“Almost everyone is now aware of the severity of the climate crisis, but that process took decades. As a result, valuable time was lost.” Why did it take so long? By way of illustration, Van Stekelenburg refers to the 'first anti-cancer vaccine': since 2014 adolescent girls have been urged to be vaccinated against HPV, which causes cervical cancer. This led to scepticism among some people, especially after media reports that this HPV vaccine could lead to chronic fatigue (a falsehood, as it turned out). “Scientists were too late in informing the public, leaving sceptics with plenty of time to present their side of the story. The scientists should have anticipated this situation.”
The sceptics are often well-organised lobby groups that benefit from discrediting scientific results. Van Stekelenburg points to the persistent lobbying of the tobacco industry to discredit the link between smoking and lung cancer. “This puts science on the defensive. It works better to inform the public about your results from the outset.” If you want this scientific information to be widely accepted, it is important that there is solid consensus in science and that this consensus is communicated. Van Stekelenburg is not opposed to debate, but this debate should be about how to deal with the problem, not about the scientific facts themselves. “When the scientific evidence is clear, holding a lengthy public debate about these facts is very harmful from a public information point of view.”
Hearing both sides
The media have an important role in this, especially if they – which often happens – conflate information with opinion. A scientist's factual information quickly becomes lost in a debate about the desired approach. Van Stekelenburg cites The Guardian as an example. In its journalism on climate science, this newspaper does not present debates about the facts. “Clearly delineated as such, this newspaper reports the aspects on which there is a scientific consensus. There is no discussion about those aspects.”
Van Stekelenburg believes that scientists can help by informing the public directly via blogs or other channels. “But it is not yet possible to generate a lot of attention in this way.” The second problem is lack of time. “Although funding agencies require that scientists share their results with the public, active researchers have little time to do that. For example, PhD students already have excessive workloads, so you can't expect them to work on this task seriously. If you give scientists more time for communication, this can enhance the acceptance of findings on urgent issues.”
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Aart van Stekelenburg (Helmond, 1991) studied communication science and behavioural science at Radboud University (2010-2016). Next year he plans to defend his PhD thesis on his research into effective science communication.
Photo: congerdesign via Pixabay