Climate science is suffering a crisis of confidence among the public but the data is there - what climate scientists need are effective climate change communication strategies and ways to engage the people on the street who influence policy decisions.

It helped to have journalists as cheerleaders for a time but when the issue became overly political and scientists who disputed some of the methodologies or claims by IPCC Working Groups got boxed out, the trust in the data of climate scientists also began to spiral downward, even among other scientists.   

What climate science needs now is fewer polarizing endorsements by political groups (or activists masquerading as scientists) and more acceptance that climate science is first and foremost about accuracy and transparency.

Toward that end, Earthscan is sponsoring a free webinar on effective communication of these issues November 11th at 17:00 GMT.   Note that 'effective' communication does not include labeling skeptics as "Holocaust deniers" or blaming Republicans or oil companies or George Bush for environmental damage from the last thousand years.   This free Pre-COP16 webinar will instead give practical insights into how to develop more effective climate change communication and behavior change strategies and will present some of the challenges and opportunities for engaging the public with climate change, but also consider the limits to public engagement with climate change.

It is presented by Chris Rose, author of How to Win Campaigns: Communications for Change and Lorraine Whitmarsh, author of Engaging the Public with Climate Change: Behaviour Change and Communication.

It will be a 30 minute talk followed by Q&A

• Learn effective communications strategies for engaging the public with climate change (and why looking for generic messages about climate change is probably a waste of time)
• Learn about the different roles the public can play in tackling climate change
• Discover behavior change strategies for encouraging sustainable lifestyles and communities
• How unconscious values match to attitudes and beliefs that can be used to design action on climate change
• How NGOs could change their strategy on climate change and the UNFCCC
• Different roles the public can play in tackling climate change
• Behavior change strategies for encouraging sustainable lifestyles and communities
• Messages about climate change that engage the public (and those that don’t)

If you're involved in in communicating climate science, sustainability, or related issues, you can  register for the free webinar here.