Short Wave - Goodbye, Climate Jargon. Hello, Simplicity!

Episode Date: September 30, 2021

People are likely to be confused by common climate change terms like "mitigation" and "carbon neutral," according to a recent study. So how can everyone do a better job talking about climate change so that no one's left confused? NPR climate correspondent Rebecca Hersher tells us the key turns out to be pretty simple.Read more of Rebecca's reporting on climate jargon: https://n.pr/2XdfYOCRead the study: https://bit.ly/3Adj8QTYou can always reach the show by emailing [e-mail] — but please, hold the jargon.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Hi, Rebecca Herscher. Hey, Lauren Summer. So this is fun, two climate reporters on Shortwave at the same time. Yeah, nothing says fun like climate change. Oh. I'm kidding. Yeah, I'm kidding.

But I'm actually really happy that you're the one I get to talk to for today's episode because the story I want to talk about is specifically about the words we use to communicate about climate change. Oh, yeah. You and I both think about this a lot because there are a lot of technical terms when it comes to the science. Yeah. And it turns out that some of the most common words that scientists use when they're talking about climate change are really confusing to the general public. That makes sense. I mean, there are words by scientists for scientists. But hold on. I feel like I should probably ask, I mean, are these words that I've used in my reporting? Yep. Yes, they are. Some of them. But I also use them. And in fact, some of these confusing climate. words have been used on this podcast.

Oh, no. Yeah. So one of them is hiding in this clip from an episode about sharks back in March. We dive into the importance of sharks with shark scientist Melissa Christina Marquez, including their role in mitigating climate change. And, you know, okay, can you guess what the word is? It's mitigating. It's got to be.

Yep. Ding, ding, ding, ding. You win. People do not know what that word means in a climate context. It's confusing. And that is according to a recent. study that I want to tell you all about today. And confusion is bad, generally, of course, but the stakes are really high here.

What the science tells us affects the lives of millions of people. And this year, there are a lot of big climate science reports coming out, and they're all theoretically supposed to be useful to the public. Right. In fact, I'll also tell you about an interview I did about this very topic with the head of the biggest climate science report for the U.S. So today on the show, down with climate jar. We talk about confusing climate words and how everyone can do a better job explaining what's happening on planet Earth. I'm Lauren Summer.

I'm Rebecca Hersher. And you're listening to Shortwave, the Daily Science podcast from NPR. Okay, Rebecca, today we're talking about how we talk about climate change. And the point of the show today is not to make scientists feel bad for using scientific terms or regular people feel bad for not knowing those terms, right? Right. It is not. technical terms totally have their place. It's just that that place isn't everywhere all the time. So I'm going to tell you about this study that looked at the common climate science words that show up in public places and that confuse people.

The United Nations actually asked researchers to test words that are in international climate science reports. And these are the reports that come out every so often from the U.N. There was a big one earlier this summer that you and I both reported on. Oh, yeah. That was the report that laid out how humans can control. climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions immediately and also that we still have time to avoid catastrophic climate change. Yes, that's a big also. And that, yes, that report. So reports like that one use some terms that don't show up in everyday conversation. Like, here's a section from the summary of the report, quote, improved knowledge of climate processes, pillio climate evidence, and the response of the climate system to increasing radiative forcing

gives a best estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3 degrees Celsius with a narrower range compared to the AR5. Wow. Really rolls off the time. I know. And obviously you and I would not use that language in our stories. But there are words in that report that that takeaway came from that scientists we interview use a lot. Words like mitigation, carbon neutral, adaptation. And that's because those words have really specific meanings to climate scientists. Right. I mean, mitigation.

In the context of climate change, that word commonly refers to things that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you know, like switching to wind energy or planting trees. Right. So if we use it in a sentence, the U.S. promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half this decade would be a big step for climate change mitigation. But the authors of this study wanted to know, you know, what do those words mean to the public? And what did they find? So the study was set up like a focus group. The authors did interviews with 20 people from a variety of backgrounds.

And they basically asked participants to define what words meant in a climate context. So let's start with that word mitigation. Some people in the study mixed that word up with the word mediation, like coming to a compromise about how to address climate change. That would be really confusing to mix up those words. Totally. And here are a couple other examples. So the term carbon neutral, that was confusing. people mix it up with the idea of zero carbon. Yeah, those are really hard. So carbon neutral, it means that you're removing the same amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as you're putting into it. So it's neutral.

Right. There's no net accumulation. Zero carbon means just no emissions at all. Right. And that nuance is likely to be lost on people, this study suggests. Another term that caused problems was unprecedented transition, as in the global economy. must undergo an unprecedented transition in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Participants were really confused about what that actually means.

Yeah, it's like a catch-all phrase. It means a ton of things, like shutting down coal fire power plants, building solar panels, wind turbines, making buses and trains electric, making cars and trucks electric. I mean, we can keep going. Right, exactly. And that's really the big takeaway from this study. You know, avoid jargon and instead use simple, specific words, like all the words you just used. So I talked to the lead author of the study, Wendy Bruin de Bruin.

She's at the University of Southern California. Often as experts in a particular field, we may not realize which of the words that we're using our jargon. I hope that this study is useful to climate scientists, but also to journalists and anybody who communicates about climate science. Yeah, I kind of want to talk about that last part because it seems like there is this gray area of anybody who communicates about climate science. science. Because as we talked about, there are these big climate science reports, right? There was the one from the UN earlier of a summer. There's two more big ones from the UN coming out. And then the U.S. government releases its own U.S. specific climate assessment every few years. And a lot of those words are in those reports, but they're even in the summaries that are meant to be readable. Yeah, totally. And there are a couple of things going on there. You know, first, these big reports have multiple audiences. So they're meant to be useful to be useful to be.

politicians, to scientists, to urban planners and engineers and agricultural experts, you know, people with technical expertise. And then they're also meant to be useful to the general public to explain how the climate has changed already and how it will change in the future and what humans can do to reverse climate change. And sometimes those two groups are intention. So you mentioned the U.S. National Climate Assessment Report. I talked to the new director of that assessment about this. Her name is Alison Crimmons. You shouldn't need an advanced degree or a decoder ring to figure out a national climate assessment. So she says one of her top priorities for the next edition, which is coming out in 2023, is to make it more accessible.

And some of that is about the words it uses. Huh. So, yeah, I'm curious about how they're thinking about doing that and not using this climate decoder ring that we all don't need. Because, you know, some sections are explained in simple terms, but a lot of the content maybe, you know, atmospheric carbon concentrations. That's hard. You really do need advanced words for that type of thing. Right. And Kriman said one thing her team is thinking about doing is presenting information in multiple ways. So, for example, a chapter on drought could include a dense technical piece of writing with charts and graphs. And that might include some of the confusing words we've been talking about. That section would be intended for scientists and engineers and people like that. But the same information could be presented as a video, explaining how drought affects agriculture in different parts of the U.S., for example, and a social media post with even more condensed version of how climate change is affecting drought in general. And in theory, that would use even simpler, clearer words.

Yeah, it is more work to do that and not lean on the jargon, right? Because that's what the scientific terms are there for. They're precise. But I think almost everyone who works on climate change knows there's still this very large, chasm between these key scientific reports and what's reaching the general public. Yeah. It sounds like one big takeaway you're saying is just think about your audience when you're talking about climate change.

Yes, totally. And it's something that the people who make this podcast think about a lot, for example. You know, it's at the core of science communication, not just climate communication. Who is going to read or listen to this? How can we explain complicated things in clear ways? And I think studies like this recent one can be really helpful because they give specific examples. And they really make you consider the individual words that you use. Yeah, totally.

Becky, thank you for this chat. It's giving me a lot to think about. I'm glad. This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Viet Le and fact-checked by Burley-McCoy. I'm Lauren Summer. And I'm Rebecca Hersher. And this is Shortwave, the Daily Science Podcast from NPR.