Lived Experience and Engagement on Climate Change

Thus in Moser and Dilling’s edited collection that draws from the United States experience, we find a concerted attempt to move beyond simply attempting to disseminate information and knowledge in traditional ways (Dilling and Moser 2007). Instead, contributors in Part I of their book argue for more effective, targeted dissemination, which include:

While some of these contributions have a slightly distasteful whiff of manipulation about them in order to communicate the message, others in Part I provide case studies of actions that have sought to listen better to local citizens (Pratt and Rabkin 2007), and to integrate climate change with the ‘real concerns, constraints and strengths’ that exist in many poor communities (Agyeman et al. 2007). As a further extension which attempts to move beyond simple but effective dissemination, two chapters concern engagement between different actors, including scientists and non-scientists, to create dialogue, ‘new ways of talking’ (McNeeley and Huntington 2007) and a ‘new kind of conversation’ (Regan 2007). Dialogue is here seen as a space where contrasting understandings and perspectives may be reconciled.

Moser and Dilling (2007a) are also concerned that communication and engagement should stimulate changes in individual and group behaviour, and indeed the more fundamental social change that they believe is required to meet the climate challenge. In their concluding chapter (Ibid: 2007b) they argue that ‘motivators’ and overcoming the ‘mental barriers’ to change which appear in the contributions throughout the book are complementary and both are needed for communication to be effective, that is to facilitate a desired social change (Ibid: Kindle location 6447). They add, however, that ‘our mental models or habits of thought are among the most critical barriers to change’ (Ibid: Kindle location 6454). They then further identify a thread of thinking that runs through the volume that calls for a shift from one-way message delivery to ‘more engaging, dialogic forms of communicating’ and call for the need for broad public dialogue (Ibid: Kindle location 6542). This does not apply only, however, to communication between scientists and non-scientists as perceived mostly by McNeeley and Huntington, and Regan cited above (Ibid: Kindle location 6577). In addition, they note developments in the United States concerning engagement across common societal divides (for example, between richer and poorer communities), which they characterise as ‘boundary crossing’ to find common ground and common language (Ibid: Kindle location 6694). Overall, they state that their book contributors understand the communication process as an intricate and multifaceted form of mutual engagement (Ibid: Kindle location 6512).

Whitmarsh et al.’s (2011a) edited collection has similar concerns to those of Moser and Dilling. The contributors derive mostly from the UK, but with Australia, the United States and Canada also represented. The volume shows a determined shift towards what one contributor calls a ‘participatory and collegial approach to knowledge production’ (Leith 2011: 114). The editors and some contributors also consider their mission to go beyond knowledge co-production to include ‘civic and community forms of engagement [that] offer an expanded role for individuals in respect of defining climate change responses and shaping social change, and also conferring potential benefits in terms of fostering self-efficacy, democracy, community cohesion and social inclusion’ (Whitmarsh et al. 2011b: 272).

Substantively, the collections of Moser and Dilling (2007a) and Whitmarsh et al. (2011a) are both rich with case studies and insights, while being somewhat eclectic in their treatment of climate change communication and engagement. This is, of course, to be expected in edited volumes with many contributors. The subject matter ranges from how to get the message across to lay publics (drawing on a variety of practices and techniques, several of which derive from social psychology) to discussion of constructivist forms of engagement and communication which lead to collaborative efforts in joint knowledge production and beyond. In the latter, Whitmarsh et al. go further than Moser and Dilling, but again this is to be expected as four years separate the two volumes, a period during which a ‘deliberative turn’ (providing the conditions for reasoned debate on climate change and reflexivity—see Sect. 7.3 below) was increasingly established.

While it is dangerous to summarise Moser and Dilling (2007a) and Whitmarsh et al. (2011a) in one sentence, for the purposes of our book we suggest that, whether referring to practices and techniques for better dissemination of the message, or to deliberative processes of engagement, both are substantively concerned with ‘smart communication’ where no one size fits all. This is even true, despite Whitmarsh et al.’s claim of potential further social benefits of collaborative deliberation, social benefits that are, alas, aspirational rather than real. As one contribution in Whitmarsh et al. notes, ‘Tensions between purely instrumental understandings of citizen engagement as a means to cut carbon emissions and normative democratic understandings of empowering citizens without prescribing the outcomes of their engagement remain unaddressed (Hoppner and Whitmarsh 2011: 52).

Finally, in this section, it is noteworthy that a more recent consideration of these tensions (Corner and Groves 2014) has conceptualised them as being between the norms that govern scientific practice (disinterested, neutral and objective) and those that govern the social domain (shaped by values, ideology and social identity). Corner and Groves (Ibid.) then argue that the way forward lies in ‘creating and supporting new institutions and societal infrastructure that provide a buffer between the science of climate change and the complex challenge of engaging the public’. These ‘new hybrid institutions’ would involve scientists and ‘actors from across the social and political spectrum’, whose purpose would be to ‘catalyse new conversations about climate change… to allow people to express and discuss their concerns, fears, dreams and hopes for the future, providing answers to that troubling question ‘how shall we live?’ This again begs the question, however, of how such institutions might be created, especially when they challenge powerful interests such as that of science and scientists in public institutions (see Chap. 4, Sect. 4.​4) where knowledge is guarded and manipulated in order to legitimise claims to authority within specific arenas. In this regard they remain aspirational.