Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management — Volume 12, Number 3—p.
415
© 2016 SETAC
Communicating Environmental Science to the General
Public
We live in an era of unprecedented scientific progress and
dissemination. Biological knowledge is estimated to double
every 5 years (Malhan and Rao 2008), and knowledge accrual
in environmental science might progress at an equal pace.
Almost every day, new findings about anthropogenic impacts
on the environment and humanity’s dependence on healthy
ecosystems (food, water, and other ecosystem services) are
described in scientific articles or the popular press. However,
such knowledge is not considered often enough in the choices
made, in everyday life as well as in societal decision making. In
fact, as scientists, we are baffled that even well-educated
decision makers often ignore relevant science when making
crucial management or policy decisions. Why is that? To
understand the cause, perhaps we need to take a closer look at
how we, as scientists, communicate with others.
Distribution and access to information is not an issue in the
internet age. However, the sheer amount of highly specialized
scientific literature continues to expand at an exponential rate.
Decision makers are therefore increasingly faced with unman-
ageable volumes of rapidly evolving evidence, mainly proc-
essed for exchange between experts. As an unfortunate result,
they seem to have largely given up reading the primary
scientific literature (Cvitanovic et al. 2015). Consideration of
scientific findings in societal decision making, therefore,
depends more than ever on better science communication—
condensed and widely disseminated briefs, press releases, and
reviews that summarize scientific findings and make them
more accessible to nonexperts.
The complexity of environmental science, which stems from
an intense collaboration between a broad range of disciplines, is a
key challenge for science communication, especially as results
need to be communicated from a highly dynamic research front
to a far more conservative societal and political network of
stakeholders. Therefore, scientists must be more than clear,
accurate, and concise when explaining research to a nonexpert
audience. They must also be able to hold the attention of
nontechnical audiences and demonstrate clearly the value of
their work. Unfortunately, scientists often assume a “deficit
model” when communicating with the general public—any
nonacceptance of scientific findings is assumed to be a deficit in
the audience’s factual knowledge and can, therefore, be
overcome by providing more facts. However, merely explaining
additional scientific details, even when done well, rarely leads to
a meaningful translation of science into societal actions.
People are inclined to accept scientific findings if they are in
line with their cultural beliefs and those shared by their peer
groups. For example, cultural worldviews were shown to have
a distinct impact on the perception of nanotechnology risks
(Kahan et al. 2009), with conservatives perceiving the benefits
to be greater than the risks, and liberals doing the opposite.
Scientific evidence that threatens cultural values will simply
lead to an increased support of alternative arguments, no
matter how unsupported by science those alternatives are.
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com).
DOI: 10.1002/ieam.1787
415
Environmental scientists, therefore, need to become better at
engaging in the public discourse by better considering social and
cultural contexts, for example, by using metaphors and
examples that connect to the audience’s experience of the
world (and hence frame the issue to be communicated)—not
only with the aim to facilitate the understanding of scientific
findings but also to create an open-minded environment that
enables an unbiased consideration of the best available scientific
information. This might be the only option to incorporate
incomplete, imperfect research results into policy debates, risk
Editorial
governance, and societal discussions. Such an approach will be
critically important, because risk governance depends on the
interplay between a wide range of stakeholders, such as nations,
industrial stakeholders, regulatory authorities, academia, civil
society organizations, and members of the general public.
A discourse on the challenges of science communication would
be incomplete without acknowledging the underlying techno-
logical challenge we face today—channels used for communicat-
ing science are becoming increasingly diverse and new forms of
media often encourage oversimplification. Gone is the almost
exclusive focus on scholarly communication via peer-reviewed
journals. Taking its place is a complex melange of rapid social
media forums (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc.) and
new open platforms, preprint servers, postpublication review
platforms, retraction watchdogs, and fundamentally novel
journals, such as the newly minted Journal of Brief Ideas, which
supports the communication of new ideas in 200 words or less.
If environmental scientists want to meet the challenge of
engaging the public and cut through the political rhetoric and
misinformation often tangled in the public press and social media,
we need to better understand and effectively navigate the rapidly
evolving information technologies and communication outlets.
Otherwise, we will continue to struggle when trying to explain
the implications of our research and its potential value to society.
As the world’s largest professional society in the field, the
Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC)
has a duty to advance the conversation in environmental science.
SETAC Europe has initiated a program to systematically
strengthen and improve science communication strategies:
the new advisory group on science and risk communication
(SCIRIC), and we encourage all SETAC members to partici-
pate. Details of the activities of SCIRIC can be found at http://
www.setac.org/group/SEAGSCIRIC.
Thomas Backhaus
IEAM Senior Editor
University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Thomas-Benjamin Seiler
RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
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Kahan DM, Braman D, Slovic P, Gastil J, Cohen G. 2009. Cultural cognition of the
risks and benefits of nanotechnology. Nat Nanotechnol 4:87–90.
Malhan IV, Rao S. 2008. Perspectives on knowledge management. Plymouth (UK):
Scarecrow Press. 476 p.