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Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

A blog about environmental research at University of Bristol

Tag: public engagement

Who is Cabot Institute? Adele Hulin

Posted on November 27, 2021April 6, 2023 by janet.crompton

 

Adele Hulin

In conversation with Adele Hulin, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment

What is your role at Cabot?

I’m a Communications and Engagement Officer, so I create communications campaigns and organise events and public engagement to share the amazing and important research that takes place across the Cabot Institute and to draw attention to the importance of interdisciplinary research in addressing global environmental challenges.

My role involves connecting and collaborating with people in the University, the city, and wider networks to increase Cabot’s impact and raise the profile of the Institute and it’s members (Caboteers!). I create content and find new ways to promote Cabot’s Institutes profile, interdisciplinary research, achievements, partnerships, and educational opportunities, and this year I am delighted to have worked with over ten artists to make the Institute’s work more accessible to a wide audience.

It’s great to job share this role with Amanda Woodman-Hardy.

How long have you been part of Cabot?

I have worked here since December 2017 – a brilliant and varied four years including a year’s maternity leave.

What is your background?

For as long as I can remember I have been interested in learning about and protecting our environment, which led me to study Physical Geography with Ecology at University followed by a Masters in Environmental Protection and Management.

After graduating I worked in environmental research and consultancy for over six years, specialising in diffuse pollution from agriculture. It was a varied role from fieldwork to managing international research networks. The latter involved communications, organising international events and developing new collaborations, sharing best practice and pooling resources; all across disciplines and across the globe. I really enjoyed it and so was excited when the role at Cabot institute came up!

Why did you want to join the team?

It is a unique research institute doing important work to address environmental challenges and find solutions. Bringing people together across disciplines is essential to this and Cabot does it so well. I wanted to work in a role that shares knowledge, works with inspiring people, organizes events to engage with new audiences, and I enjoy the opportunity to chat with the public on topics such as climate change.

I attended the prestigious Cabot Institute annual lecture a few months before I joined the team and was inspired and impressed, and really got a sense that the Cabot was an important part of the University and Bristol.

What do you think is the biggest environmental challenge facing us today?

The climate crisis is the overbearing challenge we face as a species and affects and exacerbates almost every other environmental challenge on Earth.

Unpicking this umbrella term, the key priority area that I think needs addressing is climate justice.  The inequity of the climate crisis is mind-boggling. We have a huge responsibility to leave a healthy livable planet for young people and future generations and to do everything we can to both reduce the impacts on countries and people experiencing the effects already as well as pay for adaptation.

Those who have contributed to this crisis need to give respect to those that have barely contributed to this crisis but are paying the biggest price. Governments, businesses and individuals all have a part to play and I believe that together we can make the big changes required.

What is your favorite part of your job?

That’s a tough one! I guess the main seam that runs through all my work at Cabot that I love is collaboration. Bringing together inspiring, talented, passionate individuals and groups from numerous spheres, from academia to the arts, the public to policymakers, students to city partners, is exciting as it often leads to new ideas, novel types of engagement, fantastic events, thought-provoking artworks, cutting edge research, and much more. I believe that collaboration is key in all walks of life so I’m very happy to have it at the heart of my role at Cabot.

I really enjoy hearing about all the fascinating and important research across the Institute and sharing this with different audiences by creating new and interesting content – Cabot Conversations video and podcast series and our Billboard campaign were highlights this year!

I feel lucky to have the opportunity to spend my time working on projects that communicate about, raise awareness and strive to protect people and the planet, which is needed more than ever now. And to work with the amazing Cabot team!

What are you most looking forward to over the next 10 years of Cabot?

I am looking forward to building on and creating new collaborations with artists, communities, campaigners and city partners to push the boundaries of engagement and find accessible, inclusive, and interesting ways for people to engage with research across Cabot which ‘protects our environment and finds better ways of living better with or changing planet’.

I’m keen to see the Cabot Institute’s impact and reach increase over the coming years, and I think we are in a strong position to share best practices in interdisciplinary working with other organisations across the world.
Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Cabot Institute for the Environment, Climate Emergency, communications, engagement, environment, interdisciplinarity, public engagement, researchLeave a Comment on Who is Cabot Institute? Adele Hulin

If we want to build a just zero-carbon future, climate discussions need to be diversified now

Posted on November 1, 2021April 16, 2023 by janet.crompton
City-level climate talks are often dominated by those who carry social privilege.
UNFCCC/Flickr

Governments across the world are facing increasing pressure to keep rising global temperatures below 1.5C above pre-industrial levels: the threshold that scientists advise is necessary to prevent the most destabilising consequences of climate change, including more frequent droughts, floods and wildfires.

The English city of Bristol’s ambitious One City Climate strategy aims to make the city fully carbon neutral and climate resilient by 2030. This includes decarbonising the city’s buildings, energy and public transport systems, and businesses.

Bristol is also one of the first cities in the world to commit to achieving a transition to carbon neutrality that is “fair and inclusive”. However, exactly how the city aims to achieve this remains unclear.

Taking Bristol as a case study, we embarked upon a year-long research project to examine the role of six organisations from the public, private, and civil society sectors in climate change decision-making. In particular, we were interested in how these organisations interpreted the idea of a “just” climate transition. This usually means ensuring that the benefits and costs of taking climate action are distributed between everyone – from workers to government leaders – and not heaped unfairly on underprivileged groups.

Our research employed a mixture of expert interviews and over nine hours of observing meetings. We found that although people clearly stated their commitment to achieving a just transition, ideas about what this meant in practice varied greatly. One participant remarked that “you don’t know what justice or fairness looks like to somebody else unless you ask”.

People in a meeting
Diversity in climate talks needs improving to ensure a representative range of voices are heard.
Free-Photos/Pixabay

What also rapidly became clear was the importance of securing more diverse participation in climate decision-making. Our findings revealed that climate discussions were dominated by white men, who spoke around 64% of the time. White women took the floor 33% of the time, and visible ethnic minorities spoke just 3% of the time. In comparison, Bristol’s ethnic minority population is 16%.

Many participants acknowledged the need to increase diversity in the climate space. However, it was pointed out by one participant that “the diversity within diversity is often overlooked”, leading to the misleading perception that views on climate among people from ethnic minority backgrounds were similar across the board.

If we are to achieve a successful zero-carbon future, the communities most affected by climate change should have a much greater say in how we do it. Groups including people with disabilities, working class people, youth, and older people – known as the “climate-vulnerable” – should be prioritised when consulting on climate strategies.

Public engagement

Our research also revealed the need to make information about climate impacts and policy proposals more widely available to the public. The way in which this information is framed matters. It shouldn’t be pitched solely to “educate” individuals – which can come across as patronising – but instead as a catalyst for discussion, outlining opportunities for local action.

A banner reading 'We demand that government create and be led by a Citizens Assembly for climate and ecological justice'
Environmental groups like Extinction Rebellion have called for the establishment of citizens’ assemblies.
Flickr/Matthrkac

Spreading this kind of information could be achieved by establishing citizens’ sssemblies. These bring together a sample of members of the public, who represent a range of backgrounds and identities, to debate and vote on key issues. These assemblies can offer important feedback to both local policymakers and community groups on their proposed climate plans.

Those who make decisions should also be held accountable through, for example, public forums and complaints systems. This ability to assess the outcome of leaders’ work is particularly important for members of climate-vulnerable groups. This is because their participation in decision-making and consultation processes themselves may be limited by structural barriers such as the accessibility of these processes, as well as time and financial constraints.

Looking ahead to the UN’s climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow, cities have an opportunity to lead by example through establishing truly inclusive climate consultations. This way, we can ensure that the voices of marginalised and climate-vulnerable groups are heard and that no one is left behind in our transition to a zero-carbon future.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute members Dr Alice Venn, Lecturer in Law, University of Exeter and Dr Alix Dietzel, Lecturer in Politics, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alice Venn
Alix Dietzel

 

 

Read all blogs in our COP26 blog series:

1. Disabled people and climate change
2. Voices from Small Island Developing States: priorities for COP26 and beyond
3. Humanity is compressing millions of years of natural change into just a few centuries
4. If we want to build a just zero-carbon future, climate discussions need to be diversified now
5. Violence and mental health are likely to get worse in a warming world
6. What Europe’s exceptionally low winds mean for the future energy grid

Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Alix Dietzel, Bristol, Cabot Institute, cities, climate, COP26, gender, just transition, justice, public engagement, VennLeave a Comment on If we want to build a just zero-carbon future, climate discussions need to be diversified now

The Earth comes to Bristol

Posted on September 17, 2019March 31, 2023 by janet.crompton
Luke Jerram’s Earth installation at the University of Bristol. Image credit: Becky Arnold.

Humans have gazed at the moon since our origin, yet the Earth has only been visible in its entirety for the last 50 years.

The present era is a time of great need. A time where humans need to change our relationship with the planet and to change our relationship, we need to change our perspective. Luke Jerram’s Gaia hosted by the Cabot Institute is an art installation which seems at least in part envisioned to do that through simulating the “overview effect”.

The “overview effect” is a common experience described by astronauts who have seen the Earth from space. It is said that seeing the planet hanging in space, in all its majestic beauty leads the viewer towards a cognitive shift in their perception of themselves, the world and its future. It seems somewhat ironic that only by consequence of venturing into and exploring the space around our planet, do we realize how infinitely valuable our home is.

The thing that really surprised me was that it [Earth] projected an air of fragility. And why, I don’t know. I don’t know to this day. I had a feeling it’s tiny, it’s shiny, it’s beautiful, it’s home, and it’s fragile.

— Michael Collins, Apollo 11

Luke Jerram’s Gaia gives the viewer the next best way to ponder and wonder about this planet that is our home. To feel gratitude for the richness of life that it brings, and to cultivate a resolve to protect it. Like the Moon installation, the room was full of people gazing up, captivated and motionless. We’ve all seen models of moons and classroom globes of the earth, but it’s another thing to see them at scale and the company of a magnificent hall. The effect of scaling and decorating is not simply additive, it’s synergistic. It was accompanied with a surround-sound score by composer Dan Jones which featured classical music with extracts of interviews and speeches from past astronauts and Sir David Attenborough which invoked a sense profundity and urgency to arise to the challenges that our planet faces.

Luke Jerram’s Earth. People gazing up, captivated and motionless. Image credit: Amanda Woodman-Hardy

Standing before it, I experienced a deep and silent state of awe, I felt a sense of sadness and remorse as my realization of its uncertain future took hold. However, not everyone immediately connected to it in the same way, some wished they could see Europe so they could connect themselves more strongly to it. It didn’t seem to mean as much if they couldn’t see where they lived. Which I think in part reflects the problem that we have at addressing global problems. We don’t live globally; we live locally, and for most of our history as a species, we’ve thought locally. Now, we live and think somewhere in between the two, we are part of a globalized economic and political framework, we travel, we communicate with people all over the world but when it comes to our consumer choices, it’s difficult to connect the impacts of our purchases and actions on the rest of the world. Nevertheless, we are shifting towards the “think globally, act locally” mentality which is essential in order to transition to a sustainable and circular way of living.

It’s shifting because of installations like this, collaborative research networks such as the Cabot Institute, the passionate and relentless work of scientists, the actions and communications of climate activists and climate organizations such as Extinction Rebellion. The timing of this could not be more pertinent to the challenges and movements of today. The discussions around climate change are becoming more lucid and visceral than ever and our actions are rapidly accelerating. It’s vital that the momentum is maintained through exhibits like this to keep the conversation buzzing in our minds and our collective consciousness.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute member Gaël Gobaille-Shaw, University of Bristol School of Chemistry. He is currently designing new electrocatalysts for the conversion of CO2 to liquid fuels.
For updates on this work, follow @CatalysisCDT @Gael_Gobaille and @UoB_Electrochem on Twitter.

Gael Gobaille-Shaw
Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged art, artwork, Bristol, Cabot Institute, Earth, Gael Gobaille-Shaw, Gaia, Luke Jerram, public engagement, University of BristolLeave a Comment on The Earth comes to Bristol

The future of UK-Canada research collaborations in the Arctic

Posted on April 12, 2019April 5, 2023 by janet.crompton

 

The Arctic is one of the most rapidly changing environments on Earth, with dramatic warming of the atmosphere and the oceans, accelerating glaciers, melting permafrost and shrinking sea ice.

All of these changes have major consequences for the indigenous groups of the Arctic countries: changing ocean ecosystems will impact fisheries and other natural resources, collapsing permafrost damages their homes and infrastructure, and disappearing sea ice effects their trade routes. All with implications for employment, education, and health.

Whilst these headlines reach the UK press, the immediate consequences can seem far away from our shores. However, a changing Arctic has a world-wide reach, contributing towards global sea-level and biodiversity changes, and putting pressure on shipping, natural resources, and international relations.

There have been recent large-scale efforts within the UK research community to increase our understanding of the high-latitudes. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) launched the multi-million pound Changing Arctic Ocean program in 2017, initially comprising four projects investigating oceanic processes linked with the shifting sea ice dynamics, largely in the Barents Sea and Fram Straight regions near Iceland and Norway. Whilst these projects have already been successful in producing critical new data, and have developed to include a number of new projects, the focus is still firmly within the natural sciences. There is a clear need to include other disciplines, especially social sciences, and to expand to other geographical regions.

Earlier this week, I had an opportunity to attend a joint meeting between NERC and Polar Knowledge, Canada, as part of the 2018 ArcticNet meeting in Ottawa. The meeting brought together researchers and funding organisations from the UK and Canada, together with representatives of indigenous groups and northern communities. By getting these groups of people around a table together in one place, the aim was to go some way to creating a new strong international Arctic research partnership, to understand the interests and strengths in Arctic research in the two countries, make personal links and identify the next steps for all stakeholders.

For me, the meeting was worthwhile alone for the connections that I made, but also for the steep learning-curve in my understanding of Canadian research priorities: linking with people in Northern communities, building on infrastructure, engaging with communities, and blending with Indigenous Knowledge. I was particularly impressed with the true public engagement that is carried out, in their Northern approach to science, through public consultations, gap analysis, and identification of key principles in research and research ethics.

Now it’s a matter of developing the ideas that were discussed enthusiastically in the room, to build research plans with direct societal impact, true stakeholder engagement, and opportunities for early career researchers. It’s an exciting – and timely – moment to be in Arctic research.

This blog is written by Dr Kate Hendry from the University of Bristol School of Earth Sciences and the Cabot Institute for the Environment.

Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Arctic, ArcticNet, Canada, Indigenous Community, Kate Hendry, NERC, ocean, public engagement, research, UKLeave a Comment on The future of UK-Canada research collaborations in the Arctic

Hollow: Bristol researchers engage with artists on 10,000 samples of wood

Posted on December 8, 2015April 12, 2023 by janet.crompton

Artist Katie Paterson invited the public to explore a collection of 10,000 samples of wood from almost every country in the world. Commissioned by the University of Bristol, Hollow will be a new permanent public artwork imagined by Katie in collaboration with scientists and researchers.  Situations.org met with Cabot Institute researcher Jon Bridle to ask some questions about working with artists, his thoughts on the project, the evolution of species and the future of the planet.
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Hollow exhibition. L-r Katie Paterson and Jon Bridle. Image credit Situations.org

What’s your role at University of Bristol and why is it exciting?

I’m an Evolutionary Biologist, conducting research into how quickly populations can evolve to cope with changes in their environment, and so potentially avoid extinction. Such understanding is crucial for predicting how rapid climate change and habitat loss will affect the species and the ecosystems that we depend on for all human economies. Understanding these evolutionary processes also helps us to understand why one species splits into two, and so why life proliferates into so many diverse and beautiful forms.

What’s really exciting at the moment is that biologists suddenly have the tools to explore the genomic basis of these evolutionary responses. This revolution in genetic techniques could become as significant in transforming our understanding as when astronomers started to use the telescope in 16th Century Europe.

Tell us a little about commissioning a public artwork for the new Life Sciences building at University of Bristol…

The University of Bristol has demonstrated a huge commitment to Life Sciences through its investment in a building where we can do internationally leading research. This reflects how crucial the study of life is to addressing many of the acute challenges that face humanity this century, such as food security, biodiversity loss, and climate change.

Commissioning a public artwork to explore some of these themes is an exciting way to celebrate this, and to allow us to connect in new and previously unimagined ways with some of the beauty, complexity and depth of the natural world. It’s also absolutely fantastic for us as scientists, and for the wider community, to be able to engage with the work of an artist like Katie Paterson.

Jon Bridle at Hollow exhibition. Image credit Situations.org

Katie Paterson’s work often involves long and complex collaborations with researchers in different fields. What does it mean to put artists and scientists in the same room?

I think it’s very useful for both sides. The way I think about the world has certainly been shaped by art that has inspired me throughout my life. Sparks do fly but they’re usually very creative ones!

To me, scientists and artists share a huge amount in that they both have to always be prepared to revise their thinking, to see the unexpected, and to reexamine the familiar. Both cultures depend on curiosity, on confronting uncomfortable complexities, and on escaping any prejudices about how we might like things to be. Most of the artists I’ve known – and most of the historical ones I enjoy – have been fascinated by science, and the same applies to the scientists I know in relation to art.

The only resistance can come from the fear of looking foolish – or of asking naive questions – but that’s the whole point: science progresses by asking simple questions, and being wrong in clever ways that increase our understanding of the world. If you’re worried about being wrong, or being made to feel humble, the last thing you should be is a scientist! I find beauty when the world suddenly becomes more intricate – maybe even stranger – that I’d previously imagined. Both good art and good science takes me to these places. Incidentally, I also think the same is true of good comedy.

For Katie Paterson’s Open Studio, the public are invited to handle some of the extraordinary collection of tree samples and hear stories about each one. What do you hope people might take away from a close encounter with the collection?

Well, I’m sure the public will get inspiration from it in ways I can’t imagine, so all I can talk about is my response to the Open Studio. To me, it’s really helped me engage with the way that all life is connected at a profound level. This is both in terms of all life sharing a common (and in terms of trees, fairly recent) group of ancestors, with all these pieces of wood representing the living tips – or twigs – of this deeply rooted family tree.

In another sense all life is connected physically in that individuals and species come together and interact in ecosystems in real time. In trees, these interactions with pollinators, parasites, other plants, birds, fungi, bacteria and with each other (through sharing pollen, or through sharing space, or air) are clearly visible because they often bear their scars in their leaves and in the bark, and of course in their wood, which was once the living, growing part of the tree.

This physical relationship of the tree with the world around it is recorded even in the cut pieces of wood that now seem rather remote, and rudely removed from the forests where they once grew. Each piece of wood once had gallons of water being pulled through it that entered the soil from ancient rivers, powered by long-disappeared parts of our sun. It’s fun to think about this as we sit around a wooden table drinking coffee. For visitors to the studio, I hope the stories about human relationships with trees will help to unfold these broader truths about how all life is connected, and how we are all part of the biodiversity that the collection is testament to.

Hollow exhibition – wood samples from around the world. Image credit Situations.org

Rethinking our relationship to the natural environment seems increasingly significant for both artists and scientists. What are the key challenges ahead?

Yes – rethinking our relationship with nature is hugely important, especially when many governments seem to be sidestepping these profound challenges for fear of compromising short-term economic growth. This is why public engagement with things like the COP21 talks in Paris, and public awareness of the difference we can make by choosing how we consume are so important.

The challenges are enormous. There’s good evidence that we’ve lost 50% of the world’s biodiversity (and about half of the world’s forests) in the past 40 years, at precisely the time when overconsumption and climate change make that biodiversity increasingly important for the planet’s resilience. However, there is still time to tackle these issues. Unfortunately, the terrifying scale of the loss of this true wealth of our planet is not appreciated by most people, and is certainly not high up on the political agenda, perhaps because those most affected by it are the world’s poor and powerless, as well as our future unborn generations.

The difficult thing is how to accept these difficult truths without feeling powerless and overwhelmed. We need to start living on this planet as if we intend to stay here. And we need to ask ourselves whether overconsumption of the world’s resources, with all the profound consequences it entails, is really making us happy.

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This blog has been reposted with kind permission from Situations. View the original blog on their website.

The Open Studio ran from 4 – 6 December 2015.

Jon Bridle is based in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol.  The Hollow art project also involved other Bristol researchers including Heather Whitney, Gary Foster and undergraduates during the open studio.

Posted in Biodiversity, Environmental ChangeTagged art, Cabot Institute, collaboration, Hollow, Jon Bridle, planet, public engagement, species, trees, University of Bristol, woodLeave a Comment on Hollow: Bristol researchers engage with artists on 10,000 samples of wood

Who is responsible for communicating environmental science?

Posted on October 30, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

On the evening of 28 October journalists, broadcasters, scientists and NGO’s came together in the House of Commons with the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG) to discuss a report launched by the International Broadcasting trust entitled “The environment on TV: Are broadcasters meeting the challenge”.  The report aimed to investigate how well environmental issues and in particular climate change is communicated to the public.  The research combined quantitative analysis of current television material and qualitative analysis of interviews with range of broadcasters and producers. The report examines non-news television with an environmental theme broadcasted over a 12 month period between June 2012 and May 2013 across the mainstream TV channels (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky). A total of 394 hours of new environmental programming was shown over the studied period and 84% of this was broadcast at peak times (between 18.30 and 22.30). Natural history was shown to be a firm favourite, making up 160 hours however, climate change coverage did not even get one hour, why?

The report highlights that the main challenge is that the environment is perceived as a difficult theme for audiences to engage with, especially climate change. It is extremely difficult to present the problems facing the planet under climate change as a ‘local’ problem and as a result it is perceived as doom and gloom and something that you or I have no control over and therefore cannot influence. With this in mind, it is not the content which broadcasters are lacking, but the format for communicating the information to reluctant audiences. The key element to designing a TV programme is to get the narrative and story-telling to work, for example Hugh’s Fish Fight (Channel 4) successfully tackled the rather dry topic of EU fishing directives. Given the correct format, the audience engaged and 850,000 people signed up online to the ‘Fish Fight’ campaign and 42,000 tweets were sent over a 24-hour period to the country’s biggest supermarkets. So perhaps with the correct format audiences will engage with the topic of climate change?

The meeting saw a panel come together to give their reactions to the report findings, including Chris Rapley (Professor of Climate Science, University College London), Ralph Lee (Head of Factual, Channel 4), Bill Lyons (Executive Editor, Countryfile, BBC), Leo Hickman (Chief Advisor, Climate Change, WWF-UK and formerly at The Guardian), and Caroline Haydon (author of the report).

Chris Rapley

Chris Rapley provided a scientist’s prospective on the problem and stated that there can be a lack of connections between scientists and the media, making it difficult for scientist to gain an avenue toward public engagement through TV. In addition to this, scientists come to the job for the joy of discovering new things about how the world works but that does not mean that they are inherently good communicators to a non-science audience or can be creative and design a great TV format for their work. Therefore support is needed from producers and broadcasters to provide this link to the general public.

Panel members representing the broadcasters had a slightly different view on the problem, with Bill Lyons suggesting that it was not part of a broadcaster’s remit to make sure that climate science is communicated to the public, and that to a certain extent it is the problem of the scientist to get their message heard. It was also highlighted that given the right format broadcasters would be happy to communicate climate science, but it has to be packaged in an appealing way for audiences. Ralph Lee suggested that a documentary focussed on climate change would not hold audience’s attention and that a new idea was needed to tackle the subject of climate change. In surveys of what people like to watch on TV, documentaries are always high on the wish-list, however viewing figures do not reflect this in reality, people like to watch TV for escapism and therefore the highest ratings go to reality TV and soap operas rather than hard-hitting documentaries! Perhaps we need a talent show contestant to stand up and sing a song about climate change or a soap character to get a sudden interest in recycling in order to make a widespread impact!!

In summary, the meeting showed that all were in general agreement that environmental issues and climate change were important subjects to communicate to the public, but much thinking is needed regarding the best way forward to achieve these aims. It seems that in order to engage the general public the issues need to be made local so that they feel that they are directly affected at that we are facing these issues now and not in 10 years time. I feel, given the debate that it should be seen as a joint responsibility between scientists and broadcasters to solve this problem. As a scientist I can provide data and other factual information, I can perhaps also provide a narrative, but links with broadcasters are key if the information is ever going to get directly into millions of people’s homes. I do believe that if we engage together then it is possible to find a mechanism to inspire ordinary people to act on difficult, intangible and sometimes unpopular issues such as climate change.

This blog has been written by Dr Charlotte Lloyd, Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol.

Dr Charlotte Lloyd

 

Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Cabot Institute, Charlotte Lloyd, climate change, communication, environmental science, public engagementLeave a Comment on Who is responsible for communicating environmental science?

Climate: Public Understanding and policy implications

Posted on June 29, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

The Atmosphere Gallery, located within London’s Science Museum, was designed to help the public “make sense of climate science” and combines interactive exhibits with specially commissioned artwork. It has attracted 1.7 million visitors since it opened in 2010 and recently hosted a governmental inquiry into the public understanding and policy implications of climate change. The inquiry took place in front of the Science and Technology (SAT) Select Committee, a group of MPs selected to ensure that Government policy and decision-making are based on good scientific evidence. To undertake the inquiry, a selection of climate scientists were asked to attend and present evidence in front of the committee.

 
The Science and Technology Committee in action
 
The morning session (9-10am) involved Professor Chris Rapley (University College London), Professor Nick Pidgeon (Cardiff University) and Dr. Alex Burch (Science Museum) and dealt with issues of trust and public engagement. Chris Rapley, Professor of Climate Science at University College London, argued that climate sceptics generally hold one of three views: they may distrust climate scientists, they might think that climate scientists have a secret agenda or they may believe that climate change is completely natural. He also believes that climate scientists “cannot draw on a reservoir of trust from the past” and that we must actively seek to persuade the public that our work is precise, impartial and trustworthy. One way of combating this would be to publish more regularly in open access online journals such as PLOS ONE (http://www.plosone.org/) and Climates of the Past (http://www.clim-past.net).
 

Museums also play an important role in communicating climate science and developing trust. Dr. Alex Burch, Director of Learning at the Science Museum, felt that museums were“trusted” sources of information which helped to bring scientists and the public together. Scaling up this endeavour has been much more problematic. Nick Pidgeon, Professor of Environmental Psychology at Cardiff University, argues that prominent politicians should speak out more and that  governments have a valuable role to play in communicating climate science.

 

(L to R) Professor Nick Pidgeon, Dr. Alex Burch and Professor Chris Rapley giving evidence
 
The second session (10-11am), focused upon public policy and communicating science and called upon Professor John Womersley (Science and Technology Facilities Council), Professor Tim Palmer (Royal Meteorological Society), Professor Rowan Sutton (National Centre for Atmospheric Science) and Professor John Pethica (Royal Society). All four agreed that climate scientists do not always communicate their findings successfully. NERC, the Natural Environment Research Council, now offer public engagement training for those who want to learn how to promote their research findings effectively to different audiences (http://tinyurl.com/nskhndk). The panel felt that most climate scientists were generally cautious when asked to take part in media interaction. Some even felt they were being dragged into a debate rather than a dialogue. The majority of institutes attending this meeting already have extensive outreach programs which allow scientists to communicate their findings in a more relaxed and non-confrontational manner.Many scientists have been able to take part in the Royal Society MP-Scientist pairing scheme (http://tinyurl.com/ph4xfsn) while Professor Tim Palmer even tried to recruit Pamela Nash MP to become a member of the Royal Meterological Society! 
 
The committee also asked the scientists what they will be doing to commemorate the publication of the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in mid-September. Professor John Pethica explained that the Royal Society will be hosting a two-day meeting directed towards a non-specialist audience. The scientific panel praised the IPCC for incorporating the entire scientific community and providing a global consensus on climate change. They also noted that the IPCC was unique to climate science. 

Following this discussion, the session was brought to a close. It was disconcerting how many challenges we face as climate scientists. I doubt that other professions are under the same scrutiny as we are.  There is even a non-profit group which raises money for climate scientists embroiled in legal battles (including Michael Mann). Despite this, I know that climate scientists will continue to produce cutting-edge research and will attempt to convey their findings to as many people as possible. 
 
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For more information on the SAT select committee inquiry into climate change, please follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/q3rrm7g. A transcript of the session will be published online soon.
 
This article was written by Gordon Inglis, a palaeoclimate PhD student working in the Organic Geochemistry Unit within the School of Chemistry. Follow on Twitter @climategordon.
Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Cabot Institute, climate change, communication, Gordon Inglis, policy, public engagementLeave a Comment on Climate: Public Understanding and policy implications

A dirty relationship

Posted on May 17, 2013April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

I went to see Cabot Institute Artist in Residence Neville Gabie’s Archiving Oil installation in the Basement Stores of Geology last night (16 May 2013).  It’s pretty cool to be down in the depths of the Wills Memorial Building at the University of Bristol and I can safely assure you I saw no ghosts.  I started off by going into a lift and as the doors opened into the basement, there was an eerie darkness with a bright light emanating from a creepy corner.  A man dressed in white was in front of me and he was pouring a sticky black substance into buckets.  A distinctly thick, gloopy and dirty sound filled my ears.  I promise you it wasn’t a ghost but the image in front of me was quite harrowing.

We use oil in everything we do and here was oil in its bare nakedness – black, shiny, thick, dirty.  I stopped and stared for a while, mesmerised by the horribleness of the clean white background being splatted with this dirty substance.  When you see oil like this, you know deep down that there is something quite sinister about it. I moved on to the next area, walking past rows of wooden drawers filled with items including fossils, meteorites, and geological rock formations.  These things had been dug out of the ground and were possibly millions of years old…just like oil.  

Around the corner was a group of people on hand to tell you about the exhibition including the organisers Neville Gabie (Cabot Institute Artist in Residence), Merle Patchett (Cultural Geographer at the Cabot Institute, University of Bristol) and Claudia Hildebrandt (Curator of the Geology Basement Stores).  I was given a torch and ushered into a dark storage area with wooden shelves towering above me.  In every nook and cranny was an interesting oily artefact with a story to tell.  The accompanying brochure put a personal touch to these stories especially when you find out each artefact and story comes from a Cabot Institute researcher whose goal is to do research to tackle the challenges of uncertain environmental change.

Uncertain environmental change has in large part been caused by oil.  Cities have grown, populations have risen, people want and need ‘stuff’ made from oil like cars, mobile phones, medicine, beauty products, clothing, toys, packaging etc etc…Oil was once embedded in bedrock and it is now deeply embedded in our lives.

My favourite bit of this dark storage area was a row of bottles of oil from different places in the world.  All different colours and interestingly all different smells, some potent, some sweet.  The smell of the Arabian oil – a strong diesel type smell – brought back memories of my childhood when I would greet my dad at the door when he came home from work.  He would smell of this oil as he worked as a mechanic and it was the thick gloopy Arabian stuff that could have been used for car and lorry engines that my dad would work on day in and day out.  However much I dislike oil and what it has done to the planet, I cannot deny the fact that I came from someone who had his hands covered in oil and therefore oil is as much a part of my history as it is anyone elses.

And this I realised is what the exhibition aims to do.  It aims to show us that our lives are all affected by oil and in so many different ways.  We may like to think we are ‘green’ and doing the right thing but actually we have a deeply embedded dirty relationship with oil that is unlikely to go away anytime soon…

——————————

If you missed out on this experience and you want to understand your connection with oil, Neville will be holding the exhibition again as the ‘Oil Common Room’ with a few new art pieces added.  This will be held during BIG Green Week over two evenings in June.

Images from the exhibition on Flickr.

This article was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Cabot Institute

Follow me on Twitter @cabotinstitute @Enviro_Mand
Posted in Environmental Change, Low Carbon EnergyTagged Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Archiving Oil, Big Green Week, Cabot Institute, communication, Environmental Change, Neville Gabie, oil, public engagementLeave a Comment on A dirty relationship

A very fishy Big Green Week

Posted on June 18, 2012April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

Well the BIG Green Week has finally drawn to a close, and what a week it was! Let’s hope it can become an annual event on the Bristol Calender. Huge congratulations to Paul Rainger and Darren Hall, Forum for the Future, the army of volunteers and the 40,000 visitors that took part in a truly inspiring week.

As a Cabot Institute Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Bristol, the event provided some great opportunities for me to talk to the public about the work we are doing on the Future of Fisheries and effects of climate change on fish and marine ecosystems (full details here).

Our first event was at the Saturday Bristol’s BIG Market, where a team of us ran a Future of Fisheries stall on St Stephen’s Avenue with fishing for children (and several over-competitive adults!), 13 species of UK fish to hold, poke and investigate, and displays about our research on the recent effects of climate change on European fisheries and predictions of future fisheries. We had plenty of information on how to make the right choices as consumers, including hundreds of copies of the Good Fish Guide that we gave out, information about the Marine Stewardship Council accreditation scheme, and the chance to sign up to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight. I’m pleased to say my noble volunteers have finally finished eating their way through all the wonderful fish provided by The Fish Shop on Gloucester Road, and hopefully many Bristolians have since tried baked John dory, stargazy pie and bycatch paella.

On Thursday I was lucky to have the run of the Triodos Bank skyptop canteen for a screening of Charles Clover and Rupert Murray’s superb film End of the Line. This is a must-see but heartwrenching, devestating and tragic investigation of the current state of world’s fisheries, featuring many of the world’s top scientists (Daniel Pauly: “We are fighting a war against fish, and winning”; Boris Worm: “The world’s fisheries could run out by 2050”), which thankfully finishes with a strong message of hope (Callum Roberts: “Marine Protected Areas can build stocks”). The film led into a solid hour of discussion, where we were joined by Greenpeace with their 10-foot mackerel promoting their Common Fisheries Policy campaign. Again our discussions considered which fish are great to eat (mackerel, sardines, coley, dab) and which are better to avoid (rays, monkfish, Patagonian toothfish).

Finally, on Friday it was time to head to court, or at least a rather sophisticated mock-up at Bordeaux Quay, where the Secretary of State was “tried” in front of a jury made up of Bristol school pupils for “Ecocide”. The idea was simple. As head of Defra and so the figurehead in charge of allocating the UK fishing quota to the fleet, Caroline Spelman is committing ecocide by choosing to licence fishing with potentially destructive gear and above scientifically-determined limits, since the inhabitants of the sea (marine creatures) and neighbouring regions (including humans, both present and future) are being illegally disturbed or destroyed. After some great expert witnesses (including Sir Graham Watson – MEP; Jean-Luc Solandt – Marine Conservation Society; Tom Appleby – Marine Lawyer; Jonathon Porritt – Director Forum for the Future; Kelvin Boot – Climate Change Journalist; Charles Redfren – Fish4Ever; Jeremy Percy – Under 10m Inshore Fleet), and some emotional summing up from the dedicated lawyers, the jury finished hung with a slight majority (8:4) in favour of a guilty verdict. As the concept of Ecocide gathers pace, watch out politicians: your decisions that often threaten our precious planet and resources may one day be brought to account.

Now that the smell of fish is finally fading from my hands, and the last few tweets drift away like sardine scales after a feeding frenzy, I give many thanks to all those involved in the fishy activities at the BIG Green Week. I hope we will all return, bigger, fishier, and more positive about the state of fisheries for the BGW2013…
Posted in Environmental Change, Food SecurityTagged Big Green Week, Cabot Institute, communication, fish, fisheries, food security, public engagementLeave a Comment on A very fishy Big Green Week

Big Green Week – Patterns of change

Posted on June 18, 2012April 20, 2023 by janet.crompton

As part of our contribution to Bristol’s first BIG Green Week, we wanted to put on a public event that got people discussing both Cabot’s research and the interdisciplinary approach we take.  We came up with an event called ‘Patterns of change‘, where we asked people from across Cabot’s research areas of science, social science and engineering to tell a story of how something they study is changing across space or over time.

A wide remit, which led to a fascinating and far-ranging evening of presentations and discussion.

Professor Jonathan Bamber spoke about his work on the diminishing ‘frozen planet’ and implications for sea level rise. Professor Kathy Cashman spoke about the awesome havoc volcanoes wreak on the human and natural environment and the ways people have come to live with their eruptive neighbours. Professor Colin Taylor spoke about a new way of looking at resilience to natural hazards that needs not only strong buildings but strong relationships between people and ‘learning communities’.  Finally Professors Wendy Larner and Bronwen Morgan tackled the way that individual stories, rooted in particular places and contexts, can provide us with the real, grassroots knowledge and models we need to effect change in our world.

We also tried a bit of an experiment – interspersing the presentations with short clips from the films Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi.  These provocative and visually arresting films try to capture something about the world we have built, how it is changing, and the relationship between the developed and developing worlds.  I tried to choose clips that would tie in with the presentations, but the films are so varied and juxtapose so many different images that it was difficult to make seamless transitions between the clips and the presentations.

We ended the evening with questions from the audience, and this being Bristol, they were thoughtful and provocative.  People applauded the broad approach of Cabot, but questioned the extent to which we, as researchers, can and should be advocates for change.  Others raised questions about local schemes such as the Severn Barrage and about distributed energy generation.  The feedback from the audience was generally very positive – “interesting, informative and thought-provoking”.

If you have any further comments or questions don’t hesitate to leave them below.

Posted in Environmental ChangeTagged Big Green Week, Cabot Institute, communication, Patterns of change, public engagementLeave a Comment on Big Green Week – Patterns of change

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