Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum said the following yesterday:
"The earth is not the objective. Man is the objective, and I think that a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down."
Leaving aside the politics and sexism, which probably warrant discussion but in more appropriate forums than Maribo, this statement serves as an important reminder about the complexity of religious attitudes about climate change. Climate activists often employ the Biblical notion of stewardship as an argument for action to combat climate change, despite the fact that stewardship is not necessarily viewed that way by their audience. Stewardship is viewed by some religious leaders as support as "our responsibility to protect the planet" and by others as "our responsibility to exploit the planet's resources for the benefit of humankind". As I mentioned in the recent paper about climate change and belief, there are religious groups which rely on the notion of stewardship to both support and oppose environmental laws and climate change action:
...a movement within the U.S. Christian evangelical community urges action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions based on the Biblical concept of stewardship, as well as intergenerational equity and social justice (e.g., ECI 2006). The effect of this movement on the public understanding of climate change in the United States is unclear (McCammack 2007). Attitudes about climate change among evangelical Americans may be influenced more by support for conservative politicians and by the evangelical organizations urging the rejection of climate science and climate action based on the Biblical notion of “dominion” over Earth (e.g., Beisner et al. 2006) than by the stewardship movement.
Monday, February 20, 2012
"Stewardship", Rick Santorum and climate change
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Rolling with the punches
In a short article on the Yale Forum on Climate Change and the Media, Keith Kloor compares online climate change discourse to a "roller derby" and a "street fight"
Taken together, the intimidation tactics of climate science bashers and the new pressure campaigns, by allies of the concerned climate community, promise to, if nothing else, ratchet up the rhetoric of both sides and deepen the politicization of global warming. Just what the public discourse doesn’t need. Meanwhile, the conflict-loving media will eat it up and stoke the fires.
For climate campaigners and their adversaries, the escalating war of wits is a fait accompli. They are not constrained by how they might be perceived by the public at large. But the stakes are higher for the climate science community, which must defend itself against scurrilous attacks while staying above the fray. Not an easy balancing act.
I've written and spoken about the need for humility among climate scientists and climate bloggers countless times in the past two years. A recent academic paper of mine on history, belief and climate communication concluded with this statement:
Reforming public communication about anthropogenic climate change will require humility on the part of scientists and educators. Climate scientists, for whom any inherent doubts about the possible extent of human influence on the climate were overcome by years of training in physics and chemistry of the climate system, need to accept that there are rational cultural, religious, and historical reasons why the public may fail to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, let alone that it warrants a policy response.
Ironically, online "coverage" of that paper drew some amazingly angry and personal comments. Had I followed the ethos of the Nature editorial (which Keith cites) arguing that climate scientists need to realize they are in a street fight, then I suppose I would have fought back in kind.
To what end? You don't change the tone of the discussion by spewing venom. I am interested in the long game here. I certainly hope the same is true for other climate scientists. Better we make the effort to understand why people are so angry about this issue than we win cheap short-term points by responding in kind to every slight. Even if our siblings wish we did (sorry sis).
If climate discourse is a street fight, then we need to do more than fight back. We need to learn how to take a punch.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
60 Minutes on Coral Reefs and the challenge of depicting ocean acidification
This weekend's 60 Minutes featured this great segment on coral reefs, in which a well-protected "Gardens of the Queen" in Cuba are used a possible example of a resilient reef ecosystem.
The segment touches on coral bleaching, though perhaps not with the authority or depth that is warranted by science. What's most striking, however, is that the segment does not even mention ocean acidification.
I'm sure the media conspiracy theorists might claim this all as evidence a U.S. network shying away from discussing "controversial" subjects like climate change. But I suspect something else is at play, and it is something that science communicators everywhere need to consider. This is television - you need engaging, interesting video. Just how do you film ocean acidification? It's a slow, invisible process, nothing like the exciting action shots of the host and scientists diving among sharks and lionfish.
This is not a criticism - it is a challenge. What are the best ways for documentarians to capture the effect of changing ocean chemistry on coral reefs?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Climate in the era of humans
The latest episode of the radio show and podcast Big Picture Science is all about the idea that we have entered the "anthropocene" or era of man. The guests include William Steffan, talking about the anthropocene concept, and a host of others including yours truly discussing the evidence that humans are changing the climate, and how we can best describe that evidence to people.
On a related note, the Yale Climate Media Forum has a story up about whether culture matters in discussing climate change, based on my upcoming publication on belief and climate change.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Can we make the climate a part of the human world?
A new paper of mine, about to be published in the October issue of BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society), looks at how the common, ancient human belief that the weather and climate are out of human control affects education and outreach about human-caused climate change. I outlined these ideas and my outreach message at a talk earlier this year. An early online version of the paper is available.
The article could really be a book, and, in fact, it may become one in a year or two. It grew out of several years of interdisciplinary research, involving everything from reading history and religious texts, to interviewing religious leaders, to participating in outreach programs, to donning a sulu and attending church in Fiji.
Here's the core argument:
Skepticism about anthropogenic climate change may therefore be reasonable when viewed through the lens of religion or the lens of history. In order to create a lasting public understanding of anthropogenic climate change, scientists and educators need to appreciate that the very notion that humans can directly change the climate may conflict with beliefs that underpin the culture of the audience.
I briefly trace the history behind this argument, and provide some modern evidence for the influence of belief on acceptance of the evidence for climate change. Despite what William Briggs, a critic of the early online release, my argument is not purely about religion, rather it is about the sense that the climate is to large to be affected by humans. This idea that we are small compared to the grand forces of nature and the atmosphere may be encoded in a structured belief system, or it may drive people's desire to climb mountains and stare at the view from the top.
Even in secular communities, a broad sense that forces beyond humans control the climate may partly explain the persistence of the argument that natural forcings like solar activity are the primary cause of observed 20th century climate change despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.
I conclude with two broad suggestions for reforming climate change education and outreach:
Climate change outreach efforts need to address the perceived conflict between the scientific evidence and deeply ingrained cultural perceptions of climate. First, the development of human beliefs about climate should be added to educational materials and lesson plans. Existing education and outreach efforts rarely acknowledge any thinking about climate or climate change prior to the Svante Arrhenius’ 1896 study on atmospheric carbon dioxide and temperature....
Second, educators and scientists should take lessons from approaches used in teaching of evolution, another subject where science can appear to conflict with pre-existing beliefs. Pedagogical research on evolution finds that providing the audience with opportunities to evaluate how their culture or beliefs affect their willingness to accept scientific evidence is more effective than attempting to separate scientific views from religious or cultural views.
The paper concludes with a message that I am regularly repeating at scientific forums, and will continue to write about at Maribo:
Climate scientists, for whom any inherent doubts about the possible extent of human influence on the climate were overcome by years of training in physics and chemistry of the climate system, need to accept that there are rational cultural, religious and historical reasons that the public may fail to believe that anthropogenic climate change is real, let alone that it warrants a policy response. It is unreasonable to expect a lay audience, not armed with the same analytical tools as scientists, to develop lasting acceptance during a one hour public seminar of a scientific conclusion that runs counters to thousands of years of human belief.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Climate change debates and flags of convenience
Monrovia is the capital of Liberia, the country where that vessel is registered. There is no thriving trade between Liberia and western Canada. Merchant ships merely register in Liberia in order to avoid regulations and to reduce costs. Liberia is the flag of convenience.
As a scientist, I sometimes find the challenge of communicating about climate change similar to that of operating a ship according to the rules of your native country while the "competitors" take advantage of the lawless wilds of other nations.
People opposing the basic science of climate change in the public sphere need not adhere to the slow, rigorous method of hypothesis testing or build coherent arguments over time based on the balance of published evidence. That provides the rhetorical advantage of adopting whatever "flag" or argument is convenient that week, whether about sunspots, an error in an IPCC report, or temperature trends on Mars. If the argument is proven false in the court of public opinion, you adopt another flag. The sequence of arguments does not have to be logically consistent. The goal of the organized sceptic movement* is simply to keep the ship sailing.
The temptation for scientists to adopt the practices of the opponents in the debate is what the late Steve Schneider described called the "double ethical bind" in a famously mis-used quote:
On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both
The response to that honest, clear assessment of the communications challenge says enough. For years, that one line about offering up "scary scenarios" was itself a Liberia to many of Schneider's opponents.
It can be challenging to stay level-headed about communication in the face of often unscrupulous opposition. That's why I find that the keys to communication about climate change are not the usual suspects of technical expertise, passion, ability to drop jargon, etc. etc. In my experience, successfully communicating about climate change takes, more than anything else, patience and humility.
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* Note: It's important to separate the funded movement from individual people's doubts about the science of climate change, which can be grounded in science, culture, religion, politics, moral values, you name it. And there are vocal sceptics who rely on a consistent line of argumentation; perhaps Lindzen's earlier arguments about the water vapour feedback could fall in this category, though it's fair to say that ship has since migrated to other shores.
Monday, September 26, 2011
The folly of broad statements about adapting to climate change
In my climate change course, we devote a week to discussing climate and past civilizations. Among the goals of that week is to erase the notion that climate change is inherently "bad", or inherently "good", from the student's minds. The effects of climate change on any system, whether a society or an ecosystem, depends on the adaptive capacity and the rate of the climate change. The same climate change that spelled the end of the Norse settlements in Greenland did not affect (ed. crowd-sourced copy editing) the well-adapted Inuit of the region.
A recent, and controversial, book hypothesizing that the Easter Islanders were not done in by "ecocide", as argued by Jared Diamond and most archaeological evidence suggests, led to some discussion about the societal resilience to climate change. All roads lead to climate these days, I guess.
Judith Curry concludes a post on the subject with this statement, which supports a dangerously simple view of adaptation to climate change:
Occam’s razor suggests that we should tend towards simplest theories. However, in complex coupled social-ecological-environmental systems, simple theories are almost certain to be too simple. The complexity of such coupled systems precludes simple cause-effect analyses. If we are arguing about such a system on the scale of Easter Island, what hope do we have of understanding and managing such interactions on continental or even global scales? Ecosystems eventually adapt to climate change and insults from humans.
The comments about Easter Island notwithstanding - we argue about places like Easter Island because it all happened in the past and thus evidence is disputable, not because we can't understand complex systems - this statement concludes with exactly the type of simple, blanket view of complex problems that we should be teaching students to avoid. Theories like "Ecosystems eventually adapt to climate change and insults from humans" are indeed too simple!
Ecosystems do adapt. In a broad sense. But the question is not if they can eventually adapt, because we don't live in eventually. And, regardless of the time frame, we must remember that adapt itself is a vague term. To estimate the impacts of climate change, or other human insults, in the real world, we need to delve deeper and dispense with the vague generalities:
1. Define eventually: At what rate can the system adapt? Is the change happening faster than ecosystems, or people, can adapt such that they stay in the present state?
2. Define adapt: What exactly does adaptation look like? Say, coral reefs can "adapt" (in a collective, rather than an individual biological sense) to climate change by killing off the less resilient species and growth forms. That, for example, may be what is happening in South Tarawa where I do field work. You've got reefs dominated by a single, weedy species, and little habitat diversity. This new adaptation may not be desirable for those who depend on the ecosystem.
That's science. You don't just assume away an answer ("oh, we'll be just fine") based on a pre-conceived notions of what's "good" or "bad". You gotta analyse the data, do the math, unpack how the system works.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
24 Hours of Reality, 365 days a year
If you missed it live, all of the videos from the 24 Hours of Reality are available online. Pick a region of interest and watch the video. Each hour is comprised of a short introductory video, a local speaker delivering a variation of Al Gore's presentation about climate change, followed by a panel of experts back at the studio talking about the science and the issues.
The panel members rotated throughout the 24 hours based on expertise, and who could stay awake. Kudos to Paul Higgins from AMS for doing the overnight shift as well as some of the daytime panels. It's worth watching the highlights from multiple hours and/or watching multiple panel discussions, as the rotating cast made for some fascinating and interesting conversations. I was a part of panels that included Al Gore and four scientists (Kotzebue, Alaska, Hour 4) as well as mix from academia, broadcasting the UN, Hollywood and NGOs (French Polynesia, Hour 5; Dubai, Hour 16).
Monday, September 12, 2011
Climate reality... What a concept.
Starting a 8pm EST on Wednesday night, the Al Gore's Climate Reality Project will be doing a 24 hour live broadcast of people around the world talking about climate change. Here's their pitch:
24 Presenters. 24 Time Zones. 13 Languages. 1 Message. 24 Hours of Reality is a worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. It will consist of a new multimedia presentation created by Al Gore and delivered once per hour for 24 hours, representing every time zone around the globe. Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate. We will offer a round-the-clock, round-the-globe snapshot of the climate crisis in real time. The deniers may have millions of dollars to spend, but we have a powerful advantage. We have reality.
I'll be taking part in some of the expert panels back in the studio, discussing some of the science and some of the issues after the on-site presenters are finished (for updates on times, follow me on Twitter: @simondonner).
As regular readers of Maribo, or people who heard my talk at AMS this spring know, I've been an advocate of what one might call a "humbler" approach to outreach about climate change. That approach is informed by my field research in the Pacific Islands, some related historical research over the past five years, and my outreach experience; the argument for it is described in a paper currently in press with the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (more on that later). I'll be bringing some of that thinking to portions of the broadcast.
In case you are not a child of the 80s... the title of this post is a play on a Robin Williams comedy album from the Mork and Mindy days.
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Joining the twitter-verse
Following up on a promise made earlier this summer to expand to other online "media", I've joined Twitter (@simondonner).
I was initially quite skeptical of Twitter. That should come as no surprise; I am a scientist, an academic one at that, and skepticism is what we do. But the last thing the world needs is more academic curmudgeons.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Was Hurricane Irene caused by climate change?
And every time, some prominent name or public figure, fed up with media coverage or with the persistence of skepticism about science or the lack of action, throws statistics out the window and says yes. Or says something like "Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming", as 350.org founder Bill McKibben wrote in the Daily Beast. That in turn draws legitimate pushback, further polarizes the public discussion about climate change, and makes some long-time participants of the debate want to smash their head against a wall.
The good news is that this cycle has been going on for long enough that people have finally began to reword the question. In Climate Central, Michael Lemonick tried "Is climate change making this storm worse than it would have been otherwise?". That is a slightly better than the staple question, but still demands more certainty than can really be provided by the evidence.
The New York Times asked the subtly different, but far more sensible question: "Are hurricanes getting worse because of human-induced climate change?". By shifting from the particular storm to the sequence of storms over time, it becomes a question we can actually answer with data and statistics. As the article by Justin Gillis finds, scientists including NOAA's Tom Knutson, who I worked with on a related subject, are divided on the interpretation of past data on hurricane intensity.
Hurricane Irene was a reminder of one of factor that should draw more attention in the climate change and hurricanes discussion: rain. The worst damage from Irene came from the heavy rains and floods in Vermont and surrounding areas (the above photo is from CBC News). You can see the data yourself on the USGS real-time streamflow page for the state, a fantastic resource for everyone from regional planners to recreational paddlers (my old haunt the Millstone River in New Jersey reached almost triple the flood stage on Sunday) which may be subject to budget cuts.
If I had to place money on which feature of tropical cyclones or hurricanes would increase the most because of climate change, I'd bet on rainfall, ahead of other metrics like intensity (wind speed) or surge height. Warmer water means more evaporation; warmer air can hold more water.
That doesn't mean the flooding in Vermont was caused by human-induced climate change. But it might mean that we can get more agreement on the answer to the New York Times question.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Is it time to start holding virtual conferences? The case of the International Coral Reef Symposium
The only thing hotter than the U.S. and Canada (east of the Rockies!) in the past week was the discussion on the Coral-List, the NOAA-managed read by pretty much anyone that does research related to coral reefs, about the cost of attending next year’s International Coral Reef Symposium. The ICRS is THE meeting in the world of coral reef research. Thanks to the Olympian once-every-four-years timing, attendance is, I’d argue, as mandatory as it comes in the sciences. Miss an American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting, and you can attend another in six or twelve months. Miss an ICRS, and, well, you’ve got four full years to train for the next one.
The full week registration fee for the meeting has been set at AU$960 - AU$1250, depending on membership in the scientific society and the date of purchase. While registration fees of $1000 or more are not unheard of for scientific meetings in other branches of research, like say medicine, the price is extraordinary for the natural sciences, and especially for a sub-field in which many of the researchers are based in developing countries. Naturally, people from small NGOs in SE Asia to large academic instituions in North America are upset and stating that they will not attend.
Shocking as they be to many, the real story is not the registration fees. The real story is is the travel.
In addition to timing, the ICRS shares a logistical challenge with the Olympics. There is no optimal site for the event. Coral reefs are found throughout the tropics and subtropics, and that is excluding the cold water reefs in places like our own BC coast. Coral reef researchers are even more widespread, with scientists dotting every continent save Antarctica (I think - anyone at McMurdo care to correct me here?). No matter where the ICRS is held, be it Florida (2008), Okinawa (2004) or Bali (2000), a majority of top researchers in the field will have to travel long distances to attend. That means a lot of money – I estimate a weeklong trip to Cairns for the meeting from this part of the world could cost CAN$3500-4000 with registration. Moreover, that means a lot of greenhouse gas emissions. All for a scientific meeting about an ecosystem which many argue is existentially threatened by climate change and ocean acidification.
Hence the question on many people’s minds. Should the ICRS go virtual?
Of any scientific conference, there are certainly strong arguments for making the ICRS virtual: no optimal location for the meeting, cost being a significant barrier for many potential participants, travel restrictions being problematic (e.g. Middle East researchers requiring special visas for places like the U.S. and Australia), and of course the subject of conference being sensitive to atmospheric CO2. A counterargument is that the meeting is held only once every four years, in part for some of these very reasons, so rather than make ICRS virtual, other annual meetings should go virtual and adopt an Olympic schedule for the “live” meetings. A compromise first-step would be a hybrid meeting in which people had to option to participate "live" or online.
Society has adapted quickly to tectonic shifts in the way we communicate. Virtual conferences, which so many disdain for missing that personal connection of a live meeting, will become perfectly normal to us at some point in the future, just as e-mail, web browsing, Google Earth, Facebook, and Twitter have. It's a question of when, not if.
My question is: Which scientific society is willing to be the early adopter?
Friday, May 27, 2011
Climate communication: Shaking things up
I've been advocating that scientists need to experiment with new ways of communicating with the public. Now I don't know whether this video will work as a communications strategy, or whether I even agree with what they are saying ("we're scientists, you're not" could come across asarrogant), let alone the language they use to say it. But let's not be too academic here. Regardless of what you think of the finished product, this group deserves props for at least trying something different:
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Phew, must be that global warming
Perhaps the climate change communications MVP should go to the funniest individual or organization. Humour is probably more effective than either aggression or humility.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The MVP of climate change communication
The Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason is giving out the third Climate Change Communicator of the Year award. Voting is open until April 15th.
The award raises a question that comes up around award time in the sporting world. Is the most valuable player the one who produces the most - say, hits the most home runs - regardless of the success of their team? Or is the most valuable player the one who captained or contributed the most to a successful team?
If you believe the former, then the communicator of the year is the one who racked up the most statistics, be it blog posts, policy briefings, public talks, op-eds, etc. Given the rough state of public and political discourse on climate change, maybe this is like voting for the slugger on the last place team. One could argue that the most valuable communicators may not score well using the standard individual metrics, but doing more to advance the "cause".
That raises a second question: for what should we award a climate change communicator? Advancing public understanding of the science? Or influencing public or political opinion on climate change policy or solutions? These are two very different goals. The most valuable communicators might in fact be ones who best help audiences differentiate between science and judgments made based on science. In that view, the most valuable communicator will not be the strongest advocate for action.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Coverage of today's congressional hearing on climate science
The U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing about climate science this morning, as a part of the deliberations on a bill that would challenge the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. These congressional hearings can seem like a circus, with a set of climate scientists countered by people with nice sounding credentials making arguments by analogy or just wholly baseless claims about climate science (case in point: just read or watch Donald Roberts' testimony).
This time the real circus may have been the coverage. After my morning class, I clicked on Science Magazine's (by then complete) live blog of the hearing with Gavin Schmidt of Real Climate in hopes of getting a feel for what had come to pass in the halls of Congress. Unfortunately, this legimate attempt at science coverage by a news organization with the aide of an expert from the field became more of a circus than most congressional hearings thanks to the commenters. I think commenter Roger Pielke Jr. posted more than Schmidt and blog host Eli Kintisch combined.
But that's the whole challenge, isn't it? Climate communication, like climate change, is a signal to noise problem.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Climate communication: Be aggressive or be humble?
There's continuing disagreement inside and outside the scientific community about not only what scientists should say about climate change, but how they should be saying it. The communications literature states there is not one right approach, but a range of different approaches which may be suitable depending on the audience.
The climate blogosphere got in a tizzy in January about an advance copy of the text of a talk to be presented by Kevin Trenberth at the recent American Meteorological Society. The debate centered around Trenberth's idea that certainty about climate change is so great we should invert the common "Is this event caused by climate change?" line of questioning. As it states in the abstract, "Given that global warming is unequivocal, the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming".
All the talks from the "Communicating Climate Change" session (One and Two) at AMS were recorded and are now available for viewing online. Trenberth's talk and my own presentation "Making the climate a part of the human world" provide examples of two very different ways of thinking about communication of climate change (viewers be patient, the audio of my talk doesn't kick in for about 90 seconds). You might say the different methods of analysis - I take a deep historical perspective to explain the confusion of today - lead also to clear differences in what I can best describe as temperament. A simple breakdown would be that Trenberth goes on the offensive (i.e. prove me wrong) while I've been told my approach is almost defensive (i.e. let's be more humble, there's a good reason the science is hard to believe). Obviously, I'm partial to the latter, it is my research after all. I do accept that there may also be a time and a place for the former too.
Update: More discussion of these questions at Class M and Rabbet Run.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Scientists fearing judgement from their peers
I came across this funny observation about scientists in 1970 essay by mythologist Joseph Campbell:
I have noticed (haven't you) on television that when professors are asked questions they usually hum and haw and mmmm and uh until you have to ask yourself whether it is some kind of interior crisis they are experiencing, or just a loss of words for exquisite thoughts; whereas when a professional baseball or football player is asked even a pretty complicated questions, he can usually answer with ease and grace. He graduated from the womb when he was nineteen or so and the best player on the sandlot. But this other poor chap was held sitting under a canopy of professors until well into middle age, and even though he must not have acquired that degree, it came too late to be called self-confidence. He has the imprint of that professorial canopy is his IRMS ["innate releasing mechanisms"] forever and is still hoping that no one is going to be giving him bad marks for his answer.
Though these days the difference may also be media training, Campbell may have been on to something here. I'd guess that most scientists are still conditioned to fear the judgement of peers and mentors. The ones who overcome that unfortunately often come across as, and may very well be, arrogant. It is a difficult balance.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Creating a Climate for Change: Public lecture and webcast tonight
Alex Clapp from Simon Fraser University and I are presenting at a free public event tonight in downtown Vancouver sponsored by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, a research consortium run by the area universities. For those not in the lower mainland, there should be a live webcast as well.
This event Creating a Climate for Change will explore scientific and social factors that influence the public's uncertainty about climate change, including socio-cultural barriers such as long-held beliefs that weather is beyond human control.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Art and the impacts of global change
As if it is not challenging enough to crochet a coral reef, the Institute for Figuring has developed a crochet version of a bleached coral reef (right).
The miniature reef is complete with what appear to be a variety of species of bleached and dead corals. I believe that's a recently deceased Acropora in the centre.
Their art installations also include a "toxic reef" made of a mixture of plastic and yarn. The jellyfish is impressive.
