The importance of providing adequate context may seem insignificant until you are the person that needs it. The innate, intuitive meaning of graphs, maps, statements or presentations will be lost without the correct framing required by a technically variable audience. When I started presenting climate analysis, as a product of academia, I structured outputs as informed by early IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change) reports and those of mainstream scientific analysis. When faced with a room of confused faces silently saying, “what have I just heard”, I realised that even though what I had said was technically correct, the ability to grasp and thereby the likelihood to mitigate/adapt actions based on my message was compromised. Over time, working more as a climatologist I have learnt that it is as much my responsibility to present analysis in a non-technical, relatable manner to different technical capacity decision-makers as it was to get the analysis correct in the first place.
There has for many years been a misunderstanding between climate (and meteorological) science communities and society. This thankfully is slowly changing, particularly as populations must come to terms with the reality of extreme droughts, of wildfire regime changes, of flooding and of heatwaves where previously ignorance wasn’t detrimental. Informed discussions of this nature among the general population will to promote adaptation and empower a societal resilience mindset. The status quo for scientific output, however, has roots in the ivory tower mentality of academic elitism as the barrier to entry, thus isolating their utilisation to those of that tower. While this may be acceptable in industries where impacts and consequences are also isolated in such a way, these industries are becoming few and further between. A civil engineer might previously only consider the structural integrity and life-cycle of a bridge; a comprehensive view will now need to consider urban spatial planning, sustainable environmental considerations, meteorological changes resulting from climate change, local industries and bridge utilisation scenarios, vandalism, or emergencies. It is more imperative than ever to communicate as a specialist in varying fields in a manner that is conducive to collaboration such that all aspects can be properly considered.
From the climate change perspective, I started talking about the large-scale changes in the averages. These were statements like “Area ‘X’ will have an average increase in annual temperature of 1.2°C” or “Area ‘Y’ will experience a 5% decrease in precipitation by 2100”. Statements like this were presented at a conference by a spokesperson from the World Meteorological Organisation. The conference was for Disaster Management and was attended by disaster management practitioners and legislators. While these statements were not incorrect according to the models, the audience were able to digest practically nothing due to this academic barrier. This was painfully evident by the blank faces in the auditorium. A colleague and I presented almost immediately afterwards where we effectively had the same message saying that climate change was a measurable reality but phrased the analysis in a way to which the people could relate. The statements became “Area ‘X’ will have an increase of 25% in heatwaves in January and February in the 2020s and 28% in the 2030’s” or “Area ‘Y” will have a general decrease in rainfall in the winter months of 30mm in the 2020s, however, the days of extreme rainfall (>50mm) will double at the same time”, all of which was graphed and mapped intuitively and set against photos of localised on the ground impacts of the related hazard.
We effectively had the same message as the previous speaker and yet were able to convey the complex analysis of climate change in a way that both informed and allowed for discussion and debate. By giving context to the climate change impacts, by being empathetic to the fact that an audience doesn’t have the same technical understanding of the subject matter as a specialist has, you’re able to better present the data such that adaptation and impact mitigation can be prioritised. Decision-makers shouldn’t be made to jump through hoops to understand, the analysis doesn’t need to be “dumbed down”, it should be put in a relatable context such that there is no barrier to entry.
Comentários