In their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook and Oreskes agree with our central point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires thinking beyond public belief in a scientific consensus. However, they both continue to defend consensus messaging, either because of ‘the dangers of neglecting to communicate the scientific consensus’ (Cook, 2017, p. 1) or because ‘“no consensus”…remains… a contrarian talking point’ (Oreskes, 2017, p. 1). Both highlight previously conducted market research by fossil fuel companies which suggested that scientific uncertainty provided a political weapon in fighting regulation, concluding that incorrect public perceptions of the scientific consensus weaken support for policy action (Oreskes, 2017, p. 2)

Grundmann, R

Hadley Kershaw, E

Hulme, M

Pearce, W

Raman, S

Tsouvalis, J

English

Pearce, Warren

Grundmann, Reiner

Hulme, Mike

Raman, Sujatha

Hadley Kershaw, Eleanor

Tsouvalis, Judith

Name not available

A reply to Cook and Oreskes on climate science consensus messaging

Warren Pearce

Reiner Grundmann

Mike Hulme

Sujatha Raman

Eleanor Hadley Kershaw

Judith Tsouvalis

Crossref

Environmental Communication

A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science Consensus Messaging

Pearce, W.

Grundmann, R.

Hulme, M.

Raman, S.

Hadley Kershaw, E.

Tsouvalis, J.

White Rose Research Online

A reply to cook and Oreskes on climate science consensus messaging

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Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=renc20Environmental CommunicationISSN: 1752-4032 (Print) 1752-4040 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate ScienceConsensus MessagingWarren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman, EleanorHadley Kershaw & Judith TsouvalisTo cite this article: Warren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman,Eleanor Hadley Kershaw & Judith Tsouvalis (2017) A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on ClimateScience Consensus Messaging, Environmental Communication, 11:6, 736-739, DOI:10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109© 2017 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroupPublished online: 14 Nov 2017.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1067View related articles View Crossmark dataRESPONSEA Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science ConsensusMessagingWarren Pearcea, Reiner Grundmann b, Mike Hulmec, Sujatha Ramanb,Eleanor Hadley Kershawb and Judith TsouvalisbaThe Department of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; bSchool ofSociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; cDepartment of Geography, University ofCambridge, Cambridge, UKIn their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) agree with ourcentral point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires thinkingbeyond public belief in a scientific consensus. However, they both continue to defend consensus mes-saging, either because of “the dangers of neglecting to communicate the scientific consensus” (Cook,2017, p. 1) or because “‘no consensus’ … remains… a contrarian talking point” (Oreskes, 2017, p. 1).Both highlight previously conducted market research by fossil fuel companies which suggested thatscientific uncertainty provided a political weapon in fighting regulation, concluding that incorrectpublic perceptions of the scientific consensus weaken support for policy action (Oreskes, 2017, p. 2).It is odd that scholars accept corporate research as proof of a claim about the relation betweenknowledge and decision-making, when the academic evidence cited in our Commentary providesnumerous examples to the contrary. Grundmann and Stehr (2012) examined the literature regardingthe relation between scientific information and policies (including climate policy), finding that whatmatters most for effective policy is the identification, and use, of levers for action such as taxes, regu-lation, incentives or public investment, not scientific consensus.Public opinion data also cast doubt on the importance of consensus messaging. In Table 1, wesummarize relevant 2017 national survey data of US public attitudes and knowledge (Leiserowitz,Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Rosenthal, & Cutler, 2017; Marlon, Fine, & Leiserowitz, 2017). Althoughone should be cautious interpreting such surveys, the data shows a clear majority position amongAmericans: that climate change is real, important and worrisome, and that the US should take policyaction and invest in public education. These positions have been reached in the absence of accurateknowledge about the scientific consensus. There is little evidence here that supports the notionshared by Cook, Oreskes and various fossil fuel companies: that disinformation about scientific con-sensus begets public opposition to policy.Despite this evidence, Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) appear convinced that public understand-ing of scientific consensus is essential for developing effective climate polices. Even if this “gatewaybelief model” could be proved in laboratory studies,1 it holds questionable significance in the realworld where sources of competing information always exist (Kahan & Carpenter, 2017). Scienceitself provides fertile ground for such discrepancies, as two current examples demonstrate. First,the debate over the hiatus/pause in global temperature increase was not invented by fossil fuel inter-ests, but is a subject of genuine scientific disagreement (Medhaug, Stolpe, Fischer, & Knutti, 2017).Second, there is increasing expert debate regarding how much carbon dioxide can be emitted whilekeeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C (Millar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Peters, 2017; Rathi, 2017).For climate scientists, there is no obvious consensus about questions such as these. On the other© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.CONTACT Reiner Grundmann reiner.grundmann@nottingham.ac.ukENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION, 2017VOL. 11, NO. 6, 736–739https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109hand, Cook, Oreskes and others persist in messaging the minimalist fact that human influence on achanging climate is uncontroversial amongst scientists.To reiterate our Commentary, we agree there are occasions where this consensus is worth stating.However, there will always be public voices of dissent, and drowning them out with consensus mes-saging is implausible (Aklin & Urpelainen, 2014). Far better to design sustained public engagementon climate change around possible policy options, rather than allowing the needle to get stuck onconsensus messaging which offers little when it comes to planning policy responses. Instead, it isnecessary to open up the normative dimensions of policies such as carbon taxes, geoengineeringor radical societal transitions to public scrutiny and debate (Nisbet, 2014), and to find new policymeasures that can attract cross-partisan support (Ryan, 2015).Cook (2017) interprets our argument as playing into the hands of climate disinformers. Far fromit. It is the insistent demand that publics will only engage in relevant policy debates once they haveadopted a “gateway belief” that is playing into the hands of those who wish to slow-down climatepolicy design and implementation.Greater public participation in defining policy solutions will help challenge the current system,where policy interventions are presented as value-free responses to scientific facts, leaving sciencevulnerable to political attacks that scientists and their allies are ill-equipped to repel (Jasanoff,2010; Pearce, Brown, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2015; Raman, 2017; Wynne, 2010). Starting with specificpolicy proposals, and exploring their normative assumptions, is likely to prove a better publicengagement strategy than the promotion of consensus messaging.For example, the UK Government’s “My2050” online tool enabled members of the public todesign their own energy pathway to the UK’s 2050 carbon reduction target. Participants adjusteddifferent elements of energy generation and demand within their pathway, revealing the normativeassumptions regarding energy trade-offs embedded in the policy target (Mohr, Raman, & Gibbs,2013). Complementary deliberative dialogues allowed participants to reflect more extensively onthe target’s demands, with the results informing recommendations for decision-making (Science-wise, 2012). In this model, members of the public are assumed to have something to contribute tocrafting societal responses to climate change, rather than seeking to correct some deficiency intheir understanding of the issue (Nuccitelli, Cook, van der Linden, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2017).Also, Pidgeon, Demski, Butler, Parkhill, and Spence (2014) report that in their deliberative work-shops, some participants who were sceptical about climate change were nevertheless enthusiasticabout transition beyond fossil fuels.Publics around the world possess a rich understanding of the climates they live with, the risks theyface, and the potential changes they would like to see. Mobilizing and engaging these views are theTable 1. US public attitudes about climate change compared to accurate knowledge of scientific consensus.Global warming beliefs and policy preferences %Agree that schools should teach causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warminga 78Think global warming is happeninga 70Say US should participate in Paris Agreementb,c 69Say global warming is at least “somewhat” personally importanta 63Think global warming is affecting US weathera 59Think global warming is mostly caused by human activitiesa 58Say they are at least “somewhat” worried about global warminga 57Knowledge of scientific consensus %Believe that over 90% of climate scientists think human-caused global warming is happeninga,d 13aLeiserowitz et al. (2017).bMarlon et al. (2017).cSample includes just registered voters, rather than general population.dIn a web-based survey, respondents were asked: “To the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think thathuman-caused global warming is happening? Please click on the slider bar below to indicate your answer. You can slide theindicator to the position that best describes your opinion. If the slider does not work, you can enter a number in the number box.”ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 737proper building blocks for public debate, not an insistence that knowledge of a single number is apre-condition for political progress.Note1. Note that no consensus exists on whether the experimental evidence for the model is convincing (Kahan, 2016).AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the funding support of the Leverhulme Trust Making Science Public programme (RP2011-SP-013). WP acknowledges the support of the Economic and Social Research Council Future Leaders Research pro-gramme Making Climate Social project ES/N002016/1.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.ORCIDReiner Grundmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0266-9296ReferencesAklin, M., & Urpelainen, J. (2014). Perceptions of scientific dissent undermine public support for environmental pol-icy. Environmental Science & Policy, 38(Suppl. C), 173–177.Cook, J. (2017). Response by Cook to “beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication. Advanceonline publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377095Grundmann, R., & Stehr, N. (2012). The power of scientific knowledge: From research to public policy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate for society. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2–3), 233–253.Kahan, D. M. (2016). The “gateway belief” illusion: Reanalyzing the results of a scientific-consensus messaging study.Journal of Science Communication. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2779661Kahan, D. M., & Carpenter, K. (2017). Out of the lab and into the field. Nature Climate Change, 7(5), 309–311. doi:10.1038/nclimate3283Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E. W., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., & Cutler, M. (2017). Climate change in the Americanmind: May, 2017. New Haven, CT: Yale University/George Mason University.Marlon, J. R., Fine, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2017). A majority of Americans in every state say the U.S. should participatein the Paris Climate Agreement. Retrieved from http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/Medhaug, I., Stolpe, M. B., Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2017). Reconciling controversies about the “global warminghiatus”. Nature, 545(7652), 41–47.Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017a).Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.Nature Geoscience. Advance online pub-lication. doi:10.1038/ngeo3031Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017b,September 20). Clarification on recent press coverage of our “1.5 degrees” paper in Nature Geoscience.Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/379Mohr, A., Raman, S., & Gibbs, B. (2013). Which Publics? When? Didcot: Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Which-publics-FINAL-VERSION.pdfNisbet, M. C. (2014). Disruptive ideas: Public intellectuals and their arguments for action on climate change. WileyInterdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(6), 809–823.Nuccitelli, D., Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, T., & Maibach, E. (2017, October 2). Why the 97% climateconsensus is important. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/02/why-the-97-climate-consensus-is-importantOreskes, N. (2017). Response by Oreskes to “Beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication.Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377094738 W. PEARCE ET AL.Pearce, W., Brown, B., Nerlich, B., & Koteyko, N. (2015). Communicating climate change: Conduits, content, and con-sensus. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6(6), 613–626.Pearce, W., Grundmann, R., Hulme, M., Raman, S., Kershaw, E. H., & Tsouvalis, J. (2017). Beyond counting climateconsensus. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965Peters, G. (2017, September 19). Did 1.5°C suddenly get easier? – Cicero. Retrieved from http://www.cicero.uio.no/no/posts/nyheter/commentary-did-15c-suddenly-get-easierPidgeon, N., Demski, C., Butler, C., Parkhill, K., & Spence, A. (2014). Creating a national citizen engagement processfor energy policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13606–13613.Raman, S. (2017, October 4). Making space for connective truths. Discover Society. Retrieved from http://discoversociety.org/2017/10/04/making-space-for-connective-truths/Rathi, A. (2017, September 21). Did we just buy decades more time to hit climate goals? Retrieved from https://qz.com/1080883/the-breathtaking-new-climate-change-study-hasnt-changed-the-urgency-with-which-we-must-reduce-emissions/Ryan, D. (2015). From commitment to action: A literature review on climate policy implementation at city level.Climatic Change, 131(4), 519–529.Sciencewise. (2012). Case study. Energy 2050 pathways: A public dialogue with young people and community leaders.Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Publications/SWEnergy-2050-PathwaysFINAL.pdfWynne, B. (2010). When doubt becomes a weapon. Nature, 466(7305), 441–442.ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 739

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Pearce, Warren and Grundmann, Reiner and Hulme, Mike and Raman, Sujatha and Hadley Kershaw, Eleanor and Tsouvalis, Judith (2017) A reply to Cook and Oreskes on climate science consensus messaging. Environmental Communication, 11 (6). pp. 736-739. ISSN 1752-4040 Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50582/2/A%20Reply%20to%20Cook%20and%20Oreskes%20on%20Climate%20Science%20Consensus%20Messaging.pdfCopyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions.This article is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence.  For more details see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. 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Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.ukbrought to you by COREView metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.ukprovided by Nottingham ePrintsFull Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=renc20Environmental CommunicationISSN: 1752-4032 (Print) 1752-4040 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate ScienceConsensus MessagingWarren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman, EleanorHadley Kershaw & Judith TsouvalisTo cite this article: Warren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman,Eleanor Hadley Kershaw & Judith Tsouvalis (2017) A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on ClimateScience Consensus Messaging, Environmental Communication, 11:6, 736-739, DOI:10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109© 2017 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroupPublished online: 14 Nov 2017.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1067View related articles View Crossmark dataRESPONSEA Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science ConsensusMessagingWarren Pearcea, Reiner Grundmann b, Mike Hulmec, Sujatha Ramanb,Eleanor Hadley Kershawb and Judith TsouvalisbaThe Department of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; bSchool ofSociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; cDepartment of Geography, University ofCambridge, Cambridge, UKIn their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) agree with ourcentral point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires thinkingbeyond public belief in a scientific consensus. However, they both continue to defend consensus mes-saging, either because of “the dangers of neglecting to communicate the scientific consensus” (Cook,2017, p. 1) or because “‘no consensus’ … remains… a contrarian talking point” (Oreskes, 2017, p. 1).Both highlight previously conducted market research by fossil fuel companies which suggested thatscientific uncertainty provided a political weapon in fighting regulation, concluding that incorrectpublic perceptions of the scientific consensus weaken support for policy action (Oreskes, 2017, p. 2).It is odd that scholars accept corporate research as proof of a claim about the relation betweenknowledge and decision-making, when the academic evidence cited in our Commentary providesnumerous examples to the contrary. Grundmann and Stehr (2012) examined the literature regardingthe relation between scientific information and policies (including climate policy), finding that whatmatters most for effective policy is the identification, and use, of levers for action such as taxes, regu-lation, incentives or public investment, not scientific consensus.Public opinion data also cast doubt on the importance of consensus messaging. In Table 1, wesummarize relevant 2017 national survey data of US public attitudes and knowledge (Leiserowitz,Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Rosenthal, & Cutler, 2017; Marlon, Fine, & Leiserowitz, 2017). Althoughone should be cautious interpreting such surveys, the data shows a clear majority position amongAmericans: that climate change is real, important and worrisome, and that the US should take policyaction and invest in public education. These positions have been reached in the absence of accurateknowledge about the scientific consensus. There is little evidence here that supports the notionshared by Cook, Oreskes and various fossil fuel companies: that disinformation about scientific con-sensus begets public opposition to policy.Despite this evidence, Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) appear convinced that public understand-ing of scientific consensus is essential for developing effective climate polices. Even if this “gatewaybelief model” could be proved in laboratory studies,1 it holds questionable significance in the realworld where sources of competing information always exist (Kahan & Carpenter, 2017). Scienceitself provides fertile ground for such discrepancies, as two current examples demonstrate. First,the debate over the hiatus/pause in global temperature increase was not invented by fossil fuel inter-ests, but is a subject of genuine scientific disagreement (Medhaug, Stolpe, Fischer, & Knutti, 2017).Second, there is increasing expert debate regarding how much carbon dioxide can be emitted whilekeeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C (Millar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Peters, 2017; Rathi, 2017).For climate scientists, there is no obvious consensus about questions such as these. On the other© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.CONTACT Reiner Grundmann reiner.grundmann@nottingham.ac.ukENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION, 2017VOL. 11, NO. 6, 736–739https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109hand, Cook, Oreskes and others persist in messaging the minimalist fact that human influence on achanging climate is uncontroversial amongst scientists.To reiterate our Commentary, we agree there are occasions where this consensus is worth stating.However, there will always be public voices of dissent, and drowning them out with consensus mes-saging is implausible (Aklin & Urpelainen, 2014). Far better to design sustained public engagementon climate change around possible policy options, rather than allowing the needle to get stuck onconsensus messaging which offers little when it comes to planning policy responses. Instead, it isnecessary to open up the normative dimensions of policies such as carbon taxes, geoengineeringor radical societal transitions to public scrutiny and debate (Nisbet, 2014), and to find new policymeasures that can attract cross-partisan support (Ryan, 2015).Cook (2017) interprets our argument as playing into the hands of climate disinformers. Far fromit. It is the insistent demand that publics will only engage in relevant policy debates once they haveadopted a “gateway belief” that is playing into the hands of those who wish to slow-down climatepolicy design and implementation.Greater public participation in defining policy solutions will help challenge the current system,where policy interventions are presented as value-free responses to scientific facts, leaving sciencevulnerable to political attacks that scientists and their allies are ill-equipped to repel (Jasanoff,2010; Pearce, Brown, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2015; Raman, 2017; Wynne, 2010). Starting with specificpolicy proposals, and exploring their normative assumptions, is likely to prove a better publicengagement strategy than the promotion of consensus messaging.For example, the UK Government’s “My2050” online tool enabled members of the public todesign their own energy pathway to the UK’s 2050 carbon reduction target. Participants adjusteddifferent elements of energy generation and demand within their pathway, revealing the normativeassumptions regarding energy trade-offs embedded in the policy target (Mohr, Raman, & Gibbs,2013). Complementary deliberative dialogues allowed participants to reflect more extensively onthe target’s demands, with the results informing recommendations for decision-making (Science-wise, 2012). In this model, members of the public are assumed to have something to contribute tocrafting societal responses to climate change, rather than seeking to correct some deficiency intheir understanding of the issue (Nuccitelli, Cook, van der Linden, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2017).Also, Pidgeon, Demski, Butler, Parkhill, and Spence (2014) report that in their deliberative work-shops, some participants who were sceptical about climate change were nevertheless enthusiasticabout transition beyond fossil fuels.Publics around the world possess a rich understanding of the climates they live with, the risks theyface, and the potential changes they would like to see. Mobilizing and engaging these views are theTable 1. US public attitudes about climate change compared to accurate knowledge of scientific consensus.Global warming beliefs and policy preferences %Agree that schools should teach causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warminga 78Think global warming is happeninga 70Say US should participate in Paris Agreementb,c 69Say global warming is at least “somewhat” personally importanta 63Think global warming is affecting US weathera 59Think global warming is mostly caused by human activitiesa 58Say they are at least “somewhat” worried about global warminga 57Knowledge of scientific consensus %Believe that over 90% of climate scientists think human-caused global warming is happeninga,d 13aLeiserowitz et al. (2017).bMarlon et al. (2017).cSample includes just registered voters, rather than general population.dIn a web-based survey, respondents were asked: “To the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think thathuman-caused global warming is happening? Please click on the slider bar below to indicate your answer. You can slide theindicator to the position that best describes your opinion. If the slider does not work, you can enter a number in the number box.”ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 737proper building blocks for public debate, not an insistence that knowledge of a single number is apre-condition for political progress.Note1. Note that no consensus exists on whether the experimental evidence for the model is convincing (Kahan, 2016).AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the funding support of the Leverhulme Trust Making Science Public programme (RP2011-SP-013). WP acknowledges the support of the Economic and Social Research Council Future Leaders Research pro-gramme Making Climate Social project ES/N002016/1.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.ORCIDReiner Grundmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0266-9296ReferencesAklin, M., & Urpelainen, J. (2014). Perceptions of scientific dissent undermine public support for environmental pol-icy. Environmental Science & Policy, 38(Suppl. C), 173–177.Cook, J. (2017). Response by Cook to “beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication. Advanceonline publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377095Grundmann, R., & Stehr, N. (2012). The power of scientific knowledge: From research to public policy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate for society. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2–3), 233–253.Kahan, D. M. (2016). The “gateway belief” illusion: Reanalyzing the results of a scientific-consensus messaging study.Journal of Science Communication. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2779661Kahan, D. M., & Carpenter, K. (2017). Out of the lab and into the field. Nature Climate Change, 7(5), 309–311. doi:10.1038/nclimate3283Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E. W., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., & Cutler, M. (2017). Climate change in the Americanmind: May, 2017. New Haven, CT: Yale University/George Mason University.Marlon, J. R., Fine, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2017). A majority of Americans in every state say the U.S. should participatein the Paris Climate Agreement. Retrieved from http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/Medhaug, I., Stolpe, M. B., Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2017). Reconciling controversies about the “global warminghiatus”. Nature, 545(7652), 41–47.Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017a).Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.Nature Geoscience. Advance online pub-lication. doi:10.1038/ngeo3031Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017b,September 20). Clarification on recent press coverage of our “1.5 degrees” paper in Nature Geoscience.Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/379Mohr, A., Raman, S., & Gibbs, B. (2013). Which Publics? When? Didcot: Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Which-publics-FINAL-VERSION.pdfNisbet, M. C. (2014). Disruptive ideas: Public intellectuals and their arguments for action on climate change. WileyInterdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(6), 809–823.Nuccitelli, D., Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, T., & Maibach, E. (2017, October 2). Why the 97% climateconsensus is important. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/02/why-the-97-climate-consensus-is-importantOreskes, N. (2017). Response by Oreskes to “Beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication.Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377094738 W. PEARCE ET AL.Pearce, W., Brown, B., Nerlich, B., & Koteyko, N. (2015). Communicating climate change: Conduits, content, and con-sensus. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6(6), 613–626.Pearce, W., Grundmann, R., Hulme, M., Raman, S., Kershaw, E. H., & Tsouvalis, J. (2017). Beyond counting climateconsensus. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965Peters, G. (2017, September 19). Did 1.5°C suddenly get easier? – Cicero. Retrieved from http://www.cicero.uio.no/no/posts/nyheter/commentary-did-15c-suddenly-get-easierPidgeon, N., Demski, C., Butler, C., Parkhill, K., & Spence, A. (2014). Creating a national citizen engagement processfor energy policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13606–13613.Raman, S. (2017, October 4). Making space for connective truths. Discover Society. Retrieved from http://discoversociety.org/2017/10/04/making-space-for-connective-truths/Rathi, A. (2017, September 21). Did we just buy decades more time to hit climate goals? Retrieved from https://qz.com/1080883/the-breathtaking-new-climate-change-study-hasnt-changed-the-urgency-with-which-we-must-reduce-emissions/Ryan, D. (2015). From commitment to action: A literature review on climate policy implementation at city level.Climatic Change, 131(4), 519–529.Sciencewise. (2012). Case study. Energy 2050 pathways: A public dialogue with young people and community leaders.Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Publications/SWEnergy-2050-PathwaysFINAL.pdfWynne, B. (2010). When doubt becomes a weapon. Nature, 466(7305), 441–442.ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 739

Apollo (Cambridge)

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttps://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=renc20Environmental CommunicationISSN: 1752-4032 (Print) 1752-4040 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate ScienceConsensus MessagingWarren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman, EleanorHadley Kershaw & Judith TsouvalisTo cite this article: Warren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman,Eleanor Hadley Kershaw & Judith Tsouvalis (2017) A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on ClimateScience Consensus Messaging, Environmental Communication, 11:6, 736-739, DOI:10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109© 2017 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroupPublished online: 14 Nov 2017.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1510View Crossmark dataRESPONSEA Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science ConsensusMessagingWarren Pearcea, Reiner Grundmann b, Mike Hulmec, Sujatha Ramanb,Eleanor Hadley Kershawb and Judith TsouvalisbaThe Department of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; bSchool ofSociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; cDepartment of Geography, University ofCambridge, Cambridge, UKIn their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) agree with ourcentral point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires thinkingbeyond public belief in a scientific consensus. However, they both continue to defend consensus mes-saging, either because of “the dangers of neglecting to communicate the scientific consensus” (Cook,2017, p. 1) or because “‘no consensus’ … remains… a contrarian talking point” (Oreskes, 2017, p. 1).Both highlight previously conducted market research by fossil fuel companies which suggested thatscientific uncertainty provided a political weapon in fighting regulation, concluding that incorrectpublic perceptions of the scientific consensus weaken support for policy action (Oreskes, 2017, p. 2).It is odd that scholars accept corporate research as proof of a claim about the relation betweenknowledge and decision-making, when the academic evidence cited in our Commentary providesnumerous examples to the contrary. Grundmann and Stehr (2012) examined the literature regardingthe relation between scientific information and policies (including climate policy), finding that whatmatters most for effective policy is the identification, and use, of levers for action such as taxes, regu-lation, incentives or public investment, not scientific consensus.Public opinion data also cast doubt on the importance of consensus messaging. In Table 1, wesummarize relevant 2017 national survey data of US public attitudes and knowledge (Leiserowitz,Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Rosenthal, & Cutler, 2017; Marlon, Fine, & Leiserowitz, 2017). Althoughone should be cautious interpreting such surveys, the data shows a clear majority position amongAmericans: that climate change is real, important and worrisome, and that the US should take policyaction and invest in public education. These positions have been reached in the absence of accurateknowledge about the scientific consensus. There is little evidence here that supports the notionshared by Cook, Oreskes and various fossil fuel companies: that disinformation about scientific con-sensus begets public opposition to policy.Despite this evidence, Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) appear convinced that public understand-ing of scientific consensus is essential for developing effective climate polices. Even if this “gatewaybelief model” could be proved in laboratory studies,1 it holds questionable significance in the realworld where sources of competing information always exist (Kahan & Carpenter, 2017). Scienceitself provides fertile ground for such discrepancies, as two current examples demonstrate. First,the debate over the hiatus/pause in global temperature increase was not invented by fossil fuel inter-ests, but is a subject of genuine scientific disagreement (Medhaug, Stolpe, Fischer, & Knutti, 2017).Second, there is increasing expert debate regarding how much carbon dioxide can be emitted whilekeeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C (Millar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Peters, 2017; Rathi, 2017).For climate scientists, there is no obvious consensus about questions such as these. On the other© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.CONTACT Reiner Grundmann reiner.grundmann@nottingham.ac.ukENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION, 2017VOL. 11, NO. 6, 736–739https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109hand, Cook, Oreskes and others persist in messaging the minimalist fact that human influence on achanging climate is uncontroversial amongst scientists.To reiterate our Commentary, we agree there are occasions where this consensus is worth stating.However, there will always be public voices of dissent, and drowning them out with consensus mes-saging is implausible (Aklin & Urpelainen, 2014). Far better to design sustained public engagementon climate change around possible policy options, rather than allowing the needle to get stuck onconsensus messaging which offers little when it comes to planning policy responses. Instead, it isnecessary to open up the normative dimensions of policies such as carbon taxes, geoengineeringor radical societal transitions to public scrutiny and debate (Nisbet, 2014), and to find new policymeasures that can attract cross-partisan support (Ryan, 2015).Cook (2017) interprets our argument as playing into the hands of climate disinformers. Far fromit. It is the insistent demand that publics will only engage in relevant policy debates once they haveadopted a “gateway belief” that is playing into the hands of those who wish to slow-down climatepolicy design and implementation.Greater public participation in defining policy solutions will help challenge the current system,where policy interventions are presented as value-free responses to scientific facts, leaving sciencevulnerable to political attacks that scientists and their allies are ill-equipped to repel (Jasanoff,2010; Pearce, Brown, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2015; Raman, 2017; Wynne, 2010). Starting with specificpolicy proposals, and exploring their normative assumptions, is likely to prove a better publicengagement strategy than the promotion of consensus messaging.For example, the UK Government’s “My2050” online tool enabled members of the public todesign their own energy pathway to the UK’s 2050 carbon reduction target. Participants adjusteddifferent elements of energy generation and demand within their pathway, revealing the normativeassumptions regarding energy trade-offs embedded in the policy target (Mohr, Raman, & Gibbs,2013). Complementary deliberative dialogues allowed participants to reflect more extensively onthe target’s demands, with the results informing recommendations for decision-making (Science-wise, 2012). In this model, members of the public are assumed to have something to contribute tocrafting societal responses to climate change, rather than seeking to correct some deficiency intheir understanding of the issue (Nuccitelli, Cook, van der Linden, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2017).Also, Pidgeon, Demski, Butler, Parkhill, and Spence (2014) report that in their deliberative work-shops, some participants who were sceptical about climate change were nevertheless enthusiasticabout transition beyond fossil fuels.Publics around the world possess a rich understanding of the climates they live with, the risks theyface, and the potential changes they would like to see. Mobilizing and engaging these views are theTable 1. US public attitudes about climate change compared to accurate knowledge of scientific consensus.Global warming beliefs and policy preferences %Agree that schools should teach causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warminga 78Think global warming is happeninga 70Say US should participate in Paris Agreementb,c 69Say global warming is at least “somewhat” personally importanta 63Think global warming is affecting US weathera 59Think global warming is mostly caused by human activitiesa 58Say they are at least “somewhat” worried about global warminga 57Knowledge of scientific consensus %Believe that over 90% of climate scientists think human-caused global warming is happeninga,d 13aLeiserowitz et al. (2017).bMarlon et al. (2017).cSample includes just registered voters, rather than general population.dIn a web-based survey, respondents were asked: “To the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think thathuman-caused global warming is happening? Please click on the slider bar below to indicate your answer. You can slide theindicator to the position that best describes your opinion. If the slider does not work, you can enter a number in the number box.”ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 737proper building blocks for public debate, not an insistence that knowledge of a single number is apre-condition for political progress.Note1. Note that no consensus exists on whether the experimental evidence for the model is convincing (Kahan, 2016).AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the funding support of the Leverhulme Trust Making Science Public programme (RP2011-SP-013). WP acknowledges the support of the Economic and Social Research Council Future Leaders Research pro-gramme Making Climate Social project ES/N002016/1.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.ORCIDReiner Grundmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0266-9296ReferencesAklin, M., & Urpelainen, J. (2014). Perceptions of scientific dissent undermine public support for environmental pol-icy. Environmental Science & Policy, 38(Suppl. C), 173–177.Cook, J. (2017). Response by Cook to “beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication. Advanceonline publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377095Grundmann, R., & Stehr, N. (2012). The power of scientific knowledge: From research to public policy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate for society. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2–3), 233–253.Kahan, D. M. (2016). The “gateway belief” illusion: Reanalyzing the results of a scientific-consensus messaging study.Journal of Science Communication. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2779661Kahan, D. M., & Carpenter, K. (2017). Out of the lab and into the field. Nature Climate Change, 7(5), 309–311. doi:10.1038/nclimate3283Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E. W., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., & Cutler, M. (2017). Climate change in the Americanmind: May, 2017. New Haven, CT: Yale University/George Mason University.Marlon, J. R., Fine, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2017). A majority of Americans in every state say the U.S. should participatein the Paris Climate Agreement. Retrieved from http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/Medhaug, I., Stolpe, M. B., Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2017). Reconciling controversies about the “global warminghiatus”. Nature, 545(7652), 41–47.Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017a).Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.Nature Geoscience. Advance online pub-lication. doi:10.1038/ngeo3031Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017b,September 20). Clarification on recent press coverage of our “1.5 degrees” paper in Nature Geoscience.Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/379Mohr, A., Raman, S., & Gibbs, B. (2013). Which Publics? When? Didcot: Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Which-publics-FINAL-VERSION.pdfNisbet, M. C. (2014). Disruptive ideas: Public intellectuals and their arguments for action on climate change. WileyInterdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(6), 809–823.Nuccitelli, D., Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, T., & Maibach, E. (2017, October 2). Why the 97% climateconsensus is important. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/02/why-the-97-climate-consensus-is-importantOreskes, N. (2017). Response by Oreskes to “Beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication.Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377094738 W. PEARCE ET AL.Pearce, W., Brown, B., Nerlich, B., & Koteyko, N. (2015). Communicating climate change: Conduits, content, and con-sensus. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6(6), 613–626.Pearce, W., Grundmann, R., Hulme, M., Raman, S., Kershaw, E. H., & Tsouvalis, J. (2017). Beyond counting climateconsensus. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965Peters, G. (2017, September 19). Did 1.5°C suddenly get easier? – Cicero. Retrieved from http://www.cicero.uio.no/no/posts/nyheter/commentary-did-15c-suddenly-get-easierPidgeon, N., Demski, C., Butler, C., Parkhill, K., & Spence, A. (2014). Creating a national citizen engagement processfor energy policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13606–13613.Raman, S. (2017, October 4). Making space for connective truths. Discover Society. Retrieved from http://discoversociety.org/2017/10/04/making-space-for-connective-truths/Rathi, A. (2017, September 21). Did we just buy decades more time to hit climate goals? Retrieved from https://qz.com/1080883/the-breathtaking-new-climate-change-study-hasnt-changed-the-urgency-with-which-we-must-reduce-emissions/Ryan, D. (2015). From commitment to action: A literature review on climate policy implementation at city level.Climatic Change, 131(4), 519–529.Sciencewise. (2012). Case study. Energy 2050 pathways: A public dialogue with young people and community leaders.Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Publications/SWEnergy-2050-PathwaysFINAL.pdfWynne, B. (2010). When doubt becomes a weapon. Nature, 466(7305), 441–442.ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 739

Nottingham ePrints

Pearce, Warren and Grundmann, Reiner and Hulme, Mike and Raman, Sujatha and Hadley Kershaw, Eleanor and Tsouvalis, Judith (2017) A reply to Cook and Oreskes on climate science consensus messaging. Environmental Communication, 11 (6). pp. 736-739. ISSN 1752-4040 Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50582/2/A%20Reply%20to%20Cook%20and%20Oreskes%20on%20Climate%20Science%20Consensus%20Messaging.pdfCopyright and reuse: The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions.This article is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence.  For more details see: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/A note on versions: The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact eprints@nottingham.ac.ukFull Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=renc20Environmental CommunicationISSN: 1752-4032 (Print) 1752-4040 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/renc20A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate ScienceConsensus MessagingWarren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman, EleanorHadley Kershaw & Judith TsouvalisTo cite this article: Warren Pearce, Reiner Grundmann, Mike Hulme, Sujatha Raman,Eleanor Hadley Kershaw & Judith Tsouvalis (2017) A Reply to Cook and Oreskes on ClimateScience Consensus Messaging, Environmental Communication, 11:6, 736-739, DOI:10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109To link to this article:  https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109© 2017 The Author(s). Published by InformaUK Limited, trading as Taylor & FrancisGroupPublished online: 14 Nov 2017.Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1067View related articles View Crossmark dataRESPONSEA Reply to Cook and Oreskes on Climate Science ConsensusMessagingWarren Pearcea, Reiner Grundmann b, Mike Hulmec, Sujatha Ramanb,Eleanor Hadley Kershawb and Judith TsouvalisbaThe Department of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Science, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK; bSchool ofSociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; cDepartment of Geography, University ofCambridge, Cambridge, UKIn their replies to our paper (Pearce et al., 2017), both Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) agree with ourcentral point: that deliberating and mobilizing policy responses to climate change requires thinkingbeyond public belief in a scientific consensus. However, they both continue to defend consensus mes-saging, either because of “the dangers of neglecting to communicate the scientific consensus” (Cook,2017, p. 1) or because “‘no consensus’ … remains… a contrarian talking point” (Oreskes, 2017, p. 1).Both highlight previously conducted market research by fossil fuel companies which suggested thatscientific uncertainty provided a political weapon in fighting regulation, concluding that incorrectpublic perceptions of the scientific consensus weaken support for policy action (Oreskes, 2017, p. 2).It is odd that scholars accept corporate research as proof of a claim about the relation betweenknowledge and decision-making, when the academic evidence cited in our Commentary providesnumerous examples to the contrary. Grundmann and Stehr (2012) examined the literature regardingthe relation between scientific information and policies (including climate policy), finding that whatmatters most for effective policy is the identification, and use, of levers for action such as taxes, regu-lation, incentives or public investment, not scientific consensus.Public opinion data also cast doubt on the importance of consensus messaging. In Table 1, wesummarize relevant 2017 national survey data of US public attitudes and knowledge (Leiserowitz,Maibach, Roser-Renouf, Rosenthal, & Cutler, 2017; Marlon, Fine, & Leiserowitz, 2017). Althoughone should be cautious interpreting such surveys, the data shows a clear majority position amongAmericans: that climate change is real, important and worrisome, and that the US should take policyaction and invest in public education. These positions have been reached in the absence of accurateknowledge about the scientific consensus. There is little evidence here that supports the notionshared by Cook, Oreskes and various fossil fuel companies: that disinformation about scientific con-sensus begets public opposition to policy.Despite this evidence, Cook (2017) and Oreskes (2017) appear convinced that public understand-ing of scientific consensus is essential for developing effective climate polices. Even if this “gatewaybelief model” could be proved in laboratory studies,1 it holds questionable significance in the realworld where sources of competing information always exist (Kahan & Carpenter, 2017). Scienceitself provides fertile ground for such discrepancies, as two current examples demonstrate. First,the debate over the hiatus/pause in global temperature increase was not invented by fossil fuel inter-ests, but is a subject of genuine scientific disagreement (Medhaug, Stolpe, Fischer, & Knutti, 2017).Second, there is increasing expert debate regarding how much carbon dioxide can be emitted whilekeeping global temperature rise below 1.5°C (Millar et al., 2017a, 2017b; Peters, 2017; Rathi, 2017).For climate scientists, there is no obvious consensus about questions such as these. On the other© 2017 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupThis is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided theoriginal work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.CONTACT Reiner Grundmann reiner.grundmann@nottingham.ac.ukENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION, 2017VOL. 11, NO. 6, 736–739https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2017.1392109hand, Cook, Oreskes and others persist in messaging the minimalist fact that human influence on achanging climate is uncontroversial amongst scientists.To reiterate our Commentary, we agree there are occasions where this consensus is worth stating.However, there will always be public voices of dissent, and drowning them out with consensus mes-saging is implausible (Aklin & Urpelainen, 2014). Far better to design sustained public engagementon climate change around possible policy options, rather than allowing the needle to get stuck onconsensus messaging which offers little when it comes to planning policy responses. Instead, it isnecessary to open up the normative dimensions of policies such as carbon taxes, geoengineeringor radical societal transitions to public scrutiny and debate (Nisbet, 2014), and to find new policymeasures that can attract cross-partisan support (Ryan, 2015).Cook (2017) interprets our argument as playing into the hands of climate disinformers. Far fromit. It is the insistent demand that publics will only engage in relevant policy debates once they haveadopted a “gateway belief” that is playing into the hands of those who wish to slow-down climatepolicy design and implementation.Greater public participation in defining policy solutions will help challenge the current system,where policy interventions are presented as value-free responses to scientific facts, leaving sciencevulnerable to political attacks that scientists and their allies are ill-equipped to repel (Jasanoff,2010; Pearce, Brown, Nerlich, & Koteyko, 2015; Raman, 2017; Wynne, 2010). Starting with specificpolicy proposals, and exploring their normative assumptions, is likely to prove a better publicengagement strategy than the promotion of consensus messaging.For example, the UK Government’s “My2050” online tool enabled members of the public todesign their own energy pathway to the UK’s 2050 carbon reduction target. Participants adjusteddifferent elements of energy generation and demand within their pathway, revealing the normativeassumptions regarding energy trade-offs embedded in the policy target (Mohr, Raman, & Gibbs,2013). Complementary deliberative dialogues allowed participants to reflect more extensively onthe target’s demands, with the results informing recommendations for decision-making (Science-wise, 2012). In this model, members of the public are assumed to have something to contribute tocrafting societal responses to climate change, rather than seeking to correct some deficiency intheir understanding of the issue (Nuccitelli, Cook, van der Linden, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2017).Also, Pidgeon, Demski, Butler, Parkhill, and Spence (2014) report that in their deliberative work-shops, some participants who were sceptical about climate change were nevertheless enthusiasticabout transition beyond fossil fuels.Publics around the world possess a rich understanding of the climates they live with, the risks theyface, and the potential changes they would like to see. Mobilizing and engaging these views are theTable 1. US public attitudes about climate change compared to accurate knowledge of scientific consensus.Global warming beliefs and policy preferences %Agree that schools should teach causes, consequences and potential solutions to global warminga 78Think global warming is happeninga 70Say US should participate in Paris Agreementb,c 69Say global warming is at least “somewhat” personally importanta 63Think global warming is affecting US weathera 59Think global warming is mostly caused by human activitiesa 58Say they are at least “somewhat” worried about global warminga 57Knowledge of scientific consensus %Believe that over 90% of climate scientists think human-caused global warming is happeninga,d 13aLeiserowitz et al. (2017).bMarlon et al. (2017).cSample includes just registered voters, rather than general population.dIn a web-based survey, respondents were asked: “To the best of your knowledge, what percentage of climate scientists think thathuman-caused global warming is happening? Please click on the slider bar below to indicate your answer. You can slide theindicator to the position that best describes your opinion. If the slider does not work, you can enter a number in the number box.”ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 737proper building blocks for public debate, not an insistence that knowledge of a single number is apre-condition for political progress.Note1. Note that no consensus exists on whether the experimental evidence for the model is convincing (Kahan, 2016).AcknowledgementsThe authors acknowledge the funding support of the Leverhulme Trust Making Science Public programme (RP2011-SP-013). WP acknowledges the support of the Economic and Social Research Council Future Leaders Research pro-gramme Making Climate Social project ES/N002016/1.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.ORCIDReiner Grundmann http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0266-9296ReferencesAklin, M., & Urpelainen, J. (2014). Perceptions of scientific dissent undermine public support for environmental pol-icy. Environmental Science & Policy, 38(Suppl. C), 173–177.Cook, J. (2017). Response by Cook to “beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication. Advanceonline publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377095Grundmann, R., & Stehr, N. (2012). The power of scientific knowledge: From research to public policy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.Jasanoff, S. (2010). A new climate for society. Theory, Culture & Society, 27(2–3), 233–253.Kahan, D. M. (2016). The “gateway belief” illusion: Reanalyzing the results of a scientific-consensus messaging study.Journal of Science Communication. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2779661Kahan, D. M., & Carpenter, K. (2017). Out of the lab and into the field. Nature Climate Change, 7(5), 309–311. doi:10.1038/nclimate3283Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E. W., Roser-Renouf, C., Rosenthal, S., & Cutler, M. (2017). Climate change in the Americanmind: May, 2017. New Haven, CT: Yale University/George Mason University.Marlon, J. R., Fine, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2017). A majority of Americans in every state say the U.S. should participatein the Paris Climate Agreement. Retrieved from http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/Medhaug, I., Stolpe, M. B., Fischer, E. M., & Knutti, R. (2017). Reconciling controversies about the “global warminghiatus”. Nature, 545(7652), 41–47.Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017a).Emission budgets and pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C.Nature Geoscience. Advance online pub-lication. doi:10.1038/ngeo3031Millar, R. J., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Friedlingstein, P., Rogelj, J., Grubb, M. J., Matthews, H. D.,…Allen, M. R. (2017b,September 20). Clarification on recent press coverage of our “1.5 degrees” paper in Nature Geoscience.Retrieved from http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/opinion/view/379Mohr, A., Raman, S., & Gibbs, B. (2013). Which Publics? When? Didcot: Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Uploads/Which-publics-FINAL-VERSION.pdfNisbet, M. C. (2014). Disruptive ideas: Public intellectuals and their arguments for action on climate change. WileyInterdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 5(6), 809–823.Nuccitelli, D., Cook, J., van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, T., & Maibach, E. (2017, October 2). Why the 97% climateconsensus is important. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/oct/02/why-the-97-climate-consensus-is-importantOreskes, N. (2017). Response by Oreskes to “Beyond counting climate consensus”. Environmental Communication.Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1377094738 W. PEARCE ET AL.Pearce, W., Brown, B., Nerlich, B., & Koteyko, N. (2015). Communicating climate change: Conduits, content, and con-sensus. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6(6), 613–626.Pearce, W., Grundmann, R., Hulme, M., Raman, S., Kershaw, E. H., & Tsouvalis, J. (2017). Beyond counting climateconsensus. Environmental Communication. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2017.1333965Peters, G. (2017, September 19). Did 1.5°C suddenly get easier? – Cicero. Retrieved from http://www.cicero.uio.no/no/posts/nyheter/commentary-did-15c-suddenly-get-easierPidgeon, N., Demski, C., Butler, C., Parkhill, K., & Spence, A. (2014). Creating a national citizen engagement processfor energy policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(Suppl. 4), 13606–13613.Raman, S. (2017, October 4). Making space for connective truths. Discover Society. Retrieved from http://discoversociety.org/2017/10/04/making-space-for-connective-truths/Rathi, A. (2017, September 21). Did we just buy decades more time to hit climate goals? Retrieved from https://qz.com/1080883/the-breathtaking-new-climate-change-study-hasnt-changed-the-urgency-with-which-we-must-reduce-emissions/Ryan, D. (2015). From commitment to action: A literature review on climate policy implementation at city level.Climatic Change, 131(4), 519–529.Sciencewise. (2012). Case study. Energy 2050 pathways: A public dialogue with young people and community leaders.Sciencewise. Retrieved from http://www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/assets/Publications/SWEnergy-2050-PathwaysFINAL.pdfWynne, B. (2010). When doubt becomes a weapon. Nature, 466(7305), 441–442.ENVIRONMENTAL COMMUNICATION 739

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