The Shared Public Space: A Proposed Framework for Improved Climate Communication through Cross-Disciplinary Approaches

Abstract:

COVID-19 has forced a reckoning with our communication strategies as a body of scientists and researchers. Beyond merely sending and receiving information, the pandemic has exemplified the need for effective science communication that not only incites action but also drives sustained shifts in habitual behavior. A clear parallel with analogous urgency is climate change, yet prompt and meaningful widespread change, particularly in the US, continues to evade us. If effective communication of complex concepts is no longer defined merely by mutual understanding, but also through mutual response, how must we accordingly shape earth science communication for a century enduring compounding crises? Here I propose a framework for forward-looking climate communication based in the emerging discipline of data physicalization and drawing on expertise from the tradition of sculpture and exhibition in the fine arts and place-based meaning-making in architecture. The aim of this preliminary framework is first to provide insight into specific methodologies which may be borrowed from alternative communication traditions, such as the arts, in order to improve exhibition-based climate communication, and second, to open discourse on how we might creatively leverage these methodologies to spur strategic and collective action.