Using ‘real life’ analogies to get past scientific uncertainty on climate change

Many people still treat global warming as a contentious political issue, instead of one backed by scientific consensus. For example, in a recent Pew survey, only 48% of all US adults agreed that the Earth is warming mostly due to human activity. This finding is frustrating to many science communicators, who may feel that they’ve bombarded the public with messages of human-caused global warming, to no avail. At first, it may seem like many US adults have somehow missed out on these warnings that global warming is a serious threat, one requiring urgent actions, but research has begun to reveal that instead of simply communicating more about global warming, it’s important to reconsider how we’re communicating—particularly when it comes to galvanizing support for public policy changes.