Before I write a scientific paper, I always try to identify: (1) my main message [MM], in 25 words or less, and (2) my target audience [TA]. Doing this helps focus the ‘story’ of the manuscript on a key point. Papers that try to present multiple messages are typically confusing and/or too long for busy researchers to read. It also dictates the background and specialist terminology that the reader might be safely assumed to understand, as well as guiding the choice of journal that I will submit to. For instance, a paper written for Nature requires more general context setting than one sent to Wildlife Research.
However, it occurred to me that I’ve never tried to define the main message of the BraveNewClimate.com blog, nor really reflected on who the chief audience is. So let’s try.
In reality, both have evolved over time. Back in late 2008 – early 2009, when the blog (and my thinking on climate change policy) was in its infancy, it would have read something this:
2009 MM: Communicate the scientific evidence for anthropogenic global warming to the general public and policy makers, and advocate the need for, and urgency of, effective mitigation.
2009 TA: People seeking understanding of past climate change, current/future impacts, and the basis of modelled forecasts – all explained in relatively straightforward terms. A secondary target audience was those who were confused by, or enamored of, the repeated assertions of ‘the sceptics’.
Although I was proud to have developed the website on this scientific and philosophical foundation, neither of the above MM or TA are appropriate to BNC’s central purpose in 2012. So let’s try again.
2012 MM: To advocate an evidence-based approach to eliminating global fossil fuel emissions, based on a pragmatic and rational mix of nuclear and other low-carbon energy sources.
2012 TA: Environmentalists who disregard or oppose nuclear energy, and instead believe that renewables are sufficient (or that continuing to rely on fossil fuels is a rational energy policy).
The main message changed because I became progressively more interested in educating people on practical solutions to the problems of global change, rather than preaching doom-and-gloom. This shift in purpose was not because I don’t still consider the impacts of climate change to be incredibly serious and the evidence (ever increasingly) compelling — I do! It’s rather that I found the generic message of: “This is really bad, we must do something!” to be ineffectual, unappealing, and frankly, depressing. Besides, there are other sites that do this very well, so I now tend to leave it in their capable hands.
Instead, I became interested (okay, obsessed is a better word) with grasping and communicating the high-level issues associated with which low-carbon energy solutions will work most effectively at displacing fossil fuels and thus ‘solving’ climate change, at scale, in time, and within reasonable costs.
The new target audience is more specific than previously – this is quite deliberate. The rationale goes something like this, using admittedly broad and weakly quantified generalisations:
A) Roughly 50 % of the public (at least in OECD countries) are somewhere between reasonably and very seriously concerned with climate change, and want action to be taken to phase out fossil fuels. Within this fraction, 10 % have looked pragmatically enough at the problem of future energy supply to support a rational mix of nuclear and ‘renewable’ sources. Another 30 % are somewhere between mildly to fairly strongly opposed to nuclear fission, and hope (or earnestly believe) that a completely renewable-energy-powered society is feasible. The final 10 % of this segment of the populace are implacably anti-nuclear (for various reasons) and this opposition matters to them far more than climate change.
B) The other 50 % of the population range somewhere between indifferent to strongly sceptical of the anthropogenic climate change problem, and are most concerned with energy security and cost. Most, perhaps 40 %, accept the premise that nuclear energy can deliver an alternative to fossil fuels, although many within this group don’t believe that nuclear can or will displace fossil fuels any time soon. Perhaps 5 % refuse to ‘believe’ in climate change but still like the idea of renewable energy as the eventual successor to fossil fuels, and the other 5 % strongly favour nuclear energy for non-climate reasons.
C) Policy makers (politicians) are of secondary importance, because they will follow public sentiment rather than drive it, especially when urgency is not perceived to be high (c.f., war time).
I aim, via BNC, to provide the evidence and supporting arguments to persuade the 30 % of Group A that nuclear power cannot be spurned if they want real and effective action on climate change, and to reinforce the positive arguments for nuclear (and a sensible balance of renewables) within the 40 % of Group B who could: (i) move from weak to strong support for nuclear, and (ii) might be convinced that taking real action on climate change need not imply ill-conceived or uneconomic energy policies.
I have skipped over a lot of the nuances behind my position, but that’s at least the broad-brush motivations.
Feedback is welcome: e.g., Who do you refer on to BNC? How and why did you find BNC? What is your MM when you talk to people about climate and energy? Who is your TA?