This month’s blog by Dr. Elizabeth Stevenson examines the role of science communication and public engagement in empowering the public to critically engage with scientific issues, enabling them to make informed choices and decisions – and crucially, to ask the key questions. In this piece, she argues that

Inspired by last semester’s ‘Fracking’ reading group and intrigued by several mentions of the need for a practice by which accurate, accessible information about fracking can be disseminated,  I was galvanised into action to write this blog about the roles which science communication and public engagement can play.

Science communication as a practice is all about making science accessible to public audiences who have varying degrees of knowledge, understanding and interest in science.  At the fundamental level, science communication requires the ability to take complex scientific concepts, research topics and issues and present them in an accurate yet accessible format.  It’s not about ‘dumbing down’ or being selective about the information or ideas communicated.  For example in his blog about fracking, David Reay gives an accurate yet simplified description of fracking. His description contained nowhere near the level of detail to be found in a scientific research paper, nor did it contain inordinate amounts of unexplained jargon.  His description was accessible, understandable and contained the main points and the big ideas in fracking.  This defines one of the key principles in science communication i.e. accurate communication of the key concept, the big idea, the main issue and not every last detail.

However, science communication offers more than the provision of accurate scientific knowledge.  Continuing with the theme of fracking, one of the main concerns around fracking is not about what we know but about what we don’t yet know.  For example the level of uncertainty about potential short and longer term damage to local environments where fracking is taking place.  However, fracking does not have a monopoly on uncertainty in science.  All scientific knowledge and technological advance is subject to varying degrees of uncertainty in terms of both the scientific knowledge itself and around the political, economic and societal consequences when this knowledge is applied in innovative technologies in societal contexts.  During the process of innovation there will inevitably be uncertainties and yet this issue of uncertainty is not fully understood by public audiences.  The question is not ‘do we know everything? ’It is ‘do we know enough? ’Or ‘how can we best make a decision using what we do know?’ and ‘What else do we need to consider?’ I would argue that one of the roles of science communication is to empower publics to ask these critical questions.

Finally we need a ‘safe space’ where these conversations can take place.  Another role of science communication (and public engagement) is to create the opportunities, the facilitation expertise and ‘spaces’ conducive to achieving productive discussions between scientists, industrialists, publics and policy-makers.  The framing of the discussion questions is key to ensure that the discourse is not polarised from the outset (e.g. fracking vs a ban on fracking).  Instead, questions can framed to enable productive dialogue. For example by asking the question ‘Under what conditions could fracking be acceptable?’ can enable exploration of the subject rather than defence of entrenched positions.

Therefore I return to my original title and argue that science communication and public engagement with science have a role far beyond communicating factoids.  This role encompasses informing publics, empowering them to critically engage with scientific knowledge and issues and enabling constructive dialogues to take place.

Dr Elizabeth Stevenson is the Programme Director of the MSc Science Communication and Public Engagement at the University of Edinburgh.  Her PhD is in chemistry and she has over fifteen years of experience in the field of science communication.

Dr Dave Reay

I like gas. Each morning it is the source of instant heat for making my coffee. Each winter’s evening it is the roar in the boiler that spreads warmth through the house. At work too, this energy-packed gas is a daily focus of our climate change research, but it’s there that its darker side often comes to the fore. Natural gas consists almost entirely of ‘methane’ and, as methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, it presents both problems and opportunities in the fight to limit anthropogenic climate change.

With a fossil-fuel heavy global energy system, methane looked like a 20^th century success story in terms of tackling climate change. In the UK, the ‘Dash for Gas’ helped to nudge out carbon-intensive coal-burning power stations for more efficient, lower-emitting gas-fired versions. Per unit of electricity produced, gas power stations were emitting less than half the carbon dioxide of their coal-powered predecessors.

Since those heady days of North Sea exploitation that poured oil, gas and money into the UK, getting enough methane to keep the powerstations, cookers and boilers going has become increasingly difficult. National and global demand for gas has rocketed and easily-exploited supplies have dwindled. Imports of gas from Russia have risen, and with them the volatility of price and supply.

Now, the global expansion of a new extraction technology called ‘fracking’ heralds a new ‘Dash for Gas’ that could serve to provide energy security and carbon emission cuts which dwarf those of the last gas boom.  Unfortunately, this new process, and the vast reserves of gas it makes available, pose a major threat to avoiding dangerous climate change.

Fracking is a process whereby water, chemicals and sand are injected at high pressure into methane-bearing rock and shale deposits. The high pressure water opens up fissures in the rock and the sand particles (called proppants) then keep them open to allow the methane to flow. Once’ fracked’ the methane in the rocks can then be drawn out and used. The process is already used widely in the US, with huge extractions from the methane-rich Marcellus shale in the east of the country underway.

The huge volumes of ‘fracked’ methane have allowed the US to radically reduce its domestic use of coal and to close in on full energy security. So far, so good. However, coal production in the US has continued unabated, with the bargain-price coal now being shipped overseas (much of it to Europe) and burnt for energy generation there. In effect, methane fracking in the US has meant a reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions, but an increase globally. Add to that the great uncertainty over the amount of methane that is leaked from fracking sites and this new ‘Dash for Gas’ begins to look like a major problem for climate change mitigation.

To our atmosphere, exactly where greenhouse gases come from does not matter, it is the amount emitted globally that counts. ‘Dangerous’ climate change is commonly cited as being a post-industrial increase in the global average temperature of 2^oC. We have already seen warming of 0.75^oC and, on our current course, we are likely to well exceed the 2^oC level during this century. Global expansion of methane fracking helps to lock us into this high emissions trajectory. It means a new generation of gas-fired power plants that will go on emitting CO₂ for decades to come, while renewable generation struggles to compete with the low-cost, short-term gas bonanza.

For the jobs and growth agenda of most governments though, methane fracking is inevitably seen as a boon. In the UK it could help buffer energy prices and create new income streams as North Sea wells run dry. Globally it can help power economic development and temporarily bridge gaps between supply and demand.  Methane fracking exemplifies the kind of tradeoffs that have to be made between energy security and climate security, but there is little evidence that such tradeoffs have been properly assessed by the governments backing the fracking boom.

They like gas and so do I, but methane is a fossil fuel. As such our reliance on it has to wane rather than wax in the face of accelerating anthropogenic climate change. It is time that policies on fracking and similarly Janus-faced pillars of ‘sustainable growth’ began to encompass the time-span of human lives instead of parliaments.

Prof. Dave Reay is Chair in Carbon Management & Education at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Geosciences. Dave is Assistant Principal Environment & Society and the Director of the Global Environment and Society Academy, he is the designer and editor of the climate change science website Greenhouse Gas Online and of the Southern Ocean: Antarctic Seas and Wildlife website and has authored a number of books on climate change, including children’s book, ‘ Your Planet Needs You! A Kid’s Guide to Going Green’.  For more information about Dave and his work visit the GESA website