Deliberating the Environment

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Deliberating the Environment? Scientists and
Non-scientists in Dialogue
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Background
Science Communication Deliberative Democracy
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The Research Project
One-to-one exchanges 6 scientists and 6
non-scientists (Almost) 36 exchanges
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The Topics
Local environment Genetic modification Climate
change Energy Biodiversity and animals Land use
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Objectives (1)
1. Compare the conceptions of the environment
held by the scientists and non-scientists,
including the way that scientific ideas are
related to philosophical, ethical, political,
social and economic ideas. 2. Understand the
obstacles to effective two-way communication
between the scientists and non-scientists,
identify the strategies used to overcome those
obstacles and consider their wider relevance for
the promotion of effective public participation
in environmental governance.
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Objectives (2)
3. Assess the effects of a series of one-to-one
deliberations about environmental issues on the
environmental beliefs, attitudes and behaviours
of the scientists and non-scientists. 4.
Investigate the effects of a series of formal
one-to-one deliberations on scientists and
non-scientists deliberative behaviour, including
connections between formal and informal
deliberation. 5. Consider the merits and defects
of the deliberative exchange as a new
deliberative forum.
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Objective 2 Communication
Two-way communication Scientists communicating
science
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Talking Science
Yeah, I think, the concern I have is, we dont
really know say we found an economic way of
pulling carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere
Suppose we found a way of pulling the carbon
dioxide back out of the atmosphere, how do we
know that the response of the climate system will
be linear? How do we know that itll reverse the
way it went up, because lots of natural processes
dont I mean in lots of natural hydrological
processes in particular, if you look at wetting
and drying of soil, the relationship between
water content and and erm matric potential might
be that when its wet, and it might be that
i.e., something else when its dry and its
what we call hysteretic so the wetting and the
drying response are not the same So it would
seem to me that if you know, to simplistically
say, well weve just got to find a way of sucking
CO2 out of the atmosphere and its bound to come
back down the straight line that it went up
whatever impact youre choosing to measure, might
not be so it might take a hell of a long time
for any benefit to kick in it might kick in very
quickly, and have a huge tail that you never get
out of You know, cause that certainly seems to
happen with a lot of very damped large
environmental systems that I study.
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Talking Issues
But the challenge is Ive seen it said that
whatever we did now will have a minute effect
on what is likely to happen over the next fifty
years It may have a much, much longer term
effect and I think if people are going to be
persuaded to change, then the change is going to
be really dramatic And I dont know, I dont
know if you saw those programmes a while ago, the
nineteen forties house and the Victorian house, I
mean if I go back, I was a kid just after the war
if we were going to stop using resources in
the way were using them, and disposing of them
in the way we do, then central heating will
disappear, constant hot water will disappear, it
will be like like it was when I grew up And we
wont be transporting fruit and vegetables out of
season the lifestyle that youre expecting
people to commit to is huge, the lifestyle change
... And the future, you look at the simplest
things, the simplest environmental things, like
you could make huge differences to fuel use, if
all of our houses, when they were built, were
automatically built, properly glazed, and draught
proofed, and insulated But theyre not.
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Why talk issues?
Possible reason? Dont know science or lack
confidence in knowledge of science Reasons Avoi
d being professorial/expert Avoid technical
language Avoid dominating/patronising
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Why talk science?
Still concerned about language and
dominating Less concerned about being expert -
not negative connotations Perspectives on
environmental science?
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Perspectives on environmental science? (1)
Did you talk about scientific issues in the kind
of ways that you might do with your
colleagues? Yes because you didnt ask about
things where I would disappear off and do my,
well the only one, that I, would view myself as
being an expert on, was climatic change And in
that case climatic change is something which its
not like erm thermodynamics, or erm relativity
where it very quickly has to start you know,
well be getting a piece of chalk out, and we
write on the board These are things which are,
in the common world, and which you dont need to
express with special knowledge It is the fact
that you have knowledge and you have it in
organised fashion But that doesnt stop other
people having a similar knowledge or at least a
part of the knowledge It may not be as well
organised, but they have a great deal of it,
its easy to obtain, it isnt like if I was
talking about statistics Well its a very, very
special knowledge But then I wouldnt even talk
to my colleagues about that, because they
wouldnt understand me, either.
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Perspectives on environmental science? (2)
I think me working hypothesis which was that
theres a lot more scope for democratising
scientific communication is being largely
vindicated really, erm which sounds like a hell
of a conceited thing to say but Ive always had
this view that erm its not that bloody hard to
talk even complicated science to just about
anyone whos not actually asleep. And why do you
think science communication is
important? Partly because weve got a real
cultural problem in this country with
intellectual endeavour of any sort And science
in particular, you know, the image of the, the
mad professor, you know the white coat boffin
with his hair all over the place The reason my
hairs all over the place is I used to be a punk
rocker and Ive never really changed how I deal
with me hair since then, erm its not cause Im a
scientist, I was a punk rocker well before I was
a scientist, erm yeah I think, I think weve got
to get it across to people that science is a, is
a human endeavour and were not like bloody
mister Spock, you know Erm, and weve got to
get that across to scientists too, I mean,
theres a lot of scientists up their own arse
about science and you know the importance and
dignity of what theyre doing you know And they
dont even stop to look at their, their emotional
and er other social motivations for their work
And the way that governs the questions they
allow themselves to ask and so on.
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Perspectives on environmental science? (3)
Did you talk about scientific issues in the
kind of way you might do with your
colleagues? Oh I think that was very different
If I was talking with colleagues I could be, or I
would be fairly confident that they were reading
the same sorts of things that I read that they
have a breadth of, of basic understanding
Simply because of training and all these years
weve spent travelling through the university
system. I mean this is patterns of thought and
all of that sort of thing would have made it
hugely different, erm whereas the people we were
talking to, it was very largely an emotional
response to what was going on, a feeling of not
knowing enough of what was happening but knowing
that something was happening that they were told
was not good.
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Perspectives on environmental science? (4)
I mean I deliberately tried when I was doing
this not to come over as a professor of
environmental science cause I think that would
As I said yesterday I dont want to give a
lecture on biological diversity I teach
undergraduates on the convention on biological
diversity so I didnt want to do that yesterday
and I was always very aware of sort of not going
into the science. I thought people understood the
issues er we didnt really explore whether or
not they actually understood the science
underpinning those issues And I think that
would have been, that would have been a totally
different sort of exercise to actually find out
whether or not they really understood about
nuclear energy or about you know solar power.
They understood the issues I think for a large
part they understood the issues.
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Reflections on Perspectives
Science as what you do in your narrow
specialism Science as a special way of
thinking Science as an extension of common ways
of thinking
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Conclusions and Questions
The likelihood of scientists acting as
intermediaries between expert science and
non-scientists may depend upon their perspective
on science. The non-scientists seemed quite
happy irrespective of whether the scientists
talked science or avoided talking science. Are
there better and worse ways of understanding the
relationship between the science and the
issues?