in German climate science (Post, 2008). Both websites offered extensive lists of German research institutions related to climate science. They mostly overlapped. The website of the Deutsche Meteorologische Gesellschaft (DMG) added a few meteorological institutes and the website of the German section of Past Global Changes (PAGES) added a few geological institutes. Combined, 85 German university and non-university research institutes relevant for climate science were identified. From these, all full professors were selected who, according to their publications or CVs, had conducted natural scientific research on the climate. 300 climate scientists were identified and asked to participate in a mail survey in late 2010. Eight scientists were ineligible: five were abroad for at least one year; three did not consider themselves climate scientists. Of the remaining 292 climate scientists, 123 (42%) completed the questionnaire. 117 respondents confirmed their participation on a separate postcard that had been sent to them with the questionnaire. Figure 1 shows the diversity of respondents’ subject areas. Respondents were asked about various aspects of climate change, their attitudes toward publicly communicating scientific uncertainty, and their media relations. To test whether climate scientists have fewer objections to publishing a result confirming rather than challenging the public image of climate change, a survey-experiment was conducted by giving respondents randomly one of two versions of a fictitious research result. One indicated that climate change is progressing faster, the other that it is progressing more slowly than expected. Respondents were asked to rate the importance of several objections to publishing the respective result in a newspaper. Apart from the fictitious result the two versions were equal. Thus, following the logic of a social scientific experiment, differences between the two groups’ aggregate ratings can be attributed to the variation of the fictitious result. The exact wording of the question is given below.
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
5
Post
6. Findings The climate scientists assessed the causes of climate change, its past and present volatility, future consequences and calculability in ten items. For the present purpose, it suffices to say that the climate scientists have little doubt about the human impact on the climate but are more or less split on its extent and danger as well as on the reliability of future climate projections. Based on their judgements, their degree of conviction of the publicly held assumptions that climate change is man-made, dangerous, unique in history and calculable was determined. Each judgement confirming one of these assumptions was assigned a positive, each opposing judgement a negative, and each neutral position a zero score. In sum, values between [-10; 10] could be obtained with -10 indicating the highest degree of doubt, 10 indicating the highest degree of conviction. Cronbach’s α = .763 confirms that the items tend to vary together and measure one singular object. The climate scientists’ judgements are distributed in a nearly perfect normal curve with a slight asymmetry toward conviction caused by five scientists with values between 9 and 10. On the contrary, there are only two largely doubtful climate scientists with values between -8 and -7. The mean degree of conviction is x = .77, the standard deviation 3.49. On a five-point scale, most climate scientists (72%) more or less agreed that “climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved”. Few (9%) more or less disagreed and about a fifth (21%) were indifferent. Asked about their media relations, the climate scientists reported an average of 8.42 contacts with journalists and 4.53 articles in the media – with considerable variation: some talked very frequently, others very rarely with journalists (SD = 10.94); and some published very many articles in the media, others very few (SD = 5.05). Correlations confirm that the more the German climate scientists talked with journalists and published articles in the media the less they approved of discussing unresolved questions in public. They were also the more engaged with the media the more they were convinced of the publicly accepted frame of climate change, i.e. that it is man-made, dangerous, historically unique and calculable (Table 1). There may be at least two reasons for these relationships. On the one hand, journalists may prefer scientists definitely and unambiguously confirming rather than questioning the public frame of climate change. On the other hand, being aware of journalists’ preferences, the climate scientists may be the more encouraged talking to journalists the more certain and convinced they are of the publicly held assumptions about climate change. Another explanation may be that climate scientists who consider climate change a dangerous threat are motivated to act politically and speak up in public. Plausibly, all three factors apply and interact. How far this is the case should be determined by future research. When deciding to give their results to the media, climate scientists likely consider the dynamics of the public debate – e.g. the potential effects of their findings on social or political actors or the general public. The climate scientists rated several objections to publishing a fictitious research result in the media. Two versions of the fictitious finding were created. One confirms the established assumptions about climate change, implying that climate change is proceeding faster than expected and the situation thus at least as dramatic as assumed. The other version contradicts the established views, implying that climate change is proceeding more slowly and the situation not as dramatic as assumed. The two versions were distributed randomly among the respondents. A knowledge gap in climate science was exploited to construct the fictitious finding. When the survey was conducted in 2010, there were theoretical considerations and estimates but no empirical data on the amount of CO2 the earth’s soil can store (Dawson and Spannagle, 2009: 64, 91). Based on this, two versions of the finding were formulated:
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
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Public Understanding of Science
Table 1. Relationships between climate scientists’ activism in the mass media, their degree of conviction in the commonly accepted image of climate change and their general intent to point at uncertainties.
Number of articles published in media Number of contacts with journalists
Degree of conviction in the publicly held assumptions about climate change (INDEX). r
“Climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved”, r
.227**
–.246***
.370***
–.176*
Questions: “Climate scientists should tell the public more clearly that many questions about climate change are still unresolved.” Agreement with this statement was measured on a five-point scale from 1 (“do not agree at all”) to 5 (“absolutely agree”). “Have you talked to a journalist about a problem of climate science in the past two years?” – Followed up by: “And how often was that?” “Have you published an article about the development of the climate in the mass media in the past two years?” – Followed up by: “And how many?” Notes: Product-moment correlations (Pearson’s r). N = 123 German climate scientists; mail survey, 2010. ***p < .01 (two-tailed); **p < .05 (two-tailed); *p < .1 (two-tailed).
Suppose a geologist conducted measurements to explore how the soil in the Northern hemisphere influences the climate. His measurement data show that the soil’s capacity to store CO2 has been considerably a) overestimated b) underestimated. The geologist concludes that climate change could proceed a) faster b) more slowly than expected.
Both versions were improved with the help of a full professor of geology to ensure their plausibility. None of them yielded any critical comments or remarkable response refusals, indicating that respondents considered them realistic. To explore the climate scientists’ objections to publishing the respective result in the media they were asked: Suppose the geologist’s finding was published in a scientific journal. Now he wants to publish it in a newspaper, concluding that climate change will proceed a) faster b) more slowly than expected. One can have several objections to his decision. How relevant or irrelevant do you consider each of the following?
The objections referred to possible undesirable effects on the public interpretation of the result, the credibility of climate science or the fictitious scientist’s career. On a scale from 1 (“relevant”) to 5
Downloaded from pus.sagepub.com at UNIVERSITE LAVAL on November 14, 2015
7
Post Table 2. Climate scientists’ objections to publishing research results in the mass media indicating that climate change is proceeding faster or more slowly than expected.
“His results could be instrumentalised by interest groups.” “His results could be misinterpreted in public.” “He provokes unnecessary criticism from his colleagues.” “His results would bring too much uncertainty to the public debate.” “He could put the credibility of climate science at risk.” Index (Cronbach’s α = .707)
Climate change proceeds faster (n = 57)
Climate change proceeds more slowly (n = 61)
Difference of means
Level of significance (two-tailed t-test)
– ×
×–
Δ
p
