UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A science communication researcher says there is no “silver bullet” to improving communications about climate change. Instead, he says, a “silver buckshot” may be needed.
Max Boykoff, professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, will expand on this view at 6 p.m. on Oct. 1 via Zoom. The lecture, “Creative (Climate) Communications: Productive Pathways for Science, Policy and Society,” shares the same title as Boykoff’s book released last fall.
In the book, he suggests that the discussion about climate change at the policy level has stalled. To revive the discussion, Boykoff integrates lessons from social science and humanities research that have sought to effectively make connections through issues everyday citizens care about.
Registration for the free lecture is open and required. The lecture is sponsored by Penn State’s Science Communication Program and the State College Chapter of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby.
Boykoff said a “buckshot” approach to climate communication can be successful through improved strategies that reach different audience in different contexts. These strategies can help climate communicators make meaningful and practical connections with audiences and find the long lost “middle ground” on climate change.
In addition to his role as faculty member at Boulder, Boykoff is a senior visiting research associate in the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. He also served as the director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy, which was a part of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at Colorado.
The virtual event is a part of the SciComm Lecture Series, an initiative of Penn State’s Science Communication Program. The program is housed in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and builds productive research collaborations between scientists in a variety of disciplines with science communications researchers.
The Citizen’s Climate Lobby is a national bipartisan organization with more than 400 local chapters. Its mission is to build consensus in Congress and in communities about effective solutions for climate change.