Warren Pearce

Climate change on Twitter: topics, communities and conversations about the 2013 IPCC Working Group 1 report

In September 2013 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its Working Group 1 report, the first comprehensive assessment of physical climate science in six years, constituting a critical event in the societal debate about climate change. This paper analyses the nature of this debate in one public forum: Twitter. Using statistical methods, tweets were analyzed to discover the hashtags used when people tweeted about the IPCC report, and how Twitter users formed communities around their conversational connections. In short, the paper presents the topics and tweeters at this particular moment in the climate debate. The most used hashtags related to themes of science, geographical location and social issues connected to climate change. Particularly noteworthy were tweets connected to Australian politics, US politics, geoengineering and fracking. Three communities of Twitter users were identified. Researcher coding of Twitter users showed how these varied according to geographical location and whether users were supportive, unsupportive or neutral in their tweets about the IPCC. Overall, users were most likely to converse with users holding similar views. However, qualitative analysis suggested the emergence of a community of Twitter users, predominantly based in the UK, where greater interaction between contrasting views took place. This analysis also illustrated the presence of a campaign by the non-governmental organization Avaaz, aimed at increasing media coverage of the IPCC report.

Evidence and meaning in policy making

In 2011, Sense About Science launched a campaign backed by various celebrities, academics and other public figures entitled Ask for Evidence, ‘saying that consumers, voters and patients should demand evidence for scientific and medical claims to counter a tide of misinformation’ (Sense About Science, 2011). The campaign website provides examples of people asking for evidence on public claims in such disparate policy areas as video game addiction, food waste among single people and the carbon footprint of recycling mobile phones (Sense About Science, 2014). Potential campaign pa ticipants are advised that ‘[w]hen you ask for evidence, ask them about the science behind the claim’ (Peters, 2013). The campaign provides an example of the widespread support that the idea of evidence-based policy (EBP) now commands (Rutter, 2012). After all, using evidence as the basis for formulating public policy appears so uncontroversial as to be almost impossible to oppose (for an example to the contrary, see Pile, 2011). Taking EBP at face value in this way implies a rational-technical view of policy making, in which principles for selection, action and evaluation are shared amongst policy actors. Such a view assumes that the ‘evidence’ in evidence-based policy making is a given, and that if only politicians paid more attention to the evidence, society would see better policy. This special issue of Evidence and Policy follows the ‘interpretive turn’1 in the analysis of policy making to challenge this view: a shift in the object of attention (policy) from being an artefact – clear, fixed and created by ‘policy makers’ – to a process of meaning making between a range of participants (Hoppe, 1999; Majone, 1989). So if the interpretive approach leads us to focus on meaning, what might this mean for studying EBP? First, it highlights that actors may contest what is meant by ‘evidence’ as a factor in the policy process. One definition could be that evidence is policy-useful information (Lindblom and Cohen, 1979), but what makes information useful, and how does knowledge become useful information? How does the context in which the information is being used affect what counts as evidence? Second, even if a particular piece of evidence becomes accepted as justification for, or measurement of, a particular policy, it will still hold different meanings for different actors (Yanow, 1996). Third, the meaning of EBP as a paradigm guiding policy makers comes into SPECIAL ISSUE • Evidence and meaning in policy making

Beyond Counting Climate Consensus

ABSTRACT Several studies have been using quantified consensus within climate science as an argument to foster climate policy. Recent efforts to communicate such scientific consensus attained a high public profile but it is doubtful if they can be regarded successful. We argue that repeated efforts to shore up the scientific consensus on minimalist claims such as “humans cause global warming” are distractions from more urgent matters of knowledge, values, policy framing and public engagement. Such efforts to force policy progress through communicating scientific consensus misunderstand the relationship between scientific knowledge, publics and policymakers. More important is to focus on genuinely controversial issues within climate policy debates where expertise might play a facilitating role. Mobilizing expertise in policy debates calls for judgment, context and attention to diversity, rather than deferring to formal quantifications of narrowly scientific claims.

Against the tide of depoliticisation: The politics of research governance

Research has identified a general trend towards depoliticisation. Against this trend, we identify opportunities for politicisation through the international emergence of a research governance tool: ‘responsible research and innovation’ (RRI). Drawing on face-to-face interviews with university staff, we reveal two factors that influence whether research governance becomes a site of politics: actors’ acknowledgement of their societal responsibilities, and the meanings these actors attribute to RRI. RRI provides a focus for political struggles over the public value of research and innovation at a time when science policy is given a privileged role in driving economic growth.

Three lessons from evidence-based medicine and policy: increase transparency, balance inputs and understand power

Evidence-based medicine is often described as the ‘template’ for evidence-based policymaking. EBM has evolved over the last 70 years, and now tends to be methodologically pluralistic, operates through specific structures to promote EBM, and is inclusive of a wide range of stakeholders. These strategies allow EBM practitioners to effectively draw on useful evidence, be transparent, and be inclusive; essentially, to share power. We identify three lessons EBP could learn from EBM. Firstly, to be more transparent about the processes and structures used to find and use evidence. Secondly, to consider how to balance evidence and other interests, and how to assemble the evidence jigsaw. Finally–and this is a lesson for EBM too–that understanding power is vital, and how it shapes how knowledge is produced and used. We suggest that advocates of evidence use, and commentators, should focus on thinking about how the type of problem faced by decision-makers should influence what evidence is produced, sought, and used.

Why are NGOs sceptical of genome editing

NGOs’ opposition to agricultural biotechnologies is rooted in scepticism about the framing of problems and solutions, rather than just emotion and dogma.

A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science Consensus Messaging

In their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) agree with our central point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires t...

Autism Scientists’ Reflections on the Opportunities and Challenges of Public Engagement: A Qualitative Analysis

This article draws upon qualitative interviews in order to examine how UK based research psychologists understand public engagement activities and interactions with autistic advocates. Researchers describe public engagement as difficult and understand these difficulties as stemming from autistic impairments. In particular, it is reported that a heterogeneity of autism impairments means there is little agreement on the form research should take, while socio-communicative impairments make interactions difficult. Conversely, researchers describe autistic individuals as having the capacity to positively influence research. In this paper we discuss the nature of these claims and stress the need for autism-specific modes of engagement to be developed.

Reply to Tagliabue

EMBO Reports (2018) e45954 Since our article “Why are NGOs sceptical of genome editing?” [1] was published, we received correspondence, both critical and supportive, but written in the same spirit we employed: attempting to build mutual understanding between diverse perspectives on the role of genome editing in agriculture and food production. In our article, we highlighted one strategy for building such understanding, reflecting on what Rayner describes as “uncomfortable knowledge” [2]: the knowledge that we all downplay when framing complex issues such as genome editing or food security. We presented NGOs’ knowledge regarding the political aspects of agricultural biotechnology and food security, which diverges from technical arguments about yield and economic value and is uncomfortable for some correspondents, such as Giovanni Tagliabue [3]. While we thank him for his comments, we would highlight the weaknesses in his technical arguments and his overall approach to this debate. Tagliabues response exhibits …

The influence of policy, public service and local politics on the shift to a low carbon economy in the East Midlands.

This chapter charts the shift from sustainable development policy drivers, through the emergence of climate policy and its impact on public service managers, to the more recent development of low-carbon policy. We also explore the relationship between local business, the local political ‘regime’, the national and European political ‘landscape’ and implications for local actors in the East Midlands; arguing that while low-carbon policy might be more in tune with political realities than attempts at wholesale reductions of carbon emissions, it has brought into question the viability of existing carbon reduction targets. In doing this, we explore the tensions between the ‘grand challenge’ of climate change, the difficult details of policy implementation and the pragmatic reality of business practice.